The cross is identification, not just that we identify with Jesus, but He identifies with us in our humanity. God sent His Son and allowed Him to suffer, to be rejected and despised. The Bible describes Him as a man of sorrows, acquainted with grief. Jesus was not born in a palace, but in a filthy animal stable. He never owned a house or received a salary or pension. God sent Jesus to reconcile us, to bring us back to Him, and so that we can understand sometimes suffering leads us back to God.
For over 50 years I have been visiting the former concentration camps, all across Europe. I have seen the names and wept over them, just as I have wept over the concentration camps. I want the Holocaust Survivors to have their names written in another record - God's Book of Life.
Jesus is called 'Immanuel', meaning 'God with us'. When I was in a communist prison, the one thing that comforted me more than anything else when I was crying out to God and praying for Him to release me, was when I realised, God is my Father! I want to remind you that God is not just 'God' or a 'Holy God', He is a Father, He is your Father. When I was in my prison, crying out, "Oh God, help me!" - I was angry with God! I said, "Oh God, You are in Heaven, paradise, no shortage of food, no torture, no death! But I'm in a prison!" I am sure that so many Jews in their suffering, echoed those words. Then I was reminded, God saw my suffering. God saw their suffering. That's why He sent His Son into this world to suffer with us, to die, in order that He might deliver, rescue and give eternal life.
The greatest message I can give you is that you are not alone! Wherever you are, God is with you. The Son of God, Immanuel, is always with us!
Listen to this week's podcast: How Great God's Love
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Monday 21 September 2015
Tuesday 8 September 2015
The Region Beyond
We need a new power from God, the power of the Holy Spirit in us today, as on the Day of Pentecost, but the key which will release that power into our lives now is a new level of faith in Jesus Christ.
In Matthew 17, when Jesus' disciples failed to cast out the demon from the epileptic boy and then asked him why, He rebuked them for their unbelief: 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove,' AND AFTER IT DOES, 'nothing will be impossible to you!' (Matthew 17:20).
There is something hidden in this story. Yes, Jesus said in answer to their question, 'If you had faith... you could move mountains.' But the real secret is hidden. We get stuck at the thought that mortal man could move anything bigger than himself. We agonise over the reality of moving that mountain. We call our friends to stand with us in believing prayer because this mountain is proving harder than we thought to move. Then when it happens - that miracle, that financial provision - we become so excited that we drop the real key down the drain in our excitement!
The disciples had missed the opportunity of releasing the greatest power into their lives. Jesus was putting a key in their hands, and if they would only use this key, their lives would never be the same again! There is a region beyond.
We need to realise that God has a power and a glory far greater than anything we have ever seen. Are we, in our spiritual experience, ready to cross the barrier, to move to something so big we could hardly dream about it? How big is God's power? Who was the greatest man in the Bible - Moses, Elijah, Paul, Peter? With all the miracles they saw God perform, did any one of them ever see more than 5% of God's power? How big is our God? Twenty times bigger, a thousand times bigger than what they saw? When I begin to look at how big my God really is, suddenly I want this key - the one Jesus showed His disciples - to open a door into a totally new experience. It is as if all my life I have been looking only at a darkened mirror image of God.
Of all the gifts of God, faith is the greatest, it's the key to the 'normal' Christian life. This gift of faith is greater than you realise. Just read Mark 11:22, 'Yeshua answered and He said to them, "May the faith of God be in you."' (Aramaic Bible.) This gift of faith is God's faith working through you.
Be encouraged as you watch this short teaching extract: The authority to see miracles
In Matthew 17, when Jesus' disciples failed to cast out the demon from the epileptic boy and then asked him why, He rebuked them for their unbelief: 'If you have faith as a grain of mustard seed, you shall say to this mountain, remove hence to yonder place and it shall remove,' AND AFTER IT DOES, 'nothing will be impossible to you!' (Matthew 17:20).
There is something hidden in this story. Yes, Jesus said in answer to their question, 'If you had faith... you could move mountains.' But the real secret is hidden. We get stuck at the thought that mortal man could move anything bigger than himself. We agonise over the reality of moving that mountain. We call our friends to stand with us in believing prayer because this mountain is proving harder than we thought to move. Then when it happens - that miracle, that financial provision - we become so excited that we drop the real key down the drain in our excitement!
The disciples had missed the opportunity of releasing the greatest power into their lives. Jesus was putting a key in their hands, and if they would only use this key, their lives would never be the same again! There is a region beyond.
