Logos and Rhema

I went through a pretty spiritually intense 2-3 weeks while preparing to preach at 2 different churches. I spent a lot of time reading my bible, praying, meditating and fasting. During this time I received a lot from God.

In the week or so since my last sermon I began to feel kind of flat. I almost made the decision to fast and do some intensive praying but then I remembered something a friend and mentor of mine once taught me.

There is the Rhema…specific will of God, which is what I was experiencing as I got ready to preach. It is intense and provides wonderful revelation. Then there is the Logos…every day will of God. The rhema is when God is talking specifically to you and providing you with revelation for specific tasks. The Logos is what we can deduce from God’s Word and our understanding about Him.

Many people become rhema junkies and constantly chase the intense Christian experience. What we really need to learn is to live in the Logos for the majority of our lives. Mother Teresa revealed in the letters she wrote to her friend in Rome that she hadn’t heard the ‘voice’ of God for decades. She did the majority of her ministry with the strength and guidance that comes from the Logos.

Another danger of trying to live for the rhema experience is that when you don’t get it you can often feel very down and disappointed. I often have the experience that I am almost depressed after an intense spiritual time. This is because normal life seems very dry after you have been hearing directly from God and experiencing life changing revelation through His word. But I am getting better at ‘coming back’ to reality. I now understand that the Rhema experience has its time and place but for the other occasions I have Faith and His word to get me through.

God Bless You

Another Follow Up to ‘It’s Amazing What God Will Give You If You Ask’

(I suggest you read ‘It’s Amazing What God Will Give You If You Ask’ and A Follow Up to ‘It’s Amazing What God Will Give You If You Ask’ before reading this post. They’re lower down. If you don’t I hope you get something anyway. GBU)

Not only is it not about how it feels but I also know from personal experience that God works even when we think things aren’t working. My wife’s grandfather belonged to a religion called ‘Jawi Wetan’ for most of his 70 odd years. It is similar to Buddhism in ways. He and the other people from his temple would spend the whole night meditating a few nights a week. When someone got sick or moved house or had a baby, they would meditate.

In his late 70’s he got sick and received Jesus. When he recovered he would come to church with my wife and I. Two years later, he died. I am very aware that my wife’s grandmother, who still belongs to that religion, who we convinced to come into the church instead of waiting in the car when I preached, could have been the major work God was doing on Sunday.

It happened once before, we held a retreat in 2007 and one of my wife’s cousins came to play keyboard even though he was a Muslim. He came again in 2008. After the 2008 retreat, my friend Jos and I got together to evaluate things and decided that the money we spent on the retreat could have been better spent on school fees. Long story short, then we found out that Krisma (my wife’s cousin) accepted Jesus a few days after the retreat. We are now praying and getting ready for the 2010 retreat.

Just remember it is not about you J I’ll leave you with what mother Teresa said when a reported asked her “You have had success serving so many people in India and yet there are still so many people around the world you haven’t reached, do you feel like you have failed?”

“I wasn’t called to be successful, I was called to be obedient”

A Follow Up to ‘It’s Amazing What God Will Give You If You Ask’

So I went and preached at the church. I spent the week praying and building my sermon around what God put on my heart. I went with my wife, kids, mother in law, my wife’s aunt and my wife’s grandmother. The worship was powerful and the head of the church introduced me and I did what I had been anointed to do.

But 10 minutes into my 60 minutes I realised I was already half way through what I had prepared. I started to stretch and improvise and made it through to the end. After the sermon I felt a bit disappointed. It wasn’t bad but it didn’t feel great. They thanked me for coming and we headed home. I asked my wife how it was and she said ‘good’, that didn’t help. The next day my wife said she asked her mum if it made sense and was told it did make sense. That definitely didn’t help….no rave reviews !! Did it make sense ? NOT Wasn’t it amazing ?

But the saving grace is that I KNOW that it is not ‘how it feels’ or what people say or if it was smooth or funny or successful. What counts is God gave me seeds, I scattered them and He will send the Holy Spirit and people like me to water them until they bear fruit for His kingdom !!

Amen and God Bless You

P.S . I got a call yesterday from another satellite church. They said ‘We got your number from the Gresik satellite, can you come and preach this Sunday…..morning and afternoon?’ So here I go into battle again. Your support in prayer would be much appreciated.                                                                                                   GBU again.

2 Possibilities – 1 Response

I always used the analogy that the world was like the Titanic. It was going down and our job was to grab as many people and stick them on the ‘life boat’ as possible. Then a new train of though was presented to me and I entertained the notion that perhaps Christians will eventually work their way to the top of every area of life, politics, business, education etc.

My conclusion is that it doesn’t matter !! It doesn’t matter if the result of human greed will cause the destruction of the planet and at D-day a certain number of people will be saved and the rest will not. It doesn’t matter if eventually the entire planet will be a ‘Christian utopia’ and Jesus will descend from Heaven and thank us all for preparing the earth for His arrival.

