There’s a lot of versions of Christianity around at the moment. The pseudo-christian organisations like mormonism and jehovah’s witnesses are the most obvious, but there are many which have come from legitimate parts of the church which have sought to make the Faith of Jesus more “accessible” and “acceptable” to people in the 21st Century.

The problem is that by making it more “acceptable” it becomes diluted. There is panantheism and arguments of truth being non-exclusive to Christianity – exactly the issues that Paul had to deal with in his travels. People would teach a form of cross-less salvation – that Jesus was an option for Salvation, noth The option. This panantheistic notion was one he had to deal with repeatedly i his letters, now reduced to our New Testament and referred to as interpretive documents not intended to be taken literally, but I disagree.

Paul wrote passionately about Jesus. He wrote with all his heart about the single way a man can be saved. The writer of Hebrews dedicates the entire book to the subject – especially chapter 11 – demonstrating over and over that the Faith in God through Jesus is the only way to reach Salvation.

Yet today we accept a watered down and weak semi-good news version.

Last night a dear friend of mine – I named her Helen – passed away from a long fight with Cancer. I find myself wondering what Gospel she was presented with? Did she ever have the Truth put to her unequivocally and unmistakeably? Some of her family were church goers who would get on a soap-box and “preach” at her, but how many real believers sat down with her and talked to her. How many asked her what her understanding was?

My guess is not many.

If any.

I know I didn’t. I didn’t share the simple Gospel I hold in my heart and try to live by on a daily basis. I let her – and many other people in my past – go through her life without allowing the Love I’ve had lavished on me to spill over in a real way to them. When I do – and it does happen – I feel embarrassed afterwards. I feel accused and judged. Generally I take that as a sign I got it right these days, but I often wondered when I was younger if I was wrong.

The Gospel I met – the Jesus I met – is a real, warm and true emodiment of Love. But He has things he disapproves of. Those things which seek to drive a wedge between us or to draw us away from His friendship. He gets mad at those things. We should too.

We should be mad at anything that seeks to water down the Jesus we first fell in love with. I’d take major issue if someone came and told me my wife is not the person I know her to be after over ten years of marriage – how dare they! But after almost 30 years of walking with Jesus I find myself allowing contemplations in that draw me away from the Saviour I know and Love, the God I fell in Love with in 1985. Why do I not defend my Faith as vigourously as I defend my relationship with my wife?

I don’t doubt my marriage. We’ve endured storms. I shouldn’t doubt my faith – it’s been through the worst of me and my experiences.

Yet people drop in the thought “If God…” Add what you like there. If He’s all powerful, why cancer. If he’s all loving, why suffering. The questions are innumerable. The answer is surprising in its simplicity.

In the True Gospel, we were given authority and power to work God’s miracles, see His strength and have signs and wonders follow our belief.

That’s the key.

Belief.

We believed the Gospel for Salvation, but we doubt the continuation of the Gospel through confirmation be miracles – even though the early disciples who had not walked with Jesus saw them.

We need to return to the first Love. I’m ot talking about sexuality, theft or anything else here except the First Command Jesus gave – Love God with everything in you.

Then watch as miracles flow and your desperation can become Joy, your disaster triumph, and even your death, LIFE…

It’s been brought home to me – again – this week just how fragile life is.

I say “again” as I’ve actually known since I was about 10 years old how fragile things are, and how quickly it all ends. But today there’s a difference.

Up until today I’ve been fairly certain of the spiritual standpoint of every person I’ve known who’s passed away. Today I went to say goodbye to a very dear friend that I don’t know about.

Last I heard, this friend was pretty pissed off with God actually. I won’t list everything, but the last blow was cancer. The big “C”. Doctors have estimated it will only be days.

It’s had me thinking all day. Hence me writing at 1:40am instead of sleeping I guess.

This friend – I’ll call her Helen – is actually more of a second mother to my wife. She’s been to our home for scrabble evenings and dinner and the night I proposed to my wife she was staying at their home.

Helen’s been an amazing life. And I mean she’s been an amazing life, not just had one.

She’s come back from adversity repeatedly and raised amazing children and seen grandchildren born and begin to grow. It’s not fair that she’s leaving right now. But then the World’s life isn’t fair.

The World doesn’t play fair. It sends curves to people who we see don’t deserve it and easy walks to those who should be at Gitmo. We read about people thrust every day into situations where they had too much too soon and died as a result. Heath Ledger, Philip Seymour-Hoffman, and a myriad of other stars whose lives were cut short because they couldn’t handle their success.

But Helen’s life has been cut short after enduring so much and reaching a place where she could finally begin to live freely. Free from a bad situation, loving kids and a fresh start.

Then Cancer.

How do you say a farewell to someone in Helen’s position? Especially in mine? I pray for her, I hope she has found peace with God, and I told her today I wished her Peace, but I “blinked”. The room was full of family and friends and it was “inappropriate” to mention God. So I didn’t.

I truly pray He will or has already sent someone across Helen’s path who can communicate Him to her. As I saw her today I knew I couldn’t. I also feel I should have.

I sit here tonight contemplating my own Life in Jesus and I wonder what it actually means. My life has to be more than the sum of a few blog pages and articles, more than a few sermons and private chats.

