A Coming of Age

I don’t really have a concrete topic to write about in this post. I’ve had an enjoyable few weeks and to top it off a three brothers from Boston just arrived today to serve full-time. I guess this post was inspired by the fellowship I had with them.

We’re having morning revival on the previous training on Daniel and Zechariah and everyday I’m learning how to become someone that the Lord can fully use. It’s great that it coincides with me starting my first post-graduation job because I have been able to use Daniel’s experiences to help me present myself accordingly.

I am acutely aware these days that I am a representative of Christ and at some point I must starting acting like one, rather than putting it off for a yet to be determined date in the future. Two weekends ago, a brother said something that really touched me. He said that if the Lord came back today, he would be happy because he can honestly say that he’s consecrated the last fours years of his college life to the Lord. While I would be happy if the Lord came back today, I know that I can’t say that. From that day onward, I strived to live the life of a Nazarite, voluntarily consecrating myself everyday and refusing the corrupted foods of this world. It’s not been easy but I never expected it to be.

Day by day I feel myself becoming David-Anthony and not David. This sounds weird, I know, but for most of my life I’ve been just David and that’s been a metaphor for my Christian life. Rather than experiencing the full riches of His glory, I’ve been happy with just part of it. But recently I’ve experienced a change. I now want the full riches and refuse to just settle for a little bit. Everybody at work calls me David-Anthony and why shouldn’t they? It’s my first name. Granted, they pronounce it ‘David-Antony’ but they get points for trying. It may seem silly, or even trivial, to compare what I’m called to my Christian life but I see a symmetry. At some point I have to grow up and stop being little David and become David-Anthony. Likewise, I am now maturing spiritually and seeking Him fully and urgently everyday. I’m no longer a Lord’s Day or meeting saint, I’m becoming an everyday saint. Now let’s see how long it takes to ween everyone off calling me David…

I Have Confidence In Him

On Friday, I woke up and went about my business, like any other day. On my way to the train station, I decided to check my emails and right at the top was an email telling me that I’d been accepted for an internship and would start on Monday. The first thing I did was call on the name of the Lord, then I thanked Him while I tried to call home and tell my parents before my fingers got too cold. the fact that my first instinct was to call on the name of the Lord first shows how far I’ve come in the past few months. So I thought I would write about some of the things I’ve learnt during my unemployment.

The biggest lesson that the last few months have taught me is that the heavens rule. This is such a beautiful thing to see and say. One of the most frustrating thing about being unemployed were the limits it imposed on my church life. I’d never really been in a situation where I had to seriously consider missing a college conference or not going to the student meeting because of money. Previously I’d been in situation where I would say “I’m poor” and really what I meant was that I’d overspent for that month and so had to limit my expenditure. However, I then found myself in a position where I was planning which meetings to skip.

Prayer meetings where the first to go, not that I was a regular at them in the first place. It’s a terrible habit, and one I look forward to overcoming in the next few months, but I find it harder to motivate myself to go to a prayer meeting especially during the cold winter. It’s weird because you’d think that with a tight budget, I would prioritize corporate prayer, and now I think about it, I should have. I missed a few Lord’s table meetings and then eventually switched districts because there was a table meeting much closer to me. Somehow, I managed to attend both the European University Conference and the Winter School of Truth.

As you can see, I was choosing the bigger and ‘more fun’ events over the smaller, serious meetings. I wanted to be with the brothers my age rather than the older saints. Here in London, especially in the small districts, it’s not uncommon for there is often a huge gap between the eldest student and the youngest adult. The thought of being surrounded by adults, no offence, just didn’t appeal to me. Praise the Lord that, despite not having any income, I managed to remain active in the church life.

In this economy and with the world situation as it is, the Lord made it clear to me that He was all I had and would ever need. The world wasn’t my friend, it didn’t owe me anything and would never do anything that was in my best interests. This was an important lesson because I had too much confidence in myself and the world. I assumed that after following the rules and doing well at school, I would be rewarded with a job within 3-4 months of graduating. When it didn’t, I lost confidence and turned fully to the Lord. With Him as my confidence, I am now employed and start on tomorrow.

