For those unfamiliar with the story of the Bible who may be seeking to remedy that unfamiliarity, I would recommend that they start reading in the New Testament. It is there that they will be introduced immediately to Jesus who is the central character of the whole Bible. For many novice readers of the Bible who then attempt to read the Old Testament of the Bible (its first 39 books), it initially seems like they are reading a completely unrelated story which seems to describe a completely different God. But with a little patience and persistence the reader will begin to suspect that this is not a different story but is in fact the prequel to the New Testament. Then a strange supernatural thing happens as they continue to become acquainted with the lives of the patriarchs, judges, kings and prophets, as these characters interact with enemies, giants, angels, strange heavenly beings, and GOD Himself. The reader begins to see in a similar way to what a photographer could not previously see clearly until his camera’s focus was adjusted to make the picture clear — the GOD who created, acted, spoke and judged, frequently referred to Himself as ‘us’, ‘we’, ‘our’, and at times seemed to have conversations with divine characters identified as ‘the LORD’ and ‘Me’ and ‘His Spirit’ (Isa. 48:16). And this all begins to sound very reminiscent of the GOD described in the New Testament as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. With a growing knowledge of the Bible and hunger to understand it, the follower of Christ discovers that literally for thousands of years prior to this day there have been many many others who have also walked the journey of discovery through the mysterious pages of the Bible and have each made a startling discovery about the human Jesus’ pre-existence throughout the pages of the Old Testament.

The One who spoke the world into existence entered materially into His World and “split time in half”. He came to rescue the world because a great betrayal occurred. One of His chief agents was filled with self-deception and conceited envy and manipulated a serpent to his bidding in destroying the very last and highest of the Lord’s “very good” creation. Disappointingly she fell for it – and her husband who supposed to protect her failed in his most basic of responsibilities. Their fall from innocence and into grace plunged that was momentarily and formerly under their vice-regency. The world had now gone rogue. When the Eternal Son of God submitted to His co-LORD, the Holy Spirit placed Him into a virgin’s womb by uniting his consciousness and sinless essence with the ovum of this young virgin. In doing so, Immanuel relinquished none of His sovereign power or prerogatives but chose to lay aside His glory and become fully human. And for those who came to recognise who He actually was, it ever caused them to fall down at His feet in adoration, or shrink back from Him in terror. The side-effect of those who who adored him was a new ability to sleep. If you have trouble sleeping because of worries, you too can discover how an acquaintance with the Lordship of Jesus the Christ can also help you to sleep better. 

Today, “Jesus Christ is Lord” sounds like a bumper sticker or part of an ancient church liturgy but when Christianity was founded if someone uttered these words it could literally mean death! ’o christos ’o kurios “Christ is Lord” was a risky thing to declare when the only safe thing to declare was ’o kaiser ’o kurios “Caesar is Lord”! Yet it was upon these words that the earliest confession of the Church was founded. For the early Christians, this was not a glib, throw-away line uttered during a church service or something stuck on the backside of your donkey (or chariot if you were wealthy).  

I really dislike the expression ‘moving forward’. So many people say, ‘moving forward’ from the meeting, the experience, the…. whatever! Has anyone stopped to think that time continues. We can’t go back. Even if we are reflecting, or for that matter mulling, we are in the continuum of time, and unless we have a mythical time machine, we just can’t go backwards in time. Our only option is to ‘move forward’.

I have long said that my primary role as a shepherd-pastor is to help people to die well. To do this, as I have often said, requires that we learn how to live life well. Of all the normally uncomfortable subjects that Christians find it difficult to talk about, death should not be one of them. But it is. This is because, of all the world religions, only Christianity has a positive view of death. After all, we have a divine Saviour who confronted and conquered death. As a result the original apostles mocked death.
“O death, where is your victory?
O death, where is your sting?”
¶ The sting of death is sin,
and the power of sin is the law.”
(First Corinthians 15:55-56)
These apostles refused to be intimidated by death which was ultimately evidenced by their martyrdoms. The apostle Paul could look forward to his death with the obvious lament that he would no longer be available to help those he had led to the Lord (Phil. 1:23-25). But he could face his impending death with the assurance that it would mean that he would immediately be in the presence of his Lord — and so should we! And like Paul, we too should be be able to talk about death in a very different way to those who do not know what we know.