But I choked at the last moment.

Again.

Life I can handle. I can even deal with death, the thought of my own anyway. But when I’m confronted with someone in Helen’s position I find myself paralysed. I can talk to the fit and healthy. Tell them to get themselves in order before it’s too late. But asking someone if they have got in order at that point where it really is the last time is too much for me – mainly because I wouldn’t have the first clue how to deal with it if the answer was “no”.

So what if the answer is “No”? I tell myself I don’t ask because then they may have the chance from someone else, after all, it does say that nobody will be condemned if they never had the choice until they make one.

But I’m kidding myself.

We all are. This isn’t self-flagellation here, it’s an insight into the human existence. We don’t deal well with death for one simple reason: God didn’t design us to.

We’re designed to live, not die. To have Life in abundance. Yet we perish in a mortal skin-suit. I heard someone describe healthy living as “the slowest possible rate of progression towards the grave” recently. I laughed at the time, but it’s true. From the moment of conception our days are numbered. Most of us just want it to be a really BIG number.

It wasn’t for Robin – my brother. He was not quite ten when he died 30 years ago. Helen isn’t “old”. Her spirit until today meant I had to remind myself her children are my generational peers, not her. But today she was tired.

I don’t know what I’ll say to God about today when I meet Him face to face. I trust He’ll say “I forgive you” to me. I rely on that trust; that faith is what keeps me going. At the end of it all, a big part of our expression of Faith comes down to being prepared to be a fool for Christ.

It’s life and death being foolish and inappropriate for Jesus.

I still have a way to go on that road, but I hope it’s something that I’ve set off.

I hope I’ll get more chances to be foolish in the future. To ask the “inappropriate” question.

To make the difference between Life and Death for someone.

At first glance, the title of this entry may seem to negate the need for the post itself, but it doesn’t.

We have a choice in all things when we are slighted or crossed to either forgive or not.

The choice is hard. It’s meant to be.

Anger, bitterness and unfirgiveness are easy to hold onto. We experience them constantly in our walk with God. We get angry about illness coming in. About a less-than-tolerant neighbour who does nothing but complain. We get bitter about the problem as it continues and it wears us down.

Eventually, we withold forgiveness.

And the enemy wins another bout.

Back in December I wrote about unforgiveness I was experiencing and how I needed to extend the opposite towards my neighbour. He has a problem with our dogs barking, even though they have been forced – by us – to comply to the letter of the local laws regarding nuisance barking levels: six cumulative minutes per hour.

We have three large dogs, and currently not a lot of space for them. They grew up on our old home plot of 500 square meters. They now have less than half that. And fences instead of walls.

They bark when they see or hear something from next door. It’s a problem. But we keep them under 6 minutes per hour.

The point is both my neighbour and I have a choice: to forgive or not.

Forgiveness starts with a decision, not a feeling. If we wait until we feel forgiveness, we’d never forgive anyone. The feeling comes from a choice to forgive. Even Jesus on the Cross had to choose to forgive the men nailing Him to the beam. Stephen chose to forgive those who stoned him. The list of martyrs through the centuries who have chosen the route of forgiveness is immeasurable. DC Talk and the Voice of the Martyrs produced two books titled “Jesus Freaks”, volumes 1 and 2, which list the stories of martyrs and persecuted Christians from Stephen up to the present day who have been executed or tortured and imprisoned for their Faith in Jesus Christ. They all share one thing in common – a forgiveness for their murderers and torturers. They shine the love of Jesus through their actions.

Some days I choose to forgive. Others I struggle and choose grumpiness over forgiveness. For me it’s not a good thing. I long to be able to forgive wholly, but it is a daily struggle – especially when the offense is a daily offense. And it’s only a small thing in the scheme of things. How would I cope if it were something larger? I struggle with the thought. I hope the strength would rise in me.

For now I do my best to avoid the conflict so it’s easier to reach forgiveness, but am I just kidding myself? Is the “forgiveness” real, or simply an absence of anger?

Probably a little of both.

Unforgiveness is like a cancer. It eats us from the inside. Growing up I had an “adversary” I’ll call John who I had an ongoing feud with. The crazy thing is that neither of us by the end could remember how it had started or why there was such animosity. We didn’t see one another often as we went to different schools, but the conflict had been real. Eventually we simply forgave and forgot about the whole thing. Now I look back and wonder if we’d been more relaxed and communicative if we could actually have been friends!

Forgiving is not easy. We struggle frequently and it’s easier to hold onto a hurt than it is to let it go – even if we don’t remember the hurt.

But a final thought: If Jesus – who knew and knows all the offenses He took for us – could forgive us and accept us as we are to bring us back into His family, isn’t the very least we can do to emulate that sentiment and strive to do the same?

I’m going to keep trying. Please keep trying too.

We have a problem in the Church. We don’t understand the World.

Actually, the problem is that we don’t understand the World behaves differently to Christians. Or at least, how Christians are supposed to behave.

I got burned a few years ago doing business on a handshake agreement – with a “christian” businessman.

Never again.