While listening to the recent Winter Training on Daniel and Zechariah, I really appreciated this speaking from Brother Ron in message 1. He said:

“…this is why we have to see that the heavens rule because we’re always going to be in an environment. And the fact is, my brothers and sisters, this environment can include all manner of painful things, anguish things, frustrating things, baffling things, and you pray and you pray for yourself and those whom you love. And the God who rules is silent, and the God who rules is hiding. And it seems as if He doesn’t care or doesn’t even exist. But it’s just part of His rule over you to develop your faith, to perfect your faith. So as God’s elect we need Christ to be wrought into us as our centrality and universality through our environment.”

I’m just so glad that I can see that the heavens rule. My approach to my job is that I am a temporary custodian of that position until the Lord decides otherwise. In that time I must remain open to Him and fully redeem the time so that He can move through me because these days are evil.

A Bruising Lesson

I have an app, on my phone, which shows me what my Facebook status everyday up to three years ago. Most of the time I cringe as I realise how naive I was. Today, I checked the app and was pleasantly surprised to realise that this time two years ago, I had just finished my first blending trip to another locality.

Many times I forget that I have been in the church life for a little over two years. Many times, people assume I’m a church kid. These are all good things. I can’t imagine not being in the church life, I barely remember my life before the church life. What I do remember is that my focus has fully changed from myself to Christ and the church. This is important, especially now that I am a graduate. If I didn’t know the Lord or didn’t have the saints, I do not know where I would be because unemployment sucks, and that’s putting it mildly.

My Facebook Status from 2 years ago

1 Thessalonians 16-18 says, “always rejoice, unceasingly pray, in everything give thanks; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” But how do you do that when it seems as if your whole world is crumbling? It’s easy to view chasing employment as vanity, however the reality is that in this corrupted world, employment provides money and the pursuit of money keeps the whole system spinning. My mistake was to try and enter this system with a false view of God’s will for me. I had good grades, great experience and everyone told me I interviewed well and I didn’t even have to lie. I am the perfect minority candidate; I know this because I planned it, I cultivated it and then executed it when I was 17. I had a plan to be somebody, and because everything worked out pretty much how I needed it to, I assumed it was God’s plan too. But I was in for a rude shock.

“If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.”
John 15:7

My careers adviser has been unable to explain why I am yet to find a job. He suggested, rather desperately, that I become more like Margaret Thatcher or Winston Churchill and seize the day. I already knew the answer to my problems. While fellowshipping with some saints last week, a sister asked me a very exposing question. “Have you gained the Lord more during this experience?”

I wanted to say no, but I knew that wasn’t true. I ended up saying “Yes but…is it worth going through this experience?” I didn’t want to admit that this experience has drawn me much closer to the Lord. The anger, frustration and the total destruction of my pride has shown me that the world is not my friend. I may have done all the right things and played by the rules but the only person who will never let me down is the Lord. Once I admitted that to myself, I felt a sense of freedom.

For the Lord to reach me, he had to break me and while it felt brutal, it was necessary for me to reach the point where I trusted him wholeheartedly. Who knows, maybe I could have been spared all of this if I had let go sooner. This week’s morning revival has been talking about how prayer is for the Lord rather than for us. Praying that He has His way in my life and uses me for the accomplishment of His will is much more effective than begging for a job. After all, John 15:7 says, “If you abide in Me and My words abide in you, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.” Only by abiding in Him can we know what to ask for.

The Millennials

The London Brothers. Photo taken by Juanito

What is a generation? One dictionary definition is: “a group of individuals, most of whom are the same approximate age, having similar ideas, problems, attitudes, etc.” A generation typically lasts 20-30 years and those in my generation are known as the Millennials. Born after 1983, we grew up on technology and live our lives online thanks to the internet, smartphones and social networks. We are a connected generation however, we are also a godless generation. We are irreligious, meaning we are hostile or indifferent to religion. (By using religion here I am using the term that most people see Christianity).

