Ringing in the Changes

Posted on May 25, 2016 by David Beddow

Who’s Afraid?

Posted on May 20, 2016 by David Beddow

“For you did not receive the spirit of bondage again to fear, but you received the Spirit of adoption by whom we cry out, “Abba, Father.””

Romans 8:15 NKJV

“Just because something is technically legal doesn’t mean that it’s spiritually appropriate. If I went around doing whatever I thought I could get by with, I’d be a slave to my whims.”

1 Corinthians 6:12 The Message

There’s a lot of media play these days about being “x-phobic”, add your choice of word for “x”. Islam, Homo, Trump, Hillary or whatever the commentary is about. Any time a Christian speaks out the cries of phobia are alarming.

We don’t have to be afraid. But anyone who speaks in opposition to anyone else is unilaterally declared (usually by Fox News or CNN or some other channel) to be “phobic” of that particular group.

Now, I’ll acknowledge I have a certain amount of nervousness about the upcoming US election. Frankly I’m not sure any of the major candidates are suitable for the role of leader of the “free” world. But who is, really? The role is a daunting one that requires a great deal of fortitude mixed with diplomacy. But I’m not afraid of the issue.

What’s the deal with telling us we’re afraid if we disagree with something?

The answer is actually simple. The World is afraid. It lives in a constant state of fear. We hear it in every news broadcast. If it’s not a political candidate it’s the environment, or the economy, or Christians, or Muslims, or all of the above. And in truth, the World actually has good reason to be afraid. At the Last Day when Christ returns the World will be destroyed by His Judgement. And it knows it – every living being has knowledge of the need for Christ hardwired into it, but Satan twisted it up so much that they quite literally are blinded to it.

So how do we as Christians deal with the wall of fear we face when we stand up for Truth?

Alarmingly, many are choosing to fall in line with the World’s views about, well, pretty much everything. Mainstream denominations are capitulating to the pattern of this world regarding far too much. The verses in Romans that follow the opening quote from this post specifically address sexual immorality, something which is ignored by most these days, or actually embraced in many places because it’s the individual’s “choice” or “they were made that way”. In the World’s eyes these are legitimate arguments, but how can the Church turn away from 2000 years AD and several millenia BC of morals when the Scriptures specifically say God is the same yesterday, today and forever? (Hebrews 13:8) If God hasn’t changed, why are our leaders insisting we change our views? And where are the voices standing up to them? Where is this generation’s Martin Luther? Or George Whitefield, John and Charles Wesley? Or Wilberforce?

The silence is deafening. Leaderless, the church is veering away from the recorded teachings of Christian doctrine and embracing universalism, pantheism, panantheism and paganism, some denominations have leaders declaring openly that all religions lead to God anyway.

CS Lewis compared Christianity to a mathematical equation. The other religions may have a part of the answer, but there is only one fully correct answer – Jesus Christ. All the others, no matter how close, are wrong.

If you look at my older posts you’ll see I am quite fond of a particular statement by William Booth, Founder of the Salvation Army, who spoke of the issues we are facing now a full century ago. Modern teachings suggest, no – explicitly state – that there can’t be a literal Hell (even though Jesus spoke as though He believed there was one), that a relationship with Christ is not essential to being a Christian (nope, I don’t understand that one either!), repentance is not essential for forgiveness (seriously?), salvation doesn’t mean you have to change (no regeneration?), and God has no place in politics (but not vice versa).

Booth saw it coming even before World War One, yet a century later the “leaders” are blind to it.

I’m glad I don’t have a spirit of fear. I’m unnerved even without one.

I’m not afraid of Islam. Or homosexuality. Or (most of) the political candidates.

But it doesn’t mean I have to agree with them or accept them. Islam (the non-ISIS variety) is close to the Truth, but it misses the Salvation of the Relationship Jesus offers. It’s wrong, and I care very much about the end destination of my Muslim friends, but I’m not afraid of it.

Orwell said that in times of deceit, truth becomes the ultimate hate-speech. These days it’s very much the case. In South Africa we have a President whose party refuses to impeach despite the Constitutional Court declaring he has violated the constitution he swore to uphold. Successive “leaders” of both America and Britain have deceived allies and enemies about almost everything they’ve done that has put the countries in the situations they now face. Yet they remain un-phased and, alarmingly, still in power.

But the crux is the accusation the World levels at those who dare take a stand. The accusation that it is based on fear of change. Perhaps in some cases that has been true in the past, thinking of the Inquisition in particular. But in those cases it was the fear of losing control that was the issue. Take that off the table now. Christians – and I’m not referring to the KKK and such who the media would have everyone believe are “christians” – but real Christians, Born-again and Spirit Filled, generally are not the ones in power. Certainly not as individuals.

So we don’t fear the World and it’s opinions.

But the World certainly fears us.

1984

Posted on May 5, 2016 by David Beddow

The Church in Crisis

We live in a time where the Truth of the Gospel is challenged more fiercely than at any time in history.

Televangelists spout their message across the airwaves in such a way the Truth often gets missed in the message. No ministry can run indefinitely without funding, and there comes a time when funds need to be raised, but the World hears this and screams “All these preachers want is your money!”

Sometimes they’re right. Sometimes the ministry in question is questionable.

More often they’re wrong. A minister of the Gospel spends hours each day researching, learning, reading, praying, counselling, writing and teaching the Gospel of Jesus. It’s a full time job.

You never hear “All that doctor wants is your money!” when you go to the office with a stomach bug and he charges you for his time, his knowledge, his research, his counsel and the writing of a prescription.

The World ignores them because they don’t conflict with the World’s values.

Jesus dropped into 1st Century Palestine at a time when there was universal deceit. He spoke only Truth, and they killed Him for it.

Today you can be charged with inciting violence by hate speech in many countries, but these laws are never enforced on the people who use it the most: politicians. Rather they are pushed on simple and ordinary people. Bakers who don’t want their store associated with homosexuality because their understanding is that it’s sinful and they want to take a stand for their Faith, the Truth as they understand it. Clerks who refuse to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples for the same reason. Preachers who have the audacity to say that a collection of writings from two millennia ago is still applicable in full in modern society, that God doesn’t change and His decrees are absolute.

In some countries they get fired or put out of business. In others they get decapitated. Both are persecuted.

Now I’m not saying I agree with everything here in terms of action. We are called to allow ourselves to be subject to the law of the land, sometimes that means doing what it says, and sometimes it means not doing it and accepting the consequences. Should the clerk issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple? The law of the land says yes. But what is marriage in the eyes of the law and what is marriage in the eyes of God can be very different things. In law, marriage is primarily a financial institution. In Faith it is much deeper than that and goes to the core of humanity’s sexuality.

Be subject to the laws of men. Eventually God will have the last laugh anyway. Two men may enter a non-sexual “marriage” in law so that they have a person they can turn to to make hard choices in the event of failing health. In modern terms, it could be argued that King David and Jonathon may have had a union of this kind as they are described as being of one spirit – yet there is no hint that they were sexually involved. I have lived with men as a younger man. One of my closest friends was my house-mate and confidante for over a year. I introduced him to his wife. At that time he knew me better than anyone else alive, but there was no hint of sexual intent on our part towards each other. We jammed music, ate, shopped, prayed and travelled together regularly. When his fiancee came to visit we found space. I wasn’t dating at the time, but if I had been there would have been the same consideration there as well.

Then came the “Politically Correct” crowd.

It started as a good thing. A moral compass led by men and women of value and principle who wanted to take a stand against the decay of society. But it got taken over by “equal” rights groups.

Language changed. Simple terms like “chairman” were designated as sexist. Describing an individual of African origin as “black” was racist. So we moved into a world where individuals were not short, they were “vertically challenged”, paraplegics were “differently-abled”, those considered not to fit into society’s image of attractive were “aesthetically challenged”. Schools could no longer stream pupils in terms of A and B because “B” would feel inferior. No matter that group “A” was working on quantum mechanics and group “B” was still learning the basic times tables.

And then the PC crowd turned it’s head to God.

Suddenly real Truth is offensive. Christmas has to be called “Winter Festival”, Easter “Spring Festival”. The Bible was removed from schools in America because it was not politically correct to “brainwash” children into believing in God, whilst the doctrines of atheism were planted firmly in place. It reached the point where public schools can’t put on a Nativity play in case it offends someone. This in a society that glorifies sex, violence, drug use, vampires and all kinds of nonsense.

