Giving and the difference it makes

Last month, I didn’t give to God from my income. This month I did. What difference has it made?

Last month, I lacked peace. I was stressed about money. My income belonged to me, and I felt responsible for making it last till the end of the month. My trust was in the wrong place. Certainly, it was not in God. And the Bible says that God will keep in perfect peace the person “whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you” (Isaiah. 26:3).

Trust requires belief and action. The child who believes her daddy is dependable leaps into his arms.

Perhaps the best way to demonstrate my belief that God will supply my needs is to give back to him from my income. Maybe that’s one of the reasons why God expects us to give. And isn’t this honouring to God? By actively trusting Him, we declare His trustworthiness. Imagine how you would feel if you invited your toddler to leap into your arms and he refused?

In proverbs it says: “honour the Lord with your wealth and with the first fruits of your produce” (Proverbs 3:9). It makes sense. Giving affirms that my income comes from God and belongs to God. It declares that I trust God to provide for my needs. It is one way of saying: “my life belongs to you God”. Sounds honouring to me!

So this month I have enjoyed a peace that I didn’t enjoy last month. I have slept better. In fact, I’m feeling mildly exhilarated. Sounds good, hey?

Cheers for now - Ian

Echoes of Christmas

Can you believe that Christmas was just over three weeks ago - three weeks which seem to me like three geological periods let alone units of seven days?  But there is an echo of Christmas if I stop long enough to listen:

For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called: Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end. (Isaiah 9:6-7a)

This is a curious passage from a popular prophecy. You probably heard Isaiah 9:2-7 read out publicly at least once over the Christmas period.

I have a question: does it seem like the government of your country rests on the shoulders of Christ? It does not seem that way in my country...far from it.

And where is “the increase of his government and peace”? I don’t see it in Mali. I’m sure that if you read these verses to a Syrian, he would laugh derisively. Who knows what a grieving parent from Sandy Hook Elementary School would say.

It seems to me that the government mentioned in the prophecy refers to Christ’s government over the Kingdom of God (KoG). The KoG is not demarcated geographically. It is not bounded by rivers, mountain ranges, razor wire or mine fields. The KoG transcends borders, for its earthly territory is located in the heart of every person that follows Christ. Wherever a person prays “thy will be done”, Christ is enthroned as Lord, He is governing, and His Kingdom has come.

Having defined the government Isaiah is referring to, we must test our definition against the claim that “of the increase of his government and peace there will be no end”. Let us begin by applying this claim at the individual level. Is it true to say that Christ’s government over your life is increasing with time? Are you allowing Jesus to take greater and greater charge over your life from one year to the next? Are you slowly becoming a more peaceful person? I hope we can all join with Joyce Meyer in saying, “I’m not where I’m meant to be. But thank God I’m not where I used to be. I’m ok and I’m on my way”.

But peace and Jesus’ government must increase at a communal level. Jesus taught us to pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. This prayer is so important that Jesus put it near the start of His pattern for prayer, the Lord’s Prayer. God’s heavenly kingdom is manifest on earth in the hearts of those that pray this prayer, by those that want Jesus’ rule to 1) increase in their own lives and 2) be established in the lives of others.

God’s Kingdom must grow one heart at a time until the tipping point that triggers the return of Christ. Then – at last – the entire earth will ruled by Christ.

Sometimes, when I am feeling discouraged I turn to the book of Daniel where I read about Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and Daniel’s interpretation of it (Dan. 2). Nebuchadnezzar saw a rock which was not formed by human hands. The rock smashed into a statue representing earthly kingdoms, crushing them to dust that was swept away without a trace by the wind. Then the rock became a huge mountain that filled the whole earth. What did the rock represent? It represented the Kingdom of God on earth. Daniel said,

 "In the time of those kings, the God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed, nor will it be left to another people. It will crush all those kingdoms and bring them to an end, but it will itself endure forever. This is the meaning of the vision of the rock cut out of a mountain, but not by human hands-a rock that broke the iron, the bronze, the clay, the silver and the gold to pieces. "The great God has shown the king what will take place in the future. The dream is true and the interpretation is trustworthy." (Dan. 2:44-45)

We belong to this amazing Kingdom. We are called to extend the boundaries of this Kingdom. And in the words of a song by Tree 63: “There is a kingdom that cannot be shaken, a rock of ages, my firm foundation”.

I don’t know about you, but I want to play my part in extending God’s Kingdom in 2013. I want to see God’s governance over my own life increasing. I want to magnify the echo of Christmas, declaring the Good News by both word and action. Lord, please be my Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace today. I need you to help me extend your Kingdom. Without you I can do nothing. And may the government of my life be on your shoulders.

