Your victories are my victories

At some point, most of us will feel jealous of someone, spiritually. It is easier, more subtle, and perhaps doesn't seem so bad to be jealous of someone's faith, their gifts, victories or even love for God. Or perhaps you just want to be more like someone.

Now, just to clarify - it is very good to have role models. It is good to learn from each other, to desire to grow more, and to be challenged by others too. But what I'm talking about here is different. And it is dangerous.

This is something I'm dealing with and have struggled with in the past too. I found that jealousy can show up in frustration, but underneath jealousy is a feeling of being short-changed. This often seems to be the root of the problem, and spiritually we feel like God is short changing us. I found that to be the case of a friend of mine. After a lot of spiritual growth in him I felt that I'd been short-changed.

The truth is that God has made us all unique and characterised us differently. We therefore have unique relationships with Him. Also we are all on different journeys and in different seasons of life. Sometimes we are growing we just don't even realise. And sometimes we have an impact without knowing.

But even after all this, it wasn't enough. So God led me to this awesome passage - 1 Thessalonians 2:19-20. Here, Paul is writing to the Thessalonians and he's basically saying how awesome they are! "After all, what gives us hope and joy, and what will be our proud reward and crown as we stand before our Lord Jesus when He returns? It is you! Yes, you are our pride and joy" (NLT).

In this letter, Paul goes on and on about how much their faith as encouraged other churches and how much he thanks God for them. Through this, God showed me that in His family, we share victories. Jealousy falls. Your faith is my joy. Your victories are my victories.

Conflict in church (five-fold bashing)

"I think the worship should be more like this!" "All we do is Bible study!" "We don't do enough Bible study!" "Why aren't we reaching the lost?" "No-one cares for the poor!" "All we're doing is following some human agenda!"

Conflict in church. We see it all the time. Anyone with sense would say the obvious: that getting a whole load of people together with different personalities, tastes and cultures will inevitably lead to disagreements. However, we can say more than this.

Beyond the superficial disagreements ("I've had enough of tea and quiche!"), I believe much disagreement comes from the perspectives that come from the five-fold gifts of leadership. To find out about these, read the pentagon blog. And these disagreements can be more serious and more legitimate.

For example, the apostle might say to the teacher, "all you care about is reading the book! You've missed what God is doing in our city!" The prophet might say to the pastor, "perhaps you should try listening to God more than other people!" And the evangelist may say, "all you care about is the people inside the church! What about those on the outside!"

The truth about balance: many try and resolve the conflict by trying to strike a balance. "We don't want too much of this or too much of that" - when actually we need more of everything. But more importantly, things need to come in the right order and with the right basis and purpose.

As mentioned in the pentagon blog, the church must be lead with an apostolic leadership at the helm, along with the prophetic. This maintains the focus that Jesus prayed: "Your Kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven". Heaven on earth. This doesn't mean we want less of the rest of the five-fold. What it means is the nature of the other giftings must be such that they fit around this prayer and all visions that come from this prayer.

This means we will absolutely pursue good teaching, evangelism and pastoring and an apostle will encourage that, but always in the vain of "what is God doing here?" or "how is God's kingdom being established here?" Without being rooted in an apostolic ministry, teaching can turn into nothing more than an intellectual transaction rather than the life-giving spring it was designed to be. Prophecy can become a purposeless obsession with dreams and visions. Pastoring can become trying to please people and evangelism can become simply a way of filling up empty seats. As such all endeavours by any part must come around the pursuit of the Kingdom - heaven on earth. To do an activity for its own sake is very short sighted.

Of course, this is where the conflicts are most likely to arise - where each part is not in its rightful place and when the apostolic is not at the base. Where there are distortions, people don't see the other groups as in conflict or tension - remember what they are against is the distortions of them. Of course, what is also essential is that people have humility to be led. The apostle must lead and the others must accept his or her leadership (not in a dominating way), and not expect their ministries to be the "main thing". (The ministry of the apostle is not the "main thing" by the way - the "main thing" is the Kingdom of God).

