by Colin Wilson,

Highland Christian News

Dear Christian believer,

For a considerable time now you have been strangely unsettled in your spirit. This has perplexed you – as you have just been getting on with your Christian walk and participating in the general life of the church. But you have been disturbed in yourself. You have re-read the pages of the Bible relating to the dynamic works of the apostles and the early disciples; and then compared these with what you have been experiencing in your own life and fellowship setting. And you have perceived a huge “mis-match”; a yawning gap between where (spiritually-speaking) things are now, and where the early followers of Christ were in their day. (Note: I am not suggesting that Pentecost is to be repeated; but rather continued.. Eph 5:18.)

In different times and circumstances you may have felt that it was time to “move on to a new situation” in your journey with Christ, but in a strange way you have not felt any clear direction regarding which way to go. You have not felt called to “re-locate”; indeed you may have been feeling and continuing to feel that you need strive to indentify more closely with your immediate neighbours and that section of society (neighbourhood/ workplace, etc.) in your immediate orbit.

In a strange way, any striving that you have done to draw closer to Christ, and to be more committed to His calling and God’s word, has increased rather than reduced the dis-satisfaction and unrest that you have been feeling. And you have felt lonely even when surrounded by other Christians who do not seem to be disturbed in spirit in the way that you are. Most other Christians in fact seem to be just happily getting on with their lives. And this adds to your perplexity. “Is it just me? Why am I feeling this way? There must be something wrong with me; as most others seem to be getting along OK.”

You have been concerned that you might be getting cynical and critical over what you see as the increasing worldliness in the church. And you long for fellowship with others whom you feel might understand – in some measure at least – “where you are”. But as you cautiously yet honestly open up to others whom you sense may be walking the same path, you find that they too in their heart of hearts have been going through exactly the same inner spiritual processes and turmoil as yourself.

If you have been sensing or experiencing any of these things take heart dear child of God. I believe that what you have been going through is a God-given unsettledness, a Holy dissatisfaction with “what is”; and what He has been creating in you is to prepare you for the days to come.

I believe a great crisis lies ahead – for society, its peoples and the religious system which many would call “the church”; and God needs those who have been weaned away from dependancy on the structures, programmes and other facets of organised churchianity. He is looking for those who hunger and thirst after righteousness; and long to be filled with the life-giving Spirit of God.

The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob is searching for those who are – and will seek to be – Kingdom-builders (as opposed to empire- builders). He is desiring and preparing those who will seek to know nothing but Jesus Christ and Him crucified; those who will find no satisfaction in the trinkets of this world and who will spurn the carnal methods, the fixation with “success” and the worldly measurements of “spirituality” and “commitment” that have invaded the church.

But, if you have not done so already, please consider some questions. Are you a believer who is prepared to “abandon all” in the cause of Christ and His Great Commission to reach the lost?

Have you considered the cost, and are you prepared to pay that price in the context of the measure of grace that has been shown to you? Indeed, in your spirit, you realise that nothing short of total submission will slake your thirst for God and satisfy the desires of your heart. The way ahead could involve great sacrifice; and you may face rejection and much criticism – even from those around you and close to you in the “church”,  but it is this type of sacrifice in which the Lord delights (Matt 5:11&12). And indeed the cost of turning away from His calling upon your life will be even greater.

Take heart dear follower of “the Way”, you are not alone. Many others are being spoken to in exactly the same way as God is speaking to you. If it is not apparent to you yet, time will reveal those who will stand with you. Meanwhile equip yourself with (a knowledge of) His Word and abandon yourself to (the leading

1. of) His Spirit, that He might use you to the extent that He would, as the God of all ages works out His purposes in our fallen and needy world; both now and forever.

Your God and my God has clearly stated through His Son Jesus

Christ: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteous- ness, because they shall be filled. Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven.”

-Your brother, Colin Wilson.

– by Andrew Strom

“God is going to use this Reformation and Revival to smash down the dividing walls that separate the Christians. Jesus has never stopped desiring that there be only “one” undivided body. Today, however, just amongst the Pentecostal/Charismatic Christians alone there are so many divisions, “streams” and denominations that it is almost impossible to count them all. Each division has it’s own `label’, and in many ways they operate like competing corporations, selling the same “product” under different labels (with slight variations)…

