Love and Hope for All

No one can receive God's love without being dynamically changed by it.  Instead of focusing upon self, love turns its gaze towards God and others.  There is compassion and grace where there was once only selfish preoccupation.  Love makes our hearts grow in breadth and depth.  Knowledge paves the way to feelings of incredible persistence.  God's love is so profound, tangible, and real.  A person who tastes of this love sees it is good, and nothing in or of this world can compare.

God's love seek release through acts of service and salvation.  No one filled with the Holy Spirit and His divine love can read shocking statistics of how many children and adults are trafficked for the purpose of sexual exploitation and remain unmoved.  The world has sown to the flesh through sexual sin and is reaping a bumper crop of deception, oppression, pain, ruin, disease, horror, addictions, and death people don't even want to think about.  But love won't look away.  Love cannot avert its eyes from suffering and pain.  Love wants to do something:  love must do anything possible to deliver bodies and souls from the pain of physical or sexual abuse.  Love does not falter in the face of sin's ugliness.

Awareness of the issue of sexual slavery is growing.  But awareness of a problem does not mean we have the capacity to fix it ourselves.  So what is to be done?  The Bible tells us that our fight is not against flesh and blood - the pimps, Johns, drug pushers, or people who knowingly sell their children for sex - but against principalities and powers, the demonic rulers of wickedness who increase the sway of Satan in this world.  These are spiritual beings of great power who seek to destroy the bodies and souls of people by their lies and lusts, people young and old created in the image of God.  It is only through God we can do valiantly and bring down the strongholds which daily grow stronger.

If you are someone who has been wounded and damaged through sexual abuse and/or slavery, you are of great value to God and to me.  I love you.  Only in Jesus can you find rest for your soul.  Jesus demonstrated His love for you on the cross and rose again, defeating death.  His love for you is everlasting and there is no stain of sin His precious blood cannot cleanse.  Only God knows how greatly you have suffered:  the tears you have cried, pain you have endured, humiliation words cannot begin describe.  Even when you cannot bring yourself to cry, God knows.  That is why Jesus laid His life down on the cross:  to free you from guilt, to heal your mind and heart, and so you can live with Him forever when you repent and trust in Him.  Perfect love casts out all fear.  Cast your cares upon Christ, for He cares for you.  I am praying that God would set you free physically and spiritually from your bondage!

Let us be faithful to pray for the deliverance and eternal salvation of those who suffer the slow death of sex slavery and abuse.  May the deeds shrouded in secrecy and darkness be overwhelmed with the light of life found only in Christ.  Let us pray that those taken captive by the devil to do his will to be freed, and for the fear and shame of the victims to be swallowed up in victory through Jesus.  May God forgive us for our apathy and for not walking in love as He has demonstrated by dying on the cross for us while we were yet sinners.  Thank you Jesus, for the tangible love you have granted us by your grace.  I am no Saviour, but Jesus is!  Here I am, LORD.  Use me to set the captives free.

Camp Kedron

Last night I came home from a week at Camp Kedron, a wonderful Christian camp on the edge of a national reserve.  I was part of a team hosting a holiday camp for years 7 through 10.  Even with the rain it was a massive success:  kids had an awesome time, the Gospel was shared and discussed, and Jesus Christ received the glory.  As I drove up Mona Vale road, the sunset was breathtaking:  rays of light peered through plumes of clouds, lining the edge with a glistening ribbon of white.  Two vertical pillars were illuminated with a swath of orange and blue as fog swirled like a fragile membrane between them.  "God, how could something be so beautiful?" I asked.  "I have done greater than this in the hearts of many this week," was His response.  And God's right - nothing is a beautiful as the transforming, redeeming work He does within the soul of a person by His grace.

As the camp speaker for six days at an Australian holiday camp, it was a fresh experience for me.  Distinct from a church camp or retreat, it was my role to hold forth the word of God to a largely unbelieving group.  I felt as Jesus was lifted up and glorified there was a holy hush upon those who heard, for together we ventured upon holy ground.  A ten-minute talk gave way to lively cabin groups which discussed and questioned the things we were learning about the great God who made all things.  Hard hearts softened as young minds wondered aloud.  Decisions were made to follow Jesus Christ for the rest of their lives.  Kids whose parents don't believe God exists soberly admitted they were not far from the kingdom of God.  Leaders where challenged and encouraged to go deeper in faith.  Life for the hundred or so in attendance, me included, will never be the same.

