Written by:
"Those who are
led by the Spirit of God are sons of God."
Romans 8:14
These were the last
recorded words of Jesus Christ to his disciples before he ascended into heaven
at the end of his three years of earthly ministry:
'But you will receive
power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in
Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.'
Acts 1:8
It is important to
note that Jesus spoke of both Holy Spirit anointing and evangelism. It was not
an either/or situation. His disciples were to receive power and to be witnesses.
His last instructions to his followers had a two-fold meaning '“ he promised
power and commissioned them for the tasks ahead.
There are various ways
to describe the working of the Holy Spirit in our lives. John the Baptist said
that Christ would baptise us in the Holy Spirit. 'Baptise' has now become a
purely religious term but originally it was a word used in commercial circles
for dipping or soaking cloth in dye. The 'baptised' material took on the
nature of the element into which it was dipped; it absorbed its colour. The
cloth was in the dye and the dye in the cloth. To be baptised in the Spirit
means that we are in the Spirit and the Spirit in us; we take on the character
of the Spirit. We do not need to work to attain this '“ and indeed cannot; it
is what happens in baptism.
Absorbing the nature
of the Spirit produces in us what Paul calls the 'fruit of the Spirit' '“
love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and
self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). This fruit develops in our character as we
allow the Spirit to work in us.
BE
FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT
'Do not get drunk on
wine, which leads to debauchery. Instead, be filled with the Spirit.'
Ephesians 5:18
The Spirit comes to us
himself. We do not receive a small portion of him or need to be 'topped up'
from time to time. The Bible never talks about 'some' Holy Spirit or 'more'
Holy Spirit. At Pentecost, every single person received the Holy Spirit '“ not
just a bit of him. We receive the Holy Spirit from Christ as the promise of the
Father.
We may pray for others
to be filled with the Spirit but we have no authority to give the Holy Spirit
'“ it is a personal gift from God.
Greek has a tense
which is used to describe an ongoing, unending condition; this tense is used
for the word 'filled', making the sense 'be being filled with the Spirit'. It
means that we are to be continually filled with the Holy Spirit.
THE
GIFTS OF THE SPIRIT
'Now about spiritual
gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant '¦ There are different kinds
of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the
same Lord '¦ All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives
them to each one, just as he determines.' 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The gifts of the Spirit
never designate natural talents, such as a gift for music or another art form.
The gifts referred to in 1 Corinthians 12 are supernatural manifestations of
the Holy Spirit.
The gifts differ from one person to another. Paul described the church as a
body with many members; each member is unique but has a vital role in the
function of the body. Although there may be a marked difference in the way
various parts of the body function, each one is needed and none should be
perceived as being more important than another.
That is what it is
like with the gifts of the Spirit. One believer receives one gift, another
believer a different gift. No one gift should be considered superior or
inferior to another (1 Corinthians 12:14-31). The emphasis should not be on the
gift, to avoid the gift becoming an idol. The recipient of the spiritual gift
should not glory in his or her gift because the gift could easily become a
stumbling block of pride.
Let us consider each
of the gifts mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12:8-10.
To one there is given through the Spirit the
message of wisdom, to another the
message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another
faith by the same Spirit, to another
gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another
miraculous powers, to another
prophecy, to another
the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another
the ability to speak in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the
interpretation of tongues.
THE
WORD OF WISDOM
A word (i.e. message)
of wisdom is supernatural wisdom, not something learned or acquired. It has its
source in the wisdom of God and is the ability to grasp something that is
beyond human understanding and to know what should be done in a specific situation
'“ to the glory of God. James 1:5 tells us that wisdom is available to all who
ask for it.
The practical
relevance of a word of wisdom is apparent in its timing and application. It is
not necessarily a proclamation at a church service. It could quite simply be a
part of a discussion during which the Holy Spirit prompts someone to reveal
divine truth or insight. Alternatively, it might be a revelation that occurs
during a time of Bible study, prayer or meditation, when the Holy Spirit
reveals Scripture that applies to specific circumstances. It has a practical
purpose and may come in a fashion that seems neither miraculous nor overly
religious.
Written by:
"Taking the five
loaves and the two fish and looking up to heaven, he gave thanks and broke
them. Then he gave them to the disciples to set before the people. They all ate
and were satisfied."
Luke 9:16-17
JESUS
'“ THE BREAD OF LIFE
It is a well-known
fact that Luke's Gospel is full of references to bread, food, meals and eating.
I counted 48 passages on this subject. The most notable of them all is where
Luke relates the feeding of the five thousand in Luke 9:10-17. That incident is
recounted in all four Gospels so it obviously has some very important things to
tell us.
Jesus himself referred
back to the miracle in Matthew 16:9 and expressed surprise that the disciples
did not seem to have understood the full weight of what had happened that day.
They only knew what they had seen with their eyes. The purpose of the eternal
will of God was behind it, but nothing like that had struck them. Did they
think God had just happened to feel like putting on a demonstration?
When I looked at the
familiar story again, I noticed something quite unusual. Luke places this story
between two similar verses: 'Herod said, '˜Who, then, is this I hear such
things about?'' (Luke 9:9); 'Jesus asked them, '˜Who do the crowds say I am?''
(Luke 9:18).
The crowds Jesus asked
about were those he had fed, not the general public. What did those people
think of him? What had they made of the man who had displayed such omnipotence?
In Jesus' mind the miracle should at least have sparked some curiosity about
who he was. In fact, it should have revealed his identity. This is God's way of
testing men and women. Do they see? He does not walk about wearing a designer
label for all to see. His works proclaim his presence and everything about him.
Appropriately Jesus once said, 'Believe on the evidence of the miracles
themselves' (John 14:11).
However, this was far
more than a show of strength. Just think of that famous statement of Jesus in
John 14:10: 'I am in the Father, and the Father is in me. It is the Father,
living in me, who is doing his work.' If food for five thousand meant
anything, Jesus was saying that the Father was involved every bit as much as he
was himself. By his miracles Jesus gave glory to the Father and revealed the
Father's heart.
