Monthly Archives: February 2011

February 11, 2011 · 6:00 PM

The Force Behind Us

In the 35 years of life and ministry I’ve lived so far, I’ve noticed a tendency in myself to try to exert energy in an attempt to make things happen. It’s not that I don’t believe hard work gets rewarded, however when our hard work and self-reliance replaces the easy yoke of Christ where He does the heavy pulling, we’ve probably lost track of our purpose. One of the temptations in worship is to somehow exert enough energy so that you can by sheer effort push through into the very presence of God. It never works though. At least not for me. At some point I suddenly realize what I’m doing and take a step back and change my whole approach to God. I’m already a son. I don’t have to work to enter His presence, in fact it’s the opposite. As a loved son, I already have free access.  Singing louder or dancing faster probably isn’t the key to better worship.

One of the other areas I try to exert energy toward is seeing prayer answered. Praying louder, praying longer, praying while waving my hands…and so on. One of the things I’ve learned from growing up in a pentecostal church is that if you aren’t getting results all you need to do is pray louder and yell at the devil. I’ve since had to unlearn that as I’ve found that approach rarely works.  At times our intensity will move the hand of God, but I think it’s actually the intensity of our heart that moves the hand of God.  Notice I didn’t say frequency.  We sometimes confuse intensity with frequency.  It’s not about how many times our heart beats for God but how deep it is felt.  The heart that beats heavy for God is the heart that moves the hand of God

I was worshiping the other day and God gave me a picture of myself standing in front of a mountain. In the picture I was pointing at the mountain and telling it to move. It was a picture of Matt 17:20 – “if you have faith as small as a mustard seed, you can say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move. Nothing will be impossible for you.” Initially I only saw myself in the picture and nothing was happening. The mountain wasn’t moving and I was just standing there pointing. Sometimes that’s how we see ourselves in this verse. We believe that we have faith and in fact we probably do, but no matter how loud we pray or how many times we speak to the mountain it rarely seems to move. The sick remain sick. The lost remain lost. Our financial situation doesn’t turn around. There is way too much unanswered prayer out there.

Recently I came across a hilarious commercial from Volkswagen that illustrates my point so well.

Little Darth Vader had very little success in using the force until a “greater power” intervened and turned his fantasy into a reality!  In the picture that God gave me I saw Jesus standing behind me also pointing at the mountain.  I don’t know how many times I’ve pointed at a mountain in my life only to have it do nothing.  But when we line up our hand with the hand of God that’s when things really begin to happen.  He’s already pointing his finger at the mountains before us, but He won’t do anything until we line up our pointing finger with His.  He is the force behind us.

May you be experience the moving of mountains in your life and…may the force be with you.

(To help make this liturgically correct you may reply back…”and also with you.”)

If you are a starwars fan, be sure to check out my friend Rob Petkau’s website at genesiscustomsabers.com for all your light saber needs and wants.

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February 5, 2011 · 9:15 AM

Beyond Friendship with God

Life has interesting dynamics.  When you are a child, friends are everything to you.  You can’t wait for lunch hour at school because you get to play with your friends.  When school is over you again get to play with your friends.  You hop on your bikes and go for a ride or hang out at the mall.  Get together and play hockey or football.  And then there are the sleepovers which the girls did a whole lot more than guys.  When I was a child it was all about the friends.  Everyday after school we’d all meet at a cul-de-sac in our neighbourhood and play road hockey.  Anyone in the neighbourhood could come and play.  All you needed was a hockey stick.  There was no pressure to be cool or be the best, we just came to have fun together.

Friends are great, but the sad reality is that of all the friends I had growing up, I am really only in contact with two of them.  Life moves you around and if it doesn’t move you around it will move others around to different locations.  Our friend pool is always changing.  I make new friends wherever we move to and over the years I have gathered a number of friends that I am really close to.  These friends have helped carry me through some hard times and even pushed me through difficult times.  As close as my relationship with these friends is they hardly come close to the friendship that I have with God.

For years God was unreachable to me.  I was a believer, but I thought that was the way it was meant to be.  He was God and I was just a man.  Relationship with God was hard and I thought that was the way it was supposed to be.  I mean really, what did I expect?  A sinful human being relating to an amazing perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy God!  It was hopeless right from the start….until….

I got a revelation of the Father’s love for me.  I don’t mean that a lightbulb turned on in my head.  It was more than an intellectual understanding.  It was a tangible experience in which He poured out His love in my life.  I no longer had to strive and work to feel good enough for His affection.  I used to relate to the terms like slave and master in my relationship with God, but now I find a lot more meaning and fulfillment in terms like Father, Son, friend, lover, beloved, bride, groom.  If it’s all about relationship, then terms like slave and master no longer apply. 

John 15:15 says, “I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.”

Jesus said the day of slavery/servant status were over.  He was stating that there was a shift happening in the relationship status between man and God.  The Apostle Paul quotes the Old Testament in 2 Corinthians 6:18 as he writes, “I will be a Father to you, and you will be my sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.” 

Romans 8:15-16 says, ”For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship.  And by him we cry, ‘Abba, Father.’  The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.”

To me it appears that we were created for intimacy and relationship with this amazing perfect, omnipotent, omnipresent, holy God.  We are more than slaves.  He is more than a master.  We are more than friends.  He is more than a loyal friend.  We are loved sons and daughters.  He is a loving Father and we can experience His love.  Although I’ve learned to experience His love, one of the biggest battlefields in this matter was in my mind.  It is very difficult to unlearn something you’ve thought for years was truth.  It meant that my whole approach to God had to change.  It also meant changes for the way I lived my Christian life.

A couple of months ago I was in prayer and God gave me a picture that expressed his love.  I saw these clouds moving across the sky, but they were not laced with moisture.  They were laced with ribbons.  As I looked closer at these ribbons I saw that each of them had special messages written on them.  One said, “I love you”.  Another said, “you are precious”.  These clouds were filled with ribbons ready to pour out God’s affection.  God is not in the business of pouring out judgment (at this point in time), He wants to pout our His perfect love and drench us in all His goodness.  He created us for intimate, loving relationship with him.  It’s time to remove the limits and mindsets that prevent us from knowing our creator and position ourselves beneath His cloud-filled sky laced with limitless affection and get ready for the rain.  It’s coming!

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