From the other side of the road

Well it has been a few years now since God told me to go to the other side of the road.  I meant to keep a blow by blow record of what was happening but as usual wrote a lot in my head but not on virtual paper.

Just a quick re-cap.  God asked me to go to the other side of the road, not because there was anything wrong necessarily with the side i was on, but just to see things from a different perspective.

The left-hand side (being British) was were i was at.  Main stream Christianity, with a love of God and Jesus, a belief in the Creeds, grateful for what Christ had done for me on the cross etc.  I was a bit different in that i believed myself to be ‘charismatic’ in my faith and belief, but in reality there was only a sporadic noticing of the gifts in my life and not really a lot of the supernatural, although i did hear God talking to me from time to time and had an off and on gift of discernment. 

I had gone through the Wow! Everything is exciting stage, to the falling in with the Status Quo, to apathy, to that great longing that there must be more.  Please let there be more and can i be a part of it.  All this over about a 25 year period, how time flies.

Then the offer of going to the other side.  Well i was ready for it and over i went.  It turned out that i was already reading some of the books of people that were already on ‘the other side’ so it wasn’t totally new to me, but had been taught that this was really wacky stuff and should leave it alone.

Now i was being asked by God to take a look for myself with Him by my side. 

What did i learn.  Mostly that there is so much more to the Christian life than we are ever led to believe.  Much, much more.  So much more to the cross and why Jesus came.  The Father heart of God.  What the kingdom and being in the kingdom is really about.  Who and what i have in Christ.  What authority i have and carry as a royal person.  The place of angels.  Heavenly encounters.  Carrying the presence of God.  Living the supernatural life.  Living as a daughter not an orphan.  Grace, glory, honour, love, kingdom living, resting not striving, i could go on.

I have seen where we fall short in our teaching about the things of God, and to be fair it is because most people do not know, or have not been to the other side of the road.  Or more scarily they have had a glimpse, but drawn back to a safe place and/or convinced themselves it is the devil’s work and not of God.  You cannot teach what you do not know.  People just scratch the surface and don’t know there is so much more.

But, but, there are down sides to both extreme positions.  There is the person who goes to church on a Sunday and that is it for the week, and all they think they have to do to get their place in heaven, to the other end of extreme.  This end of the extreme is the person that looks to the experiences and phenomena more than to God.  Being drunk in the Spirit all day,  looking to have the heady feeling of being in the presence, or glory and if you don’t get it…  Looking for gold dust, glory clouds, etc. as the be all and end all of the supernatural life.

Now there is nothing wrong with any of these things, but when you spend a whole conference looking for gold dust because you think you saw a speck, instead of listening to the teaching…  Judging how spiritual people are by how drunk they get and how often.  Talking about ‘feeling the glory’, and it’s all about the glory and never mentioning the name of Jesus.  When these things seem more important than God, have they taken the extremes and made these their God, rather than these are just some of the things God does when you get really close to him but are not of themselves to be looked for and put above God.

So where does that leave me now.  Well i have seen that their is nothing wrong with what i would class the extreme things of God as long as they are kept in their right place.  But God has said to me, now you have seen things from both the furthest points of either side of the road i want to take you to another part of the road.  This is the middle of the road.  Now that might not sound like a good place to be.  A bit like sitting on the fence.  Middle of the road, not one thing or the other.  But then God said to me, ‘What do you see in the middle of the road’.  Thinking about it for a while i suddenly saw the white line.

Take the white line God said.  Take the middle path, walk down the white line.  Just like either side of the road is broad, the white line is narrow.  It is the narrow way, the unnamed road.

God said, ‘One side of the road puts me in a small box, shapes me to accommodate their fears, worries, expectations and comfort zones.  Tells me what i cannot do.  They use their heads not their hearts to find me.  They are missing out on the so much more that i have for them and in doing so stops me from helping others.  They quench my will to save, heal and deliver my people.  They use words and arguments to make me in their mould and what they find acceptable.  The other side puts me in a box, a box that has no side, no restraints, no boundaries, no discipline.  It gathers in everything whether it be of me or not.  It seeks to have ears tickled and highs fed.  Mixes good and bad together. 

I do not fit in either box.  You cannot make me out.  That is why I AM God.  I cannot be found with the intellect and the study of words, and then made to fit.  I am not chaos, or false humility or theologian’s systems.  But neither am i weird and wacky, anything goes as long as it is different and other worldly.

Yes i am supernatural, and my words stand on revelation, prophecy, the supernatural gifts of the Spirit.  Yes i do do things that in the world look strange.  Yes there is so much more to me than you will ever know.  But i call you to seek me, not the experience.  Seek me and let the word be a guide and check and balance, because i won’t contradict my word, but i will reveal the truths in it that will not always at first be seen by the natural eye.’