A suburban home in Australia is shrinking in land size even though the average house size is headed in the opposite direction. What hasn’t changed is fencing around the block of land in order to separate it from a neighbour’s property. Broken fences, overgrown hedges and pets jumping fences are a known source of conflicts. We value our privacy. Those fences are boundaries. To go over them without permission will be trespassing. Renting, owning or owned outright – our home is our safe haven. When we chat with neighbours across the fence, there is a sense of security that comes with standing on our own patch of land. A little piece of Australia over which we have custody, albeit temporal.

Each of these uncomfortable topics in this brief series of articles are uncomfortable because there they carry a sense of embarrassment or even shame attached to them. But this particular topic also carries a good deal of pain associated with it – in addition to any feelings of embarrassment or shame. This pain may involve a sense of failure, betrayal, rejection, and humiliation. Divorce rarely effects just the two people involved in ending a marriage. Divorce can scar people like little else can. It can scar socially, financially, emotionally, relationally, and even a person’s physical health – and sometimes do so permanently.

All of us feel sad at some point – even people who are usually happy most of the time. Usually though for most people there will be some understandable reason for it. This might include the loss of a loved one, a certain disappointment, an accident, or sympathy for someone. This kind of sadness is temporary. But there is a kindness of sadness that lingers which leaves a person drained, teary, thinking dark thoughts, and feeling desperately lonely. This is usually when we consider someone is experiencing ‘depression’ and it is one of those things that Christians find difficult to admit to or even talk about.

There are some things that Christians can’t and don’t talk about – but probably should. So, I would like to pastorally share some thoughts about this taboo topic of doubt in what will be part 1 in this short series of pastor’s desk articles of four taboo topics that Christians can’t talk about.

Resilience was one of the predominant character traits of the early Christians. They called it being steadfast. For these early Christians being ‘resilient’ meant being able to keep going despite set backs, discouragements, betrayals, unforeseen circumstances, lack of energy, motivation, and resources. Like a weary hiker looking down a long road that leads to the mountain range they must walk over, being resilient in life means putting one foot in front of the other, and then doing it again, and again, and again, and so on. God knows that today, in what many are describing as “Post-Christendom” (and the resilient among us prefer to think of as Pre-Christendom) to be resilient is to live with a purpose, to stay focused, to live for others, and to strive toward a good, honourable, goal. With so many reasons to lose sight of the true purpose of life the tendency is to be tricked into believing that life right now is too hard. But the truth be told – people need to know how to be more resilient. Leaders especially need to be resilient right now. Churches assuredly need to be resilient at this time. With the recent interference into churches by government through the measures they said was “to keep people safe” — it has actually depleted people’s ability and willingness to be resilient! Here’s what leaders, people, and churches can do about it.

One of the most remarkable examples of great leadership given in the Bible is that of Nehemiah. Others may claim that the feats of King David were greater and these people may have a point. But I have word to say in favour of Nehemiah and offer several reasons for regarding him as the greater leader. Firstly, King David was a builder while Nehemiah was a re-builder. As any builder can tell you, building is far easier than rebuilding. King David was a military commander whose soldiers were compelled to obey his orders. But Nehemiah was a public servant, a royal wine-waiter, who had no power to compel anyone – yet dozens of people willingly assisted him to fulfil his leadership vision. King David executed his opponents. Nehemiah used his wits to avoid and even ignore his opponents and outsmart his critics. King David’s lust and arrogance nearly undid all the good he had done. Nehemiah’s refusal to be corrupted ensured that the divine plan of redemption remained on track and paved the way for the coming of the prophesied ‘Son of David’ who would atone for the sins of all mankind. And ultimately, Nehemiah achieved this with far, far, fewer resources than the enormous wealth that King David’s military spoils afforded him. Without an army, or thousands of servants, or the wealth of a king, Nehemiah instead employed one of the most powerful strategies that any leader can use: partnership.SOME WALLS NEED TO BE TORN DOWN AND SOME WALLS NEED TO BE REBUILTSOME WALLS NEED TO BE TORN DOWN AND SOME WALLS NEED TO BE REBUILT

There may be some who come from a banking or accounting background who will already be familiar with one aspect of how this mysterious word fiduciary is used. But when used of a local church, it has a much broader application than its application to banking or accounting. For those who have a slight grasp of Latin it will be obvious to them that this word’s first syllable, fid, comes from the Latin fidere which means ‘to trust’. Technically, it is a Latin word – fiduciarius, from fiducia ‘trust’ which has been anglicised (translated into English) as fiduciary. For a banker or an accountant it means that someone is trusting them with their finances. But for a church it means much, much more because it involves being trusted with things worth much more than finances.