Most children are taught sex education at primary school these days unless the parents specify that they must be witheld from that. I was horrified in England about 15 years ago when I was taking part in a church school activity to find the seven and eight year olds were coming from sex education classes. These kids knew about erectile dysfunction before they knew how to spell it.

Like the Roman Empire, we are desensitised to violence from an early age. An estimate in the 1990s suggested by the time the average high school student graduates he (or she – must be correct) has witnessed 100,000 murders thanks to television and film makers. I pulled out an old movie I enjoyed a long time ago recently, “Malone” starring Burt Reynolds. It was given an 18 certificate for graphic violence when it was released. Compared to films that today get 12 and 15 certificates it was nothing. Even “Highlander” as a movie in 1986 got a 15 certificate in the UK, but the TV series was more graphic and broadcast at peak viewing time just six years later.

I read 1984 by Orwell as a teenager and thought it could never happen. “Animal Farm” and “Lord of the Flies” were also on my reading list. The concepts in them were so inconceivable that we had to suspend disbelief to follow the story and remind ourselves that in a civilised society this could never happen.

Fast forward to 2016 and we have Government bodies regulating what we can say and where we can say it. A Christian TV channel in England moved it’s base of operations away from the UK because it was not allowed under UK law to air any program that stated Jesus is the only way to God because it might offend those who didn’t believe. In my experience with television if I tune in to an Islamic program I expect it to try to convince me that Islam is the truth. So I switch it off. Not so any more, the thought police of “1984” are beginning to arrive.

“Free Speech Zones” are another PC thing. Very Orwellian in their construction. You can say what you like, but it will never be broadcast.

There are certain issues which rightly need to be addressed. Men and women doing the same jobs should be paid the same salary. If a man and a woman have the same qualification they should receive the same compensation for their work as long as it is of the same standard. There should be no place for saying a woman is simply there to make a man look good or vice-versa.

Consider the Gospel for a moment. Jesus is teaching and the woman caught in adultery is thrown at His feet. What does He do?

He writes in the sand.

Huh?

Immediately the crowd take their attention off the woman and her humiliation and focus on Jesus. “What’s He writing?” “Is He drawing something?”

He could have been writing out the theory of relativity or doodling a cat. It’s irrelevant. His action restores the woman’s dignity by allowing her time to cover herself. These Politically Correct accusers are seeking to trap the Teacher. So He hits them with Truth. Instead of calling for the stoning or asking where the other party involved is, as adultery generally requires more than one active participant (or it did before the internet), Jesus simply says “Ok, but the first to throw a stone must be sinless himself.” Then he goes back to doodling or calculating pi or whatever He was doing.

Thud, thud, thud. The stones fall to the ground beginning with the longest grey beards and finally the youngest walking away leaving only the woman and Jesus – the only one qualified to throw that first stone.

And Jesus restores her. He tells her to leave her sinful ways, but He refuses to condemn her. Read the story in John 8. I love the version in The Message, but they all say it. Jesus refuses to condemn her.

Once a year in Cape Town there is an event called the “Sexpo” for a few days, and predictably there are the “christians” outside waving banners and shouting “You’re all going to Hell, Directly to Hell, Do not pass ‘Go’, Do not collect $200” like some transcendental Monopoly card. How different to the act of writing in the sand.

Researching an article I was working on some time ago I was looking for accounts of life changes and how acceptance works out in the real world. I stumbled on a blog by a writer called Jennie Ketcham called “Becoming Jennie”. I’d never heard of her, but I read an entry or two and found myself cheering for her as she told her story through this blog of leaving the sex industry and trying to find a place in the real world again. Hopefully in the not too distant future nobody will know her for her past, but for her skills as a writer on the Huffington Post, a published author and a counselling psychologist. I don’t know where she stands from a Spiritual perspective, but her actions show a clear repentance – completely turning away from her past life.

That’s what we are called to do. Repent. Turn away from the past and set out in a new direction. Learn from it, yes. But not repeat it. It takes incredible strength to turn away from past addictions. Whether it’s drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling or even things we don’t think of like washing the car. Anything that puts itself between us and God we need to turn away from.

I find personally that I’m a work in progress. Like Paul, I do what I do not want to do, and I do not do that which I want to do [paraphrase of Romans 7:19-20] and I find myself spinning in ever decreasing circles.

But thankfully, the thought police are there to remind me how despicable I am.

No, wait. That’s Orwell.

Thankfully, the Holy Spirit witnesses inside me that I am the Righteousness of Christ. He convicts me of Righteousness and that gives me the strength to turn away from whatever the sin of the moment is. Currently the big one for me is coveting. Mainly because of things that I had in the past that the old me wants back. I covet the things from my past and trying to recapture them often gets in the way of doing what I know God has called me to do. Procrastination is another one.

The Truth of Jesus is becoming known as hate-speech. We need to guard our tongues and hearts and make sure what we say lines up with the Bible, not the twisting of specific verses to fit the current worldly morality, but the Truth that is constant through the entire Scripture. We need to remember that the Word of God is Jesus, not the book. The book is there as a way for us to find Him.

But if we’re going to follow a book, better the Bible than “1984”.

Shades of Grey

Posted on May 4, 2016 by David Beddow

I’ve been haunted recently by a song I first heard on TV before I was 10 yeas old. I used to watch re-runs of “The Monkees” TV show made a decade earlier and loved their music, but “Shades of Gray” stuck in my head.

When the world and I were young
Just yesterday
Live was such a simple game
A child could play

It was easy then to tell right from wrong
Easy then to tell weak from strong
When a man should stand and fight
Or just go along

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

I remember when the answers seemed so clear
We had never lived with doubt or tasted fear
It was easy then to tell truth from lies
Selling out from compromise
Who to love and who to hate
The foolish from the wise

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray

It was easy then to know what was fair
When to keep and when to share
How much to protect your heart
And how much to care

But today there is no day or night
Today there is no dark or light
Today there is no black or white
Only shades of gray
Only shades of gray

I guess at the moment “grey” seems to be a theme in my thoughts and quiet times. It troubles me. The song – to me, anyway – seems to lament the loss of absolutes.

I’ve written about absolutes a few times now, and even used the same theme, shades of grey, in titles. But the more I ponder it, the more I see grey creeping in and absolutes being washed away.

Jesus didn’t talk in shades of grey. There was no grey area to Him. Two destinations after death on this earth: Heaven or Hell. Right is Right and Wrong is Wrong. He didn’t sugar coat the pills he gave out, He never pulled a punch.

I’ve been reading about first century Palestine’s culture from various sources recently and a few things made me see Jesus basically went round deliberately picking a fight with the religious leaders with almost everything He said.

Everyone knows the Jews and Samaritans didn’t get along, so the Good Samaritan story is obviously targeted at the self-righteous. What I’ve learned, if it’s accurate, is that some of the other instructions He gave forced the religious leaders into a corner.

Turn the other cheek is often said as a reason for Christians to be pacifists. A little research has suggested to me that at the time of Jesus it was lawful only to strike a man on the cheek with the back of the right hand. Offering the other cheek would force the assailant to either engage in a full fight or apologise to the one struck – in either case, the struck man was elevated to being the equal of the one striking him. Similarly, offering your shirt when your cloak had been demanded would result in nudity, and the one demanding would be forced to beg to not take it. In both cases, the assailant and the one demanding the cloak would likely be from the priests, and they would definitely be in the groups listening to Jesus.

He doesn’t spare the Romans either. It was not lawful under Roman Law to force two mile-markers out of a pressed man to carry your pack, so the soldier would have to essentially beg the civilian to let him carry his own pack again – raising the pressed man back to the same level of standing as the soldier.

No grey areas. The stories demonstrate that all are equal before God, regardless of their position in society.

The problem is that 2000 years later, grey is in. And worse than that, those spouting absolutes have twisted them so badly that anyone striving to live a black-and-white life is in trouble.

Consider the political winds across the world. The most obvious absolutist is doubtless Donald Trump and his “Mexicans are drug-crazed rapists and murderers” and “all Muslims are terrorists” positions. I happen to know many Muslims, and I have yet to meet one who felt the need to decapitate me for being a Christian. I have friends in the USA who have Mexican friends who I’m told are delightful people.

