Sadly, we can have true experience of Christ, and yet it can decline. We can feed on him, a good, satisfying meal – a feast! – and yet then live off the memory of that feast, instead of coming to dine again. Through the difficulty of the spiritual warfare, through the deceitfulness of sin, and through the dullness of our own hearts, we can confuse our own outward activity, and perhaps success, in ministry, with inward Christian experience and progress. Terrifyingly, God can actually “bless” us with outward success to test if that was actually the thing our hearts desired. Or was it rather the case that we have the Spirit that amidst the ruins of outward disaster is content to sit, wait, rejoice in him and say, “Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the Lord; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. God, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer’s; he makes me tread on my high places” (Habakkuk 3:17-19).I've just uploaded another couple of papers (this is taking rather too long) from my series on Reformation in Kenya - http://david.dw-perspective.org.uk/da/index.php/writings/reformation-for-kenya/. The above quote is from the opening paper.
Saturday, 13 October 2012
Two more "Reformation in Kenya" papers
Monday, 1 October 2012
Is refining coming?
I am neither a prophet nor the son of one.
However, we can all know from Scripture that at times, God refines his churches when they become lazy, backsliding, worldly, proud, etc.
Such times are clearly coming in the West, as Christianity moves from being a comfortable social choice to a troublesome one.
What about Kenya? The outward "church" is corrupt to the core; a den of greedy, grasping leeches masquerading as pastors whose main job is to suck money from gullible people and/or gullible foreign donors. The people are promised miracles and a life of ease. The donors are told about wonderful church growth, and if they visit they get shown hordes of smiling people filling the benches or expressing gratitude for aid hand-outs.
I've said to people here often that God will not allow his name to be blasphemed like that forever. Times of refining will come. Are we sitting back and enjoying the view - ready to fall when times of testing come? Or are we seeking and serving fervently, and being the kind of believers who will be ready to survive such refining?
A new feature on the scene in recent months has been militant Muslims, throwing grenades into churches near the border with Somalia.
Such now seems to have progressed to particular areas (where Somalians live) in the capital, Nairobi. There's been another one this weekend: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Child+killed+in+Sunday+school+terror+bombing+/-/1056/1521354/-/s1r6r2z/-/index.html
People are now beginning to think that *(in some places) it might actually be dangerous, rather than an automatic ticket to the blessing of an easy life, to go to a church. Is refining coming in the near future, or are they just isolated incidents to warn the true church, so that there's more time to be ready? The vast bulk are not ready, but those who have enough spiritual heart and head to read the signs of the times have enough to know what to do. Please do pray for the Kenyan church.
However, we can all know from Scripture that at times, God refines his churches when they become lazy, backsliding, worldly, proud, etc.
Such times are clearly coming in the West, as Christianity moves from being a comfortable social choice to a troublesome one.
What about Kenya? The outward "church" is corrupt to the core; a den of greedy, grasping leeches masquerading as pastors whose main job is to suck money from gullible people and/or gullible foreign donors. The people are promised miracles and a life of ease. The donors are told about wonderful church growth, and if they visit they get shown hordes of smiling people filling the benches or expressing gratitude for aid hand-outs.
I've said to people here often that God will not allow his name to be blasphemed like that forever. Times of refining will come. Are we sitting back and enjoying the view - ready to fall when times of testing come? Or are we seeking and serving fervently, and being the kind of believers who will be ready to survive such refining?
A new feature on the scene in recent months has been militant Muslims, throwing grenades into churches near the border with Somalia.
Such now seems to have progressed to particular areas (where Somalians live) in the capital, Nairobi. There's been another one this weekend: http://www.nation.co.ke/News/Child+killed+in+Sunday+school+terror+bombing+/-/1056/1521354/-/s1r6r2z/-/index.html
People are now beginning to think that *(in some places) it might actually be dangerous, rather than an automatic ticket to the blessing of an easy life, to go to a church. Is refining coming in the near future, or are they just isolated incidents to warn the true church, so that there's more time to be ready? The vast bulk are not ready, but those who have enough spiritual heart and head to read the signs of the times have enough to know what to do. Please do pray for the Kenyan church.
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