Let us never underestimate the ferocity of the unseen battle that we are in. Our invisible wolfish enemies are relentless in their efforts to deceive God’s people. The truth is that we far outnumber them. This is why they particularly target those they can manipulate to perpetuate their deceit. We have seen that it was the devil himself who continually encircled the original twelve disciples of Christ seeking the most the influential among them to do its bidding.

We are engaged in a spiritual battle. Jesus Christ declared that within this battle for the souls of every human is an evil force that seeks to blind people from the truth, hinder people from hearing the truth, and seeks to distract people from considering the truth. He said, “When anyone hears the word of the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what has been sown in his heart. This is what was sown along the path” (Matt. 13:19). Jesus described the evil one as a murderer and liar (Jn 8:44) who comes to “steal, kill, and destroy” (Jn. 10:10). The evil one hates GOD’s image-bearers — but he especially hates young image-bearers (presumably because they have the most potential to cause him and his wicked schemes the greatest damage!).

We usually think of highly focused people as being overly task-driven and not very people-orientated. But this opinion of highly focused people cannot be pressed onto Jesus. He loved people – even the Pharisees, Scribes and Levitical Priests. F.W. Boreham was a highly focused person, yet he too (despite his intense shyness) was a people-orientated servant of Christ. This is the balance that I am also striving for. I would covet your prayers to be able to achieve this as well. The banned that I created before writing this piece has the f, o, s, in focus out of focus while the c, and the u, are in focus. This was an artistic reminder to me before writing this that the goal of every follower of Christ is to be both focused, but at the same time to see other — to see you. Perhaps together we can become the kind of church that is genuinely focused yet not at the expense of not seeing each other. While I strive to focus on my mission of serving Christ with the gifts He has given me, I am also striving to see people so that I may serve them as well! And this includes you.

When was the last time someone said to you, “I was wrong and I am sorry”? For some people these words have never passed their lips. Some of these people may never have made a mistake, done anything wrong, or ever needlessly ever hurt someone so they may never had an occasion where they needed to say those words. But, if you have ever had someone tell you something that they knew was untrue as if it was true, or claimed that something was a fact that you later discovered was actually not a fact — and so did they — have they ever come back to you and said, “I was wrong and I am sorry”? If this has never been your experience, it’s about to be — because I’m going to say it to you.

When the New Testament refers to “the cross of Christ” (1Cor. 1:17) it is also referring to His journey to the cross (known as His ‘passion’). This journey (Christ’s passion) began on earth with His incarnation in the womb of the virgin Mary. While the incarnation of the Word was the greatest miracle, His work on the cross was the greatest public miracle. It is also true that the death of Christ on the cross has now provided the means by which any repentant sinner can be forgiven of their sins and made right with God. But it is also true that the death of Christ on the cross means not just this, and, much more than this. This also involves understanding that not only does the New Testament use the expression the cross or the cross of Christ to include the events leading up to the cross, it also encompasses the events proceeding after the cross – including Christ’s resurrection, ascension and glorification.

Many people are attempting to create their own calm. Self-made calm is very difficult to create. The reasons for this are not only obvious but are also easily verified by everyone who has tried it. The peace and quiet sought from such a calm is too easily disrupted by the ordinary, everyday, pressures of life. Even those who seek the solace of calm by taking a vacation readily find that even there (on a beach, down a ski field, up a mountain, cruising around south Pacific islands) and then (summer, winter, autumn, spring) life’s uninvited surprises can be very disruptive. While mankind is generally unable to conjure the kind of calm that we each relish, there is a calm that comes from the knowledge that whatever may come our way there is One who knows us best and knows what’s best for each one despite our seemingly gravitational pull toward doubting it. Thus, while we long for a soul-enriching calm that dispels all of our anxieties, fears, uncertainties, and cravings for acceptance, there awaits each one of us a God-made calm that is offered freely because of the Eternal One who gave up His pleasure, comfort, riches, and divine acceptance, to make it possible when He was brutally spiked to a splintered Roman crucifix. What to many may just be a recollection of a moment which inspired much religious art was actually a Moment that defined a turning point in time itself. The time before this Moment is known as “BC” and the time after this Moment (when eternity intersected time itself) became known as “AD”. The result of this Moment was more profound than any one person has ever realised as evidenced by the tomes that are still be laboriously written elderly and learned theologians. But here is a glimpse of what they have come to realise happened as a result of this Moment and the infinite calm it now affords each of us. 