Jesus is the image of
God. Look at Jesus, his works, his kindness and his self-sacrifice and you will
see God's face. Jesus is like God the Father and God the Father is like Jesus
the Son. 'Like father like son,' we say. How perfectly that fits Jesus and his
Father! Jesus said, 'The Son can do nothing by himself; he can only do what he
sees his Father doing, because whatever the Father does the Son also does'
(John 5:19).
Why did Jesus feed the
multitudes? Did he really have to bother? Well, yes, he did, because that is
the sort of thing that God does all the time. Jesus always did what he saw his
Father doing, and thus demonstrated that he was God's true Son. The Son
reflected God. For instance, the Father said, 'I am the Lord who heals you'
(Exodus 15:26) and Jesus also heals. The Lord is the God of salvation and Jesus
saves. The Lord is the God of deliverance and Jesus delivers. The Lord is
eternal and changeless and Jesus Christ is the 'same yesterday and today and
for ever' (Hebrews 13:8). Within his set of circumstances and during his brief
walk on earth he modelled the work of the Father. Any picture of God which is
unlike Jesus is false. Everything he did, from Bethlehem back to glory, reveals
the true heart of God.
I think I should point
out something in the verses that Luke places before and after the feeding of
the multitude. In both texts the question was really about whether Jesus was
Elijah or John the Baptist raised again to life. It is interesting to think
that the miracle is about 5,000 people being well fed in the wilderness, for both
Elijah and John survived in the wilderness on very little, eating whatever they
found. They were ascetics, like medieval saints who tried to forget that they
had stomachs. No '“ Jesus was not John or Elijah. In fact, his enemies accused
him of being a glutton and a wine-bibber! He trained the spotlight on God's
abundance and liberality. He made more bread than was needed in the wilderness
and more wine in Cana than they could drink. Bread and wine are Christ's gifts.
Remember that verse from John's Gospel, 'The Son can only do what he sees his
Father doing' (5:19)? In other words, the Father gives us bread and wine.
It is strange to think
that Jesus made bread in the wilderness. Earlier in his life Jesus had been
tempted to do that very thing and refused. The tempter came to him with the
provocation, 'If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread'
(Matthew 4:3). Satan was trying to provoke Jesus into proving who he was but
Jesus never worked miracles out of such a motive. Jesus himself was not about
to show off his power to make people believe in him. He had no faith, anyway,
in people who believed in him only as a wonder worker (see John 2:23-25). He
came to show people what the Father is like. He did not reveal himself but
waited for people to see it for themselves and cry out like Peter, 'You are the
Christ, the Son of the Living God' (Matthew 16:16).
The identity of Jesus
as the Messiah is often proved from Old Testament Scriptures. He fitted the
prophecies and fulfilled those Scriptures, but Jesus was bigger than the
prophecies. The Bible scholars of his day knew all about the Messiah '“ from an
academic point of view. However, Jesus said they knew neither the Scriptures
nor the power of God! The Scriptures described the Christ but he explained the
Scriptures. He did more than match the details like a mirror image. He was too
big for the mirror. Prophecy fell short of his glory.
BREAD!
The people of Israel
spoke of 'el shaddai', God Almighty or the all-sufficient God (Exodus 6:3).
The world's nations clung to their limited deities, rain gods, fertility gods,
fire gods, river gods and the gods of the sky, each with their narrowly defined
powers, while Israel knew el shaddai, the almighty, all-sufficient Lord. Israel
had come to this advanced understanding a thousand years before Greece invented
the gods of high Olympus and their limited powers.
The feeding of the
five thousand demonstrated el shaddai, the God of all human need. It is so
exciting to read the account in Luke 9! I notice that when the crowd came to
Jesus, Luke tells us that he welcomed them (verse 11). If it had been left to
the disciples, Jesus would have sent the people away to find food and lodging
in the nearby villages. Their reaction was fair enough: the disciples and Jesus
had tried to get away from the crowds for some rest as they hardly had a moment
to eat. The disciples must have been taken aback when Jesus welcomed the
crowds. However, they soon realised what that meant '“ Jesus installed himself
as the host of that motley crowd and treated them all as his guests, Christ
assumed the divine role, as host to man and beast. Jesus referred to it in his
Sermon on the Mount: 'Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or
store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them' (Matthew 6:26).
He was saying what Psalm 145:16 tells us: 'You satisfy the desires of every
living thing.' It is precisely what is meant in those famous words from the
Psalms: 'The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not be in want. You prepare a table
before me in the presence of my enemies' (Psalm 23:1, 5).
From the beginning of
the Bible we are the guests of the Lord God. Adam and Eve were told that the
trees of the garden would provide their food. When they sinned, they were
turned out of that beautiful orchard. Their meals no longer hung on trees.
Instead God decreed, 'You will eat the plants of the field. By the sweat of
your brow you will eat your food' (Genesis 3:18-19). They had to till the
ground, plant the seeds, look after the plants, bring in the harvest, grind the
grain to make the flour and bake the bread '“ to go through the whole process
of bread production. Things were not easy any more but they did eat; God made
sure of that.
Our Lord is always the
host, no matter who we are. 'He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the
good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous' (Matthew 5:45).
After the Flood God made a covenant with all living things: 'Never again will I
curse the ground because of man '¦ never again will I destroy all living
creatures. As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat,
summer and winter, day and night will never cease' (Genesis 8:21-22). Six
millenniums have passed and God has kept his word.
The Bible story is
bread, bread and bread again. The word occurs over 350 times in the Bible. We
think of Joseph with providential access to Egypt's granary; the people of
Israel feeding on the bread from heaven during their wilderness existence;
fields and harvests in the lives of Ruth, Samson and Gideon; miracles of supply
with Elijah and Elisha; and many an allusion in the books of the prophets.
Jesus himself speaks of bread 25 times. In Jesus' famous discourse on the bread
of life in John's Gospel (6:25-59), the word occurs 14 times.