The other side of the coin is the PC crowd who want everything to be right and “can’t we all just get along” rhetoric. Frankly, they remind me of the luke-warm church in Revelation and I want no part of them either.

God says be hot or be cold. Black or white. Good or Evil.

I’m English. Very English despite having not lived in my homeland for over a decade (and finding to my horror this week my passport has expired – oops). I drink tea, not coffee. Granted an argument could be made that scripture says you can drink any deadly thing and it won’t harm you, but I’m not risking it with coffee. I’ll stick to tea and whisky!

But when I drink tea it needs to be hot or iced, not in between. I like Scotch neat over ice. I’m not a beer drinker, but when I have cider I like it chilled.

I realise I probably just shocked a lot of readers. *HORRORS* A Christian who drinks!

Yep. That’s me. Not often, but once in a while I like to sit and watch the sun set over the mountain behind my home with a glass of scotch and just drink in the atmosphere of nature, the aroma of the air and the taste of the drink and marvel at the One who designed it.

And thank Him for allowing me to enjoy His creation this way.

PC people make me mad. I tend to get angry very quickly when it’s a talk about being politically correct, especially when Christians are making the argument.

In South Africa at the moment there’s a concept that the Black majority cannot be racists. It’s a behaviour reserved for whites because of the apartheid legacy. In fact, one Black student, studying at Oxford University in England on a bursary from the Rhodes Scholarship was so brazen in Cape Town recently that when his waitress, a young white student, brought him his bill he wrote “I’ll give you a tip when you give us back our land” on it. Google Ntokozo Qwabe to find the full story.

It’s an example of where being politically correct has gone insane. Yes, safety surfaces on playgrounds are essential and will save many kids from getting fractured skulls and broken limbs the way my generation did (eight stitches in the back of my head at age 7 from cracking my skull on a concrete playground and six hours of reconstructive surgery on my right elbow at age 11 following a bad fall). My brother may have survived if we’d known about safety helmets for cyclists in 1985 – and I cannot possibly stress enough that I do not and never have placed any blame on the driver Robin collided with. Mainly because two weeks earlier he nearly got me killed by doing exactly what the inquest heard he did the day he died. My heart goes out to the gentleman who I will not name here, but we discovered later was a friend of a friend. I grieve for not only my own family’s loss, but the torment he must have endured as well. I pray peace for you, sir.

The latest insanity is the “bathroom” laws. I can’t speak to the transgender issue from direct experience as I have – to my knowledge – never met or spoken to a transgender individual. I have friends who identify as homosexual who know my position Spiritually, but have remained friends nevertheless – and for whom I am thankful to have in my life. Some are single, some not. I can say that if it looks like a duck, walks like a duck and quacks like a duck it should not go hunting with the former vice-President, but I would not be comfortable with a 300lb individual with a beard sharing bathroom facilities with my wife.

Quack, quack.

I believe God made male and female and with the Fall twisting everything in creation because of Sin anything is possible. I grew up going to an all-boys school (thankfully not boarding there) and attending ballet classes weekly. I felt more accepted by the girls at ballet for most of the 16 years I spent dancing than I ever did in a sporting arena – especially rugby and soccer. Although I would have LOVED the chance to do boxing at school but it was no longer allowed – too violent. The broken bones, concussions and dislocations on the rugby pitch had to suffice, so I stuck to tennis, badminton and music.

God didn’t make grey. When we read the story of creation in Genesis – actually there are several, but they all have one thing in common – there is no darkness or shadow in God. That comes only after the Fall. And it took nearly a millennia for Satan to kill the first humans created. (there go the evolutionists).

I debated an evolutionist once. His position was that he was descended from monkeys and mine was that I was a child of God. By the end of the debate most of the audience thought we were both right.

Don’t misunderstand my humour. How we came to be made in God’s image is less important than that we are created in His image. If you take the word “image” to represent only the physical form then evolution may well apply, but if we expand that concept to include self-awareness and self-determination why shouldn’t a Creator take one of His creations and endow it with Free Will and “Dominion” – I love that word as the Bible only uses it to describe what God has and what He gave to Man – over the rest of Creation.

I actually love talking to confirmed “Atheists” as they have in my experience rejected a concept of God. The concept they reject more closely fits with the devil than Christ, so when they describe to me the God they reject I agree with them 100% and it completely throws them off guard. They are so used to being Bible-bashed by well meaning by ill-informed people who yes, genuinely want to see them not spend eternity in Hell, that they clobber them out of any possible way they can accept what an accurate portrait of a Loving God the Bible projects.

I get called out on the wholesale slaughter and destruction in the Old Testament, the most common question being “How can a Loving God demand this murder?” The answer is surprisingly simple. Look at Sodom and Gomorrah. They were significant cities when Lot went there. They influenced culture around them and part of that culture was indiscriminate sexual activity with all genders and ages. It was in God’s plan that a Virgin would bear His Son. If the cities had been left and their influence continued to spread, 4000 years later (+/-) when Mary was visit ed by Gabriel there would have been no virgins of child-bearing age to carry the Christ. Their destruction was an act of Love – and the Bible clearly says that all will have the chance to accept or reject Jesus. The incarnation took place at a specific time in history, but like a stone thrown into a pond, the ripples travel in all directions. In the Fiery Furnace, three men – Shadrack, Meshack and Abed-Nego were cast in, but four figures were seen walking around untouched by the flames, and the fourth was like a Son of God (Daniel 3:25). Yeshua, the Hebrew of Jesus, means “Saviour”. Is it not possible that the man who said “Before Abraham was, I Am” walked with these men who put their faith in Him centuries before?

No shade of grey here.

It’s easy to compromise. We all to it. Heck I’ve been doing it 20 years trying to get this ministry going but looking for reasons I shouldn’t be the one to do it. Each time God has gently (sometimes not so gently) nudged me back into it. The last time was such a jolt it made my teeth rattle, but it woke me from a spiritual stupor I’d been in for several years.

Over my life God has used many gifts through me, but none more than Word of Knowledge. I admit I despise the term “prophet” and refuse to accept it as a title. I generally ignore letters that address me as “Prophet David” so if you feel like writing, just call me David – God calls me David, it’s good enough for me. I don’t even like Mr Beddow! The gift is a burden as I have had times when I’ve been told things about people I love deeply that I have to then help them through and sometimes confront them over. It’s even more scary when it comes about a stranger or someone you only just met and are trying to work out where things will go with a friendship. I actually prefer it when I’m the one being spoken to rather than through.

But it’s black and white. It’s right and wrong, and we need to move away from the madness of the politically correct. We cannot please everyone all the time.

We have a mission as Christians to seek out the enemy and destroy him. Let in light where darkness has prevailed for so long. Give hope where there has been despair.

Jesus Himself said His mission was ““The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, Because He has anointed Me To preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted, To proclaim liberty to the captives And recovery of sight to the blind, To set at liberty those who are oppressed; To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”” (Luke 4:18-19 NKJV) His mission involved seeking out the broken, the imprisoned, the blind and the oppressed and releasing them. This was nothing short of a declaration of war.

I’ll say it again. Jesus was declaring WAR!

Hardly “gentle Jesus meek and mild” we hear about in Sunday School. I heard the story of David and Goliath dozens of times before I read it myself and found that David actually cuts off Goliath’s head. It’s not something Sunday School focusses on. Half the story results in a shade of grey.

It’s not God’s way. We sanitise the Bible when we teach it these days.

I have a friend who refers to some of his friends as “aquatic Muslims” because they drink alcohol. We laugh about it.

But there are many “aquatic Christians” who water down the Bible to make it “acceptable” in modern society. They turn Black and White into grey.

And that grey will lead to hell.

Without consequences what is the point of change? If shades of grey are acceptable to God then why bother with a Bible of Absolutes? Forgiveness is dependant on Repentance according to Jesus. Salvation without Regeneration is impossible. The so-called “Progressive” christians teach a form of christianity without Christ, citing that all religions draw from the same aquifer – and they do: but true Christianity isn’t a religion it’s a Relationship. The aquifer religion draws from brings only death.

Religion relies on shades of grey. Relationship with God through Jesus cannot abide it.

It’s time to rise up as an Army of God and say “ENOUGH!”

Islam is a false religion. Followed correctly to the letter is it actually a wonderful moral guide, but who wants to be the best sinner in Hell?