As such, many conflicts can be resolved. There will still be some inevitable tensions as each five giftings (and therefore perspectives) seek to model a church which works best. However we do not avoid these conflicts, but seek to resolve them with the aid of love, humility, patience....basically good character (or the fruits of the Spirit, if you like).

Life Shapes: Pentagon part 2

(3) The evangelist. The meaning of evangelist is literally "bringer of good news". We take this to mean "preacher of the gospel", but let us not forget that ultimately the evangelist is a story teller - who is telling the story (true story) of what God has done. This includes testimonies but ultimately all testimony points to (and comes from) what Jesus has done by dying and rising again. When considering the church being built on the apostle's ministry, the need for the evangelist to join him in his vision is obvious. In order to bring the Kingdom to this world, God's story must be told to those who don't yet know it.

(4) The pastor. We usually use "pastor" when describing a generic church leader or "minister". The truth is a pastor is someone with a pastoral anointing. One who cares for the flock and enables them to reach their potential. This may not be someone with organisational skills or someone who can preach (as most "pastors" do). Someone who is not officially in leadership can be a pastor (as with any of the five-fold). They simply need a pastor's heart. This is also an essential part of an apostolic ministry. What does heaven look like? The sick are cared for. People help each other. People grow and help each other grow.

(5) The teacher. The teacher is one who helps us understand the word of God. He or she is a guide (not in the same way as a prophet), based on the truth found in scripture. A teacher is vital in the ministry to unpack the Bible for us to see God as revealed there. They also teach us how to live according to the Bible, show us who we are according the Bible and show us insights from it. It is of course vital that the church has understanding of God and His world. Finally, they stop the church ending up in dangerous theological ground.

Although many may be given just one of these gifts, some can have more than one. It is helpful for an apostle to be sufficient in the other four, in order to have some insight into the vision of the Kingdom of God. It is not clear from the Bible whether or not every person has one of these or whether they are specifically for leaders. I believe that all who know Him have at least one (even if they don't use it yet), as I believe in some sense God calls all His people to be leaders, leading by being salt and light in a dark world.

Life Shapes: Pentagon part 1

The pentagon, being 5 sides, represents the five-fold gifts of leadership in the ministry of the church. That's not to say all gifts, talents and anointings are limited to these, but simply that these are a complete framework of leadership gifts (which others will be based around).

The five-fold gifts come from Ephesians 4:11 "It was he who gave some to be (1) apostles, some to be (2) prophets, some to be (3) evangelists, and some to be (4) pastors and (5) teachers." Ephesians 4 talks about the growth and maturity of the body of Christ (the church) and tells us God gave us these five in order for growth to happen.

So what do these five areas of ministry mean?

(1) The apostle. The original meaning from the Greek word (apostolos) means "sent one", and carries the meaning of one who is "sent on a mission". Looking at the ministry of Jesus, it is no surprise then that the apostle is the one who comes first. Jesus only did what He saw His Father doing (John 5:19) and as such was a man on a mission in this world. Of course, His ultimate mission was to save the world by His death and resurrection, however His life's mission was seen in the second line of the Lord's prayer - "Your Kingdom come". His frequent talk and parables about the Kingdom of God emphasises this. And it seems this is the call of the apostle - he or she is sent out into the world, to bring the Kingdom.

(2) The prophet. This we can see throughout the Old Testament as God gave us the "prophets" - those who God spoke directly to, with a message for the people. In Jesus (who, by the way, perfectly embodies all of the five-fold), we see the prophetic not only as God the Father speaks through Him, but also as He speaks with authority to change situations (the commands to heal or the cursing of the fig tree). Prophecy (since Jesus) has been discussed by Paul in Corinthians as a spiritual gift. Books have been written on the prophetic, but for our purposes, all we will say is that despite the fact that God wants to speak to all of us, some He has called as prophets in order to hear from God concerning the leading of His people.