But I learned from the mistake. I learned our desire to “fit in” with the World often means we adopt their attitudes and behaviours. I’d never have considered doing business on a handshake with someone outside the Church, but I expected more from a Christian. I realised – or began to – on that day that we have a tendency to miss “belonging” in the World. We do so at our peril, as we end up becoming as cutthroat and heartless as the World is.

The World gives what it expects. It is hard and demanding, unrelenting and unforgiving.

The problem is, we forget to expect the World to give us what it is only capable of giving. It doesn’t know or even care about the Love of Christ. It cares about love of self. Selfish pride, greed, avarice and malice seep from every pore. We sanitise the descriptions with words like “ambition” or “driven”, but lusting for power and the acclaim of worldly “peers” who are actually beneath us is enticing. Power is highly seductive – just ask Monica Lewinsky. Acclaim is intoxicating – ask any pop star.

The problem is that power corrupts and acclaim is fleeting. Ask Bill Clinton and Lindsay Lohan about what happens when power and acclamation are what you really need to get a “fix” of. More deadly than cocaine or heroin, these drugs are worse than any narcotic because we all take them. Every unsaved (and an unhealthy number of saved) individual on the planet seeks power and acclamation. We all seek what Satan sought – worship.

The one thing God reserves for Himself alone.

But the world worships. Idols everywhere. TV stars, movie stars. You only have to look at the pay cheque any “A” list celebrity gets for acting in a movie to see the idolatry. They are the idol worshipped by the studio – and tribute, not wages, are given. I respect Christian Bale for turning down disgustingly large sums of money to reprise his role in another Batman movie. He rejected money in favour of integrity of himself.

Donald Trump slammed him for turning down the sum – many millions of dollars – as a poor business decision. But his integrity is intact. How many can say that? In some ways I respect Donald Trump, but his Twitter account is so often negative and critical without offering solutions – only highlighting what he sees as wrong decisions. Maybe they are, maybe not. In either case, we can only judge by their fruit – and that takes time.

Short-term and long-term definitions are changing. Long term can mean a year – two at the most. Some oriental societies view a medium term to be 20+ years. Most Western society sees 5 years as long-term. The difference? who has the stronger trade economy? In the Far East, long-term planning stretches into decades in some areas. Their plan is more visionary. Why isn’t ours?

The first century Church looked eagerly to Christ’s Return, expecting it at any time. We don’t. We have been influenced by the World which says at best that it won’t be in our lifetime, and at worst that Christ was a myth and never existed – despite the primary source evidence outside the Bible to support it. Pliny, Jospehus and a host of other secular historians record in their writings the rise of a new sect of Judaism based around a young Galilean teacher named Christus whose followers claimed had risen from the dead. Execution records even show his crucifixion, yet sceptics insist he didn’t exist.

Our pulpits have even reflected this. If has become a part of our common vocabulary. We have been insidiously infected with the pessimism of the World – and we missed it. The concept of a living God taking human form and co-existing with us has become preposterous, so we spiritualise everything He said. Obviously Jesus speaking about money was a representation of what we will have in Heaven. The concept of a New Heaven and a New Earth are washed away in favour of some ethereal idea of wings, halos and harps. If harps are intrinsic to heaven I’d like a refund. Eternity of nothing but harps will drive me insane – even in perfection. Give me a Bon Jovi riff or a ZZ Top groove to jam to. Maybe my guitar playing can finally improve there.

But why bother with a new Earth if we’ll be in Heaven? So we have a holiday let? No. So we have somewhere to work.

In the movie “What Dreams May Come”, Robin Williams’s character is relieved to find there’s work in the afterlife – he feels it is right. Adam was given a job as a gardener, we should expect nothing less. Personally I hope there’s no tree of knowledge, but if there is then I hope I won’t be the one to blow it by having apple pie one evening. And if I do, I hope I’ll have the courage to run to Christ.

I like the idea of work in Heaven. It’s sole purpose would not be productivity, but Glorification of God. We need to work for that here as well.

But the World’s behaviour is the opposite. It idolises self and gain instead of worshipping the creator.

God says we must remember it is He who gave us the power to create wealth in order to strengthen the covenant He set up with us (see Deuteronomy 8:18) with a reminder that He is the one who set it up, not our own endeavours. Our “Promised Land” is not some ethereal place, but a position in this world” where we can experience His fullness and move into His promise for us.

The issue is simply that we expect the World to behave as if it were Christian, and then we feel surprised when it doesn’t. Oddly, we seem to expect Christians – especially in business – to be as ruthless and cut-throat as any secular business. I once had a receptionist who was offered a job by her pastor on the condition she start the following Monday – just three days later. We had an arrangement that she would give ua a minimum of two weeks notice so that we could find a replacement and her assistant could be fully briefed on the outstanding files and accounts that needed to be attended to. The offer was too good for her to pass up, and this church leader insisted that she walk away, dishonouring a long-standing agreement and displaying zero of the attitude Christ would have offered. When later she asked me for a reference for another job, the best advice I could give, since I knew I would be asked under what circumstances she had left us, was to not use us as referees. It may have made a hole in her CV, but it meant I would not be placed in a position where I would have to lie.