I’m a fanatic about Jesus, but I’m that way because I have seen too many of my friends and family die not knowing if they ever met Jesus. I can’t be certain my brother did. I hope he did as he begged to come to church and – unlike the rest of the choir – he paid attention when the minister taught, but he was not quite ten and I was not quite 13, and we didn’t know how to talk about God. We didn’t even know we could talk about God. My dad died in Faith. I was with him, holding his hand and watched him make a choice to go to Jesus because he was ready to. His parents both went in Faith, his mum died while writing a sermon that his dad delivered the following Sunday from her notes. Grandad was praying with family just a few minutes before he went home. Part of me wishes I could have been on the other side to see him arrive – he’d spoken many times of how much he was looking forward to spending eternity with his friend, Jesus. I’m certain nothing in Heaven could have stopped him running to Jesus and hugging him as only Stan could hug!

I get attacked for speaking in terms of black and white, right and wrong. Sin and Righteousness. The World has muddied the waters so much it becomes hard to see where the sin ends and the sinner begins, and we are called to do that. Judge the fruit, not the branch.

So I stick away from hostile environments because I have a temper I struggle to reign in and the warrior-heart in me wants to utterly destroy sin where I find it, in myself first, and to help others to destroy it in themselves by accepting Christ and drawing close to Him.

But there’s one thing for certain…

I’ll never be grey!

Grey in the Kingdom of Black and White

Posted on May 2, 2016 by David Beddow

In a world where doubt and uncertainty are glorified, it becomes difficult for us as Christians to sound credible.

I touched on this in my entry about a Gospel of Absolutes some time ago, but it’s been on my heart to share again.

We behave a lot like sheep. I don’t know if you’ve spent a lot of time with them, but sheep are not the brightest of animals.

They stick together and do exactly what all the others are doing. It becomes hard to break through that cast and develop an individual character. Often when people do they become ostracised by the friends they had and often leave the church they were a part of.

It’s happened to me a couple of times where I could not stay because a revelation had shown me the problems we were facing as a body, and when confronted I was dismissed out of hand, leaving me with no other course of action.

And it’s ok to leave a congregation if you cannot get behind the leader. In fact it’s better for both you and the church if you don’t stay. If the fellowship is moving in unity then it gives space for God to act, if it’s fractured then abandon ship. Either way, if their course is not where God is leading you then leave and pray for them from the outside. It may be a generation before that body is effective again, but rather let them have their unity in accordance with Psalm 133 and allow God to work on them. He will, but only as they allow him to.

We need to recognise that we are living in a secular world today. What the Bible – Old and New Testament – declares to be abhorrent to God is now the socially accepted norm. A while ago there was a picture doing the rounds on the net of an x-ray of a kiss, declaring it to be “perfect”.

To the left you’ll see what a bone expert had to say about it.

Finding the debunk was a relief for me, and I’ve found several articles saying the same thing.

God made us unique, not from a uniform mould.

There was an episode of Star Trek (I think) where Kirk and his crew beam down and discover all the inhabitants are wearing brightly coloured masks. As the episode unfolds we discover that it’s because they are all identical underneath the mask.

Gene Roddenberry being the man he was was probably trying to make the same point as the creators of this picture, that we are all the same underneath the surface.

Nothing could be further from what Jesus taught. Look at the disciples. If there were ever an unruly group you’d never see associated with one another this is them. Fishermen, tax collectors, hot-heads and some so quiet they barely get a mention other than to say they were part of the 12. Extroverts, introverts, everyone was welcome to Jesus. All He asked was that they repent of their sin and follow Him.

That’s all He asks today as well.

But Jesus sets out absolutes, not shades of grey in His message. As a result He was ostracised and eventually murdered because of it.

It was wrong to hand over Jews to the Nazis in 1939, but most people did it. It is wrong to assume all Muslims are terrorists, but it’s happening. It’s right to offer help to those desperately in need due to civil war tearing Africa apart, but few if any people are paying any attention to the continent. Governments ignore genocide because there’s no oil or natural resources to be gained by bringing down the evil that thrives, turning children not yet 10 years old into murderers.

Evil exists in this world. And it’s an absolute. Darkness exists, but Light destroys it in an instant. No matter how dark the room is, strike a match and the darkness flees.

Strike a hundred and you are bathed in light. There may be shadows, but they can be eliminated by adding another candle.

Black and white. Dark and Light.

Life and Death.

There’s an urban legend that tells of a doctor calling time of death on a patient and going out to inform the family. They are heartbroken. He returns to the room to begin to prepare for autopsy and the body twitches, then wakes up. Astounded by this, the doctor has to go and find the family to give them the good news. “But you said he was dead!” says a family member. “Yes, but he’s showing some improvement now” replies the doctor.

“Some improvement”. He was dead, now he’s not. There actually is nothing between. You’re either alive or dead. It’s black and white.

There’s no grey area in this story.

There’s no grey in Jesus or His disciples either. As far as we know, only John died of natural causes – although some of the more loony-tunes theories postulate that he’s still alive – the others were all murdered for declaring their faith.

A couple in Oregon put their faith before their business and lost the business as a result.

Christians are expected to put up with discrimination that would never be tolerated by other groups. I’m told all meat in England is now slaughtered in line with Halal custom so the supermarkets can sell to anyone – they just don’t advertise it. Consequently if I go back to England I’ll find a local farmers market or butcher that doesn’t do this to buy my meat from on principle. I don’t want to ingest food sacrificed to a false god. But if a Christian makes a fuss about it, we’re told we’re being too sensitive.

Double-standards abound everywhere. Muslim communities can freely declare Jesus was not God on the streets, but if a Christian does the same he’s accused of islamophobia.

The world works in shades of grey. Make no mistake.

But our time will come again. God is a God of absolutes.

In Him there is no darkness. No grey areas.

Mr Businessman

Posted on April 27, 2016 by David Beddow

Itemize the things you covet
As you squander through your life
Bigger cars, bigger houses
Term insurance for your wife
Tuesday evenings with your harlot
And on Wednesdays it’s your charlatan
analyst, he’s high upon your list

Ray Stevens wrote the song somewhere around 1968. I must admit I’ve only ever heard the version Cliff Richard recorded in the mid 80s, but it was jolted back into my mind this afternoon.

I spend time on Facebook most days, it’s inevitable when your closest friends live 1000 miles or more away from you mostly. But I also look at site pages from Huffington Post and a few others for some inspiration for subject matter to write about when I’m having a dry spell.

I wanted to post today, but it was one of those days until I clicked on a link that took me to the story of a father watching his young daughter playing. She keeps asking for “Just 5 more minutes” and he keeps giving it to her. Another parent commented on his patience with the little girl. His response is that her older brother was killed by a drunk driver not far from where they are now and his deepest regret was never having enough time for his son, so his daughter may think he is giving her more playtime, in reality, she is giving him more time to be with her.


Robin in late 1984

As I read it, the lyrics of the song popped into my head, along with an image of my own brother who died after being hit by a car in 1985. Whilst it was his own error that caused the accident, I wish I could just have 5 more minutes with him, even after 31 years. That loss is acute even now as an adult in my 40s and it’s rare for me to go a day without something putting him in my mind.

Spending counterfeit incentive
Wasting precious time and health
Placing value on the worthless
Disregarding priceless wealth
You can wheel and deal the best of them
And steal it from the rest of them
You know the score, their ethics are a bore

My training is in business, and the song definitely strikes a chord opposing normal business practices. Everything is about money in business, with nothing else ever seeming to be considered important enough to matter.

I remember a job interview I went on several years ago to be an insurance salesman in England. I applied because I was interested in the job, not for financial motives. I went through the interview and was asked the normal questions, ending with “Is there anything you’d like to ask?” I couldn’t think of anything, so I simply asked “Is there anything you’d expect me to ask that I haven’t?” At this point the manager asked if I was at all interested in salary and potential. It hadn’t occurred to me to ask.

I’m probably a minority these days, but my priority has never been money when I’ve looked for work. I look at a number of things. Yes, I consider if the income will be a living wage, but that’s not the main thing. For me, a job needs to be interesting enough to old my attention – something that’s not easy to do. It’s why I love writing. I can choose my own topics and write when I feel like it, research the rest of the time. It’s probably also why I’ve spent much of the last 20 years self-employed.