God is going to smash down these `walls’ in this Revival. How? By bringing His people out from underneath all these “labels”! In one very significant vision several years ago, a NZ prophet saw God firing “flaming arrows” into the churches. These flaming arrows were `on-fire’ ministries, speaking the word of God. However, the Pastors were rushing around trying to damp down the flames! God then sent a “mighty wind” to fan the flames, and suddenly the doors of the churches burst open and all the people flooded out onto the streets to become one huge throng. I believe that this is an exact picture of what is about to take place, and in many ways it also illustrates the whole concept of “Reformation”…

Another local intercessor was also shown a vision relating to this several years ago, while deep in prayer. The first thing she saw was church buildings of every kind – stained glass, steeples, plain and modern, etc. This part of the vision was in black and white. The churches all looked abandoned – like a ghost town, with birds nesting in them and doors and windows askew, etc. And in each church, the intercessor saw a huge old curtain or `veil’ that was in absolute tatters.

The second part of the vision was all in colour. She saw hundreds of Christians outdoors (with guitars, etc) fellowshipping together in the open air. She knew that these Christians had abandoned their church buildings and `divisions’, and were now fellowshipping freely out-of-doors. When she asked God what the huge tattered curtain in each of the abandoned churches represented, she was told that when Jesus was crucified, the veil/curtain in the temple was rent, thus allowing the people free access to the `holy of holies’. However, the churches had raised up this veil once again. But now these structures had been abandoned, thus allowing the common people free access to God’s holy-of-holies once more. What an astounding vision!

There can be no doubt that God desires a loving, militant “street-level” Church today. After all, isn’t that what the early church was all about? I believe that it will become common for incredible signs, wonders and miracles to be performed on the streets as a result of this coming Revival. In fact, I believe that we are about to see a demonstration of God’s glory in the area of the miraculous that will be even more powerful than the book of Acts.

Enormous love, enormous boldness and `joy unspeakable’ will be just some of the characteristics of this Revival. And everything will be bathed in prayer. In fact this Revival is going to be BUILT on prayer. As Charles Finney said, “Revival comes from heaven when heroic souls enter the conflict determined to win or die… `The kingdom of heaven suffereth violence and the violent take it by force.'” There is no substitute for faith-filled, Spirit-fired “agonizing” prayer. Only those who are prepared and praying will be involved in this Revival from the beginning. As history shows, great blessing can only ever fall when the people of God learn to seek His face with all their heart.”

-Source-  ‘The Coming Great Reformation’, 1996.

by A.W. Tozer

A prophet is one who knows his times and what God is trying to say to the people of his times.

Today we need prophetic preachers; not preachers of prophecy merely, but preachers with a gift of prophecy. The word of wisdom is missing. We need the gift of discernment again in our pulpits.

It is not ability to predict that we need, but the anointed eye, the power of spiritual penetration and interpretation, the ability to appraise the religious scene as viewed from God’s position, and to tell us what is actually going on.

Where is the man who can see through the ticker tape and confetti to discover which way the parade is headed, why it started in the first place and, particularly, who is riding up front in the seat of honor?

What is needed desperately today is prophetic insight. Scholars can interpret the past; it takes prophets to interpret the present.

Learning will enable a man to pass judgment on our yesterdays, but it requires a gift of clear seeing to pass sentence on our own day. One hundred years from now historians will know what was taking place religiously in this year of our Lord; but that will be too late for us. We should know right now.

If Christianity is to receive a rejuvenation it must be by other means than any now being used. If the church in the second half of this century is to recover from the injuries she suffered in the first half, there must appear a new type of preacher. The proper, ruler-of-the- synagogue type will never do. Neither will the priestly type of man who carries out his duties, takes his pay and asks no questions, nor the smooth-talking pastoral type who knows how to make the Christian religion acceptable to everyone. All these have been tried and found wanting.

Another kind of religious leader must arise among us. He must be of the old prophet type, a man who has seen visions of God and has heard a voice from the Throne. When he comes (and I pray God there will be not one but many) he will stand in flat contradiction to everything our smirking, smooth civilization holds dear. He will contradict, denounce and protest in the name of God and will earn the hatred and opposition of a large segment of Christendom. Such a man is likely to be lean, rugged, blunt-spoken and a little bit angry with the world. He will love Christ and the souls of men to the point of willingness to die for the glory of the one and the salvation of the other. But he will fear nothing that breathes with mortal breath.

We need to have the gifts of the Spirit restored again to the church, and it is my belief that the one gift we need most now is the gift of prophecy.