Another receptionist we employed who claimed to be a christiancollected her pay as always on the last Friday of the month – six days before the last day of the month – and never came back, effectively stealing the wages for a week she didn’t work. I was particularly disappointed in these two women as they were both in leadership positions in their respective churches, yet in business they showed no Christian ethic whatsoever. Their integrity was non-existent and I will never be able to give a positive report for them.

Interestingly, the most honest and ultimately trusted member of our staff who I had to let go was a self-confessed drug addict who was struggling becuse she had begun using again while she worked for us. She came and told us and we granted her a leave of absence to get herself clean. After several weeks she was sober again, but eventually she fell off the wagon again, and very reluctantly we had to let her go as it was a medical business we owned. Not a single item went missing, not a cent from the cash box, and she worked out her last days with us after we’d made our decision because we had already paid her for that time. I had, and continue to have, massive respect for that young lady – a non-Christian by her own admission – who showed greater character than her two “christian” colleagues.

So the World can surprise us. Usually in a negative way, but mostly that happens because we assume it will behave according to a Biblical basis!

The World is a hard place. We forget that and we will be hurt.

But if we expect the World to behave in a Worldly manner, we can be on guard and avoid unnecessary hardships.

But we must hold to our integrity as Christians, or we are no better – in fact we are hypocrites to behave one way on Sunday, but to conform to the World’s standards for the other six days of the week.

Let the World be the World.

We’re better than that.

It can be difficult to recognise God in some of the things that happen. And it’s critical that we remember that some things happen in spite of God and ot because of Him.

We have certain authority in our lives, including – as the people of Jesus’s home-town demonstrated – the authority to stop God working in our lives. Even Paul chose to not heed a warning given by the Holy Spirit, choosing to go to Rome as a prisoner to be held before Caesar rather than wait and possibly later have been able to go as a free citizen of the Empire because he believed he had to stand before Caesar at that point. Perhaps the New Testament would have been longer had he waited, we can’t tell and ultimately it doesn’t matter.

The important thing is to recognise Paul made a choice. He recognised the Holy Spirit was warning him, and chose to allow his own arrest. He recognised the Risen Christ, just as he had on the road to Damascus so many years before. He made an informed choice to allow his own arrest as he believed it would allow him to accomplish what he knew God’s plan for him was.

We need to do this as well. We need to be aware of Christ. To recognise Him in each move we make and see His hand in the events unfolding in our lives. John Eldredge wrote a great book called “Walking with God” in 2008, which illustrates how we can be aware of God continuously. There’s too much to quote here as I’d need to quote the entire book, but it documents John’s walk over the course of a year, good and bad, listening and rejecting – and the consequences of both.

But simple awareness is not enough. The disciples were aware Jesus had risen. After all, he’d sat and had supper with them, invited Thomas to stick his finger in the nail marks and restored Peter. But every time they saw Him, they failed to recognise Him. They had walked with Jesus physically for over three years, and when His risen form appeared they didn’t recognise Him.

At least when Paul got knocked off his donkey he recognised the light and the voice were God. The news it was Jesus came as a shock, but he immediately surrendered his life to Him when he realised the Truth.

Recognising Jesus in our lives, and more importantly what isn’t Jesus, is a key to moving in His Will. It sounds obvious, but all too often we do what we think is the right thing without actually going to Him and asking. The result is we run into obstacles at best, and serious problems, illness, injury and even death at worst. Nobody is immune to the effects of missing the point. Nobody ends up “accidentally” doing His Will as our old nature rears its head and drags us off in the opposite direction.

Yes, we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, but we still sin. We still fall flat on our faces. I’d learn more easily if I listened instead of insisting on Hard Knocks University as my tutor, with a major in Faceplanting. Paul writes to Timothy that scripture is what God intends to teach us. Every situation we can possibly face is in scripture somewhere. Murder, suicide, adultery, poverty, riches and how anything can become an idol that draws us from God.

Yes, we need to recognise what isn’t God as much as what is – and make sure we follow the right voice.

Recently I ran outside to help a woman who was screaming. A voice inside me said “grab a walking stick – you’ll need it” so I did. As I got there, her dog had been attacked by two large boerbull-cross dogs – at least 70 – 80lbs each. Soaked in the dachshund’s blood they looked at me next, and the stick started swinging. I am certain that had I not had it I would have been badly bitten, but with it I chased them off. The lady was ok, but her little dog didn’t make it. The point is that I recognised the voice warning me to take the stick. As a result, aside from being out of breath I suffered no harm. The dogs were eventually captured by someone else and taken away, but if I’d ignored the voice, interrupting a kill by two dogs who together may have outweighed me would not be a smart thing to do. I’m a big guy – 6ft tall and over 190lbs – but against two large, heavy dogs I’d be kibble now. That recognition saved me.

One time, some years ago, I failed to regognise the voice warning me to go a different route I ended up being mugged by three assailants in a dark street alone at night. I was able to escape serious injury, but was bruised and battered before I got away. Because I didn’t recognise the warning voice. More accurately, because I ignored it. The result was painful, but could have been worse.

