Helping people make connections with God…

Captain’s Blog, Stardate 200210

As FB freaks will have noticed, I was sent home yesterday by the surgeon who was expecting to do an arthroscopy (sub, chk sp.) on my knee, which has been crook for years, and flared up last Autumn.  When he heard that I’d been for a three mile run with no ill effects, he quickly came to the conclusion that the op was as likely to do harm as good; at least in the short-run, if you’ll pardon the pun.  He did say that the natural movement of the knee might eventually grind away offending bits of loose cartilage, reducing inflammation.

For the record, my pain actually stopped suddenly one Sunday morning when Bruce and others prayed for it to be healed.  I arrived in constant pain, leaning on a walking stick and filled with pain-killers.  I left just fine and I haven’t taken a pain-killer since.  So well done, Team Vineyard, for persevering in prayer.  This wasn’t the first time some of those very guys had prayed for this very same knee.

And that’s the point that interests me.  I must have had prayer about 20 times in total for that knee.  Usually, there has been some relief.  On one occasion I got prayer before climbing a mountain, felt a cold-pack on the knee at the time, went up and down the hill with no pain in the “bad” knee, but the “good” one hurt like mad by the time I got down.  Normally, it would feel a bit better after prayer, and a couple of hours later would be sore and stiff again.  So why was it so thoroughly healed this time?  Why not before? I did nothing different, and I don’t think the chaps did either.

I was talking the other day to Jamie Watters, our Regional Leader, who said that some Vineyards are stepping back from healing ministry because they aren’t seeing any results. I don’t want to encourage unreality, but I think it’s really important we never give up. I am so glad to be part of a church where we heal because God says we should; not because of results. Wimber famously held “healing meetings” for 2 years where no-one was healed, before the break-through came.

So thank you, KV, for sticking with it. Every Sunday we see small intimations that God is healing among us. Let’s continue coming forward for prayer however often we have “been here before”, and let’s keep coming forward to pray for others too, invite the Holy Spirit to come, and speak healing into people’s lives in Jesus’ name. I feel sure God doesn’t mean the Pastor to be the only one who benefits!

Captain’s Blog, Stardate….

I was struck the other day by a thought that has been slowly crystallising in my understanding of Scripture for a long time now.   I believe it constitutes one of the great missing elements of the Gospel as we Christians have been preaching it, for as long as I can remember.   It’s hardly rocket science, yet I don’t think I can recall anyone ever saying it in so many, or few, words.  It is simply this: “God is for you”.

It seems to me that in great part the Christian’s traditional unease (as well as the Pre-Christian’s disgust) with all forms of evangelism springs from our failure to understand this one simple fact and to incorporate it in our dealings with others.   To any who have long been living this truth, such a facile sound-bite might seem so obvious as to be completely valueless.  ”God is for us, well, Dur!”   But I suspect to most of us it feels rather closer to blasphemy. After all, isn’t it we miserable sinners who should be for Him?

So much of the church’s teaching has been, deliberately or inadvertently, laced with disapproval that we have come to believe in the unstated assertion that: “God is Disapproval”.  St John teaches us the opposite.

For me, concepts like “man made in God’s image”, “us the clay, Him the potter” etc, not to mention “God so loved the world…” indicate nothing less than that God is for us.  Indeed Paul famously assumes this when he says in Rom 8:31 “If God is for us who can be against us?”

I am “for” everything I make, and particularly for my own dear children, so why would I struggle to believe God is for what He has made and for His children?   If you are anything like me, this is a truth you will have to wrestle with in order to make it your own.  If you’ll pray for me, I’ll pray for you!

The same Jesus who came in the form of a servant and washed the disciples’ feet said, on the very same night: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father”.   “God is for you”: discuss.