Michael Finnegan…

“There was an old man named Michael Finnegan.
He grew whiskers on his chin again.
The wind came up and blew them in again!
Poor old Michael Finnegan
Begin Again!”

As my dear followers can’t have failed to observe, I’ve been absent from writing on a regular basis for some time.

Actually, I’ve not been absent from writing, just from being prepared to publish what I’ve written. I have 11 “Draft” entries on this site, and about a dozen more in actual notepads strewn around my home.

But, like the song says, time for me to “Begin again!”

The tide of my life changes regularly, a typical ebb-and-flow existence. I move through the time and try to ride the waves as best I can.

I returned to England in April 2017 after 14 years in South Africa.

I got a shock.

This country is not the country I left. Not by a long shot.

I finally truly get what CS Lewis meant when he wrote “If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world.” (I think that’s from “Mere Christianity”, but I’m not 100% certain – but I AM certain it was Lewis that said it!)

I loved living in Cape Town, my family is there now since my mum moved there ten years ago to be closer to me (ironically, since I’m now 8500 miles away again!), and my wife’s family is mostly in the city. It’s a wonderful place and some of my dearest friends I met there. But as much as I loved it, the country somehow never felt like “home” to me. I longed for the Westcountry of England, the only place I ever felt “happy” as a younger man.

I couldn’t really talk to Rene (my wife) about it because I didn’t have the words to explain it to her. Now we’re living in Somerset and she tells me most days how much she longs to be “home” in Cape Town again I’ve finally been able to talk to her a bit about it.

But there’s a problem.

This isn’t the country I left.

I said this to someone recently in town, and they immediately launched into an extremely offensive moaning session about immigrants coming over and taking British jobs etc, etc. He shut up and walked away when I interrupted him by saying “My wife isn’t British.”

It’s nothing to do with migrants, travellers, refugees or any other group that’s come into the country.

It’s the people who were here to start with.

Since the whole “Brexit” insanity and the open hostility since the vote towards anyone perceived to not be “British” is not the country I left. There was a certain racist element I experienced before leaving in 2003. My wife is South African, and we are of different “ethnicities”, whatever the hell that means. As a Brit, I can trace my ancestry back to both the Normans and the Anglo-Saxons that fought at Hastings in 1066. It made watching “Ivanhoe” very confusing for me as a young man since I had no clue who I should be rooting for! I also have Viking ancestry, as shown by the red in my beard (which is now going grey), and my skull shape (I’m told) has Celtic features. In short, I’m more of a “Heinz 57” than anyone from South Africa – as are most Brits.

The young racists I encountered before moving away saw me walking with my then fiancee and decided to give us some local sedimentary formations… by throwing them at us as we sat on a bench. They ran quickly when I challenged them – probably because I was at the time 240lbs, 6′ tall and a biker: hair I could sit on and a beard ZZ Top would be proud of.

Then the move to Cape Town (and a trimmed beard & return to a short-back-and-sides haircut).

Much of my time there is chronicled in earlier posts, so for brevity’s sake I won’t go into fine detail here, but in a nutshell…

The area we moved to was a previously “Whites Only” area, and Rene still got some hostile looks from the less enlightened white inhabitants. Particularly the ones who were left in a low-income employment bracket despite living on the “beneficial” side of Apartheid. There was a great deal of jealousy towards her for her achievements professionally and academically – which she managed in spite of the regime.

Then there was the area we worked in.

Rene had grown up there and wanted to give back to the community. I was cool about that. Until we got there.

The first few months were insane. Despite everyone knowing her, and knowing she was the doctor, people called me “doctor” – no matter how I tried to explain I wasn’t the doctor – and treated her like the receptionist!

After a few months it (mostly) settled down, and eventually I went to being simply “David” instead of “Baas” or “Doktor”.