One of the greatest snapshots of the fun we had at camp came into focus when I walked by a boys cabin.  The leader was serenely reading through the Bible as five or six kids covered in sleeping bags with their feet sticking out thrashed all over each other, wrestling around.  Muffled grunts and groans came from the bags as they traded positions.  As I stopped and watched the match, wondering how stuffy and uncomfortable it must be inside those sleeping bags, a boy walked up and threw his sock two meters above the leader's head.  The sock stuck beautifully to the wall and was followed by the second.  Ingenious, sweaty, and stinky kids.  Gotta love 'em!  

Throughout the week I was blessed to meet and speak with many of the leaders and campers.  In my prayers last night I was able to recall about 50 of them!  I am comforted that God will not forget a single one.  When they grow up, He will always recognize them too.  I was greatly encouraged by what a leader said:  "Even if speaking at Camp Kedron was all you did during the next two years in Australia, it would be an eternal success."  I feel the same, by God's grace.  I have thrown my hat into the ring to be a leader in the future.  Should God open the door and give opportunity, I'll be paying my dues as a youth leader all over again.  It's funny how the dues are never fully paid!  Praise God for the fact He has paid my debt, and for that I will be forever grateful.

Remembering Ross

This week I said a final goodbye to a good friend, Trevor "Ross" Tooke.  As I looked at him as he lay peacefully in a casket before his funeral, I didn't need words.  I smiled through teary eyes.  After battling brain cancer for many years, he was finally a man who embraced eternal rest with His Saviour Jesus Christ.  Ross will always be an amazing man.

I had the great privilege of getting to know Ross when I accepted he and Joan's offer of hospitality.  I had accepted the offer of pastoring Calvary Chapel Sydney and needed a place to stay for two months.  During that time I was afforded a special view into the life of a man I love, respect, and admire.  Ross took me on as a project of sorts, happily teaching me the intricacies of Australian pronunciation, lingo, and culture.  While under the wing of Ross you learn a lot of things:  how to clean a pool, how to make a proper cup of tea, handle a BBQ, and to show love through service.  Every time I have a cup of English Breakfast I remember my mate Ross.

If I could use three words to sum up the heart of Ross, it would be "love through service."  When I arrived in Australia in October 2010, the prognosis for Ross was not good.  His second brain operation had been an initial success, but that stubborn tumour was back again - and growing fast.  Between going in for scans and treatments, Ross toiled away on my immigration paperwork.  We spent hours driving from open house to open house, submitting applications, looking for a place for my family and I to rent.  He would sit at his computer for hours, looking at property listings while Poncho soaked up the rays by his side.  Let me tell you, no one wants to do those things even when perfectly healthy!  But that was Ross.  He could have done anything but paperwork.  No one would have blamed him.  But even after his third operation, Ross kept plugging away.  Love through service, even when life was brutal.   

I always loved to hear the stories Ross would tell.  One of my favorites was when he had come home very late from work and the house was dark.  Joan would always wrap up a plate for Ross to eat when he came home.  As he felt around he found a plate of biscuits (cookies).  "These biscuits are rather ordinary," Ross said to himself as he choked it down. (In Australia, the term "ordinary" is used to describe something which is poor or lousy.)  It was only after finishing the biscuit that Ross realised he had just eaten one of Poncho's dog treats!  Ross had a very dry, quick wit.  I once asked him to describe his sense of humour in a word.  Without hesitation Ross said, "Australian!"

1 Corinthians 4:2 says, "Moreover it is required in stewards that one be found faithful."  Ross was one of those faithful stewards.  The love of Jesus Christ came out of his life in such practical ways.  Because he set his love and faith upon Christ, Ross is one of the jewels spoken of in Malachi 3:17:  "They shall be Mine," says the LORD of hosts, "on the day that I make them My jewels. And I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him."  I love you, Ross.  You ran well.  Until we meet again in the presence of our Saviour, may I follow your example to be about the LORD's business.

The Planting of the LORD

"So it was, whenever Israel had sown, Midianites would come up; also Amalekites and the people of the East would come up against them. ⁴ Then they would encamp against them and destroy the produce of the earth as far as Gaza, and leave no sustenance for Israel, neither sheep nor ox nor donkey."

