Author: missionspaul

Change

The PHILIPPINE flag is the only flag in the world that can change. During a time of peace the flag has the colour blue at the top, but during war the colours are swapped so that red is at the top and blue at the bottom. The Filipinos are good with changes seemingly:-
In 1975, Tony Tan Caktiong bought an ice cream parlor called Magnolia Ice Cream House. The immediate few years saw growth in more parlors around Manila. But Tony noticed his customers wanted more and so having taken inspiration from McDonalds, Tony transformed his ice cream parlor into a fast-food outlet. He called it ‘Jollibee’ because of his happiness to work as busy as a bee. Jollibee is now an International company, all because of change.

Deuteronomy 31:7-8

These verses are so inspiring and yet they call for change. To be flexible.
v 7 “you must go” where you have never been before.
Some people are on roads like in the old movies, they’re filming the conversation in the car, it is exciting and they are enthused but the backdrop has been the same for the last 10 minutes; the same mountains, same trees and the same blue sky.
They appear to be moving forward, they may talk like they are but it is a deception.
To move forward is to know the road changing, to see difference.
God wants change to happen, you are an agent of change and you bring change.
In 1964 Nelson Mandela was imprisoned on Robben Island and for 18 years of his total 27 years imprisonment he had 1 visit a year which lasted for 30 minutes. He could write and receive 1 letter every 6 months. Yet he won over the prison officials and became master of his own prison. He brought change to his circumstance.
He said after his release, “If I had not been in prison I would not have been able to achieve the most difficult task in life, that is changing myself.”

God has called you to go forward and this involves change. Ready?

Karaoke

Many people think karaoke was invented in Japan with the word being a Japanese word meaning “singing without accompaniment.” But it was actually birthed in the PHILIPPINES! Invented by Roberto Del Rosario who called it “Sing along with the system.”

Some think Karaoke is from the dark realm whereas others love it.
Singing is quite contentious apparently.
In the church it has a history of furious debate.

We need to thank Ambrose, the 4th century bishop of Milan for starting congregational style singing as we know it. However some of the church experts at the time opposed him on the grounds that it permitted women to raise their voices too!
Church singing would have a turbulent journey until the 18th century but even then because of Calvin’s insistence that Christians should only sing the Bible, ie the Psalms, which were generally okay but occasionally you would find yourself having to sing:
“The teeth, O Lord, which fast are set,
In their mouth round about:
The Lions’ teeth that are so great
Do thou, O Lord, break out”.
(Psalm 58)
Biblical but not great song lyrics!

Though it was better than one of Isaac Watts hymns which starts:
“There is a dreadful hell,
And everlasting pains;
There sinners must with Devils dwell
In darkness, fire and chains”.
Cheery!

The Bible is full of music and song. As early as Genesis 4:21 we come across Jubal, the first known musician.
Look at these verses: Psalm 95:1; 98:1;
Moses sang, Deborah sang, Paul and Silas sang, heaven sings.
In Ephesians 5:18-21 Paul encourages us to go on being filled with the Spirit by singing and making music in your heart.
In Colossians 3:16 Paul says singing allows for the Scriptures to live within you. It is true that we know so many lyrics of songs, probably more than sermons we have heard.

It is Biblical. It builds us and others up. It nourishes us with Gods word.
So go on, choose a song that glorifies God today, and sing!

Manila love to talk

Today I am in Manila.
The Philippines are considered the “text capital of the world.” Every day 35 million people send approx 450 million text messages. This is more than the total number of daily text messages sent in the US and Europe together!
Do you love to talk? To text? To tweet? Message? Who do you connect with? What do you write about?
Try and have something to say, focus on the right person to speak to and commit to be an influencer.

John 1:35-42

Andrew had something to say: We have found the Messiah! v35-39.
As a disciple he had begun to expect the coming Messiah, he had heard on at least 2 occasions John declare, “Look the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” Andrew had stayed in the home of Jesus. That invitation by Jesus was for Andrew to come and see him as He really was. Andrew had something to say because he had been somewhere.

Andrew had someone to go to, v40-42.
He shared a fishing business with his brother Simon.
Andrew had made a radical decision to follow a man who wore clothes of camels hair and who ate locusts and wild honey.
He had gone to this man to be baptised in the Jordan river, confessing his sin.
All the time of his radical discipleship he was working with his brother fishing.
His discipleship didn’t take him from people, he stayed connected.
Staying connected to people not of our beliefs is important.

Andrew had the ability to influence, v42.
There are only 3 times in the gospels when Andrew is brought to the centre stage. This time. The 5 loaves, 2 fish story and at the time of Lazarus’ resurrection.
Being influential didn’t mean Andrew became dominant. He never made it to the inner circle of disciples. Many remember Simon Peter not Andrew. He was willing to take second place to the people he had influenced.