Cheers for now - Ian

Playing on the wrong fairway

When I was still at school, I used to go and hack around the Police Golf Course with my friends. We would take a dollar each: 50 cents for 9 holes and 50 cents for a Brown Cow afterwards. For the un-initiated, a Brown Cow is a Coke Float – equal parts coke and milk with a dollop of ice cream floating on the top.

I have some interesting memories from those days. This one time, my mom arranged for me to play with the nephew of a lady from her prayer group. The young man in question was visiting from the UK. As we teed up for the first hole, two things happened: 1) I discovered that he was a scratch golfer and 2) it started to rain.

I was pretty nervous.

Adopting a slightly open stance and preparing to pronate my wrists – according to some advice I had read in a little book entitled ‘How to Play Golf’ – I began my down swing. Unfortunately the grip of the club was wet and it flew out of my hands like a helicopter, landing about 20m further than my ball.

Another memory I have is of playing on the wrong fairway. As far as I can recall, this happened the first time I played at Police, and though I drove off the No 3 tee box, I ended up playing on the No 5 fairway.

This reminds me of something Steven Covey said a few years ago: “The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing”. I wonder how often we end up playing the game of life on the wrong fairway. I do it all the time. Suddenly, my Christian life is all about reading the Bible in a year or preaching like John Piper. Which fairway are you playing on? Has success in business become the most important thing in your life? Perhaps it is the approval of others?

But what is the main thing we need to keep the main thing in 2013?

In the middle of his teaching on spiritual gifts, Paul reminds the Corinthian church that to be motivated by love is the main thing (1 Corinthians 13). Without love, the gifts count for nothing. I would go so far as to say that without love, my life counts for nothing. Remember what Jesus said?

'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.' 38 This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: 'Love your neighbour as yourself.' All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments. (Matt. 22:37-40).

I don’t know about you, but I want to be productive, I want be something special for God, and I hope to receive an eternal reward for the way I have lived my life. According to Paul, however:

·         Without love, my preaching is as productive as a yapping dog (1 Cor. 13:1).

·         Without love, I am nothing special (v2). In fact, if I want to be something special in the Kingdom of God, I must “be the very last and the servant of all” (Mk. 9:35). And isn’t this what love is all about, in humility valuing others above myself and not looking to my own interests but to the interests of others?

·         Without love, I fail to gain anything of eternal value (v3).

The main thing that we must keep the main thing in 2013 is to be motivated by love. Perhaps it would help to carry out what I call a “love audit”. Choose a time and a place where you won’t be interrupted and then invite the Holy Spirit to work with you as you read through verses 4 – 7 of 1 Corinthians 13. Substitute the word “love” with your own name and ask yourself whether what you are reading is true for you in the areas of family, work and church. Then meditate on 1 John 4:7-21.

Cheers for now - Ian

A Hungry Hike

When I was about sixteen, I went on a week-long leadership training course. At three o’ clock one morning, we were rudely awaked and ordered to pack everything we would need for a 36 hour hike. We found ourselves a few hours later watching the sunrise and reading our first instructions. If we followed the directions correctly, we would locate some food and our next bearing.

Three hours later, we were delighted to find the food and wolfed down every last scrap before reading the next instructions ... which told us NOT to eat all the food at once because it was intended to last us until 12pm the next day!

You would not believe how hunger can focus one’s attention. We didn’t dally or dawdle on that hike. We read every future instruction as if our lives depended on it. We sorted our priorities with clarity. Not even girls would have distracted us – unless they had food offer. We had one desire: to get to the fast food outlet at Ruwa for hamburgers as soon as possible.

Desires are immensely motivating. And we are driven by many different desires. Yet how often are we gripped by things that are close to God’s heart? Can we describe our spiritual life as passionate? Make a list of five things you long for in order of importance ... informative?

Jesus said, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled (Matt 5:6)”. Paul wrote, “Follow the way of love and eagerly desire spiritual gifts, especially the gift of prophecy (1 Cor. 14:1)”.

I want God to release transforming energy into my life, energy to transform myself and my sphere of influence for the glory of God and the extension of His Kingdom. But I am realising that it starts with a God-given hunger.

It says in Psalm 103 that God “satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's (v5)”. It stands to reason that the desires referred to here are godly ones, but look at the result! A satisfied, God-given desire renews your youth like the eagle’s. The rhythm of desire and satisfaction leading to greater desire will have you soaring the thermals of God’s power and plans.

So ask God to plant a hunger in your heart. Perhaps you should ask Him first thing every morning for a week. Look for the stirrings of new life and carefully tend the sapling of godly desire till it grows into a fruitful tree.

"Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart (Psalm 37:4)."

Cheers for now - Ian

Taken by surprise 2

“We dare not think that God is absent or daydreaming. The do-nothing God. He is not tucked away in some far corner of the universe, uncaring, unfeeling, unthinking ... uninvolved. Count on it – God intrudes in glorious and myriad ways. And thank His holy name He does!” So writes Joni Eareckson Tada in the introduction to her book Glorious Intruder.