The racism there is still far more overt than it ever has been in England – stone-throwing teenage jerks included. In the 14 years I lived there I watched the tide turn and saw what Madiba had left as his legacy become bastardised into a format that prevents experienced, qualified “white” or “coloured” people getting jobs or promotions over the inexperienced young “black” applicants. The biggest difference between the immoral and corrupt Apartheid government and the government of the ANC in recent years is nothing more than the amount of melanin in the skin of the people at the top oppressing the poorest members of society. I’m sure if I were to visit Nelson Mandela’s grave that the sound of his turning in it would be deafening.

But after 14 years away we decided to come to England after Rene got a job offer too good to turn down (on paper, anyway).

So we’re back, and now if I get a reply to a job application I’m being told regularly that either my experience is not “relevant” because it was in South Africa – apparently there are different criteria for “relationship management” specialists there than here. Presumably managers think I will be conversing in Zulu (because they don’t know there are 10 other “official” languages and cultures in South Africa) or that somehow the nature of a business relationship in Africa is different than it is in Europe (hint – it isn’t. We’re all human!). Alternatively, I’m told I am too experienced for a job. I have applied for several entry-level positions recently in fields which, while related to Relationship Management, are different enough that I know I would need to start at the bottom and be trained. Yet when I called some managers to ask if they could guide me I was told I should be applying for positions in senior management – just not with them!

So I’m back to my fail-safe position: Trusting God for guidance and provision.

But suddenly I find that’s not as easy as it used to be.

I’ve listened to Him though, and this week I have registered this ministry as a company in the UK: Eagle’s Wing Ministries Ltd.

It’s daunting.

Terrifying, even.

Having to draw up a “business plan” for a ministry is difficult to say the least. I mean, how do you put “I do what God tells me to do” into language that a bank will take seriously when you go to open an account?

I have a number of people through the years who I have looked to as a form of mentor spiritually or in business, and sometimes both. One of the men I admire most, Dave Duell, went Home to his Friend, Jesus, a couple of years ago but I still have some of his teachings on cassette tape and one or two I even found on “YouTube”! Another is Andrew Wommack. The best thing about these Men of God is that I don’t agree with everything they say – and they don’t expect me to! I loved listening to the late Mike Yaconelli as well for the same reason. He said that he hated when people would come up and say “I agreed with everything you said”. I remember asking him after one talk at Greenbelt in 1991 in the UK why, and he said simply “I want to tell them ‘one of us isn’t necessary!'”

So I’m back. I hope regularly.

And I don’t expect you to agree with everything I write here, or that I post on the updates on Facebook or even when I finally start making videos and audio files on eagleswingministries.org

In fact, I’d love to interact with you! “Iron sharpens iron” says Proverbs 27:17. We are supposed to learn from one another.

So let’s sharpen each other.

And I’ll try to make sure I don’t have to begin again, again!

 

Losing my Security

Some days I feel like Linus in the “Peanuts” cartoon strip on washday. His blanket ripped away from him, forcing him to face a harsh world without the security he longs for.

I know I’m not alone.  We all feel like that sometimes.

The key to keeping a sense of Peace it to identify what has taken the “blanket” we’re using. And Why we feel insecure.

This has been my thought pattern reading the second chapter of “The Dream Giver”. Then I put on an audio file of Andrew Wommack’s (I so miss saying a “tape”). He was saying in the teaching something that I hadn’t reached in the chapter yet, but that fits perfectly.

Ordinary feels uncomfortable because he’s where the Dream Giver has directed him to go. When Jesus finishes feeding the 5000, He tells the disciples to get into the boat and cross the lake. Several hours later, they are being thrown around, the boat is sinking and it looks desperate. But they were exactly where God told them to be!

Not every storm is because we’re not where we should be.

Not every lack of comfort is because we’re out of God’s Will.

My quiet time today has been centred around this thought too. It’s taken me a week to write this post because I’ve been struggling.