Now go on make that text message, make it good.

Islam

On this last Easter morning 32 muslims were baptised by our Elim missionary in our church in a country which is a stronghold of Islam. It is the highest number of baptisms that the church has had but it may well be the highest number of Muslim converts baptised in an overseas Elim church in one service for some time.
The good news is we are praying for more!
With this being the dry season the wells have dried up and so water had to be carried from boreholes many distances away to create the baptism pool! The fun part was that some Muslims not yet followers of Jesus helped with the carrying of the water!!
I ask you to pray for the newly baptised disciples:
1. It is often after the baptism that they face tough persecution.
2. This is only their beginning, they now are faced with the challenge
of being disciples who make disciples.
3. There were 4 people who decided not to be baptised because of fear, they now have a mixture of emotions and are seeking for greater courage to be baptised next time.

The word ‘Islam’ is an Arabic word meaning peace and submission. It’s wonderful that around the world many are finding their Islam in Christ Jesus!!
But if course many converts to Christ face a death sentence despite the Quran not saying anything about punishing apostates, only those who commit treason. Those within Islam who are the persecutors use hadiths (traditions and sayings of Mohammed but they are debatable and have different interpretations). So the Christian deaths are by people who are not of the Quran and yet the people of the Quran seem to be frustratingly silent.
However the Spirit moves forward and continues to expand the witness of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
In his book, ‘A Wind in the House of Islam’ 25-year missionary, David Garrison, writes, “There is a revival in the Muslim world. Between 2 and 7 million former Muslims have converted to Christianity in the past two decades.”

More Lord!

Bewdley

I’m still thinking about last Friday.

The outdoor Passion Play in the small town only 2 miles from where I live is performed every 2 years.
The following is a mixture of all my thoughts in note form during that event.

Parking the car away from the event and having to walk because of road closures created the excitement that this was going to be special.
This was a standing performance only, in the rain, pity.
Some people didn’t stay till the end, in fact, they began to leave before the main bit. Some didn’t look like they had actually turned up for it at all, they were passing through, popping into the shops.
Others were laughing and talking loudly, totally disengaged with this momentous event.
The majority however, were focused on the man in white, Jesus. Would he actually hang on a cross? Yes he would.
I struggled to see, the umbrellas didn’t help in front of me! I looked up to the flats and saw how many had great views hanging out of their windows, I wished for a good view. Small children were placed on top of fathers’ shoulders.
The crowd just simply watched as the man in white hung in front of them on the cross.
It was the final act that stunned the crowd. They took him down from the cross and carried him through the crowd to a designated place. As they weaved a path, the people silently gazed and looked on a man who had given it all. It was a great performance.
And I pondered how this event in Bewdley mirrored so much of what really took place in a small city many miles away 2,000 years ago. The man in white was carried right past me and I whispered the words thank-you.
Thank you for your surrender.
Sacrifice.
Death.
Everything.
All.

The Church likes to celebrate His resurrection and victory, rightly so. But one week on I am stirred more with His death. His willingness to die for the cause of love leads me on.
Thank you.
1 Corinthians‬ ‭2‬:‭1-2‬

The cost of Easter

The average British person will have spent £52 on chocolate at the Easter weekend. The total spend will have been approximately £176 million and £163 million respectively on food and drink for the Easter festivities with £117m going on gifts, £65m on flowers and £39m on cards.

Luke 12:13-21

In regard to material things Jesus said more about money than he did about prayer.
And whenever he discussed money, he did so with the assumption that all material things belong to God.
The biblical thought is that we are stewards of all our possessions and responsible to God for what we do with them. The NT actually affirms the legitimacy of private property – Peter confronted Ananias and Sapphira because they falsely claimed to have dedicated their property to God when they had not done so. Their sin was their false claim, not their possession of property.
We as Christians are called to be stewards. Of our possessions and actually of the whole earth.
This parable of the rich fool is one of the Lord’s primary teachings on this subject. The story is about a man who failed to recognise that he was accountable to God for all he owned.
You see this is not about looking at the wealthy and saying you should give more away. This is a teaching for everyone of us. Rich and poor. Whether we have much or little. Do we live with the recognition that everything we have is God’s? We are responsible and accountable to God for all we have.

I wonder who bought the most expensive Easter egg being sold at Harrods for £700?!
And I wonder if people knew the festivities were celebrating Christ who paid the ultimate price by giving everything away, His very life.
Easter shows us all that we are and have belongs to God, our life is not our own, we were bought with a price, a high one.

Disciple

The best 2 words you will ever understand are these in verse 19 of John 21.
‘Follow me’.

Here is the grace of God. 3 years previously Jesus had used the exact words.
But a lot has happened in 3 years. Highs and lows. Successes and failures.