As Christians we place too much emphasis on money. Either we’re complaining we don’t have enough or we’re trying to get more. The insurance job I had paid extremely well, but one of the reasons I left was the effect it had had on the people I worked with. Two had left eldership in their church because the job took them away too much and one had started it as a way to sustain himself while he worked as a missionary – a call he’d left because of the job. I resigned after about 6 months or so as I felt I was in danger of becoming too focussed on money.

I never regretted leaving that job. My income dropped a long way, but I was far more at peace with myself afterwards.

How much time do we spend trying to earn a counterfeit incentive? We sacrifice friendships, family relationships, marriages to pursue more money. I’m told Howard Hughes was once asked how much money brought him happiness. His response was allegedly “Just a little more”. We fall into that place ourselves today.

It’s the attitude Jesus was talking about when He said a rich man would struggle to enter the Kingdom of Heaven. What comes with worldly riches is a worldly mindset in too many cases. The wealthy get tied into making more money and their work becomes their place of worship. Their paycheck becomes their god.

We lose sight of what it is to be Christian very quickly when money comes into play.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t believe it’s Godly to be broke any more than it’s Godly to be rich. Either extreme will make money a god in our lives – and I’ve been at both extremes and experienced it. It’s easier to break the mindset when you have a lot as you can literally walk away from it, but when you have little or nothing walking away isn’t an option. You have to guard your heart so you stay centred on Jesus and not let anything draw you away.

There’s a place for financial prosperity in the Church. It’s vital for growth. Whilst there are people who will criticise a church for spending money on itself in the form of buildings and car parks etc when that money can be used for missionary work to the less fortunate, there’s the other side of that coin. If the church itself has no building in which to meet, or if there are signs it is growing and needs more space, then how can it hope to reach its own local population if there’s no spending on itself? It’s a contentious issue anywhere, but especially in South Africa where a large percentage of the money is concentrated in a very small percentage of the population. The mindset is dangerous because it ties into people giving out of guilt for the past rather than what God puts on their heart to give. It means churches can lean more towards reaching out to the poor financially, when the people who may need that outreach are actually the richest. Yes, the poor need financial help and support from local churches can be a major part of that, but the poor know they need help and look to God to provide it. The rich often trust in their money and get blinded to the Truth of their need for God to lead and guide them.

It’s a tricky line to walk.

Spiritual health can’t come from concentrating on creating money-spinning projects any more than it can come from poverty. Everything needs to be balanced. Just as iron is made strong by adding carbon to form steel, so the church needs to be strengthened by having all demographics represented. The First Century church had the wealthy selling their belongings to feed, clothe and house the poorest members – often their own slaves – and treated everyone as equals. We’re a long way from there in many ways today.

We need men and women who are capable businessmen and managers to invest and generate income for the church, but these people are there in the congregation already in many cases. Administration is listed as a Spiritual Gift by Paul – who was himself a businessman, as were the fishermen disciples. Being business savvy is not a sin. What we do with that savvy can be a different matter.

We have a responsibility to not give in to guilt or greed, but to find God and use our resources, whatever they may be, as He would have them used. Sometimes that means outreach to a poor community, but sometimes it can also mean updating or even upgrading our existing fixed resources. We have no problem when our work needs to upgrade their computer system to allow better access, or renovating our own house if the paint is chipped, or even building on a granny-flat or garage at home. So why do we question when a church wants to do it? Why can’t it be considered that a building needs more space if the ministry inside is growing? It may need the space to grow so it can provide employment opportunities, or to expand the youth work.

The key in ministry is to avoid making the ministry a mini god by accident, whether it’s a church or a parachurch organisation we need to look at what God would do with any income received.

That means constant vigilance on our hearts.

Schadenfreude…

Posted on April 24, 2016 by David Beddow

I’ve been re-watching a favourite series of mine for the last couple of weeks, Boston Legal. I enjoyed it immensely a decade ago when it first aired, and now I find I’m actually the age of the younger central protagonist I’m enjoying it even more.

One of the episodes is entitled “Schadenfreude” and centres a storyline around a younger woman accused of murdering her older (much older) husband. The closing argument, typically the highlight of the show, consists of James Spader’s character – the lawyer Alan Shore – delivering a momentous closing argument and (usually) saving the day.

This episode stuck in my mind and I found it striking a chord in me. The sum of the argument was that as humans we love to have celebrities, but more than that – we love it when they are brought down. We build them up only so we can bring them back down to our level, or better, below us.

I think of the number of people this has happened with in the last few years. Lindsay Lohan, Britney Spears, Charlie Sheen, Mel Gibson, and many more have fallen from grace and been unable (so far) to get back into our graces again for all their efforts – not in most cases because they need the money. Most celebrities who fall have a few million stashed away nicely from their earlier projects or from ongoing royalties from sales. Why should any actor be paid upwards of $5,000,000 for making a movie?

The answer is simple. We idolise them. As a result we flock to see their latest work and pay exorbitant amounts of money for a box of popcorn you could make at home for less that $1 – including the petrol to and from the store. This generates income and the actors demand a slice of it. The Marvel movies over the last few years have generated income now measured in the billions, and the actors are (allegedly) paid many millions for their work.

But the thing is, we idolise them.

They become our distraction, our refuge, our safe-place.

Like it or not, they become our gods.

Think about it for a second or two. Many more people go to a movie on a Sunday afternoon than went to church in the morning. And those who went to church for the large part pay more for a movie ticket, jumbo popcorn and a large soda than they left in the offering.

Tell me how that’s different from the worship of Ba’al or Jupiter or Zeus?

We work so we can have enough money to meet our needs and be comfortable, then we go beyond comfort into luxury. Now I have no problem with the wealthy per se, but it’s how that wealth is gained and what is done with it when we have it that’s the issue.

We inherently know we must not create a false idol, and I think that’s why we relish the fall of these celebrities so much. Then we, who created them in the first place, tear them down so we can build another in their place.

And we love to see them fall.

That’s Schadenfreude, and it’s nod Godly.

Herod was guilty of it. He was afraid of the fame John the Baptist achieved, and what Jesus was achieving. His wife demanded John’s head. His people in the court demanded Jesus be condemned. And Herod obliged.

We do the same. Most of the younger movie-going public who will see “Iron Man” and the other movies are too young to remember when Robert Downey Jr was always the guy getting arrested and jailed. I’m happy for him that he’s sober now, but I worry about us.

There’s a place for movies, and even celebrity, as long as we can separate from ourselves the desire to see fame bring someone down.

We even see this desire more in church.

A few years ago there was a spate of leaders in major churches or ministries who fell. Last year we saw it again with the whole Ashley Madison debacle. There’s nothing the World loves more than a fallen celebrity – except a fallen Christian celebrity.

And we are more susceptible to it in the church than we’d like to admit.

The noise that was made when Kevin Prosch stumbled in the mid 90s was only drowned out by the calling for his blood – not repentance. I read a lot of articles about his fall. I know several churches that refused to then use any music he’d written, and one extreme place that refused to play any song he was known to have played. The leaders – not always the Elders in the church, but the influential members – whipped up others of like mind and got their wishes. Then they relished it until they could find someone new to tear down.

Personally, I respected Prosch for his repentance and I have no problem with music he wrote then or continues to today because frankly it’s the heart of the worshipper that matters, not the mind of the composer.

In the last ten years there have been many people fall from grace in the public eye, particularly in the music industry, who were put in the position of idol by the very people who then called for their blood later.

And I can’t think of one person I’ve met who didn’t gossip about the fall of at least one celebrity. Whether we want to admit it or not, there is a part in us that derives satisfaction, even pleasure from the downfall of the famous. Usually the ones who actually didn’t do anything we haven’t done ourselves.

We need to be better than this.

I certainly do.

I’d bet the vast majority of people who read this have cheered at least once when someone we saw as unworthy fell. I’m not talking about Saddam and Bin Laden here. I mean an actor or singer. There was recognition of the tragedy of Heath Ledger and what a loss, but there were those who also said he’d asked for it by living that lifestyle. What lifestyle? The one we gave him. And so many others.

But we give these celebrities their status. Some are famous, some have infamy because of unscrupulous behaviour in business gaining vast fortunes personally before having their company file for bankruptcy and starting another, only to repeat the cycle. Some have celebrity because they have genuine talent that got twisted into something commercial and glorified them rather than their creator. Some are lauded because they are simply related to someone else who is famous.

However they get there, at the final count it’s us that put them there. Some will find a way to hold up under the pressure and be genuinely nice people. Others not so much.

