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The doorway to divine power

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The doorway to divine power

Thirty-seven years ago, with the help of a brave band of a dozen university students, I started a church in the cathedral city of Durham in northern England. At the time, the situation looked totally bleak. Everything was ranged against us. We had no money. Hardly anyone even had a job. I had been falsely accused of being involved in a cult. The university launched an inquiry, and I was nearly thrown out of my PhD programme. All the pastors of the town were upset with me for overturning the ecclesiastical applecart, fearing that my new church would steal their members, which was never my intention.

I had given up my scholarship, funded by the Canadian government, in an act of faith that God would provide. I felt he had called me to do something significant in England, yet I had arrived at a place of desperation where it seemed I had hit a brick wall. There were moments when it looked pretty dark.

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A New Year's resolution

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A New Year's resolution

“Behold, I am making all things new.” So says the voice from the throne to John as his vision of the new heavens and new earth unfolds.

I am not a big fan of New Year’s resolutions. They are usually warmed-over versions of last year’s options. And I don’t normally attach a lot of spiritual significance to pronouncements we often hear in church around this time that God will do this or that in the coming year, as if God’s purposes were tied to the calendar. 

But maybe the beginning of a new year is an opportunity to take a fresh look at where things stand between us and the Lord. And to ask some important questions.

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Christmas according to Paul

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Christmas according to Paul

The thing that makes the Christmas story so remarkable, as Reinhard Bonnke pointed out, is not simply that Jesus was born of a virgin, but that for the first and only time in history, someone made the decision to be born. In the eternal counsel of heaven, Jesus submitted to the request of the Father: “Then I said, ‘Behold, I have come to do your will, O God, as it is written of me in the scroll of the book’” (Heb. 10:7). Jesus agreed to leave his place of rulership and glory in heaven and enter this fallen world as a servant to rescue us from our sin. This is the Christmas story.

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Times of testing

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Times of testing

I hate the thought of being tested.

I spent a morning this week going through a battery of medical tests, and have more to come. My new doctor loves the idea of preventative medicine, which seems to involve his patients utilizing all available diagnostic services, in the good cause of forestalling worse to come in the future. It has nothing to do with my age, of course.

James 1:2-4 tells us pretty clearly that testing is not only from my doctor, but from God. In fact, he says, testing leads on to maturity and the state of lacking nothing.

And there you go. I thought the prosperity gospel had it all figured out that endless financial blessing is what leads to me lacking nothing. Evidently not.

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Why we get the Bible messed up

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Why we get the Bible messed up

Light in your darkness. It’s something we look for as the days grow short and the nights grow long.

It’s also the title of a book proposal of mine being currently considered by a literary agency in Texas.

The book is about suffering. Why is it that bad things happen to God’s people? How do we process that? For the book, I went to people who could speak with authority, friends who have experienced significant tragedy in life and have walked through it with their faith in God intact, probably even deepened.

As Christians, we have to face these issues head on.