The New Testament says that the church is built on the ministry of the apostles and prophets - ie, it is the cornerstone. One way I have heard the two described is that the apostles are concerned with stepping out and bringing heaven (God's Kingdom) to earth, and prophets are concerned with "seeing" what's in heaven, and speaking it out on the earth. It is clear why the two are important, and why they should be at the helm. The next three follow.

Breaking the Chains

I was listening a live version of "Break Every Chain" by United Pursuit Band, and I was just moved by the presence of God in this song. But what blew me away at the end was this short prayer right at the end of the song. I decided to transcribe it because I thought it was just an incredible prayer.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mohyR5xowFw

"Lord... I just praise you tonight because, Father, it's... it's like a yes or no. Whether that we can see our lives, whether we can see a freedom, Lord. A lightness, a brightness. And Lord, for any here that just don't recognise that there is light, and there is dark. And there is pain and there is suffering, there is depression and there is fear and there is... hopelessness, but there is goodness, there is truth, and there is life and there is joy: abundant and free. God, help us see that's you, that the light is you... that you're interested... you're interested in breaking us free... that you're interested in seeing your light come, right here and right now. That's what you're about Jesus, and help us be about the same thing. Help us be about the same thing. We wanna rise up with you God, we wanna be about the things you're about. We wanna be about life."

There were many things that challenged me in this prayer. The first big thing being whether I myself can see freedom in my life. What is freedom? Freedom in Christ used to always seem like a big paradox to me, as when I was younger, I believed we were never really free with so many rules to follow. I was wrong. Freedom in Christ, means we are free from that guilt and condemnation, that sometimes we may feel when we sin. I'm not saying that its okay to not care whether you sin or not, rather to let it go completely to God so He can restore you to your identity in Christ. When Jesus died, He took all of our sin, and covered us with grace.

The second thing that challenged me was the contrast of light and dark. So often we can wind up thinking about all the bad things in life like pain, suffering, depression, fear and hopelessness. I know I've experienced many of these things within my life, and I ended up in a cycle focusing on negative without any positive. I can tell you now, that isn't a healthy place to be, regardless whether you have faith or not. Fortunately, I had a few good friends help me pull through, and they helped by reminding about the goodness in life. And if you're in that vicious cycle now, send me a message and I'll be open to chat and to pray for you, because I know there is so much good out there.

The last thing got me is that God is interested in us. Just WOW. It blows my mind every time I think about it. God, who created EVERYTHING, is interested in me. And it's the same for you too. Whether you want to believe it or not, God is interested in you and how you feel! That's just incredible, right?

I want to end with Will Reagan's final line. "We wanna be about life." I want to be about that freedom, that joy, and about that goodness, and to spread it everywhere. What do you want to be about?

Being Made Right

You know what’s great? Realising that not only do you have the thing you’ve always hoped for, but that actually, what you have received is so much more amazing than anything you thought of in the first place.

One of the things I had to do as part of the first few weeks of FORM, the discipleship and leadership course I've just started, was to tell the others in the group about the story of my life. This has got me thinking a lot about the journey I’ve been on over the last few years, and some of the changes I’ve seen in myself, especially in the ways I think about God.

This is one of the biggest changes I could think of: I used to think that if I was sorry enough for every single thing I ever did wrong, then God would see my sorry-ness and decide that he would forgive me for them. Obviously, having my sins forgiven was great, but there was still lots to worry about: what if I forgot about some particular sin and forgot to apologise for it? Or even worse, what if I sinned without realising? Then I’d have no chance of being forgiven! Or even if I did remember, I might not be quite sorry enough to please God… As you can imagine, this wasn’t a particularly nice way to be feeling, with a general sense of worry and uneasiness about what I may or may not have done wrong, and a slightly panicked and frantic check of my conscience every time we got to confession in church services.

