My Life (5)

Following a busy, yet rewarding six months of 2011 and our recent trip to Mozambique, today we are on holiday in Fiji.  Lyn and I realized many years ago that the Christian life and being in full-time church work is a marathon not a sprint.  We want to “finish well” so we have discovered how to look after the myriad aspects of our lives.  A key to our wellbeing and longevity has been the importance of rest so we holiday for two weeks every six months.

We have also discovered that ministry trips, like our recent one to Mozambique, are more life changing if we take time to process, digest and pray through together what we experienced.  When we have come straight back into the day-to-day demands and complexities of our leadership roles, our hearts and minds are quickly immersed in and dominated by the immediate and urgent demands.  The important place of consolidating what we have seen and experienced is not possible.  Consequently, it’s full and lasting value for us and others is diminished.

We have learned the value of rest.  Now that we are ‘empty nesters’ the range of opportunities for rest has increased.  However, as a family we have many shared memories of coming together to rest.  We would bush walk, surf, picnic and play together.  We enjoyed one another, laughed and cried together and negotiated the disagreements that family (community) life brings through trying to understand one another and correct our attitudes (beliefs) more than behaviour.  One of our most cherished memories of resting together was going to Hamilton Island together as adults and friends.  There is no substitute for fun, joy and laughter to do good to a weary soul.

Until next time may you be blessed by God’s favour and life.

Mozambique

Lyn and I, along with six others from our congregation, have just spent two incredible weeks in Mozambique.  We were in Pemba with Iris Ministries, which is led by Rolland and Heidi Baker.

The base in Pemba is extraordinary…

A children’s centre where they are raising 160 orphans.

A school where they are educating 500 children form the local village.

A feeding programme where 1000 children are fed daily.

A bible training centre for Mozambican pastors where an additional 250 trainee pastors come for three months, twice a year – they are also housed and fed for this time.

A missions training school where a further 250 international students come for three months, twice a year – they too are housed and fed for this time.

And the list goes on…

The facilities to make all this happen have been built on one property over the last nine years.

There are the multiple weekly outreach events throughout the local district.  Two thousand churches have been planted in this district alone in the last nine years.  Then there are  the healings.  As a team we were involved in a range of outreach and healing events.  Some included camping out in the bush for two nights or more.  We witnessed the deaf hearing; we heard of the blind seeing plus so many other major and minor  healings.  We saw the Mozambican people express passionate love for the Lord and commitment to seeing heaven invade earth.

We learnt more than we taught.  We received more than we gave.  We have many stories about unbelievably bad roads, inadequate financial infrastructure, a staple diet of rice and beans, double booked speaking engagements, time and schedules being meaningless, plans always changing and more.  Yet these frustrations are nothing in the light of what we have returned with.

God you are amazing.

Until next time may you be blessed with God’s favour and life.

My Life (3)

Lyn and I are still in Mozambique this week. I am looking forward to next week’s post when we will get to brag on what we have seen God do during our stay.

On one of my previous trips to South Africa my son David accompanied me. One of the pastors and his wife were very kind and took us to Pilansberg National Park. We had a ball. At the age of 16 David was deeply and profoundly impacted. So much so that when he was married he spent his honeymoon in Africa and he and his wife returned a year later for a four-month stint though Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Botswana and Tanzania.

While driving around Pilansberg in a VW van we came across a very distressed elephant. Our hosts had not seen anything like this so we watched on in fascination as it rampaged around destroying some trees. We were even more intrigued when it bent down on the side of the road onto its front knees and pushed its tusks into the dirt. After about 30 seconds of this unusual behaviour it was suddenly charging for us at a rapid rate! Our host hit the accelerator as the gap between the elephant and the VW got smaller and smaller. The bull elephant was within five metres of the van before we started to pull away. Davey had been videoing the elephant’s activity but when it started to charge was quickly back through the window of the van as evidenced on the video footage and the expletive on the sound track!!

Following Hannah and Dave’s experiences Lyn was reluctant for our youngest daughter Erin, or the other two, to accompany me back to Africa…so we’ve come to Mozambique together. Hopefully Lyn will see her most favourite animal in the world – a giraffe. I’ve not heard of giraffes being threatening in any way so hopefully I will not have to write of another close call!

Until next time may you be blessed with God’s favour and life.

My Life (2)

Currently I am away in Mozambique. Lyn and I are staying at Pemba and serving Iris Ministries. We are here with six others from our congregation and our friends from Cambodia, Steve and Noit Hyde. I’ll post a report of God stories from our time here on July 22.

Africa is a marvellous continent full of wonderful people. I had the pleasure of travelling to South Africa for a number of years and was hosted by some great churches. My eldest daughter Hannah accompanied me on one of the trips.

One day, Hannah and I were taken to a farm that raised lions by hand feeding for zoos all over the world. We held three month old lion cubs. One so appreciated the smell of my cologne it licked my neck. It was then I learned that lion tongues are covered in “fish hook” like spikes to lick the flesh off their dead prey. Wow did it hurt!!

A little more distressing was watching Hannah disappear under a nine month old male lion cub that had jumped on top of her. Hannah had crouched down to take close up photos. The male cub had stalked her and as quick as a flash appeared from nowhere launching itself onto her. After the event we were assured that the cub was only playing. Hannah was unscathed physically and came up laughing, but her father was a tad more overwhelmed!!

Until next time may you be blessed with God’s favour and life.

Identity (3)

This is the third post in which I am exploring what we discover about who we are in Christ when we seek first…His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).  That is, what does our desire to discover and respond to His righteousness reveal to us and then impact on how we live our faith journey.

2 Corinthians 5 : 19 & 21 states:

¹⁹ namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

²¹ He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

Today I want us to explore the phrase: So that we might become the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus.

As followers of Jesus we are the righteousness of God in Him.  This means we can stand in the presence of God without guilt or inferiority because our standing with God has been restored.  Our standing is now as Sons of God, children of God who call God their daddy (Romans 8: 9 – 14).  We have received much more than a ‘Get out of jail free’ card.  We have been restored to a place of authority that is outstanding.  As we learn to realise who we are in Christ we can more effectively and completely live out of who we really are.

It is time for God’s people to move on from the theological question of the Reformation: What must I do to get into heaven?. The theological question of today is: What must I believe for heaven to invade earth through me?.  One of the answers to today’s theological question is to discover our true identity in Christ and live out of that.

Here are some aspects of your true identity:

1. You are holy, blameless and beyond reproach being complete in Christ. (Colossians 1: 21 – 22)
2. You are qualified by God (not yourself) to share in the inheritance of the saints. (Colossians 1: 12)
3. You have perfect fellowship with the Father because He is at peace with you. (Romans 5 : 1)
4. All claims of justice against you are satisfied so you are free from condemnation (Romans 8 : 1)
5. You are a partaker of the divine nature of God and therefore as righteous as God. (Romans 5: 16 – 17, 2 Peter 1: 2 – 4)
6. You are able to reign in life in and through Jesus. (Romans 5 : 17)
7. You are positioned to bear fruit for God. (Romans 7 : 4)
8. You are positioned so that there are no limits to your prayer life. (James 5:16)
9. You can approach the throne of grace without debilitating criticism, even if there is something to it. (1 John 3: 18 – 22 The Message)

Let’s go out and change the world for Jesus.

Until next time may you be blessed with God’s favour and life.