Like his Father, Jesus
often slipped into the role of host. He met John and Andrew for the first time
and entertained them in his home (John 1:35-39). At the well in Samaria he asks
for something to drink and ends up giving the woman water (John 4:4-26). He
provides wine at the wedding feast in Cana (John 2:1-11). In John 21 he
prepares breakfast on the beach for the disciples hungry after a night on
Galilee.
When Christ
entertained the five thousand, he not only fed them but had compassion on them,
healed them and taught them. What a supper party! He organised them into groups
of fifty. God had fed Israel with manna in the wilderness and Christ now fed
another Israel multitude.
The Pharisees would
never have approved of this al fresco feast. There was no water with which to
purify their hands before eating and there were no principle guests, no higher
and lower tables. The greatest people there '“ Christ and his disciples '“
served the rest. Everyone sat down in rings or groups, everyone equal, and
helped to pass the miracle bread round. It was really an enactment of Christ's
wedding feast parable (Matthew 22), where everyone is welcome '“ cripples,
poor, beggars, the unclean '“ and everyone is equal.
Ours is the God who fills all things. In his presence is fullness of joy. Time
after time God asks questions like 'Why spend your money on things that are not
bread?' Jesus is the bread of life, but people spend money on drugs and other
questionable satisfactions that always leave life hollow.
The feeding of the
five thousand revealed God the Father as he is and his infinite concern. This
God filled the bellies of a huge mob on a hungry afternoon. But he made us not
only with stomachs but with minds and souls, and gives far beyond bread '“
pleasures, satisfactions and necessities '“ in ten thousand areas. The Lord is
the God of all goodness.
Jesus is the essential
in life. He says to you, 'I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never
go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty' (John 6:35).
Written by:
You crowned him with
glory and honour and put everything under his feet. In bringing many sons to
glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists,
should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.
Hebrews 2:7,10
Easter is the
celebration of our redemption. Through his death and resurrection Jesus
overcame the enemy's power. He defeated sin, death and the devil and made
losers out of the powers of darkness for all eternity. The Easter message is
that Jesus is victorious! Without him there would never have been any
possibility of redemption. However, thanks to his sacrifice and his triumphal
resurrection, he has opened the way to God for us. Through his suffering he
became the author of our salvation.
Jesus '“ the author of
salvation
If we talk of
salvation, it is his presence only that saves. Salvation does not come by registered
post from heaven. Jesus not only brings it; he is salvation. It is about a
living relationship with him. We need to be 'in Christ'. 'Therefore, there is
now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8:1). 'Christ
in you, the hope of glory' (Colossians 1:27). He did not found a religious
system with orders that are hard to follow. He is the God of our salvation, not
the Boss for whom we have to work hard to get salvation. 'It is God who works
in you' (Philippians 2:13). Jesus only! He said, 'Come to me and I will give
you rest' (Matthew 11:28).
Just come! He alone
does the saving work. Unfortunately, many people do not like that. They want to
boast about what they do to achieve things. Christ wants to give us rest when
we turn to him but they make hard work of getting anywhere near him. Some
churches have invented tortuous ways of getting to Jesus. People want some
recognition, some appreciation as worthy saints. And so they make turning to
Jesus a great achievement and their religion involves hard rules, hard labour,
hard discipline, hard praying and fasting, hard self-denial, hard preaching and
even hard pews. Some make it the work of a lifetime to get to him and think
they can never be sure that they have actually done so. To me, that sounds
rather cynical '“ 'If you come, you will find rest, but you'll need it because
it's hard work getting to me.' Many only expect rest in the graveyard.
Jesus never suggested
that such arduous processes were needed. All we need to do is accept him. His
commands are simple: 'Come to me!' 'Believe in me!' 'Follow me!'
Jesus '“ the Word
of God
The Bible prophets
brought a message from God. Jesus brought no message from God because he was
the message '“ the prophets' message. The prophets said, 'This is what the Lord
says.' Jesus said, 'I tell you.' He was not inspired. He was the inspirer. He
spoke through the prophets.
Mohammed called
himself a prophet, a messenger sent by Allah. His first message, received at
Mecca, is said to be the essence of the Koran. It has seven short lines. Number
5 is 'Show us the straight path'. No Christian needs to pray that prayer.
Jesus is The Way. Hundreds of religions and sects point to their ways as Isaiah
53:6 says, 'Each of us has turned to his own way.'
Paul, the great-minded
and great-hearted apostle, said, 'For me, to live is Christ' (Philippians
1:21). Our confidence is in Jesus himself, whatever doctrines we believe. We
are judged by what Jesus is, not by a rulebook. 'All have sinned and fall short
of the glory of God' (Romans 3:23).
The Gospels are about
Jesus and not a manual for do-it-yourself salvation. They show us that if he is
there, anything is possible. One example is found in Luke 5:17. Jesus was
sitting in a house and 'the power of the Lord was present to heal'. No one was
healed, but the power was still there. Then a paralysed man with his friends
broke in through the roof to get to Jesus. Jesus did not touch him but the man
was healed and his sin forgiven. Wherever Jesus was, there was healing and
hope. Luke 6:19 describes him in the foreign area of Tyre and Sidon; 'power was
coming from him and healing them all'.
Nowadays, Christians
are bombarded with hundreds of books, CDs and videos offering new prayer and
faith techniques, new revelations and theories, and private revelations. Yet,
Jesus spoke of faith with such simplicity: 'Only believe and you will see the
glory of God' (John 11:40). Great Christians of the past were men of simple
faith '“ but not simple men. We can look back to them for their spiritual
example. They acted on the straightforward and uncomplicated conviction that
God was with them.
The Lord God Almighty
is not conditioned to react to some specific formula. People talk about moving
God. We are not his movers; he is the mover. 'The Spirit of the Lord began to
stir him' (Judges 13:25). 'Men spoke from God as they were carried along by
the Holy Spirit' (2 Peter 1:21). Being of use to God does not begin with a
wrestling bout. It starts with resting in him because he is All in All. 'My
presence will go with you and I will give you rest' (Exodus 33:14).