I had the opportunity some years ago to work at a tenpin bowling centre in Torquay, England. During the time I was there the local theatre had several plays and pantomimes run, and often after a long week the cast would come up after the Saturday evening show and play. Consequently, those of us working had the chance to see the cast out of “celebrity” mode (sometimes) and interact with them as human beings. One evening a tall guy came up to the front door and I buzzed it open as the manager behind me called that he was the first of the group from the theatre. He thanked me and the manager came out and the three of us chatted for a while, asked how the run had been and if they’d had good audiences and so forth. Just three guys talking about a week at work. The rest of the group arrived and the tall guy, Colin, went off to play. We locked the doors and I cashed up my till, then went out to help on the floor. As I did, there was Colin standing playing pinball in the arcade. And I realised that the photo on the pinball machine was his face as well. This was Colin Baker who a few years before had played The Doctor in Doctor Who on the BBC, and had been one of my favourite programs at the time. But he was so normal. Just another guy chatting about his job then going to throw 16 pounds of bowling ball down a lane at some pins.

Not all my encounters were as real as that, but that one stuck. I used to be awed by the “big name” speaker at conferences as well. I got cured of that by Mike Yaconelli in 1991 when I nervously asked him to sign the copy of his book I’d just bought. Everyone had these dumb-looking pens with them that years that had been given out free by someone. Just a single use pen with a blob of fuzzy cotton and eyes on the lid. I handed book and pen to him and asked him to sign, tripping over my tongue, and apologised muttering I was nervous. He looked at me, put his hand on my shoulder and said “I’d be nervous if I were built like you and had to use this pen!” It shattered the nerves I’d felt and reminded me that this man of God was also a man like me.

That’s what we need to remember.

The people we elevate and worship for their talent be it singing, acting, preaching, writing or anything else you can think of are only flesh and blood. Just like us.

The only difference between me as the writer of this blog and anyone who reads it is the place we are at in our individual walk with Christ. I read articles and books by men like Jesse Duplantis, Andrew Wommack, Dave Duell, John Eldredge, Max Lucado and many others just like any other person might read them. I am taught and inspired by these authors, just like any other reader. Iron sharpens iron, and we have a duty to sharpen one another, to keep our hearts honed for God. Any writer who publishes a blog, an article, a book or any other kind of material is simply someone called to do so by God. Not everyone has the same gifts. Not everyone is an administrator or a counsellor or a helper, but everyone has something of infinite value to contribute to the Body of Christ.

We place men on a pedestal at our own peril in the church. Sooner or later that spot will need to be filled, and you might just be the one called to fill it.

So don’t wait at the foot of the podium for the guy on top to fall so you can devour him and shred his reputation. Rather support the platform he’s standing on and allow him the space to be human by extending Grace towards him the way Christ offers it to us.

And walk away from schadenfreude.

The Boxer…

Posted on April 17, 2016 by David Beddow

I’ve had the old Simon and Garfunkel tune “The Boxer” going round my head today. Some days it’s Billy Joel’s “Innocent Man”, but today “The Boxer” was firmly stuck.

I find much refuge in music, especially when things are going tough for me. The last couple of years have been very difficult personally with a lot of attack in my personal life, some of which I have already shared here, some of which I will get to when the time is right, and some of which is my own business.

I hit my birthday hard this year. For the last few years it’s been a rough day, but today felt particularly tough.

Enter the song.

OK, technically my birthday was yesterday (16th) but I’ve not been to sleep yet. I hit 44 this year. Not long in the grand scheme of things, but somehow it came with a nudge this year.

If I died in my sleep tonight, what do I leave behind me?

I don’t have children yet – I’ve always wanted to be a dad, it just hasn’t happened so far – so there’s no genetic legacy to pass on. Would it even be noticed if I went quietly into the night?

I had the vision for EWM almost 20 years ago, but it took until February 2011 before I moved on the idea and started this blog. Since then things have been difficult. I felt after an unapproved edit of one post I’d written was published by another site I was writing for that I had to stop and focus on this blog and developing EWM in Cape Town, then reaching out from there.

I always mis-heard the lyrics of “The Boxer” at one point.

“I have squandered my resistance

For a pocket full of mumbles, such are promises
All lies and jests
Still a man hears what he wants to hear
And disregards the rest“

I heard it as “I have squandered my existence“. Today that felt true. The question kept ringing in my mind through the day.

“Innocent Man” has the lyric “Some people stay far away from the door, when there’s a chance of it opening up”, which has also been a theme in my life. I have other, more optimistic songs that rattle round my head as well, but these two have been stuck for the last few days.

If the story of my life truly is the story of a long, brutal assault on my heart then it stands to reason that in that battle I will have days where I get battle-fatigue. It certainly feels that way at the moment. It is a monumental task just to get out of bed in the morning some days. I was manager of a medical practice for over ten years. Technically I still am now after 13, but I’ve felt very strongly I need to pull away from it. My focus drifts when I’m not challenged very easily, the doctors tell me it’s Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD) and medicated me accordingly. I changed dramatically on the medication, but felt like Jekyll and Hyde as the effects only last about 9-12 hours and I’m typically awake more than that. I very quickly came to detest the medicated version of myself. He had no compassion and was ruthless – just like a business manager should be – but I couldn’t switch it off when I was out of the office. So after a few months on this “wonder-drug” I stopped taking it and within a week was back to being myself.

The problem is part of me misses the medicated man. He was organised in a conventional way, driven and tough. He was a first class businessman.

He was a douche who wasn’t a pleasant person to be around and I was stuck sharing a body with him.

I suddenly hope my shrink doesn’t read this blog or I may be writing the next entry from the local nut house.

It’s a couple of years since I was medicated, but the memory of that “clarity” is very sharp.

I carry the reminder of every glove that laid me down or cut me til I cried out in my anger and my shame ‘I am leaving, I am leaving’ but the fighter still remains…

I am the boxer in the song. I think part of it is just life as a Christian. John Eldredge is right when he says Satan sees what we can be and fears it, so he wages war against our hearts (paraphrased from “Waking the Dead” – BRILLIANT book!)

After my dad died in 1999 I turned my back on everything outside my own house except church. I was depressed in a way you can’t understand if you’ve never experienced it.

I cut into my own arms with a blade to feel something other than the emotional pain, and it gave me relief for a while, but then I needed to cut again. For two years I didn’t wear short sleeves – and I’m someone who suffers in the heat. I took an overdose on four occasions in an attempt to end my own life.

It’s impossible to explain what drives a person to that point, but I know for certain what brought me back from it.

The last time I took an OD I think I actually died. Or at least, my experience was not one like anything else I’ve had. I descended, felt myself sinking into darkness. There was no tunnel, no light, just cold and dark. I was completely alone – and I mean utterly and totally alone in a way that defies description.

My first encounter with Jesus was as real as sitting with a friend. I sat with Him. He sat with me. He let me grieve my brother’s death and showed me how the prayers of my dad and his dad had held me over the previous few months, and how each time I’d begun to fall He had been there to pick me up – but I rejected Him out of anger. It broke me and I gave Him my life.

In 1999, 14 years after that meeting I encountered Jesus again. Just as real, just as physical, but in a very different way.

Through the darkness that enveloped me and in the cold of that isolation there was suddenly something else. A power beyond anything else ripped into the darkness and tore it away from me, and Jesus was there again. He hugged me and I felt His strength to fight enter me.

Then I woke up.

I’m not going to say there haven’t been times since then I’ve felt like giving up. In the last five years if it hadn’t been for the presence of my dearest friend I would not be here to write this blog. I stood on the roof of the building I was working in as emotions hit me from all sides and snapped me like kindling, and all I wanted to do was step off the roof – five floors onto concrete. Instead, that same strength that had pulled me out of the darkness took hold and I “came to” to find myself sitting with her and we prayed.

Today I felt the rage that drives me to that self-destructive place in me again. My friend no longer lives in the same city as me and it didn’t occur to me to use a phone (far too simple), so I sat with the pain. But the strength to pull through came again.

“the fighter still remains”.

I was fortunate when I cut myself. Somehow only one cut left a permanent scar on my arm about an inch long and so faded now that nobody sees it but me. My skin healed so it looks like it was never touched. I know others who went through self-harming who were left badly scarred on the outside. I can’t explain it, but I’m thankful for the way I was healed physically each time.