-A.W. Tozer – from ‘Of God and Men’.

by A.W. Tozer

Some persons, for instance, find church intolerable because there is no objective toward which pastor and people are moving, aside possibly from the limited one of trying to enlist eight more women and 10 more men to chaperon the annual youth cookout or reaching the building fund quota for the month. And believe me, that can get mighty wearisome after a while, so wearisome indeed that alert, forward-looking persons often forsake the churches in droves and leave the spiritless, the dull and those afflicted with permanent insouciance to carry on, if a phrase so active dare be used to describe what they do. To Paul there was nothing dull or tiresome in the religion of Christ.

God had a plan which was being carried forward to completion, and Paul and all the faithful in Christ Jesus were part of that plan.

It included predestination, redemption, adoption and the obtaining of an eternal inheritance in the heavenly places. Gods purpose has now been openly revealed (Ephesians 3:10,11). It was the knowledge that they were part of an eternal plan that imparted unquenchable enthusiasm to the early Christians. They burned with holy zeal for Christ and felt that they were part of an army which the Lord was leading to ultimate conquest over all the powers of darkness. That was enough to fill them with perpetual enthusiasm.

-Source-

Sermonindex.net

After a few week long struggle with self and wrestling with God, He (God) told me that September 8^th would be my turning point. We were in Orlando Florida the following week attending Night of Joy at the Magic Kingdom in Disney World. September 8^th would fall on the Monday after that event, the day I was to fly back home later that evening.

I decided to visit the place where I had my “White Light Experience” over 36 years ago, a hotel not far Disney. I was naively hoping that maybe God would once again visit me in this place, even though I knew that God never does things the same way twice. I was aware that I tend to depend too much on the miraculous, an immature approach to life, expecting God to rescue me at every sign of discomfort or fear that I faced, a habit that I was at least partially aware had cost me significant growth and maturity. My childlike fear played out in many other ways of course; looking to false comforts, living a very narrow experience of life, squeaking by with the very least amount of effort that is needed to get by in life, lacking courage, looking for approval and playing the good guy for everyone, constantly trying to get it right, (for fear that if I didn’t, life would fall apart), trying to defend and preserve self in order to create the safest possible world that I could, and various other forms of childlike self-soothing.

So there I was sitting by the poolside, crying out to God one more time, desperate for an answer. I became aware that the setting of this poolside looked a little different than I remembered, (the hotel had several pools) and so I went in search for the one where I originally cried out to God and for the room where He answered me miraculously 10 minutes later. Looking at a hotel map it became clear that half of the property had been sold, and that both of the locations I was searching for were now parking lots. This picture shows what it looked like then and now. The two pins mark the spot where the pool and room were located.

As I got back into my car, I chuckled to myself as I felt God reminding me that it’s not about the experience or the location, (even things from God can became false securities), but that it’s about Him, here and now. This was something that I believed and had experienced before, but that fear narrowing mindset and all of the defenses that I had built up over the years had created what felt like a box over my head that only allowed me to see and experience the things in that very limited mental space. I knew there was a bigger world out there. Sometimes that box would become translucent and I would see this glorious world of possibility beyond, but fear kept me from reaching it.

A week later I was visiting my best friend Ken. He was diagnosed with brain cancer earlier this year, the worst kind you can get. The treatment seemed to arrest the growth of the tumor but the doctors had just found another one of significant size. He told me that they were going to put an actual box on his head in order to shoot the tumors in his brain with a gamma gun. He said he was no longer worried or concerned whether or not he would live or die. He had truly laid it at God’s feet and trusted Him regardless of the outcome. He said that as he was praying one day, he saw a vision of Christ sitting outside under a tree, legs stretched out, as though He were having a picnic. Christ told him that he had to lay his burden down at His feet and let it go. He said, “You are going to be tempted to pick it up again, but you must not”. Ken agreed, and with that Jesus threw a picnic blanket over all his cares and covered them completely, (covered by the blood as it were). Since that time he has had peace about his disease (although he has his days from time to time). As my friend was telling me these things, tears were streaming down my cheeks and I said to him, “Ken, God has been asking me also to lay down all my fear and striving to get it right, and if you can lay down your fear of the outcome of cancer, I can certainly lay down my silly childlike fears”.

My problem, put simply, is that I never fully grew up. My child ego has kept important parts of my soul and psyche buried for a long time.  This excerpt from the following blog article, posted in Understanding the Mind on December 13, 2011 by Sen, explains it very well:

“Carrying a strong child identity, as an adult, is a major cause of negativity. The child identity is basically the “ego” structure that you had when you were a child. A lot of adults carry this “child ego”, or child identity, in them way into their adult lives because they fail to let go of it as they grow up in the physical sense. The presence of a strong child identity, in an adult, leads to a highly dysfunctional adult experience. The adult life has responsibilities that the child-identity is scared of and hence it stands in resistance to allowing a smooth unfolding of your adult experience. Also, this child-identity disallows the presence of an “adult maturity” that’s required as a pre-requisite for the manifestation of several of your desired realities as an adult.