So that is where i am, walking the narrow white line, that takes the best of both sides.  I can never lose what i have gained from the ‘other side of the road’ and i never want to go back to the worst of the side i started on.  I want to keep on seeking the, so much more, that God holds out to me.  Explore the fullness of the supernatural life.  Enjoy the experiences when they come, but not seek them rather than God.  Not chase phenomena, but find God, his Father Heart, The fullness of Christ’s sacrifice, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.  Be a full citizen in his kingdom.  The next part of the journey begins.

Talking to Daddy

I unthinkingly said to two people the other day, ‘I was chatting to God this morning and he said to me…’.  Well one laughed in my face with a, ‘do what! look, I don’t think so! and the other gave me such a glare.  Nonetheless i carried on to say what God had told me and they stopped just short of a snort of derision.  It was obvious what they thought of an upstart who thought God spoke to her.

How sad!  How sad that they had the best Dad in the Universe and they did not hear his voice or chat with Him.

What Dad doesn’t talk to His child.  Where is love without intimacy.  Where is intimacy without communication.  Where is communication without at least some talk, chatter.

Unfortunately to some confidence in a Father in heaven who loves and talks to his daughter and shares his thoughts and heart is seen as arrogance. 

Jesus showed us how to be sons and daughters by his portrayal as a son, especially in the Gospel of John.  He talked and listened to the Father all the time and only did what he saw and heard Him say.

So I will continue to talk to my Daddy in heaven and listen to what he has to say to me, as i sit on His knee safe in his arms of love.

Jenny <><

Just testing

 

Just joined live writer and this is just a test.

It doesn't have to be big

Moses went up the mountain and he wasn't gone that long before the people started complaining.  Aaron being a bit on the weak side gave into them and said bring all your gold.  So they did and he made them a golden calf, an idol to worship as their god.

That's how the story goes, doesn't it?  I've read the book, seen the film.  Well this story was the reading in church the other Sunday and as I listened something stood out for me.  'Take off your gold ear-rings that your wives, your sons and daughters are wearing and bring them to me'.  Just ear-rings, surely not.  Wasn't it all your gold?  After all you wouldn't make much of a golden calf with just ear-rings, that amount of gold even with thousands of you wouldn't go far.

So I picked up another bible translation and checked it in there.  And there it was again, ear-rings.  It has always been the impression that the golden calf was quite large, but this must have been a rather puny thing.  How we get ideas in our minds no matter how much we read.  I would have put money on them being asked to bring all their gold.

I jotted it down in my sermon notes booklet, 'how big was the golden calf if only made from ear-rings.

Wednesday found me down the church, as I had opened it for any one to come in for prayer.  I opened my note-book and read my note from the other Sunday. 

'Why only ear-rings Lord', I asked, 'the calf must have been very small'. the answer came, 'Size isn't important, your idol need only be very small to take you away from me'.

So the Israelites gave up Almighty God for an iddy biddy tiny golden calf and gave their worship and put their faith in that. 

Makes me wonder why he pointed this out to me.  I will have to start looking to see if I have any golden calf's.

Jenny <><

 

His Father and Mine

I have read the gospel of John and studied it for over  30 years.  Yet it was only just this year that God opened my eyes  to the Father verses in it.  You wonder sometimes how you can be so blind.  This of course is all part of what he has been teaching me over the last few years.  How to live on the other side of the road.  To look at my christian life from another perspective.

God's Father heart.  He says he will not leave me an orphan, he will be my Father and I am his daughter. 

So I was re-reading John's gospel for the umpteenth time and Holy Spirit started to highlight certain verses to me.  Jesus did nothing on his own, said nothing but what the Father told him to.  He said he could only do what he saw the Father do. 

Now I expect someone will be laughing and saying after all these years didn't you know this, and the answer is yes of course I knew this.  I could have quoted the verses etc.

But now instead of knowing it, I KNEW it.  I could see it in my spirit.  Jesus, in communion with the Father, listening intently, watching through an open heaven what the Father was up to and then doing it himself.  totally submitted, totally obedient.

I looked again at what Jesus was actually doing and then imagined that the Father must be doing these things too in heaven.  How exciting and how busy is the Father.  What a picture of heaven it conjures up.

Jesus shows us what the Father is like when we look at him, so we know that the Father enjoys socialising.  Likes the occasional party, is compassionate, loves the poor and downtrodden.  Holds women in high regard.  Heals, raises from the dead, gets angry, cries and much more.

But Jesus also shows us how to be a son or a daughter by trusting, loving, listening to, spending time with, obedience to the Father.

How exciting it is when scriptures that you have read over and over suddenly open up a whole new dimension to your relationship with the Father and Jesus.  That WOW moment. Just like reading the bible for the first time.  With the eyes of the Holy Spirit one verse can have an infinite array of meanings depending on what you need to know at that moment.

