Uttermost

This word has fallen into disuse as the new translations of the Bible use other words to translate the original Hebrew or Greek and I think that's a shame because it is a great word. I am so passionate about this word that I preached on it on Sunday, talked about it at Cell group and now I'm blogging on it too.

I love it that the depths of God’s passion are to the uttermost. I love it that God’s vision for his world and his people is to the "uttermost" I love it that God's reach is to the uttermost.

Jesus, fulfilling the will of the Father is determined to do his uttermost, to the uttermost extent with the uttermost ability and with the uttermost results.

Hebrews 7:25 “He is able to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for us."

This verse connected with two things especially this week. I have had a a burden to pray for a Moslem friend, who has been to Mecca for Ramadam. The Holy Spirit has reminded me to pray for him and his family every single day he has been away. This verse reminds us that God is able to save to the uttermost "those who come to God through Jesus." I am praying that that our friend will have a revelation of Jesus and God will protect him from harm whilst he is away.

The other thing was the interview in the Salvationist with the Chief of the Staff. In it she recalled her time in Zimbabwe, when often she had to stand between gunmen and the children in her care. There were many atrocities which she witnessed and tried to report but her leaders didn't believe her. They said, "No human being would do that to another."
But mankind can and frequently does go to the "uttermost" of depravation but even then, hallelujah he is "able to save"

But the up close and personal challenge for me and our congregation is "Are we "uttermost" Christians?
Does our reach go as far as God's?

Have we allowed God to do his work in us to the uttermost extent?

Believe him! the holy one is waiting
To perfect within you what grace has begun;
God wills for his people an uttermost salvation;
To sanctify you wholly the Spirit will come.

For some of us it is one thing that prevents us being "uttermost" Christians.

The one thing may be a stumbling block over something in the word of God. We find it hard to believe this “one thing”. But because we doubt that one thing we can’t make much sense of the rest of it.
The “one thing” may be a festering splinter. A resentment, a bitterness, an area where we haven’t forgiven someone or even ourselves.
The “one thing” may be an idol. The rich young ruler came to Jesus and asked what he needed to do to gain eternal life and Jesus and it was to let go of one thing.
These are all things that we need to hand over to Christ.

Paul on the other hand had one thing that he would loved to have got rid of. He called it his “thorn in the flesh” He prayed and prayed about it but it wouldn’t go away. He could have said, "I could be an uttermost Christian if only God would release me from this burden." However he didn't say that. He said instead, "His grace is sufficient” In other words the grace of Jesus was able to provide to the uttermost just what he needed to handle it.

Yours "to the uttermost"

Carol

Who do you think you are?

I have been watching the latest series "Who do you think you are?" on TV when we remember to record it. I love history and I find in fascinating. In the last series Jeremy Paxman, the TV journalist discovered that his Scottish relatives were rescued from absolute poverty by the Salvation Army. One of them became an officer and eventually emigrated to Canada.

Sometimes as a child I was annoyed by my surname, Mackinder. Everyone prounounced it wrongly and I always had to spell it for other people. I thought I was the only one in the world other than my Lincolnshire relatives who was lumbered with it.

On Saturday I decided to do a bit of research on the internet and discovered there are hundreds, if not thousands of Mackinders out there. I managed to trace my lot back to 1825, although I discovered there have been Mackinders in the county of Lincolnshire since at least the 16th Century. There is some Scottish connection way back of course. After that I gave up because it would cost money to find out more.

I didn't find any heroes, just shepherds, four generations of them. None of them moved more than a few miles from a little village called Scopwick until my Dad's generation. My own grandmother never ventured beyond Linclonshire until she was in her 70's, when she moved with my parents to Bath. Up until then she had never seen a hill!

My Mackinders didn't own their own sheep and they lived on low wages, in tied cottages and appear to be very boring. There is no family fortune, no great inventions that amazed the world, no great tomes of wisdom. Not much of an inheritance then?

Wrong!