As I’ve possibly alluded to in the past, I was diagnosed with ADD a few years ago, and I already knew I was a hoarder, but found out 2 years ago the it is a manifestation of OCD. Combine the two and life can be tricky – unless you’re prepared to surrender control to God. Give up the “security blanket” of control.

For me, that has been brutal recently. I hadn’t realised just how much I’ve still kept my security in things. Now I’m back in England, but my belongings for the most part – including Maggie and Sam, my beloved and much missed dogs – are in Cape Town.

I’m in the middle of an emotional storm. And it’s because I’m doing what God told me to do. I didn’t see it coming in all the upheaval of getting ourselves to England, but I’m feeling it now.

Trusting things is decidedly unhealthy, I have realised. Not that I didn’t intellectually know that before this move. But sitting with only 11 DVD sets of “Bones” instead of them, “Angel”, “Stargate”, the “Marvel” movies, “Lord of the Rings” – books as well as discs – and 99% of my Christian reference library including about 9 translations I can’t find online and them not being a ten minute drive away like they were last time I had to move without them has given me a very rude wake-up call.

I’m applying for “traditional” jobs as well at the moment. Not because I feel particularly that I have been “called” to any of them – although I’m targetting things that will be a stimulating challenge for me so I don’t get bored and/or go nuts with frustration – but because not having a job or conventional “purpose” here is frustrating all on it’s own. Employment, while not only beneficial financially, will also help me stay out of my head-space. Which in all honesty has been (with one exception) the reason for me applying for every job I’ve ever had.

But being called out of my comfort zone, although in semi-familiar physical surroundings, is forcing me to look to my “Dream Giver” and ask Him to carry me.

I don’t mind admitting I’m out of my depth right now. I even (usually) include the web address of this journal of musings on my CV. I refuse to do what the “experts” say and not declare my Faith for the sake of getting an interview. It’s going to come up at some point anyway, it may as well be a first impression on paper is my way of looking at it. If any employer is going to reject me because of Christ in me, I don’t think I’d fit in well there anyhow. Been there. Done that.

You’d think at 45 I’d be better equipped. At least more “advanced” after 31.5 years as a Christian. But there’s something I’ve learned – really learned – in the last 32 years:

• God doesn’t leave us where we are when we find Him
• We usually choose to sit in the mud rather than let Him wash us
• Going God’s way is often uncomfortable emotionally
• If I think I can do something easily, it may not be God’s idea – I need to trust Him

So there it is.

We must remember not to look to our own strength, but to Christ in us.

Fresh Start

OK, this New Year fits several categories…
Marathon
Capable
Someday
Exquisite
Hopeful
And hopefully Successful

The year began with the news we have been wanting for three years. My wife has been offered a job in England. For three years we have fought our way through what has felt like a monster battle, a marathon of a race, where we have lost almost everything except our lives – and even that’s been touch-and-go at times.

It’s often felt like a “someday” existence, looking for hope. The writer of Proverbs said:

“Hope deferred makes the heart sick”

Proverbs 13:12a (NKJV)

It’s certainly felt like that for us. So many times our hopes have been dashed or postponed. The torture has felt never-ending.

Depression. Heart-sick existence.

But then the year started with a call from England. An agency who had rejected her had a new person look at her CV and called to ask if he could put it forward to a hospital group he felt would be a perfect fit. We agreed, not expecting much as the group he mentioned had rejected the CV out of hand six months earlier.

The next day came the call to set up a Skype interview with the hospital the following Thursday. We agreed, and I taught my wife very hurriedly the basics of how to use Skype!

The interview went ok. I was sitting out of sight and found myself wincing at some of her answers to their questions. To be honest, had I been the interviewer, even making allowances for technology and nerves I’d have questioned if the fit was going to be right.

Friday morning, 11am South African time – 9am UK time – the phone rang. The hospital wants her so badly they are going to apply to be sponsors with the Home Office so they can employ her faster.

We were completely bowled over.

“But when the desire comes, it is a tree of life.”