In my last blog, I described the first of two “divine intrusions”. Not only did God intrude in my life, but at the same time, he was working in the other leaders of Harvest to re-align our priorities to His. The first intrusion was about discipleship; the second is about reaching the lost. Here is how it happened:

Having realised last year that God wanted us to focus on discipleship, my first reaction was to begin preparing a sermon on discipleship. I turned to the Great Commission in Matthew 28:16-20. I noted that the Great Commission was the mission or assignment that God gave the disciples just before He left the earth. Therefore it was very important. Further, the Great Commission was open-ended. That is to say, it still applies today.

In the Greek, it was clear that the only command in the Great Commission was “make disciples”. The process of making disciples involved “going”, “baptising” and “teaching” – these were participles that modified the imperative verb “make disciples”. Hmm ... when Jesus commands something, we should listen up.

I was humming. There was lots of evidence to back up the proposition that discipleship was important to God, and it still is today. Brilliant! I would be able to preach with authority and conviction...

At this point a little question popped into my mind:

“So, who are you going to disciple at Harvest?”

“Um ... Harvesters?” I replied.

“That would involve the ‘teaching’ bit. But what about the ‘going’ and ‘baptising’ bit?”

It was a short conversation with scintillating input from me, but I can tell you - it grabbed my attention. The Glorious Intruder had intruded!

I realised that I was trying to separate evangelism from discipleship. But why was that the case? It was painful to admit that I wasn’t really concerned about the lost. I would rather have “played church” than run the risk of actually reaching out. Yes, Christians must be discipled from the point of conversion onwards, but our churches should be bringing new “babies” into the family all the time. We do not exist for ourselves alone.

But what was I going to do about it. And did I really care? In some ways, I did not want to pray “give me your heart for the lost, Jesus” because I was quite happy as I was. So in the end, I prayed along the lines recommended by Selwyn Hughes: I’m not really willing to pray “give me your heart for the lost”, but I am willing to be made willing. Then I went out and started acting as though I did have a heart for the lost.

Amazingly – and unfortunately this part of the story is for another day – God got me involved in some life changing conversions. I’m talking about the kind of change where the “before” and “after” photos can hardly be recognised as the same person. Boy was it exciting! I don’t think I had ever experienced such motivation and joy in ministry. And without realising it, God had begun working with me to align my heart to His.

Needless to say, God has been working in our leadership team too, so that since we have the discipleship structures in place, we are planning to get intentional about outreach. That is why we have invited Anthony Dee to visit us in term 1 of 2013. He will give us some practical training in evangelism. Further, we are planning a big Alpha drive in term 2.

However, as a church, we must begin right away by inviting God to change our priorities in the area evangelism. If we don’t, we will not be in a position to seize the opportunities that God is planning to send our way next year. If God doesn’t change your heart, you may perceive Harvest’s outreach efforts as an irritation or a threat to your comfort. Worst of all, you might miss the joy God has planned for you because of apathy. Ask God to work with your heart. He may not change it in the same way He changed mine. But if you ask Him to, you can be sure of one thing: He will!

Cheers for now - Ian

Taken by Surprise

My priorities are often very different to God’s. I say that as though it comes as a surprise. I guess it should not, but frequently it does. Somehow, we assume that our priorities are well aligned with God’s.  But they are not, and we need to crucify our pride and work with the Holy Spirit on a daily basis in order to make sure that we are passionate about the things that are close to God’s heart.

Last year, I was profoundly “surprised” by God on a number of occasions. I would like to tell you about two such occasions over the next two weeks.

On both occasions, I was surprised to discover that God’s priorities did not rank with mine - in fact, His priorities did not even appear on my list. Oh how pride can blind us!

The first surprise encounter came at a Pastor’s fraternal. The speaker was talking about discipleship. He explained that God has planted a “seed” in every human being. This seed lies dormant but it is the potential for a person to be placed in right relationship with God so that he may make a unique contribution to the extension of God’s Kingdom and look forward to an eternal reward and everlasting fellowship with God. For this “seed” to be germinated, a person must be 1) born again through faith in Jesus and then 2) discipled in the context of a local church. A person will NEVER truly become what he was created to be, and hence live as he was created to live without being born again and discipled. If these conditions are met, the seed will grow into a verdant tree and begin producing fruit for the glory of God and the joy of His people. Imagine what Zimbabwe would be like if there were more people living as God originally intended and created them to live.

Immediately, I sensed that I was coming to a turning point in my life. The Holy Spirit was crying out “listen up” and my spirit and soul were saying YES! I could think of many people whose lives were like khaki weeds or thorn bushes - perhaps you can too - people that need life and joy and hope and peace. Then I thought of those that come to church but are not being properly discipled, people that are like tiny saplings, without fruit and in danger of shrivelling up if they are not properly nourished and tended.

