Monthly Archives: February 2009

Gambling casinos for Spain

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Giles Tremlett, author of Ghosts of Spain has an article in the Guardian on a major project that is proposed for Spain. He says:

A huge swath of land that stretches beyond the horizon of low-lying hills is being bought up by a British company which plans to transform the scrub and dusty arable land into a cross between Las Vegas and Orlando.

Up to 30x the value of the land is being offered (money speaks) and although the law allows just one casino per province,

A made-to-measure law allowing 32 casino-hotels within a few square miles is due by the summer.

Politicians listen when money is on the table.

Daniel: what choices?

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Choices: we all have to make them. What does it mean to be in the world but not of it is the huge choice for believers. (For those following the eschatology blogs this is one of the central reasons why the rapture concept is strange for me.)

Daniel is determined not to defile himself through what he eats (1:8); but is also willing to be judged – does his choices make him less useful or more useful in the service of the king?

Eating food – Jesus has cleansed that for us – but it speaks of our integration or separation. The ‘not of this world’ aspect.

So they learn alongside pagans and in a pagan context they learn from pagans, but choose not to eat certain food: this illustrates the tough choices that we have to make humbly.  My guess is we might think that the learning in that environment of Babylonian language and literature was compromising, and the non-eating was at the level of non-necessary separation.

Then we read that God gave an aptitude for them to grasp the literature and wisdom. Or as the NIV puts it: To these four young men God gave knowledge and understanding of all kinds of literature and learning.

Daniel: 3 years training

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I put in yesterdays blog a little provocative statement: Did Daniel have anything to learn from the magicians in Babylon?

I maybe put the question out there in a rather stark fashion, but I was very impacted by this thought. Daniel had to learn the language and literature of the Babylonians. (Babylon both the enemy of God’s people and servant of God to punish his people – there is another thought!!). His wisdom was considered alongside (and above) that of the magicians and enchanters.

His training was not short – 3 years.

If God is re-positioning people for the marketplace, and even re-engineering them does all the training come from heaven. Conversely, is all the literature ‘kingdom literature’? And is all the wisdom of God within the Christian community – or can we hear wisdom cry out in the public square and at the gates (Prov. 8:1-21).

Insecurity

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When the forms of an old culture are dying, the new culture is created by a few people who are not afraid to be insecure (Rudolph Bahro).

I read this quote a few days ago, and having just had Caleb and Kerry Storkey with us for a couple of days I feel re-invigorated to push into some understanding of our times. How far will I get? Probably not too far. But I have to acknowledge the repositioning of our times. These are ‘Liquid Times’ (Bauman), and as I suggested recently Daniel might well be one of the prophetic patterns for our time.

A little question that came to me today. Did Daniel have anything to learn from the magicians in Babylon?

We have an old culture – economics, capitalism (a snake that feeds off its on tail?), leadership styles, politics, church… if the quote I openecd with has any truth within it I guess the question is am I willing to live in an insecure place?

Blacon (UK)

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It is the middle of the night here in Palma… another night that challenges sleep – there is so much activity in the atmosphere, with many religious spirits…

I had a report from Rob & Aliss Cresswell (Chester) who are pioneering in Blacon, nr. Chester, one of the top 3% deprived areas in the UK. (Amazing how wealth and poverty can co-exist.) I was very challenged and blessed – signs of the kingdom are both social and supernatural. I asked for their permission to add it here and so an abridged version is here. Be encouraged.

Rob & Aliss write:

Hi. We knew 2009 was gonna be a good year, and as soon as January came things started hotting up. Last week we heard Rick Joyner talk about having a miracle per day, so that’s what we’re going for (to start with), and here are some recent stories…Just in the past two weeks:

Delivery man

The Lord showed us that a delivery man coming to our house that morning would get saved if we prophesied to him. The doorbell rang and we were quite nervous! The parcel wasn’t even for us; it was delivered to the wrong house, but we told the guy that God showed us he’d been having a bad time for 2 months and things were getting worse in every area of his life. We felt that he was searching but didn’t know what for, but it was Jesus he was looking for. The man was quite taken aback and emotional and said it was all true and he ended up getting saved!!