Recognition is not enough on its own. We need to act on the recognition as well. We must follow the instruction, heed the warning we’re given. Sometimes, like Paul, we will take it as a way to prepare for what is coming. Sometimes it is a way to avoid unnecessary pain. Sometimes it is a way for God the Bless us through what we come across on the alternate direction.

An example would be the home I lived in in Devon for almost ten years. We found it by accident after I went down a little alley at a prompting by God and found a new development I didn’t know about at a time I was looking for a new house. The house I bought was brand new. I got to choose (some of) the fittings and fixtures, and enjoyed a long time living there and having it to be able to not only be Blessed in, but to Bless others. I was able to open it to my friends who were still living with parents or at university accommodation who wanted to getaway for a bit and sleep in a quiet environment. I was truly blessed by inviting a dear man called Tony to stay for a few nights – a tramp living rough who needed somewhere warm in a harsh winter. His presence blessed me, and I was able to be a blessing to him.

All because I listened and walked down an alley.

I don’t seek praise for my own actions. God already blessed my socks off at the time. But it serves as a part of my testimony to God’s Goodness. His guiding voice encouraging and enabling us to be a blessing in His name. To deliver someone else’s need through His supply to us. To avoid trouble.

If we listen.

If we recognise.

If we act.

The book is the Acts of the Apostles, not the Sitting-about of the Apostles. They waited for His voice after the Ascension, were hit with Holy Fire and then began doing everything Jesus had said they could and would do. If He’d do it through them and their obedience and recognition, He’ll do it through us. The World has a desperate need for Jesus right now. Even the Church needs a reminder sometimes. We all do.

Our constant need to hear Him starts by recognising Him.

One guiding voice at a time.

After the Resurrection, Jesus appeared repeatedly to the disciples. Upper room dinners, Galilean Sea breakfasts, countryside hikes. Normal, daily stuff for a normal existence.

The disciples waited. They saw Jesus, met with Him – albeit on His terms – just as they had done before the crucifixion. They went fishing. Jesus met them on the beach with a fish breakfast cooked and waiting. As John Eldredge noted in “Beautiful Outlaw”, there must have been a twinkle in His eye as He casually suggests dropping the net on the other side of the boat – for a record catch. He restores Peter, helping the man recognise his own limits which allowed him to become the mighty Apostle whose first actions after Pentecost include a sermon that saw thousands accept Jesus as their Saviour and a cripple walk and dance into the Temple.

But he waited.

After the ascension – more on that nearer the remembrance of the day itself – Jesus told the disciples to wait for the Holy Spirit. They waited for Him between the Victory of Easter Day and Ascension Day. But they were hardly passive.

They met daily. They prayed together. They celebrated what we now call “Holy Communion”, but they called “Dinner” together.

Jesus pitched up and sat with them. One of His first statements was not “Thomas… For your doubt I’m dissolving the hair on the front of your head.” Rather He said (Paraphrase here) “Guys! Feed a brother please. I’d love some fish!”

The normality of Jesus after the Victory is incredible, but the way He just waits is what is truly fascinating.

He waits to ascend and sit at God’s Right Hand so He can chill out with His friends and finish telling them the last details they’ll need after the Holy Spirit hits them. He waits for Thomas to be with the disciples the second time he pops in for dinner so He can share the joke of the New Life and Victory over Death with all of them.

I believe He was heartbroken about Judas Iscariot. Scripture doesn’t mention it explicitly, but He had walked with this man for several years, spent time with him, shared His life with him. Offered him everything. Even washed his feet knowing, perhaps hoping he wouldn’t, that he was about to be handed over to the Jews by him.

He let him choose.

Peter rejected and denied Christ. Judas rejected and denied Christ.

Peter waited and was reinstated. Judas allowed his self-pity to consume him and committed suicide.

Where do we stand?

Waiting is hard. It means doing things we may not want to do. It may mean doing things we didn’t expect to ever have to do.

I currently am staying in my mother’s home. My wife has been seriously ill, and my mum has had cancer since the beginning of this year. In December our business was closed by a fire marshall because of an unscrupulous landlord. I ask God what to do and He replies “Wait”.

But He never said “Sit and do nothing”. I put my hand to things and He Blesses them, but still I’m waiting.

My wife would not have been able to be supported by me the way I’ve been able to support her if I’d hurried to be busy. My mum would have been having to fend for herself with still healing wounds from surgery.

Instead my work while waiting has been to cook, clean, sort. Pray. Write.

I try to make waiting an act of worship. Some days that’s easier than others.

Some days my impatient nature gets the better of me.

But I take comfort in the story of King David, who was not known for his smart decisions in the heat of the moment – just ask Uriah and Bathsheba. Peter’s restoration comforts me. Mr Swordsman himself is restored after running away in the heat of the moment. He doesn’t point fingers and compare himself with the ones who didn’t go to the fire. He simply weeps and accepts forgiveness after he waits for Jesus.

None of the waiting in the Bible is passive.

Moses didn’t set up camp in one place for 40 years. They followed the cloud and fire. Before that, he waded into the Red Sea before God parted it – but his wading was still a form of waiting. If he’d stood on the shore the Israelites would have been massacred.

Elisha waited for Elijah to be taken up to Heaven. Elijah waited for the rain.

These men were not passive.