We need to realise that God has a power and a glory far greater than anything we have ever seen. Are we, in our spiritual experience, ready to cross the barrier, to move to something so big we could hardly dream about it? How big is God's power? Who was the greatest man in the Bible - Moses, Elijah, Paul, Peter? With all the miracles they saw God perform, did any one of them ever see more than 5% of God's power? How big is our God? Twenty times bigger, a thousand times bigger than what they saw? When I begin to look at how big my God really is, suddenly I want this key - the one Jesus showed His disciples - to open a door into a totally new experience. It is as if all my life I have been looking only at a darkened mirror image of God.
Of all the gifts of God, faith is the greatest, it's the key to the 'normal' Christian life. This gift of faith is greater than you realise. Just read Mark 11:22, 'Yeshua answered and He said to them, "May the faith of God be in you."' (Aramaic Bible.) This gift of faith is God's faith working through you.
Be encouraged as you watch this short teaching extract: The authority to see miracles
Thursday 3 September 2015
What is faith?
The Bible says that without faith it is impossible to please God. If you live by faith and go by faith, that pleases God. What is faith? Faith is one of the most misunderstood words today. We all know the phrase 'people of faith'. - It is used to describe Christians, Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists. We need to redefine faith. Faith is trusting God with everything. You trust Him with your life, your healing, with your salvation; you trust Him with your money, with your family; you trust Him when you get out of bed in the morning. You trust Him when you've no food in the house. You trust Him when you've no money to pay the rent. Faith trusts God in extreme circumstances.
When Moses sent out the twelve spies to view the land WHICH GOD HAD PROMISED TO GIVE, they all saw the same things, a land flowing with milk and honey. Green, green grass, corn better than Egypt, fruit so big it had been just a dream when they were captives, rivers and lakes of freshest sweet water, plenty of fish (Galilee is famous - I've eaten its fish, so I know), lovely valleys for the cattle, beautiful mountains (one snow-capped all year round) - literally springs in the valleys and streams in the desert. Far better than the Egypt they had left. It was everything that God had promised and more! Of course they saw the walled cities, soldiers guarding them and the fact that some of the inhabitants were giants. This was not Eden, not an empty land - they would have to fight for their inheritance!
The important fact was that all twelve saw precisely the same things, stood in the same places, had the same God. But when they returned to Moses, their reports differed in certain essentials. All twelve told the Israelites, yes this was THE Promised Land, no disagreement, but the majority (ten against two) said that it was impossible to enter. After they had all excitedly shared the joy that the fulfilment would bring and yes, it was all that God had said and more, the ten said that the difficulties were too great. There was no way that they could defeat the enemies and actually possess the promise! They were looking in human terms, seeing only their own limited resources and accepting failure as the norm. Only two said yes they agreed with everything the ten had said, but because God WAS with them, they could possess the promise now, He would not fail them. They reminded the whole of Israel of all that God had done in the past, how that He was still with them and that in His Name they would win, however hard the fight!
It was God's decision to abide by the majority decision that compelled the whole nation of Israel to wander in a barren wilderness for forty more years before they finally entered. What was the one thing that went wrong? Faith! They didn't trust God in the extremity of their circumstances.
When Moses sent out the twelve spies to view the land WHICH GOD HAD PROMISED TO GIVE, they all saw the same things, a land flowing with milk and honey. Green, green grass, corn better than Egypt, fruit so big it had been just a dream when they were captives, rivers and lakes of freshest sweet water, plenty of fish (Galilee is famous - I've eaten its fish, so I know), lovely valleys for the cattle, beautiful mountains (one snow-capped all year round) - literally springs in the valleys and streams in the desert. Far better than the Egypt they had left. It was everything that God had promised and more! Of course they saw the walled cities, soldiers guarding them and the fact that some of the inhabitants were giants. This was not Eden, not an empty land - they would have to fight for their inheritance!
The important fact was that all twelve saw precisely the same things, stood in the same places, had the same God. But when they returned to Moses, their reports differed in certain essentials. All twelve told the Israelites, yes this was THE Promised Land, no disagreement, but the majority (ten against two) said that it was impossible to enter. After they had all excitedly shared the joy that the fulfilment would bring and yes, it was all that God had said and more, the ten said that the difficulties were too great. There was no way that they could defeat the enemies and actually possess the promise! They were looking in human terms, seeing only their own limited resources and accepting failure as the norm. Only two said yes they agreed with everything the ten had said, but because God WAS with them, they could possess the promise now, He would not fail them. They reminded the whole of Israel of all that God had done in the past, how that He was still with them and that in His Name they would win, however hard the fight!
It was God's decision to abide by the majority decision that compelled the whole nation of Israel to wander in a barren wilderness for forty more years before they finally entered. What was the one thing that went wrong? Faith! They didn't trust God in the extremity of their circumstances.
Watch this short teaching on 'What is Faith'
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