What matters is MY response is the same :

Luke 10: 27 He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself’

I can spend the rest of my life trying my best to do those two things. Then, if the world ends tomorrow, I am safe in the knowledge that I did all I could with the time I had available. If the earth takes my lifetime to evolve into a place where all people love God and surrender their life to Jesus, I am safe in the knowledge that I did all I could to bring that about and I have a place there.

GBU

God The Conductor

I received an sms last week from the person who runs Ada Hari Esok (There’s a Tomorrow) Orphanage. It said ‘We would appreciate it if you could attend the Christmas celebration of our orphanage next week, day/date/time’. My wife and I went last night as we took some of the kids from AHE on a retreat a few years back and have had a long standing relationship with them. We were keen to catch up with Pak Stefanus and Ibu Mona (The people who run AHE) and the kids who we hadn’t seen since the fellowships we held after the retreat.

When we got to the restaurant I saw a few familiar faces and was very happy to catch up with people. There were hundreds of people there and it turns out that it was a belated Christmas celebration for the orphanage and the church that the orphanage falls under as well as the official launching of a cd the kids from the orphanage and Ibu Mona had made with the goal of helping to financially support AHE.

There was a long sermon and we were sitting at a table with people we don’t know. Both my daughters were tired. Kellie knocked over a glass of red fanta and it spread all over the table. Chloe was a bit sick and tired and miserable and I had the thought of “This is not what I thought it would be like, why are we here ? Is there an exit door close by?”

I was pondering these thoughts when I came to the conclusion that nothing happens without a reason. I said a silent prayer of thanks to God and felt better. Pak Stefanus walked over and shook my hand and said he was glad I was there. We chatted and I asked him where a mutual friend of ours, Ronny was. He said he didn’t know. He pulled out his mobile phone to check my number and punched it in as I dictated it to him. When he finished I glanced at the screen and I saw Ronny’s name come up.

A few minutes later it sunk in that Ronny was the one who was supposed to be invite, not us. At first I felt embarrassed and then I had the thought that I wanted to get out of there ASAP. But then I remembered my prayer of a few moments before. I recalled the vivid realisation that ‘Nothing happens without a reason’.

Long story short, we caught up with the kids from the retreat and they were very, very enthusiastic to see us. They asked when the next retreat would be and were so insistent that we give an answer it convinced me to go for it and prepare another one. It may have been a miscommunication but I trust that God orchestrated everything and it taught me to lean on Him and not my own understanding and trust that ALL things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to his purposes.

Please pray for the ‘Shine For God’ retreat. To be had at a time to be determined.

God Bless You

Do you experience attacks ?

I remember talking to IBU Ester, the person who runs Rumah Sejati orphanage, when we were preparing the CHARGED retreat in 2007. I was telling her how my pregnant wife had mumps and the money for the retreat had been frozen in the bank account and all the people who had agreed to take positions of responsibility in the retreat had pulled out and how WE STILL HAD FAITH THAT THE LORD WOULD SEE US THROUGH.
When I told her all the problems we were having she said (quite calmly and matter- of –factly ) “ Oh yes, that’s why I stopped doing retreats, the effort is too much.” When I dismissively said “ Ahhhh, its ok, I don’t mind a bit of hard work” She replied “ Its the attacks that drain you!”
I experienced it then and I am experiencing it now. Every time you step up to do something for the Lord, the ‘world’ turns against you. Since I have agreed to reach on Sunday I have been praying and meditating and spending more time in the ‘spiritual’ realm. What I have found is that I have been having nightmares, my 2 daughters are sick and little things have been happening. You may put it down to coincidence, you may say it is just bad luck. I am not 100% sure but I definitely think that all of this is part of the battle. The more you step up, the more significant you are and so the more you draw fire. Or perhaps, the more you tune into the spiritual, the more you notice these things.

What do you think ? Any experiences ? Any testimonies ?

http://www.sermoncloud.com/

Just wanna let evry1 know about a great resource I found online. I was preparing my sermon for Sunday and decided to search for some extra material about online. I stumbled across http://www.sermoncloud.com/ and have found all sorts of cool stuff.

Please join my in prayer for online ministries !!! There is SOOO much negative, sinful stuff out there on the web BUT there is also so much Godly stuff. My prayer is that the Godly stuff will prosper as only God can make it and the sinful stuff will crumble and be destroyed !!

In the mighty name of Jesus Christ I say to that mountain of porn and hate and greed and evil MOVE ! !

Amen ?

Its amazing what God will give you IF YOU ASK !!