Paul waited for God to give a direction – but kept moving in the one he was headed in until the new orders came.

Waiting is not passive.

We need to remember that. Our lives depend on it.

But wait. Sometimes it’s just a case of the road being laid for you to walk on.

My Grandfather was one of the lucky ones. He never really spoke of his experiences duringWorld War Two, and it was a number of years after his passing that we discovered from a family friend that he had been involved in one of the first waves of assault on the Normandy Beaches invasion on June 6th 1944.

He was miraculously uninjured in the assault – one of the few who were.

I watched the opening scenes of “Saving Private Ryan” some time ago. The battle for the beaches was fierce and bloody.. It was horrifying to realise my grandpa, this gentle man was there as a battle-hardened warrior.

I walked on the beaches as a teenager. Stood in some of the remaining gun implacements and stared at the ruins of the landing platforms left littering the beaches.

The battle was ferocious. The Allies succeeded in capturing the beachead and pushing the Axis powers back, allowing the reinforcements to be brought through.

But the war didn’t end on June 6th 1944. It ended in 1945.

Our Spiritual D-Day happened on Good Friday 2000 years ago. The ground was taken, but the enemy continues the fight despite the certainty of knowledge of his loss.

Just as the Germans knew they could not defeat the onslaught of Allied forces crushing them and forcing them back into a contunuous retreat until their commander in chief took his own life, so Satan’s minions continue to attack and resist the inevitable defeat tey will suffer at the hands of the believers in Jesus’s Name.

Allied soldiers died between D-Day and the surrender in 1945. The never tasted the vistory their deaths had won. But they knew it was secured.

After the atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, the surrender was immediate and absolute. Not so in Europe. The battle raged on for almost a year and thousands more died.

So it is for us as Christians.

Easter Day, the Resurrection was our D-Day. Jesus stormed the gates of Hell and took captive Death and vanquished Sin.

But the battle rages on.

We fight habitual sin every day. We are in a contant war which ends only when the Enemy finally surrenders on the Last Day. We know from Revelation that this day will come. We can be certain of the promise.

We can be trained by the greatest Commander of all time, Jesus Christ Himself to fight with His strength in our arm.

But be not deceived – the war rages on around you, even as you read this. Even as I write it.

Our lives are still in danger from persecution, from the insidious and pervasive nature of the enemy’s weapons to distract us from the Truth of the Fulness of the Gospel. He may not e able to prevent us from accepting Christ, but if he can prevent us receiving the fulness of the victory then that’s a close second.

The Gospel is “GOOD NEWS”

What’s good news to someone dying of cancer? What would good news be to someone financially destitute? What is the good news for someone trapped by abusive spouses or sexuallt molested children?

It doesn’t have to be this way.

Good News: You can be freed from this situation – NOW!

In Exodus, the plague of frogs fills Egypt and Pharoah calls Moses to ask him to remove the plague. Moses response is interesting, and profound: “Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the Lord to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the Lord.” Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.” “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said.Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the Lord our God. The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.”” (Exodus 8:8-11)

“Tomorrow” say Pharoah. Why not “NOW”? Anther night of warfare against a plague of frogs.

We do the same. We fight because we don’t surrender the strongholds in our hearts.

D-Day has gone. We have the Victory. Live Holy lives and kick the frogs out!

But we fight. We battle. We struggle.

We have something my Grandfather didn’t have. We have the authority to command the victory in our Spiritual life. Grandpa had to fight to Berlin and take the city by force. We have the honour of following the commander who has already marched in and destroyed the enemy’s power.

We will meet resistance. We will be scarred. Battles are ugly things, and we will be hurt and betrayed. The German spies didn’t quit after D-Day. Neither do Satan’s minions.

We must remain dressed for battle, but fight knowing we are coming from a place of unstoppable Victory.

So what if you’re broke right now? Or sickness is in your body?

We have the Victory. By His stripes we are Healed. He has provised all we need in His riches in Glory.

Realise it. Learn it.

Live it.

Fight for it. With every breath you have.

And in the words of Winston Churchill “Never give up. Never Give up. Never!”

Fight on in Jesus’s Name. And never, ever give up.

So it’s Easter Day. After 40 days of Lent the World breathes a sigh of relief, as to chocolate sellers everywhere rejoice as their sales return to normal.

The month or so of self flagellation and religious claptrap and nonsense is over and we return to the behaviour types we had prior to the annual attempt at self control in irrelevant areas.

Easter needs to be more than that. Like Advent, which is supposed to be a time of eager expectation waiting for the second coming, Easter should be a time to rejoice over Christ’s Victory over Sin, Death and Hell. Instead it almost invariably becomes a time for us to relax and return to the norm of our mundane lives. Envying the neighbour’s for their new car or girlfriend/boyfriend. Resenting the family member who only gave you a single mini egg instead of the giant one you’d asked for.

What’s wrong with us?

We’ve become jaded by the World. It’s insidious grip has tightened around our throat once more and we have been blinded once again to the needs of the masses. Celebrity gossip fills the news as some starlet is arrested and this takes precedence over the hundreds killed in an earthquake – unless it’s in the USA.