The hall-mark of the presence of a strong child-identity in you is the presence of “childish” fears in the mind. By “childish” fears, I mean the type of fears which are normal to have in a child but are understandably incongruent to be seen in an adult. Such an adult is also prone to child-like guilt (leading to several hang ups in adult life) and is easily influenced by outside authority. An adult who has a strong child identity is constantly scared of moving in the adult world, with all kinds of day to day fears. It’s also common for such adults to constantly seek approval, and emotional support, from the outside without the maturity to be his/her own person”

“If there is a presence of a strong child-identity in you as an adult, the resistance that it creates to your life movement manifests as a lot emotional suffering created by fear. This fear/suffering is usually the catalyst, or wake up call, for you to become aware of the dysfunction of holding on to this child-identity. Fear is the fire that burns through the child-identity when allowed in fully. As long as you keep running away from fears, you stay stuck in the child-identity, but the moment you allow the fears in completely it burns through the structure of the child-ego. Remember that a child always pushes away from fear, while an adult has the capacity to develop a maturity/awareness to face the fears in, to not run away from fears. Fear is a huge catalyst for inner transformation if you allow it in fully rather than try to run away from it.

Most people who have strong child-identities in them resort to escapist methods as soon as they are faced with fears that come up during their journey into adulthood – they try to deny/escape the fears (usually by drowning themselves in some distractions like entertainment, drugs, alcohol, spiritual escapism etc, in worst cases some even resort to suicide). The child-ego thrives on escapist methods. This “escape mode” of living causes you to live in fear all the time and this fear causes the attraction of some fear-based realities as an external reflection. When you finally decide to stop escaping fears and allow yourself to bring an open awareness to the fears in your being, letting your being be penetrated by the all the fears that arise, it starts dissolving the child-identity in you and what emerges is the mature you (the adult version of you that was always present below the child-identity).

Spiritual literatures have a name for this movement in your life force, where it brings you in touch with realities that create fear in you so that it can burn off the child-identity you are holding onto – it’s called “fierce grace” of life, where it puts you through some fears for your inner growth (Scientifically, you attract these fear-based realities through the presence of the strong vibration of fear that’s present in the child-ego). You reach a point where you can no longer run away from your fears, and hence you just surrender to them, and in this moment the child-identity is dissolved completely. The dissolution of child-identity allows you to live your adult life in a positive manner, allowing you to take up the responsibilities that are required of you in this realm, this maturity also rids you of inner resistance allowing the manifestation of personal realities that you desire as an adult.”

So what is the key to letting go of our fear and immature coping with life and coming out into the open, into that spacious, free life beyond the box, living in greater fullness? Not letting go of fear but embracing it! We create a space in our soul for uncertainty and in that space of the unknown, we are faced with our fear, but instead of running from it, we let it in. What we are actually letting go of are all the mechanisms we use to cope with fear, and having no other recourse, we stare the scariness in the face. Embracing uncertainty dictates that we let go of the need to figure it all out, to control our environment, and to seek old comforts.  Almost instantly, our child ego starts to melt away and our adult ego that has been present all along begins to emerge. A sense of adventure and opportunities begins to emerge. This space of uncertainty is also a space for faith to flourish. We are not letting go with the immature expectation that God will give us a different comfort, but rather a faith that he has got us no matter what, and in that knowledge is great assurance. God can do so much in our lives, but he can only work in the space we provide for Him. In the same way He doesn’t come into our lives unless we invite Him, He also doesn’t push us around internally trying to free up space without our permission. When we do allow Him into that uncertainty, the possibilities of what He can do in and though your life is endless. The faith to face the fear becomes the fire that burns away the false infrastructure and makes way for the fullness of life.

I was watching a movie over the weekend that depicted an apocalyptic scenario in which people were getting wafted up to Heaven in a beam of blue light, and in order to get to Heaven they had to do some kind of genuine, unselfish act. As much as I applaud the idea doing acts of unselfish love, it reminds how much we have the idea of salvation and going to heaven all wrong.

Despite what you might think, being good does not get you into heaven. If that were the case, why did Jesus have to die? If we could get into Heaven on our own merits, we would have no need for a Savior.