Slipped discs healed

A friend of ours from School of the Spirit rang saying she’d been in bed for 2 weeks with slipped discs in her back and felt the Lord tell her to phone us. We prayed for her over the phone but when we hung up, the Holy Spirit told me to put my hands out and he was going to take me in the Spirit to her house. I closed my eyes and pictured myself laying hands on her back and I saw oil coming down over her. The next day she rang me to say after she’d hung up she felt like I was in the room and sensed oil coming down over her back and she was immediately healed and got out of bed! The virus that she’d had left too.

The Cafe is a miracle in itself! We wanted a cafe at the parade shops in Blacon. There is no cafe and there are 18,000 people in Blacon. Blacon is in the top 3% deprived areas in the UK. We stood at the shops and asked God for a building. The council said we’d never get one as there is a long waiting list. We were specific about the building and also told the Lord we wanted it for free. Praise God, a year later we now have a building rent free for 2 years. Next door to the Spar at the Parade. We opened last week and it’s going really well. Click on the link here to connect to the website and watch a video of the refurb

Teenagers freaked out by God

We had our first Sunday morning teens group in the cafe. We were talking about words of knowledge when a local teenager started banging on the window outside. We let him in. He’s a notorious troublemaker in Blacon. We started to prophesy to him and said ‘Something happened to you yesterday and you were in serious trouble and panicked. And you’re still scared now. It was yesterday wasn’t it?’ He looked scared and said yes, how did we know? We told him that God was there and He just told us about it. He said ‘God was there?!!!!’ and went white. He then asked us to pray for him. We went outside and he told his two mates ‘They just read my fortune and know everything about what we did yesterday and God was there!!!’ Then they were all freaked out! We explained that it wasn’t fortune telling, but the Holy Spirit. We ended up praying for his broken ankle that had just come out of a cast but wasn’t healed. Straight away he was able to walk on it OK and the next day when we saw him he was like a different person, polite and quiet, and said his ankle was still healed! We also prayed for the fire of God to get the three of them!

Another broken bone healed

On Friday a group of 5 lads came into the cafe for sausage baps. We started to tell them about Jesus but they were very skeptical and didn’t think He was real. We told them about some of the healings that we’ve been seeing but they didn’t believe us. One lad said his arm was broken and hadn’t healed properly and it hurt so much he couldn’t move it. He let us pray for it. The glory came down and they could all feel it. Suddenly the boy we were praying for said ‘that’s weird’ and started to move his arm up and down. He said ‘I can’t do that’ as he moved it about and said the pain had all gone. Then they all asked us to pray for them. They said it’s the best cafe in the world and are gonna come back regularly!

More healings

Yesterday the teens group practised praying for healing in the cafe during the church service. We then all went into the main meeting and they laid hands on people who needed healing. One guy who was deaf since an operation on his ear 18 months ago, felt his ear pop open and he can now hear perfectly! And a lady with a painful hip that had kept her up in the night and then had to sit down in the meeting because of the pain was healed too. Also a guy with a spine complaint was healed after receiving a word of knowledge at School of the Spirit last week.

Prayer in the Supermarket

We started talking to a lady in the supermarket by the teabags about Jesus. We ended up praying for her and were thrilled to see her in church on Sunday. She said we prayed for something that was about to happen to her a couple of days later but none of us knew about it when we prayed!

New Life Blacon Community Church

We started 18 months ago with 17 adults and 5 kids and now we have more like 60 people including kids. God’s really blessing us. We have been praying for more spiritual mothers and fathers to look after the new Christians, and that’s what’s been happening.

School of the Spirit is still going well every Friday night. People come a long way to experience the presence of God. We’ve had some amazing worship times recently and guests like Keith & Sanna Luker, Godfrey Birtill and Sean Feucht have all left deposits of glory and fire! We’ve had people saved, healed and delivered just in the worship times, with gold dust appearing, and orbs and feathers…

Love Rob & Aliss x

Visit http://www.gloryfires.org to keep up to date and listen to podcasts.

To boldly go?

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Ola people!