The message is simple: the media tells us the poor in far off countries don’t matter because they’re poor and in far off countries.

And we buy into it.

Without thinking.

Without challenging.

Without caring.

Ouch.

We send a few dollars to some arbitrary collection to ease our conscience, but we make sure it’s from the “it won’t affect us” fund before we do.

Ouch. Drive another nail into Christ.

This Easter let’s try to start something new.

Let’s carry on what we’ve looked at over the last 40 days.

Let’s continue to move in compassion – but to actually move. If all you can do is give money, make it a sacrifice – or don’t bother to say it’s in the name of Christ. Give time to a soup kitchen to help the poor and homeless in your community – I guarantee you have them. The Southern Hemisphere is moving into winter. People die of cold in Africa too. Find out what aid agencies actually ship blankets for children. Find out which ones support education projects in countries where the state is too corrupt to care because the biggest challenge to a corrupt leadership is an educated people.

Celebrate the New Life in Christ we have already been Blessed with by making a New Beginning that Lent has prepared our hearts for: Fight for injustice – not the paper cut-outs of “gay” marriage that cover the newspapers, but the injustices of a pastor handing out food to the homeless being told he has to stop because his truck is unlicensed for food distribution and needs a $500 permit. Not the tut-tutting of the overindulgent actor whose choices put them in a coma but the half starved inner city single mother who’s working 3 jobs to try to get her kids through school alive but gets no publicity because she’s not important to the world.

New Life.

New Beginning.

This Easter, make a difference that will last. And do what Jesus would do. Let the World laugh. Make Christ rejoice.

There is a time to be angry. Anger is not always a negative thing. God Himself has anger and jealousy in Him, and we are created in His image.

But where is the line between anger and jealousy shift from righteousness to sinful behaviour?

It’s a difficult question, and one that I often have to ask myself as I go through my daily walk.

I have – as my wife and oldest friends could tell you – a nasty temper. I can get angry at small things. But recent years have taught me that it’s not always a bad thing.

A few nights ago a careless owner allowed their two large and untrained dogs to escape in our road. We live in a cul-de-sac which is quiet and – mostly – friendly. Everyone thinks they know everyone else, and there’s an air of friendliness (mostly) all the time. The children play safely in the road and people walk their dogs – mostly small mixed breeds – around the place.

The arrival of the two unleashed and untrained large dogs shattered the stillness of the evening and changed a family’s life. A small dog had wandered out to see what was going on with the two strangers. A fight ensued between the dogs, resulting in the small local dog dying in my arms from the injuries it had received.

Everyone went into shock. There was blood everywhere from the attack. My instinct was to immediately catch and kill the two killer dogs. Once a dog has a taste for blood it will attack again generally. Often once they have a taste for the kill, they can’t be trusted around other dogs again.

What has this got to do with Anger and Jealousy?

My anger burned with a fierce heat towards the dogs, and the owner who had so carelessly allowed them to roam the streets freely and let this killing happen. I felt justified in the “righteous” nature of it.

Then I met the owner.

The dogs were big, powerful animals. She had been begging her partner to get rid of them because she couldn’t control them. She had opened her front door to greet someone and they had charged past her, knocking her over in the process. Her devastation at what had happened was so evident that she moved me. And my “righteous” anger evaporated – towards her anyway. Yes, because of what happened I still believe the dogs should be put to sleep. But I was filled with compassion for this lady who had been worried from the day they got them that something like this might happen.

My dogs are a similar size to the two who were involved. I love them, but if they were to attack a small dog like that even though I would be devastated to do so, I would feel I had no choice but to euthanise them. Once a dog has the taste of the hunt, it is virtually impossible to remove it. I’d never be able to trust them with other dogs or with children. They rough and tumble with each other, but they all weigh over 60lbs – even the one with 3 legs! Add a 9lb dog to that mix and it won’t last long.

I realised my anger was self-righteous, not Godly. My own sense of “justice” was offended.

Moving to jealousy now.

My wife has been in hospital recently. Actually, the three people I’m closest to have all been in hospital in the last 2 months. It’s been a bit stressful. (To the point I’m considering checking in myself for a few days to recover!)

I visited her every day, and found I was jealous of the number of visitors other people got. She had me. That’s it. Nobody else “bothered” to come. Now I put “bothered” in inverted commas for a reason. I know full well why no-one else came. Her mum is still recovering from her stay in hospital. So is mine. Her brother has been seriously ill and is still recovering. Everyone had not only a legitimate reason, but a reason that would have made both me and her very upset if they had come to visit! But I was still jealous.

Other people “appeared” more loved than she did. Visitors, chocolates, lattes, flowers all brought by well-wishers. She had me, a bearded biker with a mop of hair and no cash this week to buy more than a pack of wine gums. I felt inadequate, accused and jealous of the designer clothes and quoiffed hair that visited the first night. So I put on cologne and tried to keep my hair under control – not easy under a crash-helmet (yes, I am actually a biker). My best golf-shirt instead of a normal T-shirt and a smarter pair of jeans.

I still felt bad.

I felt like I wasn’t enough. The accuser got under my skin.

Until she began to tell me the comments other people had made. I’m not going to repeat them, because it’s not relevant. Suffice to say I realised my jealousy was a result of my pride.