Proverbs 13:12b (NKJV)

After 3 years, her ability has been recognised. The offer is there.

Exquisite doesn’t begin to describe the pleasure of that moment. Even being admitted to hospital the next day didn’t tarnish the feeling.

Of course, now we have a new marathon to run. Immigration to the UK ought to be a simple affair. After all, I’m British and we’ve been married over ten years. Nobody could possibly call the last few years a marriage of convenience. But paperwork is needed. The length of our relationship is, apparently, irrelevant to the UK. As is me being a British Citizen, because I don’t have an adequate income in Pounds. So the next part of the race begins.

But it’s a fresh start. There’s hope again. Suddenly “someday” has become “8 weeks from now”.

House-hunting, finding a suitable job to generate an income for me, organising the quarantine for our dogs, packing and re-packing boxes has become a daily ritual. Writing – which I feel passionately is what God has for me moving forward – gets pushed aside for the “practical” stuff.

It’s easy to lose sight of the truly important in the busyness of the business of moving our life to the other end of the planet. But writing, and when the doors open speaking, is what I know God has called me to do.

His timing is perfect. And He calls us to be fully alive – that is His Glory. Our success – whatever He calls us to do – brings Glory to Him.

So my prayer for us, and for anyone taking time to read this today, is to find His purpose for our life, keep Him at the centre of it through the teething time of a new beginning, and let Him lead us into success beyond our imagination!

Dare to Think it’s Possible

Daring to Believe – An Argument For the Cross

Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed.

John 20:8

I watched “Risen” recently. Whilst fictional – like “Ben Hur” – it was nonetheless a moving story. Since it was from the Roman Tribune’s perspective it didn’t need to try to slavishly follow the accuracy of the Gospels and allows for some poetic license.

If you’ve not seen it, I strongly recommend it. It begins with the Crucifixion and follows the initial Roman search for Jesus’s body, shows the bribing of the guards for their silence, and the slow realisation beginning to creep into the hardened soldier’s cynical existence that there is something very different here.

Anyone who’s read my stuff here knows I like movies. Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade has a scene that sticks in my head. Indy stepping out onto the optical illusion bridge over the chasm.

Not as moving, granted, but a moment nonetheless.

Moments in movies like that make me look at my own life, and how things have impacted me. We all need to take time to reflect on what is going on in our world, our friendships need to be tended or they fall away. Our relationship with God is the same. Not many people deliberately decide to turn their back, it just happens over time. On average about half the people I knew through church 20 years ago don’t believe now, and from conversations I’ve had that seems to be the norm. Storms come and cause us to doubt or force us deeper into God, depending on a cornucopia of conditions.

There are moments we look at where we have a conscious choice to make. Decide on a path for our life.

Sometimes we have no choice but to face that decision, and sometimes we can defer it for a while, but eventually the decision needs to be made – and not making a decision is actually a decision in itself.

The defining moments in our lives lead us to where we are today. Me writing this blog is a result of hundreds of moments where I’ve had to choose a direction. Usually because of circumstances I had no control over.

My dad’s sister died in a fire in 1981. My brother in a road accident in 1985. Cancer took my mum’s parents in 1988 and 1991. My dad died of a brain cancer in 1999.

All of those events forced a choice onto me. Dare to believe, or walk away.

And there were other things I went through as well. The more “normal” growing up things like girlfriends, GCSE and A Levels, leaving home, getting married etc all made a profound impact on who and where I am today physically, emotionally and Spiritually.

I deferred the decision after Yvonne died in the fire. I was only 9 and it upset me. Robin dying in 1985 was the big one. I had to choose how to move forward. For nine months I put off the decision, then in the November I met Jesus in a very real, physical way.

And I dared to believe.

I dared to believe He could mend my broken heart. That He could soothe my soul. It was hard. I went to church already. I’d sung in the choir for years and now I was a Server, helping out during the service with preparations for communion, candle-bearer and Crucifer for ceremonies and services. But this was different. In those nine months I’d kept going through the motions, but my heart wasn’t in it.