Everyone is searching for it and most people do not know what it is! Those who are searching for it do not know where to look and often look in all the wrong places. The ancient book of Ecclesiastes describes this search and how its main character looked for it vainly in religion, work, pleasure, sex, and even education. The quest for it is additionally hindered because most of those searching for it can not even describe what it looks like — yet, frustratingly, they have a sense that it is something very precious that they have now lost. This feeling is if they have a memory they can not recall. All that they are left with is this gnawing sense that it is now lost and they are now lost without it. What they are unaware of is that their thwarted search is a part of sinister scheme designed to keep them from ever recovering their lost memory and being reunited with it. Just like J.R.R. Tolkien’s Middle Earth character, Gollum, their ever-present enemy has ensured that are befriended by several Gollum-like friends who continually assure them that nothing is missing, and there is no it. 

But when they sleep at night they dream about it. In their dreams they find it and their sadness turns to happiness; their loneliness turns to the warm friendship and intimate love; their sense of guilt and shame turns to the joy of being forgiven and accepted; their nagging feeling of enslavement to ignorance turns to unparalleled freedom; their awareness of being unclean gives way to an overwhelming delight of being washed and clean. But then they awake and renew their quest to find it.

The surprising conclusion to the story of God’s plan of redemption and the climax of each of the four Gospels, is that “the Lamb has conquered” (Rev. 17:14) — not by military might, but being killed and then conquering death itself!

I’m heading into a new season. Last Sunday marked the beginning of a new season for our church. I always knew this season was coming. I had just thought that it was still a few years off. When we arrived in Legana in 1995 it was love at first sight. We had lived in a high-density part of Melbourne, just ten minutes out of the city centre, where we had been pioneering a church in a very needy part of the city. When the Lord called us to Tasmania we were initially unsure where we were going to be called. Then it became obvious that the Holy Spirit was calling us to Launceston — where we would be based in Legana (ten minutes north of the city of Launceston). Whenever anyone asked, “If you could live anywhere in the world, where would you really want to live?” My answer has always been the same: “Right here.” Yet, Kim and I always knew that the day would come when we would have to transition into a new season. As I was convalescing and physically battling with what appeared to be chronic fatigue, in my daily Bible reading I read the story of the turning-point in King David’s seasons. He had once been the young “giant-killing king of Israel” who was now the sixty-year-old weary king who was about to be killed by a giant named Ishi-benob. This became the moment when four very young men stepped-up and did what their previous generation thought was impossible: they each killed a giant!

Here’s the thing for me; there have been many times I have wished or prayed that God would write His will on the wall for me. I don’t mean to be demanding – I would happily make it a question so all He needs to give me is a simple “yes” or “no”. That would suffice! But funnily enough, God has never done this for me.

Our relationship with God is built and sustained by trust in Him. We come to faith by trusting and accepting what has been done on our behalf. We continue in faith by the same trust in what has been gifted to us. We will surely have moments of challenges and difficulties – be it physical, social, financial, relationship, work/business etc where doubts and uncertainties surround. May we find strength in the knowledge that God does care, even when we do not fully understand.

I believe in miracles! Last Sunday night, several people gathered to pray for me and anoint me with oil for healing, including the Bishop of Tasmania Dr. Richard Condie, and Anglican archdeacon Bob McKay. Years ago, when Pastor Phil Hills was preaching, he said something that I wrote down in my Bible and have often repeated it to Kim, “Before God grants a miracle, do everything in the natural to make it possible!” As soon as I had heard this it seemed to have the Spirit’s anointing of truth all over it. As I read through the Scriptures I now see this principle often associated with God’s miracles. A poor widow had to do the possible to receive the impossible. Isaac’s servants had to dig a well in order to ‘miraculously’ find water. Peter had to get out of the boat and put his feet on the water before he could walk to the Lord. The bewildered disciples brought to Jesus the only solution they had to feed 5,000 people. And we must pray for miracles while we roll up our sleeves and do what we can in the meantime.