I used to watch heavyweight boxing when I was younger and the PC crowd were less vocal about the sport. More than once I saw a fighter come back and win having been put down. My “hero” in the sport was Frank Bruno, a British boxer who fought Mike Tyson for the Heavyweight title. He was taller and heavier than Tyson, and early in the fight he got in a punch that made the champion stagger and drop to his knee – the first time it had ever happened. I thought it was over, but Tyson got back up and about 2 rounds later the referee stopped the fight in Tyson’s favour. Bruno was the number one contender, but he lost because Tyson got back up and fought back and he couldn’t. Bruno is still in my opinion a better technical boxer than Tyson ever was, but he didn’t have the certainty the champion had going into the fight. Tyson was undefeated professionally whereas Bruno had lost a couple of fights. He lost, not because he was not as good, but because he wasn’t completely convinced when he climbed into the ring that night that he would be last man standing.

I treat every day the same. I try to enter it knowing that whatever Satan may throw at me I have Jesus in me and if I let Him fight I’ll be the last man standing at the end of the day.

More testimony than anything else today, but this entry comes from the same place one of my previous posts came from. I believe that there is a specific person who needed to hear that it’s ok to struggle. It’s not uncommon for any Christian to feel thrashed and like quitting.

But rather be the boxer.

Let the fighter remain.

Fight through the Cross and the Empty Tomb and be the last one standing when the dust settles.

The prize is worth the fight.

What’s the Problem?

Posted on April 15, 2016 by David Beddow

Over the last few weeks I’ve been doing something I normally avoid as much as possible.

I’ve been reading the news.

There’s a reason I avoid it normally. Frankly it’s because there’s enough stress and depression in any given issue to make the vulnerable suicidal.

One of the things I’ve been reading about is Donald Trump. He seems to be ubiquitous at the moment. There is simply no escaping articles written about him by his supporters, his critics, his campaign staff, his opponents from the Republican party, his opponents from the Democratic party and the satirical caricatures by most of the cartoonists based anywhere in the world.

I’m going to say something now that will probably make about 50% of people reading this want to stop. Please don’t.

Donald Trump is not the problem.

(There go the Democrats)

The problem is the system that allowed someone with such obvious character flaws to be in a position where he becomes a viable contender for the (arguably) most powerful job post in the world.

I’ve had a couple of online discussions – in the loosest possible sense of that word – about the process. They normally end up with me being told “You’re not American, what does it have to do with you anyway?”

There have been articles praising him for being a straight talker published one day and quotes of his utter gibberish the next.

But somehow he’s winning over much of the electorate in the USA.

He’s declared the Bible to be his favourite book but shown remarkably little knowledge of it when pushed on the subject. He states he has great respect for people of faith, then proposes banning 1.6 billion people from entry to the US because they are Muslim.

Obviously as a Christian writer I’m not going to say I think Islam is right. But I’m also not going to say anyone should ban an entire third of the population of the planet based on their religion from doing or going about lawful business. Let’s face it, the Grand Canyon and Niagara Falls are no more impressive because you’re a Western Christian than they would be if you are a middle-eastern Muslim. A canyon is still a canyon.

Imagine the outcry internationally if a potential leader of Egypt proposed monitoring the movements of Christians within their own borders and refusing to allow tourists in to see the pyramids because they were not Muslim.

The problem, like I said, is the system that created Donald Trump.

In Frankenstein, the monster becomes too strong and kills its creator. Dr Jekyll creates Edward Hyde and the persona destroys the good man.

Many works of fiction have similar themes. Even the Marvel movies of recent years show it.

It’s fine in fiction, but art imitates life. It always has. Look at the Sistine Chapel and consider the artistry there. Michaelangelo includes a self-portrait in one section of his own flesh being held on the day of Judgement. He was a product of his time, what we now call the Renaissance. A time when science and religion were not seen as being enemies the way they are today, and people realised science is itself an art.

But today we have a reality that changes too fast for society to keep up. What was unthinkable a generation ago is commonplace today. It’s only 112 years since the Wright brothers flew under power for the first time in December 1903. In that time there have been two World Wars, the rise and fall of Communism and the entry of the “digital” age.

Western society has changed as rapidly as technology. And like technological change, it’s not always been for the better.

Which brings us back to the title of this entry: What’s the Problem?

America was founded after the revolution rejected taxation without representation in the British Parliament which answered to the king. The wealthiest men and women for the most part were the ones who came in early enough to have vast swathes of land in the New World. Many of them became the leaders of the rebellion and the founders of what became the USA.

But I’m sure you know this.

In the 240(ish) years since the Declaration of Independence was recognised and the British surrendered the society that Washington first led and was fine tuned by Lincoln after the Civil War has changed dramatically.

The modern system reflects the values of the day. It’s truly frightening when hate-speech and back-stabbing are what make an individual a viable candidate for the office. And no, this time I’m not just referring to Trump. Individuals who claim to represent the views of the party they are members of descend to the level of street fights and personal attacks rather than policies that they believe would better serve their electorate.

And that’s the problem.

Over the last 40 years Western society has been led by the American way. The country that once was a moral compass for the world in many ways, trying to give freedom and security and prosperity to everyone became self-centred. It happened while Reagan was President and Thatcher was PM in England. Looking out for yourself first became the motto to live by. Greed is good was the understanding, and society began to decay.

Trump is the natural outcome of that thought process. So is Clinton.

The problem is actually very simple, and one we need to look at as Christians.

The problem is that today politicians are in it for themselves. They look to gain power for selfish ambition and greed rather than the greater good.

Jesus said to be the leader we needed to become servant to all. He demonstrated it by wrapping a towel round His waist and washing the feet of all 12 disciples – ever notice that Judas Iscariot was included? He went on to open His arms to embrace anyone who would come to Him, and (to paraphrase Max Lucado) to show He’d never close His arms He had them nailed open.

Leadership used to be a burden. Heavy is the head that wears the crown was accurate. Today we see increasingly “leaders” who are openly corrupt and care nothing about who they stand on to reach the top and what they do to stay there. The young idealist who led the resistance in Rhodesia has become the tyrant that bankrupted the country as Zimbabwe. The sacrifice and selflessness of Mandela has been overthrown by the corruption (allegedly) of Zuma in South Africa. The hopes of JFK in his speech asking citizens to ask what they can do for their country have been shattered in the years since 1963.

Persecution is on the rise in the West, and dismissed by the media because it takes a different form in America than it does in Iraq and Syria. It’s ignored by the church as well, and many organisations founded during the evangelical rise of the 60s and 70s have been caught up in the wave of “prosperity gospel” teachings that focus on personal gain not Salvation.

I used to watch the TV show “Angel” regularly. In it, the antagonists say that the final apocalypse has already begun, not some huge battle fought openly but rather evil quietly chipping away at humanity and destroying it by undermining it. Maybe not the most theologically sound show, but the point stands nonetheless.

Satan wants us to forget he exists. When we do, there appears to be no need for Salvation. The most liberal say we must forgive every time, but make no call for actual repentance. Instead we get half-hearted (if that) pseudo-apologies from the “leaders” caught in borderline criminal activities and let them carry on to go straight back to what they were doing. If there’s no devil then the argument must be made that everyone goes to heaven and there’s no concept of Hell. Religion has replaced Faith and no longer needs the Holy Spirit. Our leaders do not feel accountable to a higher power.

And we bought into it because it’s an easy way to live.

That’s the Problem.

God Isn’t Looking For "Able" People…

Posted on April 10, 2016 by David Beddow

Something I was asked recently got me thinking about a talk I heard quite a number of years ago now.

The question: “What makes you think God will use you and Eagle’s Wing Ministries? I mean, who are you? Noboy’s ever heard of you!”

This is a condensed summary of the conversation points that followed the enquiry…

Firstly, I need to acknowledge that the person asking the question was right. Outside the few good folks who have written to me or the majority of other good folks who visit this blog and never post a comment or contact me directly I guess nobody ever heard of me.

Frankly I think that’s not a bad thing.

There are advantages to personal anonymity. There’s a reason I have a logo for this site and the ministry isn’t my own name. Actually there’s a couple:

I don’t want my face to be what people remember
The vision I had for this ministry is bigger than just me

Basically I’m actually not important. I don’t mind if people forget my name or even if they met me as long as anything they got from any message on this site or at a service where I spoke or in an abstract random personal conversation that touched their heart with something from God stuck with them and blessed them.