Judges 6:3-4

In the book of Judges, we are told that there was no king in Israel:  everyone did what was right in his own eyes.  God promised to reign over His people, but they rebelled from under His rule.  They sacrificed to idols and forsook God.  Then God delivered them to oppression by the hands of their enemies.  The Israelites toiled in their fields rising early and staying late, but their crops were destroyed by the Midianites.  The people of Midian and Amalek waited until the children of Israel had sown their crops before they would destroy everything.  They left them nothing to eat, even killing their animals.  It was a desperate time.  But it always took utter devastation and hopelessness before the people cried out to God.  He was always faithful to raise up a deliverer to save His people.

When I read this passage I considered the spiritual battle Christians, as God's adopted children, face on a continual basis.  The enemy is constantly on the lookout, seeking to hinder fruitfulness from the planted seed.  In the Parable of the Sower, the seed is the Word of God.  The devil seeks to attack a man after the good seed is sown.  Man's heart is naturally wicked and deceitful, and his flesh only propagates wickedness exponentially and cannot please God.  Satan turns his efforts on those who may slip from his grasp through belief in God's Word.  Jesus says in Luke 8:5 and 11-12 "A sower went out to sow his seed. And as he sowed, some fell by the wayside; and it was trampled down, and the birds of the air devoured it...¹¹ "Now the parable is this: The seed is the word of God. ¹² Those by the wayside are the ones who hear; then the devil comes and takes away the word out of their hearts, lest they should believe and be saved."  The Midianites and Amalekites swooped down upon the fields of the Israelites to impoverish them.  If they could not drive out the Israelites, they would starve them.

This is the same tactic Satan uses in the lives of believers.  He can kill the body, but he cannot touch the soul.  The devil rages against God and His people with vicious hate and tenacity.  Whom he cannot kill he will impoverish.  He will lure followers of Christ to seek after the passing pleasures and amusements of this world.  This same desire is seen in the Philistine leaders when they approached Delilah because they sought to destroy Samson, a man empowered with the Spirit of God.  Judges 16:5 reads, "And the lords of the Philistines came up to her and said to her, "Entice him, and find out where his great strength lies, and by what means we may overpower him, that we may bind him to afflict him; and every one of us will give you eleven hundred pieces of silver."  Don't you smell the sulfur on their breath?  Entice Samson so we might overpower him:  then we can bind him to afflict him!  How many people in this world are overpowered by circumstances, bound by sin, and afflicted with guilt and shame!

Whether you are teaching the Word of God or reading it, that will mobilise the enemy of your soul to rob you of the fruitfulness God desires.  Praise God that no weapon fashioned against us shall prosper, for we have a Redeemer and Deliverer in Jesus Christ!  He is the Living Bread from heaven, even as the Midinianite spoke of the vision with the loaf of bread which rolled down into camp, struck a tent, and threw it down (Judges 7:13).  Through Jesus we can cast down arguments, strongholds, and everything which exalts itself against Jesus Christ (2 Cor. 10:3-6).  Let us not be caught off guard by Satan's attacks which are designed to impoverish us.  You may feel fatigued when the alarm goes off early so you can spend time in God's Word.  Get up immediately trusting God to supply your strength, even as He did for Moses during his two 40-day fasts from food or water.  Believe He can gird up your mind even as Elijah girded his loins and outran a chariot pulled by horses!

If you find yourself in a situation where the Israelites, having departed from the Living God, being afflicted and oppressed without victory or hope, follow their example in crying out to God for salvation and deliverance.  Put away your idols (not in a closet but in the rubbish bin!) and seek the LORD with all your heart, mind, and strength.  The promise God has given to His people Israel has a valuable application to Christians in Jeremiah 24:6-7:  "For I will set My eyes on them for good, and I will bring them back to this land; I will build them and not pull them down, and I will plant them and not pluck them up. ⁷ Then I will give them a heart to know Me, that I am the LORD; and they shall be My people, and I will be their God, for they shall return to Me with their whole heart."  God plants His Word in our hearts to be fruitful for His glory, and we also are the planting of the LORD (Is. 61:3).  Even Satan cannot pluck us from God's hand, nor separate us from the love of God.  In Psalm 1:3 those who delight in God and His law are compared to a tree planted by the rivers of water, bringing forth fruit in season, with leaves which do not whither, and prosperous in all things for God's glory.  Thank God for this everlasting truth!