This irreligion has characterised the childhood of all European young people. Generally speaking, Europe is politically socialist and a big part of socialism is resistance and indifference to God and the belief that our problems can be solved through the collective good actions of the majority. I’m a historian and so I know this is an overly simplistic view and could be misleading but based on its Communist roots, most forms of socialism follow these principles. The combination of increased access to information via the internet and irreligion has made my generation an insular one. We are independent, we look to ourselves to solve our issues and refuse to accept things without physical proof.

I mention all of this because today I had coffee with a brother in Canary Wharf, and we realised we had come to a major crossroads where a major decision had to be made. There are about 15 brothers aged 20-23 who have just graduated or about to graduate. These brothers are active in the student life and serve regularly at conferences. To the young people we probably come across as constituted brothers (I say this because that is how I used to see the brothers older than me). After graduation, in the face of worldly pressure, we must decide which of the four paths to pursue: further education, work, the full-time training or marriage. At first this is daunting but during my fellowship with the brother, we realised three important things.

First it’s irrelevant which one we pick, when we pick or even which order we pick. All of these paths are perfectly acceptable to the Lord if He wishes it for us. The real choice is between the way of the Lord and that of the devil. By the time we graduate we know that while education serves a good purpose, we have been conditioned to pursue it in order to gain the best job possible.This is the pursuit of money and as we know from 1 Timothy 6:10 “the love of money is a root of all evils” therefore, it is important to turn to the Lord and see which path He wants us to pursue after we graduate.

Secondly it’s important to be able to articulate the reasoning behind this decision. I served at the European Winter School of Truth this year with the 11 year olds, many of whom were experiencing their first young people’s conference. That week really opened my eyes to because they asked me so many questions and I had to really turn to the Lord in order to provide answers. If I was unable to articulate my faith and the faith then I could have damaged them spiritually. But by being able to articulate, they could better understand why, as a Christian, they too wanted to follow the Lord.

Thirdly, it’s important to realise that we must be patterns. The number of graduating UK students in the church life is growing slowly. If my graduating class sets a good pattern the the next graduating class, by His grace, they too can be a pattern to the class below them. We must break this hostility and indifference to God in our peers while strengthening the faith of those already saved.

Therefore to conclude this rather long blog post, the Millennial generation needs overcomers who give themselves up to the Lord so He can gain more people. The most important decision we can make is to follow the Lord and then we must be able to articulate and live out this decision as patterns. I am really burdened for this, so much so that it’s taken nearly four hours to clearly turn my thoughts into typed words. Hopefully my next post will be soon and much smoother affair.

Regeneration

“That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit.“
John 3:6

What a weekend we had at the Autumn European University Conference in Bower House. The topic was ‘The Organic Aspect of God’s Salvation’ and it was very enjoyable getting into the Word and understanding what organic salvation is.There are eight steps in God’s organic salvations:

1. Regeneration
2. Shepherding
3. Sanctification
4. Renewing
5. Transformation
6. Building
7. Conformation
8. Glorification

I really enjoyed the matter of Regeneration. Firstly regeneration is not:

• Remedial – it’s a cure or a solution which improves us
• Rehab – it won’t restore us to a a better condition
• Resolve – it won’t change or magically convert us

Regeneration is simply to to receive another life, the life of God, in addition to our human life. This is such a wonderful thing. Just think about it. God’s life is added to our life. He doesn’t substitute our life for His, rather He adds His spiritual and divine life to our human life. His heart’s desire is for Man to be the same as He is in image, life, nature and expression. That is love.

We are regenerated when we receive the Spirit because God is Spirit. But how do we receive the Spirit? 1 Peter 1:23 says “Having been regenerated not out of corruptible seed but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.” This shows that we are regenerated through the word of God. John 1:1, 14 clearly show that the Word is Jesus. Therefore by believing into Jesus, we are regenerated through the Word and receive the Spirit which mingles with our Spirit thus regenerating us and making us children of God.