Just the other day I was thinking about my wife and how her heart is for ‘helping people’, mine is too but I also know I have a calling to preach God’s word. I looked back on 2009 and I know we had a very passive year in our walk with God. I has a semi conscious thought that I would like to use my spiritual gift for speaking the Word of God this year as I have already had a revelation that 2010 will be a year were my family and I bear a lot of fruit for God’s kingdom.

The very next day I got a call from a small satellite church that I once visited asking if I could come and preach in 2 weeks time. I have never preached at a church before. I have preached at orphanages and at the retreats  but never at a church. The following day I got the morning devotion schedule at work and saw that my name is there for next Friday.

2 Corinthians 9 – Sowing Generously

6Remember this: Whoever sows sparingly will also reap sparingly, and whoever sows generously will also reap generously. 7Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver.

When I pondered once if we should have a 2nd retreat I was faced with a dilemma. Do you wait for the ‘rhema’ of God to tell you what to do or do you go out and do the ‘logos’ knowing that He will bless every good work ? I came up with the analogy that God wont give you ammunition until you are going to battle. You can train and prepare but you have to step up to the firing line. Sometimes, as I have experiences so many times, you are literally at D-day before you get the things you need from God . But He always comes through.

8And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.

I don’t have much on my heart for my sermon or my devotion next week but I look forward to fasting and seeking God’s will. I am going through a spiritual battle. I have had thoughts of doubt about being able to preach anything of worth, concerns about preaching in Indonesian, and just general worries about not being ‘good’ enough. But when God filled me with the realisation that I am just a vessel and His spirit dwells in me and desires to work through me, I had an OVERWHELMING sens that God was with me and NOTHING could stand against me.

I am so glad I have stood up and asked God to give me MORE, to let me DO MORE and I am so excited about the fruit I can bear for Him.

12This service that you perform is not only supplying the needs of God’s people but is also overflowing in many expressions of thanks to God. 13Because of the service by which you have proved yourselves, men will praise God for the obedience that accompanies your confession of the gospel of Christ, and for your generosity in sharing with them and with everyone else. 14And in their prayers for you their hearts will go out to you, because of the surpassing grace God has given you. 15Thanks be to God for his indescribable gift!

AMEN !!

I am YOUR brother

Who are you ? Are you the lovely old grandmother of 4, who’s husband past away a few years ago, and who spends her days filled with peace and joy because of the knowledge that you will soon be reunited with your God ? Are you the single mum who facebooks while her eldest is at school and her youngest sleeps ? Are you the kid just home from school, playing on line games? Are you the businessman or professional playing on your comp while you chew down a sandwich at lunch?

Whoever you are….. I am YOUR brother . My name is CHRISTian. Our family is dysfunctional but we have a father who loves us unconditionally and provides for our every need while being infinitely wise and patient in all He does. I LOVE you. I LOVE our Father. I LOVE our family. Although we don’t always get along, even though we don’t always have the same interests or agenda, we are still ONE family, joined by spirit AND by( His)BLOOD !!

God Bless You

I Fell – Part Two

When my wife got home I was determined to confess to her straight away but I just couldn’t bring myself to do it. I carried a burden with me all day, knowing that I had sinned and that I needed to confess my sin or it would NEVER be resolved. My mind raced with thoughts that ‘I could confess to a friend a ‘or I could just pray ‘ and ‘why tell my wife, she will be so disappointed’. I went to sleep that night with the problem unresolved.
The next morning I woke up early, prayed and when my wife came out of the bedroom I confessed. She cried and was very disappointed but after 15 or 20 minutes she listened to what I had to say.
“I did it, it was wrong and I am telling you because I don’t want to hide anything from you. I need your forgiveness and we need to pray together”
My wife is an AMAZING woman!! It was her prayer and faith that brought me to my salvation. I once had a mental breakdown and during the process of my recovery I felt I had to confess all my sins to her. She listened stoically as I told her of past drug use, sexual sin and on and on and on. She forgave me and loves me BUT I will not waste her forgiveness.
If I didn’t confess my sins to her and receive her forgiveness I have no doubt I would have fallen into the same or worse sins again. Unconfessed sins are like poison that eat people from the inside out and before you know it the decay of sin has destroyed the husband, father, minister, friend, employee ,man, that God intended you to be.
It’s BLOODY HARD !! and there is no guarantee that you will receive the absolution that you want from the person you confess to BUT there is a guarantee that you will receive absolution from God through the blood of Jesus Christ. I also guarantee you that it will be much easier to beat those sinful habits when they have NO SPIRITUAL POWER over you and almost impossible to beat them if you keep those sinful secrets inside of you……that rubbish will surface one way or another !!
James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous man is powerful and effective.

Don’t be a slave to your sins, they control you no matter how muc h you think you are in control.

Repent !! Confess your sins, seek forgiveness and take your place in God’s Kingdom !!

God Bless You