Jesus '“ the healing
presence
Let us take a look at
the incident in Luke 8:43-44 of a woman healed from what is referred to as
'bleeding'. The whole point is that Jesus took no action whatever. She got
near to him, did no more than reach out a finger to touch the edge of his
clothing and instantly felt restored. She had found the secret. Power and
healing pervade his presence. We need no special techniques or spiritual
gymnastics to be healed. That is seen in Mark 6:56: 'They placed the sick in
the marketplaces. They begged him to let them touch even the edge of his cloak,
and all who touched him were healed.' None of them was a religious athlete.
They just got near to Jesus.
The healing of that
woman does have one very touching feature. She was not only sick, but also a
social outcast. Her haemorrhaging made her unclean and nobody wanted anything
to do with her because she could make him or her unclean, too. She was a
pariah. Leviticus 15:19 states that if a woman has a discharge of blood,
'anyone who touches her will be unclean'. That woman knew that by touching
Jesus' clothes, she would make him unclean, but she thought that no one would
notice. However, Jesus knew in an instant. He felt healing power flow from him
and asked, 'Who touched me?' The little woman was startled and felt terrible.
She had not reckoned on that. If he knew she had touched him, he would know
that he had been defiled. So she hid in the crowd. But Jesus kept on asking who
had touched him. In the end, she came forward in fear and trembling and
admitted the truth about her sickness and why she had touched him.
Jesus knew that people
would not have anything to do with her. She looked so bloodless, pale and sick.
All her money had gone to doctors so she could not afford a proper diet to
treat her anaemic condition. When she stood shaking in front of him and he heard
her story, there was no anger or reproof. He blessed her: 'Your faith has
healed you. Go in peace!' (Luke 8:48). If she defiled him, he cleansed her.
That is what Jesus is like! Always! He takes our uncleanness and gives us his
purity. 'God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might
become the righteousness of God' (2 Corinthians 5:21).
A Roman scholar, Pliny
the Elder, who lived at the time of Christ, recorded what people said about
women with a haemorrhage. They were considered a threat. Their condition could
cause all sorts of evil things: turn new wine sour, cause fruit to fall from
the trees, hives of bees to die and dogs to get rabies. If a woman like the one
in the story so much as glanced at a baby, it would be poisoned. The poor woman
who touched Jesus knew all that. We can well imagine how bad she would feel
about fingering Christ's clothes.
When Jesus said to her
'Your faith has healed you. Go in peace!' he revolutionised every idea of God
that existed. To Jewish people, Yahweh was an awful transcendent being. He
could not be approached except with the greatest care. Even priests had to
observe scrupulous conditions of ritual perfection. Then Jesus came and the
power to heal simply flowed from him, even to the untouchables.
The Gentiles had even less idea of God. They thought that he was some kind of
unknown cloud of power, but without feelings, indescribable and changeless.
This 'something' was so pure that it could have nothing to do with mortal
flesh or with the material world. It was passionless and unreachable. Yet the
Son of God took on human form and, although he was God, embraced even the
lepers. We see God as he really always was from all eternity '“ full of pity,
love and power. When the trembling hand of a little outcast woman touched him,
the truth flashed out that would change the world: God is love.
When one considers
this story, one realises that the most outstanding truth was not the miracle
but that Jesus accepted the woman as she was and focused the extent of his
deity on her, an unwanted scrap of broken humanity. The Prince of Glory was
anxious to talk to one forgotten soul.
When we talk about the
presence of God, we mean the presence of God with us, not just his presence
filling heaven. His presence is heaven. He brings heaven into the lives of
ordinary people.
CfaN holds gospel
campaigns in some of the poorest countries on earth, where some people may own
nothing more than a blanket. The crowd may consist of a hundred thousand or
more of the poorest of the poor, but God again and again comes upon them with
extraordinary blessings. He has a special interest in every individual, lifts
them out of the mire and makes their lives meaningful. Jesus said, 'The good
news is preached to the poor' (Matthew 11:5).
Whether we are dealing
with a sick woman or a masterly Paul, an Augustine, Luther, a king or a
peasant, the core of Christianity is simply the presence and the closeness of
Jesus. He wants to have fellowship with you and me.
Reinhard Bonnke
Written by:
All things have been
committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Father except the Son and those
to whom the Son chooses to reveal him. Come to me, all you who are weary and
burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my
yoke is easy and my burden is light.
Matthew 11:27-30
Jesus '“ the present
One
Millions believe that
Jesus exists, and some are very good at proving it '“ but not all have a living
relationship with him. He is somewhere else, remote, and not present in their
day-to-day life. That is not a mere incidental. I am talking about a real, intact
relationship, his presence in our lives. Without his presence, life is empty
and pointless.
One of the prime Bible
examples of the importance of our relationship with the Lord is Israel. They
had escaped from Egypt by the mighty hand of God. They were making for the
Promised Land when the going became tough. Like frightened children, they
hankered to go back to where they had been safe. They made a god, a golden
calf, to lead them back to Egypt. It was sheer madness! The Lord showed them
that if that were really what they wanted, he would not force himself on them.
He said, 'I will not go with you because you are a stiff-necked people'
(Exodus 33:3).
However, whatever they
did, God was not going to break his promise. He had vowed to give them the Promised
Land and no matter what they got up to, that is what he would do. 'What if some
did not have faith? Will their lack of faith nullify God's faithfulness?'
(Romans 3:3).
So, to make sure that they got there, he said that he would send an angel with
them in his place. Interestingly, the sullen people were completely taken
aback! 'When the people heard these distressing words, they began to mourn'
(Exodus 33:2-4). The possibility of being in the land without the Lord scared
them stiff. The biggest angel in glory could never fill the land with his
presence. Only the Lord could do that. And they knew that was vital.
They may have been an
uneducated rabble straight out of slavery but they were more sensible than a
lot of people today. Mere angels would not do for them. It had to be God and no
one less significant. They needed his presence! Nowadays people put their hope
in angels or in beings from a nearby planet or from outer space. Some try to
make contact with the spirits of dead relatives or cosmic forces, or trust in
stellar influences and their horoscope or even lucky charms. What about God?