This regeneration is a washing which changes our senses. Before we are regenerated, our sense of sight, taste, touch, hearing and smell are of the world but after we’ve been regenerated this becomes of the Spirit. It is not necessary to tell a newly regenerated Christian what how to act, rather the Spirit within him will wash him and he will have see, taste and smell things differently. He will naturally act according the the Lord.

This matter of regeneration is so important because not only is it the first aspect of God’s organic salvation, it is also the centre of His complete salvation. However we must approach it and know it in a theological or doctrinal way. Rather, as it was impressed on us, we must take it to the Lord and say “Lord what does this mean to me? How is regeneration applicable to my life?” Only then can we have a true experience of regeneration rather than just an academic understand of it.

Battlefield: Frontline Offensive

“For our wrestling is not against blood and flesh but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the world-rulers of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenlies. Therefore take up the whole armor of God that you may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand.“

Christian Students in London 2012/13

In the past two weeks something strange has happened. A new offensive has been launched on the campuses of London. Like an impromptu military raid, it is quick and dirty. Small and unrefined but highly coordinated and accurate. Targeting the freshman of 2012/13 we visited nearly 10 campuses in London, quenching the fiery darts of the enemy with the shield of faith and praying powerful kingdom prayers. And it was so enjoyable. In past years the students had been content to sit idly and play defence while the serving ones wearily went on the offence. But not this year. Now it was the serving ones in defence while we pushed aggressively forward.

Fuelled by spiritual adrenaline, we’d exhaust ourselves, get home and sleep it off, wake up and start again. Yet despite giving out almost 1000 Bibles in two weeks, I was hit by the realisation that we’d only reached less than 0.002% of the UK’s population and many of them didn’t want further contact after receiving their new Bible. The statistics make for depressing reading yet this is the reality we live in here on the frontlines.

Students Distributing At Queen Mary, University of London, in the heart of London’s Muslim community

So many times I hear saints excitedly talking about moving to Europe for the Lord’s move and I know they’re not prepared. War isn’t exciting, war isn’t pleasant and that is what the Lord’s move in Europe is: a war. Saints wanting to go to Europe will be in for the rudest shock. I feel a saint who is prepared for the Lord’s move in Europe will not be excited because it’s a thankless task. Our children are dead, their spirits locked away and hidden so deep that when you look into their eyes you see mostly emptiness. In August I took a brother to the Notting Hill Carnival where we were surrounded by teenagers; some were drinking, others dancing, the rest were eagerly watching the festivities. This brother felt so uncomfortable, and a little scared. that he wanted to leave, yet these were the people he was moving to Europe to try and reach but just in their natural habitat. It made me realise that nothing can prepare non-Europeans for life as a God-man in this continent.

At Greenwich University

Europeans, so used to organised religion, know all the moves. They will take your free Bibles, quote verses back to you and you’ll never see them again. In London, especially, they will smile and be polite to your face but when you read between the lines you realise that they were never interested at all. It’s demoralising, depressing and can even damage a saint. Therefore despite the tens of thousands of Bibles given out this summer we must be aware that the real work is in the retention. And in this matter I am reminded of Matthew 22:14, “Many are called but few are chosen.” Despite this energetic offensive, we may only gain one or 2 more students in the whole of London than we did last year yet this is a momentous victory. Every soul saved in Europe is huge and here on the frontlines every victory brings us closer to the end of the war.

Zeal for the Lord

In my two weeks in Southern California, I’ve had a number of very good experiences. This vacation has been much more than I expected it to be and I can only attribute it to the Lord for providing me with such hospitable saints. While the physical can never rival the spiritual, the way I’ve been taken care of by the saints physically has been extremely humbling.

Today has been the first day that I’ve been truly alone and I’ve enjoyed this mellow day walking around Westwood. This day has allowed me to reflect on a piece of fellowship I had with a dear brother in Irvine.