After the initial excitement, I realised I had some repenting to do. Some time before the Pastors’ meeting, one of the Harvest elders had spoken of his conviction that we should be running discipleship courses through the homegroups. Sadly, I had paid no attention.

At this stage, Dave and Chrissie had headed off for their sabbatical. In our next Leadership meeting, I raised the issue of discipleship and there was unanimous agreement that we should begin setting structures in place to disciple our members. So Theunis began developing discipleship material, which we ended up using in the Discipleship 2 course.

 Interestingly, God had put discipleship on Dave’s heart through a very vivid dream. Dave started doing something about his dream before he left on sabbatical by developing “diagnostic questions” to help people identify gaps and confusion in their understanding of Christianity. Then with his sabbatical approaching, Dave put his work on hold. God reminded Dave of the dream whilst he was on sabbatical, and he determined in his heart to do something about it when he returned to Zimbabwe! When he got back, Dave was excited to discover that things were already in progress to roll out Discipleship 1, and we incorporated his questions as part of the course.

Is it not exciting the way God leads and guides us? I find it amazing that God guides individuals. I find it a miracle that He can guide a group of leaders, given our frailty and tendency to indulge the flesh, but God IS leading our church. We now have Discipleship 1 and 2 going strong and have run three Network courses with the fourth due to start on the 2^nd of November.

If you belong to Harvest, I hope that this testimony will inspire you to get more involved in discipleship – either by attending a course, encouraging someone to attend a course or using the material to disciple someone one-on-one. And if you belong to another church, I hope you will be inspired to respond to God when He speaks to you about priorities.

Cheers for now - Ian

Driving back from the airport last Saturday ...

Saturday morning 6am, I was driving back from the airport trying to decide whether to attend a men’s breakfast. When I have a decision to make, I often set up a conversation between myself and “God”. The “God” side of the discussion argues for what I think to be God’s position on the matter.

So brace yourself. You are about to get a glimpse into the murky workings of my mind. I hope you are not of a nervous disposition! Here goes:

“Why so grumpy?”

“I’m not.”

“Yes you are. Don’t think you can hide it from me.”

“Ok, so I’m looking grumpy. It’s because I have to go to the men’s breakfast, and I don’t want to.”

“Why do you HAVE TO GO?”

“Erm... because I am the pastor...?”

“Is someone forcing you to go because you are the pastor?”

“No, nobody is forcing me to go. I just think I ought to go.”

“Wouldn’t it be better to go because you WANT to go?”

“Look, I don’t WANT to go OK!”

Silence...

“Ian.”

“Yes.”

“What if I told you that I want to refresh you at the Men’s Breakfast?”

The thought that God might have plans to refresh me brought tears to my eyes. My emotions, my spirit, my entire being said, “YES, Lord, I want to be refreshed. I need to be refreshed”. And so I went to the meeting because I wanted to. And I WAS refreshed!

But why is it that we so often go to or stay away from meetings for the wrong reasons? Why do we go under a sense of obligation to God or people? Why do we go just because we feel compelled to go? Do we feel compelled because we want to earn the approval of God and others?

When Paul wrote to the Corinthians, asking them to take up a collection for the poor in Jerusalem, he said:

Each man should give what he has decided in his heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver (2 Cor. 9:7).

I think we should apply this principle to other areas of our lives. Imagine a church were everyone served with cheerful willingness and a sense of God’s purpose in all they were doing.  Yes, even in the matter of attending meetings, we should go to God and ask Him to impress on our hearts what He wants us to do, and then do it willingly and cheerfully. In this way, we will attend or miss meetings or courses for the right reasons.

Sometimes, however, we miss for the wrong reasons. We throw up barriers which prevent us from finding the good reasons FOR doing something. For example, “I don’t do men’s meetings”.  Such an axiom is usually established to cover a deeper reason for not attending. It could be, “I am anxious that nobody will talk to me.” Or perhaps, “I might be asked to share or pray out loud.” Are these things really that terrible? Would it harm you if nobody talked to you? It might be unpleasant, but if God shows you a compelling reason for attending surely that would outweigh a little discomfort? And if you do not want to share or pray, nobody can force you to. A polite, “I would rather not pray/share” would suffice.

Another bad reason for missing is failure to consider attending. Simple selfishness and lack of concern for the purposes of God often cause me to overlook opportunities to bless or be blessed, to receive or to contribute. Just because I feel a lack of conscience about missing something doesn’t necessarily mean I am in the will of God. The important thing is to consciously seek God and His purposes.

I hope this makes as much sense to you as it makes to me. Let us make decisions with God’s help, and then we will DO and NOT DO things for the right reasons. And when we do things we will do them willingly, joyfully and with an awareness of God and His purposes.

Cheers for now - Ian