All those centuries ago, Israel was not prepared to settle for anything less
than the presence of the Lord their God in their midst.What happened next is
certainly a premier occasion for the record books. Moses, prepared to perish,
stood up to intervene and intercede for the people. He was a religious pioneer.
Even now, his words to God preserved in Exodus 32 and 33 seem to us
frighteningly bold. 'You have been telling me, '˜Lead these people.' Remember
that this nation is your people. If your presence does not go with us, what
else will distinguish your people from all the other people on the face of the
earth?' (Exodus 33:12-16)
Moses' faith and
action won the day. The Lord said, 'My presence will go with you and I will
give you rest' (Exodus 33:14).
Here was a vital
spiritual lesson before history began: God is all-sufficient in himself; his
laws, however good and useful they might be, are not enough on their own. In
his presence there is peace and rest: 'I will give you rest.' The same Lord
repeated exactly the same words more than 1,000 years later. The Awesome One
present at Mount Sinai became the man Christ Jesus and said, 'Come to me and I
will give you rest' (Matthew 11:28). Just like the people back then, we need a
living relationship with him today, the certainty of his presence in our lives.
Jesus '“ the
rest-giver
Jesus is the only one
who can give us rest. We are all restless until we find rest in his presence.
Then we can relax. The Ten Commandments and the mass of other rules that Moses
gave to Israel never gave them rest, but only hard work. Laws bind; they do not
emancipate.
Israel's escape from
Egypt was a faith operation, not a reward for being law-abiding. Virtuous they
certainly were not. God gave commandments but made one fact clear: success
comes about only through a relationship with him, his presence. 'Unless the
Lord builds the house, its builders labour in vain' (Psalm 127:1).
The introduction to
the Ten Commandments is a further reminder. 'I am the Lord thy God, who brought
you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery' (Exodus 20:2). That is who he is
'“ a loving God full of concern for his people, which is why he gave them the
Commandments. They were only the ABC of his loving guidance for a primitive
society on earth. Unfortunately, modern society has not yet learned the ABC.
God himself means to
be our all in all. He wants us to rest in him, in what he is. That is the
lesson of the Exodus. It was all God's doing. He planned it and carried it out.
It was not the wish of Pharaoh, the cooperation of Moses or the will of the
people. On the contrary, Pharaoh refused to let them go. Moses wanted to back
out of the whole project. The people only went when driven. The only goodwill
at work was God's good will. He resisted Pharaoh's resistance, willed against
unwilling Israel, and worked when Moses did not want to work. He knew what was
to be their permanent good throughout the coming generations and his plan was
not to be thwarted by their unwilling and short-sighted fathers.
When Moses died and
Joshua took over, he had to learn the same lessons as Moses. On the edge of the
Promised Land, with years of campaigning ahead, the Lord promised just one thing
'“ 'The Lord your God will be with you wherever you go' (Joshua 1:9). The
greatest historical act of emancipation '“ the exodus from Egypt '“ could never
have taken place if he had not been in the midst of Israel. They neither asked
for it nor deserved it. They had nothing to recommend them. He simply chose
them, mapped out their destiny, and made it happen.
The Lord's words to
Joshua were so like the words of Jesus when he gave us the Great Commission to
preach the gospel to every creature. 'Surely I am with you always, to the very
end of the age' (Matthew 28:20).
Christians tackle a
hostile world like Israel tackled a hostile country. The same guarantee comes
with God's orders '“ his presence. The Church today has organisation, brains
and prestige, and nearly 2 billion people call themselves Christians. It is
vast and complex but its inner secret and reliance is the abiding presence of
the Lord.
Reinhard Bonnke
Written by:
God has spoken to us
by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the
universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation
of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Hebrews 1:2-3
Jesus is the most
important person of all time, the one after whom our era is named, the one who
is loved and worshipped by more people than anyone else who ever walked this
earth. Jesus is absolutely everything for those of us who have accepted him as
our Lord and Saviour. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He gave
everything for us '“ and we should also give everything for him.
In this and the
following Bible studies, I would like to invite you to join me in thinking
about him and some aspects of his being and ministry.
Jesus the storm
handler
Lake Galilee was in a
rage, lashing and clawing like a monster at one little boat. A dozen fellows
rowed desperately to escape its fury. But the harbour was three miles away
across the raging water.
They were alone. That
is, Jesus, their Lord, was not with them. If Jesus is not with people, they are
always alone. Then suddenly they saw him. He emerged like a ghost out of the
gloom and spray. It was unbelievable. He was walking, treading the waves under
his feet like snarling wild creatures. He walked straight across to the boat
and got in: ''˜Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid!' Then he climbed into
the boat with them, and the wind died down.' (Mark 6:50-51)
Then, another
inexplicable experience, they arrived at the shore straightaway, without
knowing how it happened. It was all real but so fantastic that the disciples
never forgot it, nor could they ever fathom it.
It goes without saying
that the God who created the universe knew how to handle all things in a storm
'“ and so did Jesus. The task of getting a boat across to shore in a matter of
minutes was no problem to the one called 'the Word'. He only needed to
re-arrange a few atoms.
Jesus the maker
That brings me to
another aspect of our glorious Lord. He is the maker of the universe and every
single atom. What is everything made of? Whatever it is, the Maker can use it
as he wishes.
'Jesus Christ, through
whom all things came and through whom we live.' (1 Corinthians 8:6)
In the past 50 years
science has found that the building material of the uni-verse comprises not
only atoms but also particles, a mass of mere points of energy. There is no
order or system; they obey no law of nature but dart about at random and in
apparent chaos. Then at an appropriate stage they shape up like soldiers
commanded to form lines. The formless dance of points of energy suddenly
becomes things we recognise '“ elements, water, the planets and the sun.
We ourselves are like
that. Nobody knows how and why we appear as we do. Psalm 139:13-16 uses phrases
like this:
'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I
praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are
wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was
made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body All the days ordained for me were written in
your book before one of them came to be.'