Thought I’d write a little note to say hi! Awesome day yesterday. We bought bikes…….no, sadly not vespas…. but still cool; we got mountain bikes and helmets, locks, lights -all the gismos for getting around.  It was a mini adventure. Kept asking Martin if he’d brought the map, despite his answer, he had in fact brought only half a map as it turned out!

To boldly go

We bused it as close to a faraway bike shop as possible then debated, after walking for quite some time, whether climbing through a large pipe was legitimate passage to get us where we needed to go;  instead we ran across freeways to get to the place….Yes.  Fun.  After a couple of hours the guys in the shop had us sorted and off we went on our “Rockriders”.

Again, I’d like to emphasize the lack of the important half of the  map…So, using the sun as our guide,-”that’s west, right?”- we found a trainline and a train and caught it back to Palma, arriving in a sudden fiesta/celebration involving children dressed as batman/witches/fairies and an awful lot of spidermen, endless candyfloss, sweets and bouncy castles…apparently  this was the ‘Carnaval’/'Masked Ball’ event for Lent.

I love it here.  We are working hard on the Spanish.  Come on. We have to get the language.

A great day.

Eschatology #6

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Here is #6 in the series. I continue looking at Dispensationalism in this podcast. This podcast covers J.N. Darby with an introduction to C.I. Scofield / Scofield Bible. It does contain history – the facts might be better read through on the notes. The podcast gives the facts but maybe the ‘feel’ comes across here.

The next podcast will cover some more history – setting the scene for a later episode on the theology of Dispensationalism.

Eschatology #6 [ 0:01 ] Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Receive to give

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Warning: this is not a new theological position; but the musings of someone on a journey. If we are in a season when new economics will be born, perhaps we need to think differently on many ‘money’ matters.

So I suggested yesterday that we need to see that we receive in order to be able to give.

What differences / emphases would that bring?

1) We are stewards, not owners. Jubilee in Scripture seems to catch the spirit of entrepreneurship but safegurded against accumulation of wealth. (Government by the few also released rich / poor divide – consder the shift in housing 10th C BC and 8th C BC.) Ownership means I am at the centre; stewardship puts creation, and the potential of being involved with the Lord in putting his mark on it.

2) When we receive – income, gifts, bonuses, more money because the mortgage interest decreases, or whatever scenario comes our way - our first thought can be ‘why do we now have this?’ This does not mean we must automatically give it all away. We are stewards: this must include our own needs, family, friends – but cannot exclude the wider contexts.

3) Our focus will shift from what we need to what we already have. It will shift from being a receiver to a giver (after all that is the definition of ‘life’ for ‘Last-Adam-order-of-humanity’).

4) If we see ourselves as givers then we will become life sources not just financially (and might be very small sources in that realm) but in every way. Our speech, friendship, body language can change.

5) If we are givers and also understand stewardship then we can begin to see things on a much bigger scale. With this I end…

  • if I am a steward, and creation works through right stewardship, then not only is ‘my’ possessions not mine, but the wealth in the bank accounts of the few who control the finances of the world is not ‘theirs’ either. Who becomes responsible to see that money shift to where it needs to go to? Is the responsibility theirs or do I also have a responsibility?
  • now it gets exciting. A transfer of the wealth of the wicked is stored up for the righteous. In what sense ‘wicked’ and what is it stored up for the righteous to do with it? Maybe wickedness is saying ‘my money’. Maybe it is stored up so as the righteous can see justice flow.
  • how about some of the wealth flowing to street kids, prostitutes who have no other means of income; from the northern to the southern hemisphere?

Maybe it has already begun?

Now I am about to make a personal response – challenged but happy.

Give and you will prosper

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Now I knew that would get your attention – yes a great huge bank form is at the end so that you can give to me and then you will prosper. I know, of course if I really believed that I should be giving to you so that I might prosper… but maybe if it works for you then I could risk trying it out later!!!!

I trust you picked up the above was a little tongue in cheek, though I also know that there is great truth in giving and finding that God is no one’s debtor. It is also good to choose what ‘soil’ to sow into. I have also seen that sowing into areas of poverty (s/he who gives to the poor lends to the Lord) is so good.

So give and you will receive.

