Evergreen Leaves

"He shall be like a tree planted by the rivers of water, that brings forth its fruit in its season, whose leaf also shall not wither; and whatever he does shall prosper."

Psalm 1:3

When Jesus was approached by Nicodemus at night, He compared the movement of the Holy Spirit to wind.  No man can control the wind or the Holy Spirit, but the effect of wind and the presence of the Holy Spirit are easily seen.  Trees do not move by themselves on a still day, yet strong wind causes leaves to shake and limbs to bend and creak.  The Holy Spirit is the One who regenerates a soul that repents and trusts in Jesus, bringing transformation to the life of that person by His grace.

There are no formulas to manipulate the Holy Spirit of God to act according to your will.  Born-again Christians are like trees which ought to bend to His will.  A sailboat by virtue of sitting in the water cannot cause the breeze to blow, but sailors adjust the sails to catch the wind to move the boat towards their destination.  When I was a kid, we used to climb a large Chinaberry tree in our front yard.  I used to climb into the canopy and shake the branches, later collecting bunches of berries which fell to the ground.  I could make branches of the tree shake like the wind was whipping past, but I had no control over the wind.  Through the effort of the flesh people can imitate a move of the Holy Spirit, but it ought not be mistaken for the real thing.

The Psalmist compared the man who delights in God and His law to be like a flourishing tree in a well-watered location.  This tree brings forth fruit in due season and its leaves shall not wither.  Chinaberry trees are deciduous and drop their leaves in autumn, but the Christian is not compared to a deciduous tree:  our leaves shall not wither.  They should be evergreen, soft, and flexible.  Strong winds may move branches and twigs, but how much more sensitive are green leaves to the subtle, passing currents of air!  When a Christian is walking with Jesus in a lifestyle of repentance, obedience, and walking in Christ's love, such a one will grow and flourish.  A Christian filled with the living water of the Holy Spirit will bear spiritual fruit and be increasingly sensitive to His leading.

If we sin by ceasing to walk in love, it is as if leaves begin to dry and drop.  Our hearts become cold as winter, hard as frozen stone.  We begin to lose sensitivity to the leading of the Spirit.  Personal conviction and sorrow for our sin seems a thing of the distant past.  We may still be able to operate in our spiritual gifting, but the fruit of the Spirit falls before it is ripe.  Blessed is the man whom God corrects, who mourns over his own sin and dryness instead of being focused on the faults of others!  Only when we confess our sin and repent can we be sensitive to the still small voice of the Spirit.  Consider your life:  how much of your everyday decisions and life is guided and governed by the Holy Spirit?  When was the last time you heard Him speak?  What did He say?

Jesus supplies Living Water and provides rest for our souls.  We cannot make the Holy Spirit to move, but when He moves we are quick to respond in humble obedience.  My desire is for my life and those in the church to fulfill the prayer of Paul in Ephesians 3:14-21:  "For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, ¹⁵ from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, ¹⁶ that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, ¹⁷ that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, ¹⁸ may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height-- ¹⁹ to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. ²⁰ Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, ²¹ to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen."

Open the Dam!

We had a lovely time of prayer at Calvary Chapel Sydney last Saturday evening.  Many people gathered to seek the LORD and pray for one another, and it is always special when God's people unite in prayer.  Leading up the evening I felt I needed to "get out of the way" and allow the Holy Spirit to lead and move according to His will.  Instead of spending a great deal of time sharing requests with one another, I felt God directing us to "let our requests be made known unto God" as we gathered as one (Phil. 4:6).  As believers we must be cautious not to approach God with our own agendas, even though they often seem good and reasonable to us.  There is no formula to conjure a move of God's Spirit, though many things often accompany His move.  Jesus compared the movement to the Spirit as the wind blowing through the trees, and no amount of shaking trees will cause Him to blow.  We are to be like the trees with flexible boughs and leaves sensitive to the most subtle current of the Holy Spirit's presence so we might respond in obedience as He leads.