God makes us and
upholds us moment by moment. 'In him we live and move and have our being'
(Acts 17:28). He harnesses and controls these points of energy, compacts them,
transforms them and gives them form and shape. He upholds all things in
existence. That Maker is the creative One we are talking about.
The dancing particles
that form our bodies act in ways that are a mystery to science. What they do
seems impossible, yet we ourselves are made of those elements. Many people do
not believe in miracles. Yet it is a fact that life would be impossible without
them.
The impossible happens
in the presence of the Lord '“ all the time. The super-natural comes naturally
to him; the impossible is possible. Hebrews 1:2-3 says that the Son of God
'sustains all things by his powerful word'. Job speaks of the universe as 'but
the outer fringe of his works' or 'the mere edges of his ways' (Job 26:14),
like tracks on wet grass. It seems to me that creation happened simply as he
passed by. And indeed, wherever Jesus went things happened. You could tell when
he had passed through a Jewish village '“ there were no sick people any more.
All it took was for Jesus to pass by. Where he is, there is no problem about
walking the waves, transporting a boat with the speed of lightning, and feeding
five thousand with a boy's packed lunch. It just happens; cosmic forces bend to
his will
'In all things God
works for the good of those who love him' (Romans 8:28). That is who we are
talking about when we talk about Jesus in the Bible. To him be all the glory!
Reinhard Bonnke
Written by:
God has spoken to us
by his Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, and through whom he made the
universe. The Son is the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation
of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word.
Hebrews 1:2-3
Jesus is the most
important person of all time, the one after whom our era is named, the one who
is loved and worshipped by more people than anyone else who ever walked this
earth. Jesus is absolutely everything for those of us who have accepted him as
our Lord and Saviour. He is the King of kings and the Lord of lords. He gave
everything for us '“ and we should also give everything for him.
In this and the
following Bible studies, I would like to invite you to join me in thinking
about him and some aspects of his being and ministry.
Jesus the storm
handler
Lake Galilee was in a
rage, lashing and clawing like a monster at one little boat. A dozen fellows
rowed desperately to escape its fury. But the harbour was three miles away
across the raging water.
They were alone. That
is, Jesus, their Lord, was not with them. If Jesus is not with people, they are
always alone. Then suddenly they saw him. He emerged like a ghost out of the
gloom and spray. It was unbelievable. He was walking, treading the waves under
his feet like snarling wild creatures. He walked straight across to the boat
and got in: ''˜Take courage! It is I. Don't be afraid!' Then he climbed into
the boat with them, and the wind died down.' (Mark 6:50-51)
Then, another
inexplicable experience, they arrived at the shore straightaway, without
knowing how it happened. It was all real but so fantastic that the disciples
never forgot it, nor could they ever fathom it.
It goes without saying
that the God who created the universe knew how to handle all things in a storm
'“ and so did Jesus. The task of getting a boat across to shore in a matter of
minutes was no problem to the one called 'the Word'. He only needed to
re-arrange a few atoms.
Jesus the maker
That brings me to
another aspect of our glorious Lord. He is the maker of the universe and every
single atom. What is everything made of? Whatever it is, the Maker can use it
as he wishes.
'Jesus Christ, through
whom all things came and through whom we live.' (1 Corinthians 8:6)
In the past 50 years
science has found that the building material of the uni-verse comprises not
only atoms but also particles, a mass of mere points of energy. There is no
order or system; they obey no law of nature but dart about at random and in
apparent chaos. Then at an appropriate stage they shape up like soldiers
commanded to form lines. The formless dance of points of energy suddenly
becomes things we recognise '“ elements, water, the planets and the sun.
We ourselves are like
that. Nobody knows how and why we appear as we do. Psalm 139:13-16 uses phrases
like this:
'For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother's womb. I
praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are
wonderful, I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was
made in the secret place. When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
your eyes saw my unformed body All the days ordained for me were written in
your book before one of them came to be.'
God makes us and
upholds us moment by moment. 'In him we live and move and have our being'
(Acts 17:28). He harnesses and controls these points of energy, compacts them,
transforms them and gives them form and shape. He upholds all things in
existence. That Maker is the creative One we are talking about.
The dancing particles
that form our bodies act in ways that are a mystery to science. What they do
seems impossible, yet we ourselves are made of those elements. Many people do
not believe in miracles. Yet it is a fact that life would be impossible without
them.
The impossible happens
in the presence of the Lord '“ all the time. The super-natural comes naturally
to him; the impossible is possible. Hebrews 1:2-3 says that the Son of God
'sustains all things by his powerful word'. Job speaks of the universe as 'but
the outer fringe of his works' or 'the mere edges of his ways' (Job 26:14),
like tracks on wet grass. It seems to me that creation happened simply as he
passed by. And indeed, wherever Jesus went things happened. You could tell when
he had passed through a Jewish village '“ there were no sick people any more.
All it took was for Jesus to pass by. Where he is, there is no problem about
walking the waves, transporting a boat with the speed of lightning, and feeding
five thousand with a boy's packed lunch. It just happens; cosmic forces bend to
his will
'In all things God
works for the good of those who love him' (Romans 8:28). That is who we are
talking about when we talk about Jesus in the Bible. To him be all the glory!
Reinhard Bonnke
HEALING -
PROBLEM OR PROMISE?
Written by:
'It is time for you
to act, O Lord.'
Psalm 119:126
CURED
AT ONCE
When I was a schoolboy
sitting in a church service, the Spirit of God powerfully led me to put my
hands on a woman on the other side of the room. She was cured at once '“ and I
do not know who was more astounded, she or I! It was the first time anything like
that had ever happened to me.
Today I am amazed to
see the great crowds that come to hear the gospel and they are amazed by the
healings that follow the preaching of God's Word. People who cannot see or hear
and others who had lost the power of speech or the use of their limbs are
suddenly able to do what they had not been able to do for years, if ever.
WATCHING
OUT FOR THE SUPERNATURAL
The kinds of
superstitious beliefs which pervade Africa and Asia open people's minds to the
supernatural, as do the occult and witchcraft, but these practices are unable
to provide answers to questions about heaven and how to get there. The things
people believe in are all about the world immediately around them, the one that
they can see. They seek protection, good luck, witch-doctor cures, and
sometimes bad things, too, such as evil spells and wicked enchantments.