Then I met and I dared to believe.

I dared to look to the Cross for my answers. I strive to do so every day (some more successfully than others!)

I place my hope in the Cross. All my hope hangs there. At the end of the day, if you are Blessed by my writing then I am truly Blessed to offer it. But I write because Christ has put it in my heart to do so. In the movie (here I go again with movies) “Chariots of Fire”, Eric Liddell is challenged by his sister to abandon the Olympic games and follow his call to be a missionary. His reply is that while God made him able to teach, He also made him fast, and that when he ran he felt God’s pleasure.

I didn’t understand that until I began writing, and there is something in every single person reading this that will give you the understanding I now have. When I write (or preach) I feel God’s pleasure. I can feel Him cheering me on and that is when His presence is closest to me.

We were made for a reason. Atheists and agnostics claim it was random, but the mathematical odds of exactly the right conditions for life happening on this small, blue rock are remote. The likelihood of life “spontaneously” beginning is even more remote. It takes greater faith to believe only in science than to believe in a Creator who designed it!

I said this was an argument for the Cross. I guess it’s really more me trying to express the centrality of the Cross in my life, and why I believe it is time for us as a Church, irrespective of colour, native language or denomination to turn back and really examine our lives.

Are we living authentic Christian lives? Are we truly imitators of Christ?

If you were arrested for being a Christian, would there be enough evidence to make the case?

For myself, I hope so. I hope these thoughts, usually written in the middle of the night – it’s 3am here as I’m writing now – would serve as some evidence of the presence of Jesus in my heart. That the words I speak in conversation and when I am alone and I think nobody can hear me would be the same. I want my heart to be so inclined to Jesus that people ask me what’s different about me.

But it all starts with the Cross.

The True Value

Realize The  Value of the Tree.

 

I’m 44. I’ve been a Christian since November 1985 – coming up 31 years.

Currently I don’t go to church every week. I’d like to, but it’s not always easy. When I do go, I’m not well known or easily recognised these days. I sit and pray, listen to the Word being taught and worship with all my heart. Sometimes when I worship I even join in the songs.

I’ve met one of the pastors once or twice personally, but I’m not known by them – or them by me. I simply go when I can to be around other Christians.

I usually get raised eyebrows when I “confess” my current non-member status of a local church. I’ve applied for jobs where I’ve been rejected because I don’t have a “current” pastor and the last Pastor I had is not in “ministry” any more so apparently he’s not a good enough reference. I’ve been self-employed most of the last 20 years, but organisations want the reference of my last employer or manager.

Eventually it always comes down to one thing when I tell people I write a Christian Blog and I’m working on a book.

“What makes you think you’re qualified to write or talk about God in your current ‘spiritual condition’?”

There is much in my life I don’t share with everyone. There’s a good reason for that. It’s none of their business.

What I do share s what Jesus in my life means.

I didn’t become a Christian so I would avoid Hell – and yes, I do believe there’s a literal Hell. I didn’t become a Christian because I wanted a comfortable life. Or a good job. Or no problems.

Or a million other reasons than people who don’t really know Jesus think I became a Christian for.

I asked Jesus into my heart at the age of 13 because I knew I was terribly broken, and He could fix me. The break was something missing. I recognised I needed a relationship with God to be whole. And no matter what I did on this earth it would never be enough to earn that relationship.

I realised the value of the Cross.

I read an article about a man who described himself as a “secular follower of Jesus” a few days ago. He said how he was better for living by following Jesus’s example. He befriended prostitutes, the homeless, the broken. He made time for veterans begging on street corners in his city. He refused to judge people by their skin colour or religious background. He simply went about doing “good”.

And missed the point completely.

 But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.”