I first had the vision for Eagle’s Wing Ministries to be a resource for the Church over 20 years ago. The thought scared the daylights out of me so I tried to ignore it, put it off and forget about it. But God has a habit of keeping nudging you to do what He’s called you to do.

What scares me is actually the thought of being “famous” for being a Christian. I’ve seen several leaders have their ministries torn apart because they made a single mistake. And I’m not referring to anything as crazy as the whole “Ashley Madison” epidemic last year. A single mis-filed receipt shut down one ministry I knew of with charges of tax evasion. Another leader lost his ministry when it was found out he’d had an affair – several years earlier and before he gave his life to Christ.

I have no desire for fame. It can become infamy too easily and lead to pride and jealousy. Any second now and start talking like Yoda I will…

That being said, I refuse to try to hide anything from my past. I’ve made mistakes, and since I became a Christian at the age of 13 most of them have been made since I became a Christian. Anything outside my own mind is open for scrutiny from others, and my thoughts are criticised harshly by myself, so as far as my past goes I’m covered.

I also expect I will make mistakes going forward. I’m not perfect and I don’t expect I will escape change as I get older an learn more. In fact, I’ll be alarmed if I don’t change over time. My best example thus far is my categorical statement in 1997 to a friend that I would “never set foot in Africa”. By 2003 I was living in Cape Town.

Things change.

The biggest thing that stopped me from doing anything related to this thing we call “ministry” was that first part of the question.

Why would God use me?

It’s a fair question. I had no theological training when I felt God call me, and I still have never been to seminary. My degree is in business and my work experience in customer service for the most part.

So why would God use me?

Then I thought of this guy I’d heard of a while back. He was a nobody, just an ordinary guy running his own business to put food on the table for his family. He worked with a couple of other guys and together they did ok. Loved their families, were good providers.

Then one day he had an encounter with God and everything changed for him. He went into ministry full time eventually and had a massive impact on the town he lived in, and then the area surrounding it. Eventually he had a ministry that impacted the world.

Just an ordinary guy. With a fishing boat on the Sea of Galilee.

Peter. Just an ordinary guy.

Just like any of the rest of us. Why would God use Peter? He wasn’t a great leader when Jesus met him. He wasn’t an orator or Rabbi. He had a knack for opening his mouth to change feet. He denied Christ.

But when the chips finally came down, there was just one quality that Peter had that every Christian leader in history has had.

He was available.

It’s as simple as that.

But being available isn’t easy. Like I said already, it’s over 20 years since I felt the pull to create Eagle’s Wing Ministries. I was very enthusiastic at first. I registered the domain name on this “new” thing called the internet – there was no “Facebook” back then and the most common search engine was “Altavista” as far as I know. I registered, developed what I felt was the plan to move forward and then started with the doubt.

I let the domain name lapse and the concept became a dusty file in the back of my desk. I met a girl and just as I began selling insurance for a living and we got engaged. We had a very intense few months and then I stopped selling insurance and went to work for an agency employed by Directory Enquiries in England. I lost that job at the end of the initial training period and by the end of the week the girl had broken off the engagement. My dad got cancer a few weeks later and died just a few months after that.

And I stopped being available for use by God. I moved church the week before my dad died and I just sat for some time. I needed to heal emotionally and Spiritually. Both of these are a work in progress!

But some time after I met the lady who became my wife I learned to be available again. This time without the “I can do this” mentality that I realise now was what stopped me before. The domain name had long since been taken by another group so I did a search for variations and came up dry. Then I looked for the original name again. http://www.eagleswingministries.org – and it had become available again! So I re-purchased the name and began this blog.

This time I determined I would not quit unless God specifically showed me I should.

In the first four months of blogging I think I had a total of about 30 hits. Then it crawled up and reached about 30 a week, then levelled out. For over a year I kept writing and a few people each month read what I offered. Then suddenly about mid 2015 something unexpected happened. I had 1500 hits in a month. I couldn’t believe it. There’s not been a month below 1900 hits since and most have been well over 2000.

I realised I had shown myself to be available.

I may not be the world’s greatest writer, I know this. My insights are drawn from the spiritual battlefield I’ve been fighting on for 30 years not from some dusty book in a sterile university environment, but by getting my hands dirty and doing what nobody else could do the way God had put in me to do it.

So I write. Sometimes I counsel informally.

But mostly I befriend broken and hurting human beings. I offer them what I have to give, a touch from God through words and actions.

Anyone can do it. You hear of a single mother who lost her job and needs to feed her child so you give her groceries and help her find another job. A complete stranger for no reason starts telling their life story of how they were abused as a child and have been raped as an adult more than once, so you become the ear she’s been looking for, someone to tell her (or him) that it wasn’t her fault.

But we’re human too.

I have a nasty temper. I get angry easily – especially if the wronged party is a friend or a child. There’s nothing wrong with that. It’s what we do with that anger that ultimately defines us. When I was younger I didn’t get in fights often because people refused to engage physically against me. My temper – which I’m told may be hereditary – is both sudden and violent rage. When I see it coming I can channel it into some very effective prayer. Mostly it catches me off guard and I blow up at people I love and care deeply for. I can count on one hand the number of people who have seen me a bit angry, but at this time in my life there’s nobody who’s present who has seen what I know I’m capable of.

And it scares me.

I spend much time running on fear and anger and not enough on Joy and Love as Jesus bought for us, but like I said before, I’m a work in progress.

We all are.

Pick a sin. We all have them. Lust, greed, idolatry. The list is long but it allows me to make sense of myself and my situation.

We are a people who fall short of being capable of receiving love. It’s unhealthy.

But God doesn’t look for the capable. He looks for the available.

I have a friend who I used to work with who is going through a very tough time right now. I feel responsible because I was put in a position where legally I had no choice but to fire her from the job she loved and – once she arrived – she was exceptionally good at. She’s a single mum who is searching for God. She even came to church with my wife and myself a few weeks ago and was touched by the Holy Spirit. Today she told me she wants to come again with us because the last time was so very meaningful for her. The punchline to this is that the service she joined us for I had wanted to crawl under my seat and disappear in because I didn’t think it was a “good” service for someone who was coming for the first time.

Just shows how wrong we can be about something.

Moses felt he couldn’t speak well. Peter denied Christ. Paul had concerns at the start because he’d overseen the stoning of Stephen. I’m prepared to guess that the nicknames “Sons of Thunder” wasn’t given to James and his brother John because they were calm and level headed.

I once read a business appraisal of the character traits of the 12 disciples as if they were being considered for a CEO post. The only one who fitted what the average business in the World looks for was Judas Iscariot. Yes, the article was satirical in nature, but it also as written by a CEO who had become a Christian. I have a degree in Business Management, not Theology, and my education and experience tells me that the writer was right in more cases than he would be wrong.

Various times over the years I’ve seen companies put Shakespeare into a modern setting, both in cinema by setting his words into modern dress (think Romeo+Juliet with Leonardo Di Caprio) and borrowing the storyline (West Side Story), as well as modern dress performances of Hamlet, MacBeth and Henry IV (part 1) at assorted theatres over the years. It works.

But I’ve never seen a production of the story of the life of Jesus that felt real when brought into the modern scene. I don’t doubt that Jesus would be rejected by the majority of established dogmas wrapped in the cloak of a denomination. He would be seen as subversive and divisive by the establishment, both secular and religious – and they’d be right.

But there is something about the story that needs Jesus to be in 1st Century Jerusalem. God could have picked any time after the last prophet to place Jesus into the world. He picked that time because the right people to form the foundation of the Church were there. It wasn’t an accident.

The people He chose were all available. Only Paul had a theological background, and he spent the first few years before he stepped out on his journeys sitting at the feet of an Elder of the Church being taught. He had to un-learn everything he thought he knew.

But he was available. He based his life on two questions: “Who are you?” and “What do you want me to do?”

Paul was an ordinary guy. So was Peter.

So are you and I.

Be available. Let God have the ability.

Eagle's Wing Ministries

Isaiah 40:31 – But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ringing in the Changes

Who’s Afraid?

1984

Shades of Grey

Grey in the Kingdom of Black and White

Mr Businessman

Schadenfreude…

The Boxer…

What’s the Problem?

God Isn’t Looking For "Able" People…

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