But God has a “righteous” jealousy we can access as well. God is jealous towards Israel repatedly when they wander off to other false gods. He looks out for them and us with a ferocity we cannot match.

There was another patient who was “admired” by a male patient. Her husband came to visit and she held close to him, as I did with my wife. More importantly, he held close to her. He guarded her. He made it known that this lady was his wife and she was under his protection – back off. That is the jealousy God guards His children with. That is righteous jealousy.

It doesn’t come from self, but from a desire for the best for others – to protect them from undue and undesired influence and attention. God’s kind of behaviour towards us. Because at the same time as protecting, it still allows freedom of association for the individual in the relationship. Friendships are not hindered, but inappropriate behaviour is demonstrated to be just that.

My wife has regular contact with her ex-boyfriend. I have semi-regular contact with one of mine. There is no harm in that. We don’t have a problem because boundaries are clear and the exes both respect them. The friendships we have are clean and our marriage is not negatively impacted by them. In fact I encourage her to have contact with him – he’s a colleague with knowledge she needs to do her job well. There’s no threat and no jealousy – but if the line were crossed we know where I would step in. And there is a Holiness in that.

Holiness is they key to staying on the right side of anger and jealousy.

I wish I could say I’m sorted in that area, but anyone who cuts me off in traffic will testify that I’m not completely Holy in my attitudes. I admit it. I’m overly aggressive and it’s something I need to work on more. And more. And more.

And more.

Paul writes that we shouldn’t let the sun go down on our anger in a couple of places. There’s two ways to look at that. Firstly, we need to never stop being angry at the things God is angry about. Genuine injustice against His people, His children. We need to be angry about it. That kind of anger inspires Godly action to free prisoners persecuted for being Christians in places where false gods such as Islam rule. I was recently advised if I travel to certain places not to carry a Bible or Christian literature with me as I can be arrested at the airport. I find it interesting that some of these places are places where there have been a relatively high number of views of this blog. There is a hunger for God’s Truth that I will not back down from.

The second concept is that we must not allow ungodly anger to fester in us. Deal with it straight away. Don’t “sleep on it”, but get before God and get it out of our systems. The longer it’s there, the bigger it gets. Like a cancer it eats away and the bigger it becomes, the harder it is to get out. My dad died of a brain tumour, which if it had been caught earlier they may have been able to remove completely. My mum had cancer recently – caught so early it took two operations to find the tumour, but as a result she’s cancer free! Such a difference.

Deal with unholiness swiftly and decisively.

Be angry.

Be Jealous.

But make sure it’s Godly.

Whilst I was pondering the concept of Leadership for my last post, I also found myself thinking about obedience.

We need to follow the lead of those wiser than us, but not unquestioningly. God gave us a mind for a reason. We are like sheep, yes. But we are more than a sheep. Modern sheep are not that bright. They sit in a field and eat grass and occasionally bleat at a passing collie. There’s not a lot they do.

We are called to be sheep in the 1st Century sense. Listen for the voice of our shepherd – Jesus, not the pastor – and follow Him.

Sometimes the pastor forgets he’s a sheep too.

So do we.

We get so tuned in to listening to our own voice that we lose track of the quiet guidance of the Holy Spirit within us. We forge ahead and stop listening for the voice saying “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.”” (Isaiah 30:21). As a result we miss the path. We head off on a tangent and miss most of what God has for us.

We follow blindly as a leader who has got hold of a single truth such as healing marches on, and we leave the rest of what God has for us sitting behind. We focus blindly on social justice and miss Salvation. We become obsessed with filling pews and forget to make disciples – and to remember discipleship is often an uncomfortable experience.

More and more we want to produce a watered-down version of the Gospel which eliminates suffering and persecution and turns Jesus into a teddy-bear instead of the Lion of Judah. As CS Lewis described Aslan, the Christ-figure in Narnia, He’s not a tame lion – but He’s good.

The blind adherence to a “happy” message which requires little in the way of sacrifice and struggle on any level will only lead, ultimately, away from Jesus.

We run the risk of becoming the sightless guides Jesus referred to the Pharisees as. Leading the blind and both falling into the pit, both literally and figuratively.

I may not end up as a popular teacher or writer, but I refuse to compromise what I have understood the message of the Gospel to be for over 25 years for the sake of getting a few more “likes” on facebook or followers on twitter. I’m not out to win a popularity contest, I’m fighting a war.

In the epic poem “Charge of the Light Brigade” it is obvious the soldiers knew their commander had made a mistake. They charged the cannons anyway, and the entire brigade was slaughtered because of blind obedience. Blindly following orders only results in getting killed in war. It’s no different when Jesus says He calls us friends and invites us to ask Him and seek His counsel as He does in John 14,15 & 16 to the disciples – including you and me – that we can know God’s purpose and ask Him of things to come and how to achieve them.

Not only is there no shame in asking, it’s encouraged by God!

As we come towards the end of Lent, Easter just a few days away, let’s give up blindly accepting everything we get spoon-fed from “popular” movements. Look to see where progress is ultimately moving towards. And if it isn’t the Cross, turn away.