He told me about his trip to Israel earlier this year and how the zeal of the Israelites really touched him. They were so focused on the idea of rebuilding the physical temple and so sure it would happen. In their minds, this was of utter importance and nothing anyone said could get them to change their minds. They didn’t care what the world thought of them. The brother came to the conclusion that if the Israelites could be so focused on this physical dream, then he should be even more focused on the spiritual truth. He must desire to and pray for the Lord to build his spiritual temple.

This fellowship really touched me because I know that I haven’t always been faithful to the Lord’s goal. I often put off my Bible reading and fellowship until a more convenient time or I cancel altogether. I prioritise physical over spiritual pleasure. I worry about my needs over the Lord’s needs. But the biggest fault is that at times I’m ashamed of the Lord.

There are certain acquaintances that I cannot talk about the Lord to because they vehemently oppose Him. I can’t even talk about Him around them because I feel as if I can’t defend Him before them andy I get offended by their criticisms. So in the end I don’t mention Him around these people, however when I’m with the saints I can praise Him shamelessly. When I look at the attitude of the Jews, I realise that this is a bad stance. Being a Christian is part of my DNA. My spirit is mingled with the Spirit. How can I deny part of my being? It just doesn’t make sense. If the Jews can vehemently defend the idea of rebuilding the physical temple and hold onto it so strongly, why can’t I do the same for the spiritual temple of the Lord?

I’m realising more and more that the older you get, the easier it is to be blown away with the crowd and lose your identity. I don’t want to lose the Lord. I don’t want to lose the source of my life. I can no longer justify living different lives. I am a Christian, I have been saved and He lives in me. And frankly people will always have an opinion, but it shouldn’t dictate my life.

Unravelling

On March 1, Sister Carolyn Ocwet died of a brain hemorrhage at the Royal London Hospital. I didn’t really know her or her family too well, but she was in my district. I found out almost seconds after I boarded the train at High Barnet station and I felt physically and emotionally sick. I wanted to cry, but the British stiff upper lip wouldn’t let me. I wanted to punch something but my rationale told me that would be a stupid thing to do. so I sat in silence and drifted off into a daydream instead.

These 12 days have been some of the most confusing and piercing days of my life. I’ve pretty much re-evalutated my whole way of life and now I’m more confident about standing out up and declaring my faith in the face of opposition. The older I get, the more I realise that Christ is the way. Below is an extract from my diary as I tried to get to grips with what was happening.

“She sat next to me. Well there was an empty chair separating us but that doesn’t matter. I never considered that the following Lord’s Day she wouldn’t be there. She loved the Lord, I could feel that. I could sense that. I’m not concerned about her salvation.

So often we have a reckless disregard for life. I know I do. I do things and say things without considering the ripple effect.

I’ve never understood death. I’ve never been able to fully comprehend it. When my maternal grandfather died I laughed, I guess out of a sense of relief that after two years he was finally out of his misery, but I never understood the sadness and pain my mother felt. This was the man who’d raised me for 6 years and whom I closely resembled. He was the defining male figure in my life. And he was gone.

But now a woman I’m unrelated to and hardly knew dies and I feel something. I feel numb. Sitting on this train on my way home, I feel the Spirit warming through me. There are tears but I’m a Londoner. I can’t let them see me vulnerable.

I remember Last Lord’s Day I drifted off towards the end and played on my phone instead. When I post about the Lord on Facebook I put my privacy settings on because I don’t want to deal with those who don’t agree. If it had been me that had died instead, I would be woefully inadequate to face the Lord.

There’s a hymn that says: “Fight saints for Jesus our Lord. Take in His life, stand in one accord. Never fear God’s enemy; tread on his head triumphantly.”

We must fight…I must fight for Jesus our Lord.

I guess it’s a cliche for someone else’s death to shake me out of my spiritual stupor. But it really has. Praise the Lord that we can live His life because our own is too short.“