At the time of Christ gifted students of the day would approach a rabbi and ask “May I follow you?” The rabbi either accepted the student or sent him away to pursue a trade. If he was accepted, it meant the rabbi believed the student had the ability and commitment to become like him.
But Jesus, He chose his followers. He approached them. People who had adopted a trade either because they had been turned down by a rabbi or that they hadn’t even bothered asking because they knew they weren’t good enough. The decision to follow a rabbi meant total commitment.
Three years later and after Peters denial, he is now reinstated and once again it is Jesus who initiates with the statement ‘follow me’.

Jesus is saying “I believe in you. I believe you can become like me. I believe you can be committed to me.”

When you decided to become a Christian it was on the basis of His love and His approach to you. He chose you.

So today in work, in play, at home, in education, at leisure, wherever you are and whatever you are doing you can do it all as a disciple.
A disciple who is not one because of the choice you have made, the commitment you hold to. But rather a disciple because of His choice!
That’s a complete different understanding to some demonstrations of discipleship. But one that is amazingly and outrageously gracious!

AGAIN

On the evening of the Resurrection day Jesus had supernaturally appeared at a Disciples meeting in a certain house.
His words were “Peace be with you”. He showed them his nail prints in his hands and side and AGAIN said “Peace be with you” before commissioning them.
A week later, the disciples met AGAIN. They were AGAIN in the same house. They AGAIN locked the doors. AGAIN Jesus supernaturally stood among them and yes AGAIN He said the same words, “Peace be with you” before encountering doubting Thomas.
(John 20:19-29)

Don’t reject repeated actions.
Work.
Disciplines.
Lifestyle choices.
Often our days are AGAIN moments.
And often we struggle because we want different, spontaneous, exciting moments.
Don’t reject repeated actions.

AGAIN
Turning up in the same place each week to do the same things will often cause God to show up also AGAIN and AGAIN. We move He moves.

If we welcome and pay attention to the familiarity of God’s voice then each time He speaks, though it may appear the same, there will be something new we are hearing. Preconceptions to the Word of God is the biggest barrier.

Not everyone journeys at the same rate as each other and by having AGAIN moments it allows for the stragglers to catch up, for the Thomas’s who didn’t quite have the best of starts, to receive. Your activity of life isn’t just about you.

Embrace your AGAIN today.

“Sitting Shiva”

So the stone was very large (Mark 16:4), it would take many to have moved it, but an angel of the Lord came and did just that.

The angel then did something that perhaps can be easily missed in the excitement of the events … He sat down on top of the stone!

The importance is this: the ‘sitting shiva’.

You may never have come across that term unless you are a Jew.
During the mourning period known as ‘shiva’ mourners would sit on low stools as near to the ground as they could. Remember how Jobs friends could not recognise Job because of his suffering and for 7 days and nights they sat on the ground and in the dirt with him (Job 2:13)? Similarly the shiva would last one week following the loss of a loved one and the people would demonstrate their heartaches by bringing themselves as low as possible.

But the angel was sat high on top of the stone which was used to stop people coming to steal the body of Christ.
The angel was demonstrating to the women that this was not a funeral site, there was no mourning here, no need to sit shiva today!

No. For us today we are not sitting low to the ground. We are as Apostle Paul said, “And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus” Ephesians‬ ‭2‬:‭6‬.

Your circumstance may be trying to bring you low, you may even have those feelings.
But the Bible says that’s not where you are sitting. You are raised high, seated high.
And that stone of circumstance which the enemy tried to use to silence you has now become your very own pulpit declaring that Christ is alive in you and you are alive in Him!

It just isn’t over!

Rev Nadim Nassar, a Syrian Anglican priest recently was quoted as saying “Christianity is vanishing in the Middle East.”
The evil of ISIS and their partners has been traumatically painful and we are all praying for their fall to be as quick as their rising. Will we witness in our lifetime the eradication of Christianity in the Biblical region of the world as Rev Nassar suggests?

In the UK it could appear that Christianity is also vanishing. Dr John Sentanu in his Easter Sunday sermon a few years ago told of how nearly a third of British children thought that Easter marked the birth of the Easter bunny and that over half didn’t know the Easter story.

Today is Easter Sunday and I know Jesus was dead but that He came back to life and is alive today. He was gone but then He came back.

With this in mind I also know that no matter what dies it can live again. If Christianity vanishes it can re-appear. If knowledge of the truth dissipates it can be regained.
I also know whatever you have:
Lost can be found
Has been stolen can be given back
Whatever has:
Gone wrong can be put right.
Been defeated can become successful.

You see, it is just not over till it’s over and we never get to say it is over!
There is still time in your life, there is still today.
Jesus is Alive!