During our meeting, I was reminded of the Waikato river which collects above the Aratiatia rapids in Rotorua, New Zealand.  These rapids only flow a few times each day when the dam of the Waikato river is released to generate hydroelectric power.  As I was praying in silence in my mind I could see the water surging and building around the dam, creating great pressure.  Below the dam there stretched a valley which was dry.  The water swirled around violently, but it could not pass through the dam to water the valley.  I felt like the water was a picture of the Holy Spirit, and our group was the dry valley.  There was a strong dam in between.  How we needed His Living Water, His power, His refreshment!

"Break the dam," I prayed.  "Break it down."  The impression I had from the LORD was immediate:  "You do not break dams:  you open them."  Instantly I understood.  I wanted God to do something only we could do by His grace.  God's presence was among us as we worshiped and prayed, for He inhabits the praises of His people.  Where two or three gather in Christ's name, there He is in the midst.  Yet if we remained unwilling to pour out our hearts in worship, to open up to one another with honesty, and give space to the Holy Spirit to move in full surrender, we restricted the movement of the Holy Spirit.  We can deny ourselves the Living Water God has provided, having sent Him to comfort, teach, and guide into all truth.  I believe many experienced the presence and move of the Holy Spirit.  He spoke to other hearts as well as mine.  Yet I am convinced there is more for us when we all open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit without confining Him to our expectations or previous experiences - or perceived lack thereof.

The dam which creates the Aratiatia rapids is only opened a few times each day, and many spectators wait around for scheduled opening times.  How sad it would be for this to be a reflection of our relationship with God through the Holy Spirit!  It would be tragic for God to only have the freedom to move in and through the lives of His people on Sundays or during prayer meetings.  God forbid there would be spectators at prayer meetings!  We should continuously cultivate the presence of the Holy Spirit, for this Living Water is without limit.  The more we open the gates of what dams our praise, worship, and humbly pouring our complaints before God, the more this Living Water will flow.  And though we may position ourselves properly to catch the wind in our sails, God's grace does not depend on us.  This is a wonderful truth.  We are called to believe, seek, ask, obey, and present ourselves living sacrifices before God, yet no one can make Him move.  As C.S. Lewis famously repeated in his books concerning Aslan who is a picture of Christ, "He is not a tame lion."  We cannot make Him move, but when the Spirit moves let us be sensitive and obedient to His leading.

The Blessing of Jesus Christ

"To you first, God, having raised up His Servant Jesus, sent Him to bless you, in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."

Acts 3:26

Peter said this to men of Israel who gathered at the temple in Jerusalem, amazed at the miraculous healing performed on a lame man in the name of Jesus.  As I consider what Peter said, what strikes me is how Jesus has been sent to bless people.  People ask for God to bless them, yet I wonder if people know what they are asking for.  Blessing from God is not health, wealth, and comforts - though those are blessings indeed.  The blessing provided by Jesus Peter referenced was very specific:  "in turning away every one of you from your iniquities."

Have you ever thought God's blessing is to turn you from your sins?  The thing about our sin is it is always personal.  I used to have an idea that sin is always terrible, awful, and disgusting.  It is all this and more.  But the truth is, our sin (especially at the beginning) does not seem bad to us.  In fact, it may seem strangely exciting, even liberating.  Sin always appeals to our flesh.  It has a strong upside which allows us to justify our behaviour.  And because our flesh is by nature sinful, the roots reach down into our very soul - almost tangled up in our personality.  To deny our sin is to deny a part of us - a part we have grown very fond of and helps to define us as a person.  God wants to bless us, and Jesus was sent to turn us from our sin.  This is indeed a blessing for which we ought to be thankful and rejoice in.

In the Lord of the Rings Trilogy, the "Ring of Power" provides a great example of sin in the life of a person.  The Ring came to Frodo, having ensnared and corrupted all who held it previously.  All previous ring-bearers held and stroked the bright ring with wide eyes, yet it was actually the Ring which gripped them.  The three Lord of the Rings films chronicle the epic tale of Frodo's trek to Mount Doom to destroy the Ring.  Heavier and heavier it became as Frodo carried it along.  When he finally held the Ring over the river of lava which would destroy it, a wicked gleam came into his eyes.  He was unable to drop the Ring, nor did he want to.  "The ring is mine!" said Frodo as he slipped it onto his finger.  Frodo found himself just as far from destroying the Ring in Mount Doom as he was in Rivendell or the Shire.  Frodo, nor anyone who had been taken by the Ring would be capable of destroying it, and the same can be said of sin.  Once it has you, it will never let go.