But I have been meditating on another aspect all together, so will try and open it up here. The challenge with the giving to receive is that there can be an appeal to achieve a greater level of prosperity. (John Wesley, along with others, always kept the same amount for his living costs throughout his life. When his income went up his giving went up, but what he lived off did not.) How much do we need to live off?

So how about we receive in order to give? I will open this up a little tomorrow, but have been very challenged over the past years by someone I admire greatly in the financial integrity realm. First a statement he gave me and second a story.

Statement: the mistake many people make is that they think they have to have money in order to give. All they need to be is one of those who become agents under heaven to move money to where it needs to go. (This one I have been thinking a lot about for the past 3 or so years, and I am a little way forward on it, but it still stretches me.)

Story: I asked my friend, tell me how these things work… (but don’t lay hands on me yet, as I am not sure I want to receive too much of the challenge to live that way!!!)

He ministers in a place. Because he has no poverty spirit, people can think he is rich. A guy comes to him and says ‘can you help… big financial trouble, need urgently $xxxx or we face eviction as a family.’ Reply: ‘don’t have that at the moment, but let’s pray.’

End of weekend and the honorarium is exactly $xxxx. My friend calls the guy, says the Lord has provided, come see me.

His attitude is we receive in order to give.

Cooking for life

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No not a new hobby though I did once buy a book called: “can’t cook.. want to learn”. Not the most read book in my library…

Juliet Rogers is from the UK and working long-term in Brazil. She has a wonderful work teaching people cooking skills. She takes those who have been in trouble and totally disadvantaged and gives them this life skill, all in the context of a wholesome lived out Christian environment. I have listened to the stories of transformed lives. I have no doubt this is kingdom mission at its best.  It is not colonial, but incarnational. It is not simply ‘saving souls’ but transforming lives.

I have no hesitation in recommending her work. Check it out at:  Cooking for life.

She was recently back in the UK… if there is any support for her work I can assure you that any prayer or financial support is a wonderful investment into the future. Check out the web site and send her an encouragement.

Oh I can make a good scramble egg.

A Sunday

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OK: up early. Spanish – really positive feel when I can remeber what I thought I learnt yesterday. Big encouragement – provided I don’t focus on what I don’t know. I am an optimist – but if someone says: do you want the good news or the bad news first, I will always say ‘the bad news’. Get it out of the way.

I am an optimist. Bill J says ‘He (the Lord) is in a good mood’. I like that.

Bible reading – an easy pattern for this year. I started this year with the New Living Translation and they give a through the year set of readings at the back – but parts missed out: such as all of Leviticus!! (On reading the Bible I see an interesting book will come out by Lloyd Pietersen early 2010 in the Post-Christendom series Reading the Bible after Christendom. A good series.)

Found the Gargoyle on the building: knew it could not hide forever. It is actually 1 of 4 on top of the government building. Now plotting maps with coloured dots. Checked out the Cathedral for times for Mass (not converting just will check out who is there / what kind of spirituality etc. in due course).

Tonight Noel is older than I am so will go celebrate his birthday. Tiene… años – fill in the gap but if he is older than me then he is well in excess of 30!

Its been a good day.

Choices

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Life has many choices… big ones – dwell in the past / embrace the future. Small ones – what will I do today (not always the same as what will I achieve today).

So to the small choices. Could go buy a couple of bikes as this will be our mode of transport, but probably not as the builders still use the entrance area for… well whatever.

Could go see a film – although we are at level 2 Spanish will have to be an English one: Revolutionary Road is the possible one. A little harrowing I hear.

Can always watch a Premier football match LIVE (sorry!). There is always one on – what is happening to Chelsea – has anyone been praying to cause this mess?

Could do some work for future Eschatology podcasts – next ones are still on the Rapture. How did that ever really take root? But maybe it is the logical outworking of the loss of the Hebraic worldview.

Finally choosing as I write… go and have a coffee with Kyle and Rachel. Then do a lesson of Spanish. BTW: level 2 simply means we can conjugate a few present tense verbs. We start a course on March 2 and they graded us at that level. Felt good to be level 2 – then used our entire vocabulary to purchase some fresh fish from the market.