And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:40-43

The thief on the cross next to Jesus didn’t go out and make friends with the poor. He never even compensated the people he’d stolen from. All he did was accept Jesus as Lord. He realised Jesus’s Kingdom was not of this world, but rather was a place beyond and above this mortal coil. He didn’t go and embrace the LGBTQ (and any other letter they want to add) community.

All he did was realise the value of the tree Jesus was hanging on.

I’m looking forward to meeting that guy. I’m longing to know his name. But I know his story. His story is my story. He realised he was broken and the only was to find the relationship He realised in his dying moments he needed was to embrace the one hanging next to him. Jesus.

Somewhere in the last 150 years we’ve lost sight of the Cross.

How did it happen? How has the central message of Christianity become so sidelined by false issues?

We’ve become so politically correct in the way we treat one another we’re afraid to say anything for fear we’ll offend someone.

A few years ago I worked in property maintenance for a while. I loved the job, but the best part was the friendship with my boss, Duncan. We used some tools manufactured for American companies although we were based in England, and the safety instructions were amazing. All the instructions were in cartoon form – no words. There was a cartoon of a man chopping his fingers off by putting them into the rotating blades of a lawnmower.

Now I may not be the sharpest tool in the work-shed academically, but I don’t need instructions, cartoon or otherwise, to tell me if you have a razor sharp blade rotating at 300rpm underneath a solid steel plate which wraps around it and holds it close to the ground that it’s probably not the best idea in the world to flip it over and put my fingers into the path of the blade.

What does that have to do with Jesus?

It’s an example of how we’ve become so obsessed with coddling people. The manufacturer of the mower was sued by a man who cut his fingers off by putting his hand in the path of the blades while it was running. 75 years ago he’d have been called an idiot for doing such a daft thing. But 20 years ago, he won the case.

Because of a side issue.

The real issue was his foolishness to put his hand into a moving lawnmower. The case made it about the manufacturer not putting adequately visible warning signs to keep fingers clear of the moving blades.

Our real issue is we are inherently sinful and consequently separated from God – He even gave us an instruction manual we call “The Bible” outlining what the real issue is and how to circumvent the consequences.

The sheep mentality of the 21st Century has spent all it’s time screaming about women’s rights (which would be advocated in a truly Christian society), whether Bush was a good President, whether Obama was a good President, why the Republicans chose Donald, whether Hillary should be wearing a pantsuit, what went wrong with Brad and Angelina, can Justin Bieber sing, is the Hulk stronger than Thor and most importantly, will there be another “Harry Potter” book.

Incredibly, the fact that Islam is a false religion that leads people away from relationship with God and back into slavery of religious duty has become a dirty statement for Christians to make. What God says about sexuality – which He designed in the first place – has been decried as outdated and anyone who dares mention out loud that the Bible says God never changes, that He is the one constant, is now called a heretic. We’ve had 30 years of “famous” preachers who have become household names. Those who have stuck to the Biblical teaching are ridiculed and those who bow to the tide of public opinion instead of the declared, known Will of God on the topic are lauded as the “real” christians because they don’t “judge” people for their choice.

What they actually do is become sightless guides, leading people into a pit.

Now we’re not called to judge people, but we are called to recognise them by the fruit they bear as to whether they are from God. Jesus spent His time talking to prostitutes, tax-collectors, adulterers and Samaritans. But it didn’t mean He was making use of the prostitute’s services, swindling the people out of their money, cheating on people’s spouses or abandoning God. It meant He saw in each of those people a fertile soil for the seed of His Word to grow in and lead them away from the actions that pulled them away from God.

That’s what the Cross was about. Rebuilding relationship with a Loving God who created us specifically in His own image so we could have a relationship with Him.

The “progressive” message is insidious in it’s phrasing. It starts with a measure of Truth: Jesus wouldn’t reject this person because he/she is gay/queer/trans/Muslim/etc. I completely agree – He wouldn’t. He would offer them unconditional Love. What He wouldn’t do is leave them in the place He found them – which is what the “progressives” want us to do.