Praise be to God, for He has blessed us by sending Jesus in turning away all of us from our sins.  He grants faith and makes repentance possible.  So the next time you pray for God to bless you, realise as a Christian He has blessed you and wants to continue blessing you:  He desires that we would turn from all sins which easily ensnare us.  The blood of Jesus is able to cleanse us from all sin.  In turning away from sin, let us turn to Jesus.  Only He can lead us to walk in righteousness and enable us to experience the peace and joy He supplies.

The Rejoicing Father

I woke up this morning with rain pattering down and a series of thoughts flooding my mind concerning the Parable of the Prodigal Jesus told in Luke 15.  A young man demanded his share of inheritance before his father's passing, and his father actually agreed to give it to him.  He promptly left home and wasted all his money partying with prostitutes and drinking.  There was a famine in the land and the man found himself in want.  He was reduced to a job of feeding pigs to survive.  When the pig-food began to appeal to his grumbling stomach, he finally came to his senses.  In his poverty and brokenness he hatched a plan in desperation to return home to his father and plead for a job as a servant.  This man knew he had done wrong and had treated his father terribly.  He had wasted his father's money and lived in scandalous rebellion.  It flew in the face of propriety to think he could slink back as a son:  no, he would beg to be a servant.  Perhaps then his father would show pity on him and allow him to stay.

When the destitute young man was even a long way from home, the chain of events which followed showed the son grossly misjudged his father and the depth of his love and forgiveness.  The father saw his son afar off and ran to him.  While the son was stammering out a rehearsed request for the position of a servant to earn acceptance, the father threw his arms around him and kissed him.  He called for his servants to provide rich clothing for his once wayward son, placed a ring on his finger, and shoes on his feet.  There were no sharp words of rebuke, no angry stares or silence, no distance:  love, acceptance, and forgiveness spanned the rift.  The son had hoped for food marginally better than what the pigs ate, but the father commanded the fatted calf be slaughtered for the joyous occasion:  his son who was as good as dead had returned! (See Luke 15:18-24)  The son who saw himself as possibly a servant was gladly welcomed by the father as a son.  The illustrates the fact when recognise our unworthiness because of our sin and humble ourselves in returning to God we will be accepted by Him with great rejoicing.

Jesus told this parable to illustrate His previous statement in Luke 15:7, "I say to you that likewise there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance."  We have much to learn from the father's response to the change of heart and repentance of his son.  Our natural response when people make mistakes is to take pains to ensure they realise how greatly they have screwed up.  Because we are insecure we might arrange a series of hoops for people to jump through to prove their worthiness for us to accept them again.  We would not imagine putting a ring of value on a son who had spent half our money.  We would not place shoes on the feet which had been so quick to run to evil.  Our natural response to being hurt is to make sure they know how much we have suffered and they should appreciate the great sacrifice it is for us to even consider uniting with them in fellowship, friendship, and as family again.  We see none of this rubbish with the father in the parable, nor our Heavenly Father.  In the pigpen the son realised he had sinned against heaven and against his father.  It took desperation to return to the one he had wronged.  Some do not deem humble repentance enough for the restoration of relationship and celebration.  But God does.

Instead of lamenting the loss of money or the sinful rebellion of the son the father rejoiced when his beloved son returned.  The father did not rejoice because his son was responsible but because he freely chose to return.  The son did not need to prove he was trustworthy but was accepted because his father loved him regardless.  Like the son, we Christians have come to God without demands, realising we have sinned against heaven and others.  Before the Father we have knelt without any rights or claims.  We knew we were not responsible, trustworthy, good, or worthy even to approach the Almighty God in our filthy state.  Yet He has bestowed such love upon us by His grace to celebrate us!  Since God lavishes such love upon us, isn't it fitting we do the same for others?