Their lives centred around the local Methodist Church circuit and in each generation the gospel was passed on, until it reached me, through my Dad and my Uncle Charles who swapped shepherding sheep for shepherding people as a Wesleyan Reform minister.
That's an inheritance for eternity.

Who do I think I am? I know who I am.

I am God's child (John 1:12)
I am Christ's friend (John 15:15)
I have been bought with a price. I belong to God (1 Corinthians 6:19)
I am a saint (Eph 1:1)
I am complete in Christ (Col 2:10)
I am a citizen of heaven (Phillipians 3:20)

(from list compiled by NT Anderson. Freedom In Christ Minsitries)

Yours, well and truly "in Christ"

Carol

Castled in the Covenant

"He(God) does not parcel himself out, a few crumbs at a time to one, a crust to another - as one feeds the sparrows. He allows you to claim as yours whatever he has. He makes his covenant with every believer. Were some left to fight it out in the strength of their own abilities then the strong would be more likely to stand and the weak to fall in battle. But castled in the covenant, all are safe together because all rest in the power of his might."

(from The Christian in Complete Armour by William Gunnell)

I love that phrase, "castled in the covenant"

God bless

Carol

I always told you I was an angel!!!!!!

God bless

Carol

Am I bothered?

I had one of those days yesterday when I had to really wrestle with "stuff" Talking with a friend, we discussed whether these times are from Satan or from God. We concluded it was both.

Satan certainly was attacking and I am not surprised given the stuff we have been preaching, the way I had been part of exposing his tactics in someone's ministry and the presentation of the gospel to children at school and to prisoners in recent days.

And God? I was longing for revival that seems so slow in coming, I was frustrated by some ministry stuff, anxious about the future and agonising about how far from the kingdom some of my unsaved friends are.

Now I think there is something important here. We are often aware that it is wrong to be anxious but we slide into fatalism clothed in Christian language. It maybe that we don't worry because we don't care enough. I don't want the kind of peace that means I've lost my passion. The current catchphrase from Catherine Tate comes to mind, "Am I bothered?" Yes I am and so I should be.

Somehow I sensed God in all this. He wants me to keep facing the issues, not so that I can fret and worry but so that I am driven to my knees to keep my heart clean, to follow his tactics, to fan my faith into a flame and have hope renewed.

I'm not sure 4am is the best time to do that but it had the desired effect and my armour is bright again.


God bless

Carol

Climate Change

I've just discovered Francis Schaeffer. Well I've known about him for ages but never read any of his stuff despite the fact I've had three of his books on my shelves for years. I always thought he was a bit too intellectual for me. However I picked up a book called Death in the City the other day and it is challenging.

Schaeffer is writing in 1968, nearly 40 years ago about the spiritual climate in the Northern Europe of his day. He talks about the church needing reformation in terms of a return to the teachings of Scripture and revival in terms of a life brought into its proper relationship to the Holy Spirit. He states very forcibly that he believes Europe to be a post-Christian society, under judgement from God because we have trampled upon the truths of the Reformation. He goes on to say that like Jeremiah, it is from the perspective of judgement that we should preach.

Here are a few quotes:

"I believe that much of our evangelistic and personal work today is not clear simply because we are too anxious to get to the answer without having a man realise the cause of his sickness, which is true moral guilt (and not just psychological guilt feelings) in the presence of God. "

"With love we must face squarley the fact that our culture really is under the judgement of God. We must not heal the sickness lightly. We must emphasiaze the reality. We must proclaim the message with tears and give it with love."

"It is my experience that giving the realisitic message does not turn people off- if they feel real compassion in you."

"We are saying we want reformation and we want revival but still we are not preaching down into this generation, stating the negative things that are necessary. If there is to be a construction revolution in the orthodox, evangelical church, then like Jeremiah we must speak of judgement of individual men great and small of the church, the state and the culture for they have known the truth of God and have turned away from him and his propositional revelation. God exists, he is holy and we must know that there will be judgement. And like Jeremiah we must keep on so speaking regardless of the cost to ourselves."

Whether he was right 40 years ago is one debate. What is more urgent in my mind is this. Has the climate changed? Are Schaeffer's observations about what is wrong and what we should do right for today?