Over summer I had the blessing of looking after my granddaughter Olive for a few hours.  I personally think she’s the best bubba in the world, but I suspect every other parent and grandparent may disagree.  They’re wrong, of course, but I won’t argue the point.  After a while she fell asleep in my arms.  Isn’t it one of the most precious things to hold a sleeping baby or child? To feel their warmth and closeness, to hold them securely, to see the way they relax into you. I always loved slipping into our children’s bedrooms when they were sleeping. Sometimes I couldn’t help myself and I just had to take a photo.  Too often I forgot about the automatic flash on my camera, and our poor children were woken from their slumber by a bright flash of light in their faces.  Oops.  I suspect they may still hold it against me.

It is too easy to think of a Spirit-filled, on-fire church as large a congregation with great music, great facilities, great programs, and great preaching. And, to be fair, it could be. But those things would be incidental not causal or resultant. Conversely, it would too easy to think of a small church in a small town with no worship band, no building of their own, no paid pastor, and no programs as “dead”. And, to be fair, it could be. But those indicators may just be incidental to its death, not the cause of it. A Spirit-filled, on-fire church can be either large or small, found in a large city or a small country town. It could have great music or no music at all. It could have a gifted dynamic preacher as its pastor, or it may have no pastor at all. But without exception, all Spirit-filled and on-fire for God church have three essential qualities.

Like many people, I love visiting and seeing new places. I love learning from new cultures and languages. To have these experiences though, one needs to travel. While there are different modalities of travelling, the easiest, fastest (yet) and by far the safest means is by air. But there is a problem, I don’t always enjoy flying.

Last Saturday wasn’t quite what you might expect for a summer’s day. It was around 11 degrees at 10:00 in the morning. It was grey and cold. It was raining, but not in a pleasant, warm, summery sort of way. I found myself wishing I had a jacket and not just the raincoat I had packed. It was a day of the week though, so perfect for fishing. While I couldn’t see into the water to spot fish clearly, I watched my line unroll as I cast into a likely flow, the fly landed pleasantly on the surface, and I thought “that cast deserves a fish to eat it.” A fish didn’t eat it though.

A number of years ago (back in the day!), I was offered the opportunity to do the Myers Briggs Personality test at my place of work. I was keen to do it! I always like understanding more about myself so I can grow. It was an interesting process, and I loved reading the final summary. One thing it suggested is that I’m generally easy going, but under extreme stress I tend to catastrophise.

Now I turn my attention to an oft neglected aspect of our spiritual well-being: resting. As a disclaimer, I am one of the least qualified to discuss this topic—but, embarrassing, any lessons I have learned about the value of rest have come negatively from not resting as I should have and then enduring the inevitable consequences.

A healthy lifestyle involves regular vigorous exercise (aerobic exercise) – such as long brisk walk, a competitive game of tennis, or a 30-minute jog – and, eating a healthy diet. In Part 1, I drew the parallel to how we maintain our physical health with how we can contribute to our spiritual health. In particular I pointed out that just as doing aerobic exercise delivered more oxygen into our blood stream, so too does developing our times of prayer add spiritual oxygen into our soul. In this instalment, I am going to draw parallels with maintaining a healthy diet of eating fresh fruit and vegetables, cutting down on sugared and processed foods, and how our spiritual diet. Too many Christians have poor diets. I hope to encourage you not to be one of them. 

Every physical fitness coach will tell you that daily exercise which causes you sweat and puff is the kind of exercise that is doing you long-term good. Vigorous physical exercise such as running will cause you to need more air in your lungs which will cause you to puff. Puffing, the act of heavy breathing to replenish your need oxygen helps your respiratory and cardio-vascular systems to become healthier. Interestingly, breathing is the word that the Bible uses to describe how God created the First man. As a result of the lack of spiritual exercise, too many people do not have spiritual reserves, and consequently lack spiritual strength, capacity, confidence, psychological contentment, or the emotional happiness that they would otherwise have had. Yet, this is so unnecessary considering that there are three very simple spiritual exercises that everyone whose spirit has been regenerated can do to remedy this malady.