Take the woman brought to Him from the very act of adultery. Probably at least partly naked. Terrified because this mob wants to kill her. Thrown to the ground in front of this man known for His Holiness, His righteousness. The Law is clear…

So this Rabbi turns away from her a little, crouches down and begins to write in the sand.

Everyone looks at Him. What wisdom is He writing? Why has he crouched there?

How tender. How merciful. A moment before all eyes were on her – and her nakedness. Now everyone’s attention is on Him. She has a chance to cover herself. She has an opportunity to restore some dignity.

He stands and turns back to her. What is most significant now is what Jesus doesn’t say.

He doesn’t say “Where is the one she was with?”

He doesn’t tell them “The Law says do it!”

He turns the accusation back on the accusers.

However, when they persisted in questioning Him, He straightened up and said, “He who is without [any] sin among you, let him be the first to throw a stone at her.”

John 8:7 (Amplified)

And they walk away.

Then He turns to the woman.

Again, Jesus doesn’t ask who she was with. Or if it was a man or a woman. Or for the details of what they did. He knows what they did was sin – that’s all that matters to Him.

Straightening up, Jesus said to her, “Woman, where are they? Did no one condemn you?” She answered, “No one, Lord!” And Jesus said, “I do not condemn you either. Go. From now on sin no more.”

John 8:10-11  (Amplified)

The “progressive” attitude omits His last sentence. “From now on sin no more.” But that’s the key to the real issue. Sin separated mankind from God. Trusting Jesus, giving our life to Him and really nailing our past to the Tree with Him, is what restores that relationship. Sin no more.

Every time Jesus talks to someone crippled because of sin He tells them to stop that sin. In one case he even warns something worse may come. (John 5:14)

Forgiveness without repentance. It’s the “progressive” gospel, but it’s a lie. Unconditional acceptance is not the message of Jesus. There’s one condition: repent. Repentance means realising the significance of the Cross. It means accepting Jesus and the price He paid for us and as a mark of that acceptance, turning away from our past life. An outward manifestation of this Salvation is Regeneration – a change in behaviour, speech, even associations.

But the lie of the “progressive” movement is that you’re saved and forgiven. It’s a lie of omission. To be forgiven we must repent. To show we are saved we must demonstrate the regeneration inside us.

For the geeks out there, imagine Dr Who goes through his regeneration and is still exactly who he was before. He looks the same, he talks the same. He is the same. Now for fans who like David Tennant (or Tom Baker if you’re my age) that might be a good thing, but the story doesn’t change. There’s no difference. It’s as though the regeneration never happened.

I never imagined I’d quote Dr Who in an article here.

But it’s a brilliant analogy. Each regeneration of the Doctor changes his character. Tom Baker’s Doctor was nothing like William Hartnell, Patrick Troughton or John Pertwee before him, and Peter Davison bore no resemblance to Tom Baker and so on. The character changed when the regeneration happened.

So our character should change – be restored actually – to what Jesus intended it to be when He designed us and gave us the Gifts we carry. I’m still quick tempered now, like I was before I committed my life to Christ, but what I get angry about has changed. Mostly. Like everyone I’m a work in progress. As Andrew Wommack is fond of saying in his sermons, I may not have arrived – but at least I’ve left! Praise God!

Go to the Cross.

Right now. Go there in your heart.

Look at it. Really see what Jesus did.

I have no words better than Isaac Watts, so I’ll leave with this thought:

 

 

When I survey the wondrous cross
On which the Prince of glory died,
My richest gain I count but loss,
And pour contempt on all my pride.

Forbid it, Lord, that I should boast,
Save in the death of Christ my God!
All the vain things that charm me most,
I sacrifice them to His blood.

See from His head, His hands, His feet,
Sorrow and love flow mingled down!
Did e’er such love and sorrow meet,
Or thorns compose so rich a crown?

Were the whole realm of nature mine,
That were a present far too small;
Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.