I do not preach
sermons on healing; I preach salvation. And people gladly receive it. But in
Africa and Asia people are used to watching out for the supernatural. They have
no problem seeing that the Christian faith can be applied to life around them
as well as give them spiritual security for the future. It covers them body and
soul, protecting, delivering, healing and blessing in all things, which is, in
fact, just how Old Testament people understood salvation. In our evangelistic
campaigns, after we have invited people to receive salvation in Jesus Christ,
we pray for the sick. The great healings and other signs that God grants are in
a category beyond their dreams of the supernatural and are convincing evidence
of the reality of God.
THE TWO
GREAT TRUTHS
The God of the Old
Testament declared two great truths about himself: first, he is the Healer and,
second, he never changes. In the New Testament the curtain goes up on Jesus as
the image of the Father; crusading against sickness. Even a tassel on his robe
gave health back to a sick woman who was considered a social outcast because of
her illness.
We preach Christ
crucified, but which Christ? A Christ shorn of his ability to heal? Or the
Christ of the Bible? Some interpret Scripture in such a way as to set the Jesus
who heals in a long past dispensation; roughly meaning that he is not allowed
to heal any more! Not a single line in the New Testament warrants such a view.
We know God by his acts and if he does not act in the same way today as he did
in the past, he can go on telling us until the cows come home that he has not
changed; no one will believe him.
The only Jesus I
preach is the Jesus of the Gospels '“ the Jesus who passed through Galilee
leaving behind him villages full of thankful people who had been healed and the
Jesus who took Jerusalem by storm with his gracious compassion on the
afflicted.
Even his enemies knew
it was in his nature to heal. When he appeared in a synagogue where a man stood
with a shrivelled-up arm, they waited for him to heal him so that they could
condemn him and plot his death (Mark 3:1-6, Luke 6:6-11).
THE MEANING
OF 'CHRIST'
Preaching in Nazareth,
Jesus described himself as the One anointed to heal (Luke 4:18). 'Christ'
means the 'Anointed One'. 'Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and
today and forever' (Hebrews 13:8) '¦ still anointed to heal.
Christ's healing work
was not incidental. He acted in obedience to his Father and what he did was
essential to his revelation. It was not a temporary policy, adopted for some
inscrutable purpose, or a sudden whim. God does not do things just now and
then, on the spur of the moment; in fact, he does not think 'short term'.
Everything Jesus did was always in character, perfectly in tune with the person
who is described as 'changeless.' What he was the Father was, too. After
restoring a sick man at Bethesda, he said, 'My Father is always at his
work to this very day, and I, too, am working' (John 5:17). The
context makes it clear that the 'work' Jesus refers to is healing. What he
does tells us what he is. That is how we know him and why we trust him.
GOD INSPIRES
HOPE OF HEALING
God is a God of order,
and he therefore seeks to rectify disorder. The Bible begins with the Spirit of
God moving on the earth, which was shapeless and empty. He performed a million
miracles, bringing light and life to the dark wastes. When the work of creation
was done, he did not retreat from it. He is not sitting in heaven, worn out
after all that excertion, perversely letting things take their course.
We find the state of
the present world intolerable. Of course! God made us like that, like himself.
Just as he brooded over the primeval waste at creation, he broods over things
today, bent on changing things, on restoring order where there is now chaos.
Romans 8:10-23 looks forward to universal renewal and the end of all suffering.
In Revelation 21:5 God proclaims, 'I am making everything new.' He
is not going to wake up one day with a jolt, burst in on the scene in some
unexpected fashion and get busy putting it all right. He is always working on
improving things. The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of renewal (Titus 3:5). He has
nothing in common with immobile deities like Allah or with a firmly seated
image like that of Buddha. By his very character, God inspires hope of healing.
THE PROMISE
OF A SICKNESS-FREE AGE
Physical healings have
taken place throughout the whole Christian age. God responded to faith even
when Bible ignorance confused people. The twentieth century saw an ever-rising
floodtide of signs and wonders. The third millennium did not dawn as the
Millennium of Christ, yet the multiplication of physical cures around the world
today naturally remind us of the Biblical Millennium, the promise of a
sickness-free age. Miracles today are a sign that the golden age will soon
dawn.
Despite the Bible and
despite a million testimonies, many scoff at divine healing. Believers
themselves are often discouraged, because some people are not healed. It is too
problematic for them to have the kind of hope that includes physical healing.
That some go unhealed is an indisputable fact, but let us face some other
facts.
GOD HAS
TOLD US TO PRAY FOR HEALING
First, problems do not
negate divine promises. Healing is actually part of the promise of God to
answer prayer. We do not stop praying if sometimes our prayers do not bring the
desired result. Why should anyone stop trusting God for healing?
Second, there are
problems about everything, even salvation itself. Many profess salvation and
yet show no fruits of a changed life, just as some go home from healing
meetings showing no improvement in their physical condition. Jesus himself told
us in the parable of the sower to expect the effects of the Word to be varied.
Third, if we never
believed things that were problematic, we would never believe anything.
Controversy rages around all teaching, Bible inspiration, the church, the
Lord's Table, baptism, and the person of Christ, predestination or whatever
topic one might choose to discuss. There are opposite opinions in every sphere
of human understanding because we are finite, limited, and see 'through
a glass, darkly' (1 Corinthians 13:12, KJV). Hesitations,
reservations and mental conundrums can deprive us of healing. So often we are
just too clever by half and reason ourselves out of it. God merely asks us to
put our trust in him for everything we need. God has told us to pray for
healing and God does heal. In fact, human salvation itself is a form of
healing.
DON'T
STOP TRUSTING GOD FOR HEALING!
Nonetheless, there is
plenty of evidence that God still heals physical ailments today. So why doesn't
he always do it? God's will is to heal, but his will is not always done on
earth as in Heaven. It is not yet the Millennium reign of Christ and the
Kingdom has not come. There are blockages to healing that could be removed but
perhaps we do not know what they are. Faith is not built on reason or even on
one's own personal experience of healing or the lack of it, but on looking to
Jesus.