It’s funny how unbelievers will say that religion is nothing more than a man-made device to control the populous and get people to behave a certain way, when the whole idea of following Christ has nothing to do with trying to be good, but rather trusting God’s work in you. Only He can make you right, based on what He did on the cross. He made all things right, and as we surrender to the work He has, is, and will do in us, we are transformed more into His likeness.

Don’t you think the world is broken and schizophrenic enough, with most of us either striving to get it right or acting out on our fears because of some abuse or hurt from the past? That is why they call it Good News, because God just wants to love and embrace us all and heal our broken heartedness and pain and forgive us if we will just let Him. Invite Him in today and let Him do a work in you. It sure beats all the depression and heart ache of a life of self-right-ness (self-righteousness), or trying to get it right on our own. He can and will make you into the person you were meant to be, what you were born to be.

When we hear the word religion, for most of us, there is a negative connotation connected to this word. I know for me, for years now, I have pushed away from any connection to the word religion, associating it with systems, structure, rules, a man made box to put God in that has little to do with the love of God and the freedom he brings. In fact, religion denotes anything but freedom but rather bondage to all the precepts and the guilt and shame that comes with it.

The actual Latin root of the word is “ligio,” meaning to tie or bind together. An example is a woman having her tubes tied, or a tubal ligation. To “re-ligio” means that something that was once tied became untied, and it is now re-tied or bound together again. So in this case, the actual meaning of the word is to be tied back to God, or intimately re-connected to Him.

Religion that the Bible calls true religion is found in James 1:26-27; “Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.”

So the last two definitions of religion go together. When we are tied to or connected with the heart of God, his love compels us to take care of the least, last and lost. To meet the needs of the homeless, the brokenhearted, those who desperately need to know the awesome love of God. Looking at it this way, I guess I don’t mind being called religious after all.

Dare we to dream that God will bring revival to our area and world again? Faith is a dream that is poised toward God. Imagine great transformation of the heart, from a heart of selfishness into God’s heart. Imagine an outpouring of grace and love that fills the region and spills out to the world.

The fact that I even dream it, I believe, makes it a reality. By faith I believe it. I believe that it is something that God has already said will be. Maybe there are some of you who don’t dream such things, who don’t long for such things. Maybe you have never tasted how good it is, and so you don’t really know what I am talking about or what it looks like. But there are those of you who do, who at some level, like Neo in the Matrix, when Morpheus said to him, “Have you ever had a dream, Neo, that you were so sure was real? What if you were unable to wake from that dream? How would you know the difference between the dream world and the real world?” and again, “Let me tell you why you’re here. You’re here because you know something. What you know you can’t explain, but you feel it. You’ve felt it your entire life, that there’s something wrong with the world. You don’t know what it is, but it’s there, like a splinter in your mind, driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I’m talking about?” you too feel that there is something more than what this life presents with all of its best offerings and you want to go beyond the menial things that don’t really satisfy you in the long run and discover a life of real purpose, meaning and satisfaction. It is there; I have seen it and tasted it.

The Matrix may be the stuff of fantasy, but the reality of God and His power are even greater. It’s time to seek God’s face, to set the self on the shelf and experience God’s healing and love, “if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land. -2 Chronicles 7:14

With so much unrest in the world, now is the time for Christ’s original mission to come to fruition. It’s time to move out of the comfortable pew and into the world, the Holy Spirit beckoning us forward and giving us the power and authority to say and do all that He wills us to do. There is nothing impossible for us to accomplish through Christ who works in us.

A group of Pastors walked into an Armenian Restaurant that they frequented and one of them decided to have a little fun. On paying for his food at the counter, he said to the Armenian man at the register, with whom he was acquainted, “Hold on to my debit card because I want to pay for the next two people who come in”. The Armenian man said, “Whaaatttt, what for!?” “There is only one condition” the Pastor said. “When they ask why, you have to say, ‘because Jesus loves you’”. “Noooo! I’m no gonna do that”, said the clerk. “Ya, I didn’t think you had the guts anyway”, said the Pastor. “Whaaaat!”, said the man. “Ya, I didn’t think you were man enough”, repeated the Pastor. “Ok, I do it!” said the clerk, accepting the challenge.

As the Pastors sat down to eat, they watch an older lady walk in and place her order. When she went to pay, the man said quickly in his thick Armenian accent, “It’s free!” “Really, why!?” said the surprised lady. “Welllll… it’s because Jesus loves you!” he answered sheepishly with his head down.  The group of Pastors all laughed as their Armenian friend shared the love of Christ for them, while taking the opportunity to pay it forward at the same time.