God bless

Carol

Kidding ourselves

If thousands came to Christ tomorrow in the UK there would be some who would say, “See I told you that we needed to be more culturally relevant!”

If men and women dropped on their knees in repentance across the UK tomorrow there would be those who would say, “See I told you that we were wise not to do away with the tried and tested methods of evangelism.”

If next Sunday every church was filled with seekers after God there would be those who would say, it came because of our adaptability and others that it came because of our consistency. Some would say it was because of charismatic leadership and others that it was because of mobilised members.

Well actually although I believe that we will see revival in this land I don’t believe it will be tomorrow. We are still too reliant on methods, schemes and bandwagons, to which we would accredit any significant turning of the tide and it’s just a personal opinion but I don’t think God will let it happen until we have stopped kidding ourselves about some things.

I have been reading Isaiah 48. God knows how prone we are to mistake the source of things. God is just about to turn the tide of the fortunes of Israel but God says he had to tell them what he was going to do in advance, otherwise they would stupidly think that things had changed because of their worship of idols.

V5 Therefore I told you these things long ago before they happened I announced them to you so that you could not say, “My idols did them; my wooden image and metal god ordained them.”

Not only that we kid ourselves that we are not really under the judgement of God because there we have not been struck with a thunderbolt! Rather we assume that if we maintain things a bit, see a little bit of church growth as reported in the Salvationist this week then we must be doing something right.

Francis Scheaffer writing in 1968 says, "There is only one perspective we can have of the post Christian world of our generation: an understanding that our culture and our country is under the wrath of God."

Isaiah says, “For my own sake I delay my wrath, for the sake of my praise I hold it back from you so as not to cut you off.” (v9)

God is not being mean, just practical. Later in verse 18 he says to Israel as I am convinced he says to us today, “If only you had paid attention to my commands your peace would have been like a river, your righteousness like the waves of the sea. Your descendents would have been like the sand your children like its numberless sands.”

But its not too late and God does not want to cut us off. We just need to change our plea. We dare not plead for justice but we can ask with confidence for his mercy.

God bless

Carol

Harvest Carols

Another interesting thing happened on Sunday whilst the band were playing in the street.
I was talking to a couple who stood by the band to listen and they said that they first heard the music whilst in the queue in Boots. The assistant, making conversation with them had said, "Can you believe it? It's October 1st and they're playing Christmas Carols already!"

The couple were able to gently correct her, "No, that's "We plough the fields and scatter!"

O well!

God bless

Carol

What a day!

It's been a great day and very interesting!
I opened the living room blinds to see a young bloke legging it up the road, pursued by an older guy, with his feet clad in his slippers! 5-10 minutes later we're in our kitchen, one policeman knocking on the window, another on our garage roof, four police cars at the front of the house and dogs. We discover that the young bloke is not one of "my lads" from the YOI but he's breached his tag and been breaking into cars up our street. They think he's hiding behind our garage. Anyway he wasn't and they didn't catch him. A right bit of excitement for a Sunday morning before we go to the Army!

We arrived at the Town Hall to prepare for our Harvest Festival in torrential rain and one of the drains erupting like a fountain. Fortunately it was all over quickly and we didn't have a flood.

It was great to have Shipley SA worship band with us to help us today and we began with playing in the High Street outside the Black Bull. There was a pretty good response. We then moved up to the local estate where we work in the school and were expecting to see loads of kids playing out but instead there was no-one about. Until we looked down the street to see once again, loads of police, ambulances and a crowd on onlookers. Apparently someone had been taken hostage in one of the houses!

Later we found that the chair lift, giving access to people with disability wouldn't work so sadly one of our congregation had to go home. What is going on today?

However despite all this we just had a fantastic day. We had a good crowd at the meeting, Shipley folks did so well, Jack our Junior Soldier was presented with his gold award (pictures later) and we were all very proud of him. And I believe God was glorified by the enthusasitic worship and people listened to the word with rapt attention. Praise the Lord for two seekers.

God bless

Carol