A thousand years
before Christ's incarnation a Psalmist wrote, 'It is time for you to
act, O Lord' (Psalm 119:126). Two thousand years after Christ's
incarnation that same Jesus is still 'acting,' working as he did when he
walked this earth.
It is time for us to
acknowledge it.
Written by:
"I can do
everything through him who gives me strength."
Philippians 4:13
One day, my father
Hermann Bonnke went 'fishing' but his 'catch' was far different from what he
or anyone else might ever have expected '“ an incredible story.
My father was young,
strong and sporty. Out walking by the water one day he heard a cry for help.
Looking across, he saw a man struggling, in danger of perishing in the ice-cold
water. How or why the man was there did not matter to my father. He was a strong
swimmer and without a moment's hesitation, he jumped into the wintry flood,
swam out to the man, grabbed him and saved his life.
He pulled the half
drowned victim to the water's edge and began hauling him ashore. But he felt a
peculiar drag. Heaving the victim to safety seemed like pulling on an
unexpected weight, heavy work. He could not understand why. Then he saw the
answer. To his astonishment, he found out what the dragging 'weight' was. Two
more drowning people were hanging on to the first man's feet! He was saving not
one man but three people. Three for the price of one!
BECAUSE
OF HER PERSISTENT TESTIMONY
A young man brought us
a thrilling personal tale a few months ago. In 1985 in Cape Town we had pitched
the world's largest tent seating 34,000 people. Then calamity struck. A
tornado-like storm ripped that proud tent to shreds, leaving bits of canvas
flapping and fluttering so pathetically on the 88 foot high steel masts. It
looked like the skeleton of a sea monster. Yet we still went ahead and held our
Great Gospel Campaign '“ and more people gathered than would ever have fitted
into our tent. The young man's grandmother became a Christian at that meeting
in Valhalla Park, Cape Town. She began witnessing to others, like the woman at
the well who went into her city and told everybody she had 'met a man' (John
4:4-42). The young man said, 'Because of my grandmother's new life and
persistent testimony, 100 family members have been saved and are today
Spirit-filled Christians.' Ninety-nine others had followed her as she followed
Jesus.
I had tears in my eyes
as he spoke. Then I remembered the story my father had told me of how he saved
one man and two other people were holding on to him to be saved. Jesus saved
this grandmother and she had taken the whole family with her to him. She followed
Jesus and they followed her as she followed him, out of the deep waters into
the Kingdom.
That is the lifestyle
of disciples of Jesus. It applies to all of us. We are called, equipped and
enabled to pass on the glorious good news of salvation in the power of God.
EMPOWERED
FOR THE IMPOSSIBLE
I want to look now at
Christ's Great Commission. It was impossible to act on the Great Commission
before the Day of Pentecost. Jesus had told his disciples to wait. Then things
started to happen! The evangelism that took place on that one day produced the
worldwide church. But '¦ what is the church? Are we clear about its nature and
its purpose?
THE
CHURCH IS AN EXTENSION OF CHRIST
The church is an
extension of the compassion of the Lord Jesus, an extension of his comfort, his
healing and his goodness. 'Jesus of Nazareth '¦ went about doing good and
healing all who were under the power of the devil' (Acts 10:38). That is what
we should be doing!
The church is his
body; we are told: 'And he is the head of the body, the church' (Colossians
1:18). God has no arms but ours with which to embrace this pitiable world. Love
is his supreme characteristic. I feel that we are only his body to the degree
or extent that we show clear evidence of his compassion. A loveless church is
no church at all. The love of God that was personified in Jesus needs to be
personified in the church. 'Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ
Jesus' (Philippians 2:5). The church is the current evidence of what we read
of Jesus in the Gospels. Let me put it like this: the church is his beloved
child, the embodiment of his Spirit of sonship.
THE
CHURCH IS TO BE A CONTINUATION OF THE DAY OF PENTECOST
The purpose of
evangelism is not to turn the church into an ecclesiastical advertising agency or
a society for propagating its own existence. It burst into view on the Day of
Pentecost speaking in tongues, with prophecy and fire. If the church is not
like that '“ no fire, no tongues, no prophecies, no evangelism, no bold
preaching of Christ and the Resurrection, no triumphant certainty and promise
'“ how can any rational person identify it as the same church? Who would
recognise its visage as that of the church in Jerusalem in AD 30 without the
power and manifestation of the Spirit? We are left with the natural processes
of success, organisation, intellectual abilities, human wisdom, prowess and
energies. Those assets, relied on alone, leave the church an empty shell.
THE
CHURCH OF PENTECOST DEMONSTRATED THAT JESUS IS ALIVE
The proof that Jesus
is alive should be in the church itself '“ demonstrated by its energy, love and
vitality. Living people tend to stand out! All Jesus wants is a chance to show
that he is alive '“ in the church. When the church spends its time trying to
prove that Jesus was resurrected, people naturally think, 'If Jesus is alive,
why do they have to devote so much effort and reason to proving it? It should
be obvious.' Compassion for the suffering and that matchless quality of
Christ-like goodness that only he can impart must be there, clearly in
evidence.
When Jesus gave the
Great Commission, he was talking to twelve men only, twelve ordinary men. It
must have sounded an outrageous demand. No king, no tyrant ever expected so
much of so few. But Jesus did. You can know the true Jesus because he demands
the impossible. That is how you can identify him. That is Jesus every time '“
telling you to do what is beyond your natural abilities. Kill Goliath! Be a
giant, not a grasshopper! Move mountains! Be perfect! Walk on the waves! Cleanse
the lepers! Raise the dead! Teach all nations! Preach the gospel to every
creature!
The idea of being
saddled with the task of the Great Commission without Pentecostal power is
ridiculous. Whenever Jesus demands the impossible, he is there, the living Christ,
to make it possible. That is the principle of a life with Jesus '“ all the
glory goes to God! Hallelujah!