But now God has shown us a way to be made right with him without keeping the requirements of the law, as was promised in the writings of Moses and the prophets long ago

Romans 3.21

I think this verse gets at what was wrong with my old ideas, and the overwhelming better-ness of God’s plan than I had imagined. God didn’t just want to blot out my sins one by one, as they came along, and he definitely didn’t want me to have to grovel to his to do even that! Jesus paid for all all the darkness in the world to be taken away through his one act of sacrifice, and that includes every time I’m ever going to mess up. Completely covered over, and not to be worried about again.

But much more than that, God wants me to be right with him. It’s like the difference in court between being found guilty but then let off with a pardon, and being declared to be not guilty - in the right – in the first place. But this is not just a verdict that means I don’t have to be punished. It means I can be counted as an adopted son of God himself, and the recipient of everything in his Kingdom that he has to give me. Which is just about the most exciting thing ever…

Life Shapes: Triangle

"Jesus went to pray. When morning came he called his disciples to him...a great number of people came to hear him and to be healed."

Luke 6:12-17

The triangle life shape is all about the importance of living balanced lives. In this short passage from Luke Jesus demonstrates to us the three different types of relationship and the necessity of each one. We refer to them as "Up" (our relationship with God), "In" (our relationships with each other) and "Out" (our relationships with people that don't know Jesus yet).

First of all, Jesus prays to Our Heavenly Father, this relationship is so important to cultivate, by worship, prayer and just chatting to God.

Secondly, Jesus gathers his disciples to him, relationships with other followers of Jesus are equally vital. Gathering together to support and love one another should never be underrated, without the encouragement and prayers of others we would struggle. Ephesians 4:16 (NLT) expresses this far better than I can:

"He makes the whole body fit together perfectly. As each part does its own special work, it helps the other parts grow, so that the whole body is healthy and growing and full of love."

Thirdly, the people gathered to Jesus, he taught and healed them, these people did not yet know the love of God. It is our God-given mission to show them that love, if we seclude ourselves from society then how can people meet with Jesus? Relationships with people that don't currently have God in their lives are so important.

Put simply, our relationship with God should feed our relationship with each other, which in turn should help us go out and talk about Jesus to people who don't know him yet.

Without one of these types of relationships the other two would suffer, we need to have all three. For example, if we neglect "Up" then we won't be able to support other followers of Jesus because we'll be missing that supernatural input, our "Out" will also suffer, without fuel our fire for God could die right down and not be visible to others.

Does your life include all of these relationships? Do you give enough time into each of these 3 areas? Just take a moment now to reflect on this and ask God how you can better balance these important aspects of your life.

The "Called" and the "Chosen"

"For many are called, but few are chosen." Matthew 22:14 (KJV)

What does it mean to be called, and what does it mean to be chosen? And if many are called, why are only a few chosen? And if I am called, how do I become chosen? These were just a few of the questions running through my mind when I first encountered this passage, during my high school years. Similarly to many people I knew, I didn't really understand it too well...

Recently, I went to a Jesus Culture conference in London with a few friends, and God's presence was really tangelable. The air was so thick. The guy speaking at the conference was called Banning, and he unpacked it really well.

"Many are called, but few are chosen." What was it about certain people that God not only called them, but also chose them? And surely everyone that is called should be chosen? To understand this, we should read it again, in the context of the passage.

The rest of passage is about a king, who sends out many invitations to friends to a wedding, however all of them reply that they are busy. After receiving the replies, the king then sends out another batch of invitations to others. Most of them say no, but a few say yes. And in effect, that's the king saying I choose you. So can it really be as simple as saying "yes"?

Well actually, yes! As illustrated in the story, many were called, but none were chosen as they had said no. In reality, I believe God has called each and every single one of you, to do a job that nobody else can ever do. The question is, are you willing to saying yes? I'm not talking about "yes, but..." or "yes, if only..." but a yes without a get out clause. Living in your real identity, that God has called you to be.

So do you want to be chosen, or just called? I'll let you decide.