The sad thing is there are not the  words to really describe what happened.  When put into words it somehow loses something in the telling.  But this is just another little piece of the puzzle that I am being taught in this season with the Father.  A Father heart season that seems to be world-wide at the moment.  He wants intimacy and to deepen the relationship with him who knows all things.  He is love and he wants us to know that love and to love him back.

Jenny <><

Beginnings of Change

God was shaking and sifting not only me but the church. You always seem to think it is just you, or just your church, when there are problems, but i started to hear reports from other churches of similar problems. Then from around the world. There was a shaking and a sifting going on all over. This was God's time, His season for it.

I was desperate, hanging on by my fingernails, spiritually drained as was a lot of us. My faith was sure and strong but the situation i found myself in was oppressive and hard. That is all i will say for there is no point in raking over old coals and just in case someone is hurt reading it.

Then came fresh air. The wind of change had come. God was starting a new season. 'See i do a new thing', He says. It started with being given a little yellow booklet called 'The Importance of Forgiveness', by John Arnott.

I knew about forgiveness so i thought, but this book brought a whole new dimension to it. I learnt that by the measure i judge others so i will be judged by that same measure. I should have known that, i did know that, but i didn't always live by that knowledge. My mind shot to the times and things i was judgemental on and i could imagine being judged the same. God showed me that when i judged i gave the enemy the right to get me back in that same area. Why? Because the bible says, 'by the measure...'.

Along with that went, 'you reap what you sow'. If you sow in judgement, bitterness, unforgiveness you will reap the harvest. If you sow in prayer and holiness into your church, then someone along the line reaps the harvest. The same with your children and grandchildren.

This was brought back to me again just this last weekend at a conference. We was told. If you sow 1 tiny seed you usually get a big harvest. Look at 1 pea, 1 bean, 1 potato, how many do you get back when you sow just that 1. Sow 1 judgement seed think how big the harvest will be. If you sow a weed you harvest a weed and that produces lots more seed, and so the weed multiplies. Ouch!

It was with gentleness this was all said, not with a stick to beat, but nonetheless God our Father has a way of highlighting the things he wants us to know.

The second whammy of the book was about forgiveness, once i had sorted out the judging. I had been through forgiving everyone i thought i needed to forgive, but here was all new things that i had never thought of. I am not going to name them in case people read this and do not understand but once again i was brought to my knees.

You can tell when Father is doing something rather than yourself navel gazing or the enemy, there is no condemnation, just an 'oh Father, i didn't realise, i'm so sorry. Then the peace and freedom that comes with repentance.

What it is all about

Well strangely enough I've started a new blog, something i have been thinking of for a long time. Strange because i haven't been very good at writing in my other blog 'Stop The Clock'. What is different about this blog. Well, it is going to be a christian blog only.

This will not be a devotional but as the title suggests a recording of the things God has been doing in my life over the last two years and my yearnings for what i hope he does in the future.

The last couple of years have been a steep learning curve for me in my christian journey and i feel the need to write it down here rather than in the haphazard way i have of using many different note books.

Now i have given my testimony of how i became a Christan in my 'Stop The Clock' blog so i don't intend to repeat it here. Suffice to say that i have spent my whole christian life in the one Methodist church and on the few occasions when i have asked God if he wanted me to move the answer has always been a loud 'no'. Right from very early on in my christian walk my views veered towards evangelical charismatic, or is that charismatic evangelical... Anyway my understanding of being a Christan would be considered both evangelical and charismatic.

For years things have trundled along, sometimes having times of being hungry for more. Sometimes seeing small glimpses of what might be and then times of apathy, dry deserts, wilderness and back sliding. But after going through a very dark time of which there is no point in explaining here, a change occurred.

God started doing a new thing all around the world it would seem but certainly in my life.

He started showing me lots of things and bringing other things to my notice. Like certain American preachers that i had always been told to have nothing to do with. Heretics i was told, so i never bothered with them. Now having looked at the preaching and teaching of the ones that have caught my attention i realise that whilst not all they say i agree with, most of them really walk the talk and are doing great things for God. No one teaches or preached 100% correct, unless you are Jesus because we are fallible humans. So i say to those who judge (and i say it kindly). What is it that you get wrong. I know for myself i do not necessarily believe the same things now as i did at the beginning of my walk, but that doesn't make me a heretic.

One of the things i felt God saying at the beginning of this new time of learning was that he wanted me to cross the road and look at things from a new perspective. He said there was nothing wrong with driving along on the left-hand side of the road but now was the time to go over to the other side and see things from there. At about the same time, a very good friend who is also a very spiritual person, told me about a dream he had that was very similar to what i felt God had said to me. He also had been told to go over to the right-hand side of the road.

So this is the start of what has been happening over the last two years and what a two years it has been. But more of that later.