The Manual

Prayer Walk II (the Sequel)

Hello all,

You may have heard all this already ...but for those who haven't let me summarise the thing...

On Friday 22 July Michael Clark will be undertaking a prayer walk from Twickenham to Trafalgar Square -  And Back!

Using the Thames walk after crossing to North of the River @ Putney bridge the total distance will be around 24 miles or 38.5.5 kilometres, give or take, assuming he doesnt keel over before finishing!

He will be setting out at 6.30am and expects to say high to Nelson between 10.30 and 11 am. His return journey will start at 11.30 and he expects to be back in Twickenham by 15.30

Why??? (you may ask!) Or you may ask "Why Again?"

Well it is again to pray for his daughters Abigail and Charlotte...

What can you do?

First, Michael needs your prayers in support - he is suggesting a very simple prayer of 40 words which you will find below. But any prayer that comes into your heart is fine!

Second, you can encourage anyone you know with a heart for prayer to join in and pray too.

It is really that simple... so please forward the email or the link to this page - or the facebook event to any potential prayer warriors you know! He is doing the walk even if no one but him is praying and would be glad to have as many prayer supporters as possible.

His suggested prayer is:

Lord I pray for your gospel of truth to enter the lives of Abigail and Charlotte Clark.
I pray Grace over their relationship with their father and with each other and with their mother.
In Jesus' name
Amen

So anytime between 0630 and 1530 BST ...and as many times as your heart tells you to pray those few words it would be gratefully received.

Nothing else is required but anyone who isn't working and wants a walk is welcome to join in (a friend did join me for the Westminster to Putney stretch last time and it was a real blessing... as was his lovely wife meeting him for the last couple of miles and..by the by ...anyone who wants to buy him a pint at the White Swan on Riverside TW1 around 1530 won't be turned away either!

Nothing is impossible for God ...

Prayer Walk ~ Extra Prayers Needed!

Hello all,

You may have heard all this already ...but for those who haven't let me summarise the thing...

On Friday 20 May Michael Clark will be undertaking a prayer walk from central Richmond to the Tower of London -  And Back!

Using the Thames walk for much of the journey the total distance will be around 27 miles or 43.5 kilometres, give or take, assuming he doesnt keel over before finishing!

He will be setting out at 6.30am and expects to arrive at the Tower before 11am. His return journey will start at 11.30 and he expects to be back in Richmond by 16.30

Why??? (you may ask!)

To pray for his daughters Abigail and Charlotte.

What can you do?

First, Michael needs your prayers in support - he is suggesting a very simple prayer of 30 words which you will find below. But any prayer that comes into your heart is fine!

Second, you can encourage anyone you know with a heart for prayer to join in and pray too.

It is really that simple... so please forward the email or the link to this page - or the facebook event to any potential prayer warriors you know! Michael is hoping to get 810 committed prayer warriors... that's about 30 per mile. But he is doing the walk even if no one but him is praying and would be glad to have many more than 810 pray-ers.

His suggested prayer is:

Lord I pray for your gospel of truth to enter the lives of Abigail and Charlotte Clark.
I pray Grace over their relationship with their father.
In Jesus' name
Amen

So anytime between 0630 and 1630 BST ...and as many times as your heart tells you to pray those 30 words it would be gratefully received.

Nothing else is required but anyone who isn't working and wants a walk is welcome to join in... and anyone who wants to buy him a pint in Richmond at 1630 won't be turned away either!

Nothing is impossible for God ...

 

Old Testament Grace

There are a lot of people who think the Old Testament makes for grim reading.

I recall watching a tv programme in which Stephen Fry and some other rabid atheists said it was a crime to have children read it.. because it is so full of murder and massacre and stuff.

I know some Christians who avoid all of it, aside from Psalms and Proverbs, perhaps for similar reasons.

Lately I have been buried deep in it and loving every minute! Elijah and Elishah are a pair of awesome dudes, really tuned into God, and really accessing His power in His cause.

The story that prompted me to write today though involves a less Spirit-filled man, Jehu, King of Israel. As few of you may have spent much time reading the second book of Kings it needs a bit of back story filling in and at the end of the day it IS the kind of story that Mr Fry hates, full of massacres.

Let's start by backtracking to Ahab King of Israel. He marries Jezebel. Now since Jereboam splits the Kingdom and creates the northern Kingdom it has been going a bit pear-shaped with the creation and worship of two golden calves. But Jezebel creates a major movement for Ba'al worship. Elijah of course massacres the 450 prophets of Ba'al after God arranges for Ba'al's humiliation at the famous bull-burning contest... but I digress.

Thing is Ahab and Jezebel have an eldest son called Jehoram (or Joram) who succeeds to the throne AND a daughter called Athlaiah who marries the heir to the throne of Judah (confusingly also called Joram).

SO... Joram King of Israel worships Ba'al. And his son Ahaziah worships Ba'al. And over the border Joram King of Israel worships Ba'al.

This is all pretty ugly. Without going into all the reasons that Ba'al worship is a serious abomination we know that God has already promised to destroy the house of Ahab because of Ba'al worship along with a dose of murdering, false witness and land-theft.

God anoints Jehu (one of Ahaziah's generals) as new King of Israel and commissions him with the ugly work of destroying the house of Ahab.

Jehu kills Joram, then he kills of Ahaziah Judah. He then kills Ahab's sons (Joram's brothers) and all of Ahaziah's brothers too. Ahaziah's mother Athaliah (daughter of Jezebel) takes this as her cue to massacre all of Ahaziah's other relations in order to make herself Queen and ensure Ba'al worship lives on in Judah for seven more years.

Messy huh?

But here is the point.

Jehu, anointed by the Lord to do this messy work of fulfilling the Lord's desire to destroy the house of Ahab for all its abominations becomes King of Israel. His family rule Israel for four generations

BUT

He does NOT turn Israel away from the worship of the Golden Calves!! (2 Kings 10 v 29 and v 31)

God nevertheless gives him four generations of rule - because he does the Lord's will.

But It is clear that here we have the ultimate in human weakness, a man anointed by God still cannot get it all right. (remember David?)

So at the end of the day we still need Jesus to come and pay for all our screw ups.

• We can be anointed King.
• We can do God's will in messy and challenging situations.

But when the dust settles we are really all just sinners.

And for that reason God sends us Jesus to die for us . . . because left to ourselves we screw it up.

Thank you Lord! Because of your great sacrifice we are not JUST sinners... we are sinners saved by Grace

Hardly News But...

...God is more amazing than Fabio Capello!

I was praying the other day and got a video picture...

There was poor Robert Green, beyond question a great goalkeeper and let's face it, the man Fabio had selected to start the World Cup as the starting GK.

I saw very clearly that awful moment against the USA, the ball squirming away from him, the nasty spin taking it beyond his fumbling grasp. The US equalize. England, resilient as ever, fall to pieces under the unfairness of it all and begin a campaign which, let's face it is awful at more positions than just Goalkeeper. A campaign so awful at almost every position.

Robert Green of course has not played for England since. Not for a minute. Ditched. The useless Rooney played every game, and the catalogue of useless England players who retained their places is quite long, but, Robert Green has not played for England since.

We are so lucky aren't we that our God is not like Fabio Capello? Our God is not just more powerful, he is more forgiving. Our God IS forgiveness. Because he already paid the price for all our goalkeeping blunders.

In the great scheme of things Robert Green's error is a pretty small thing, but he has paid, professionally, a pretty hugh price,

And in the great scheme of things, no matter who tells you you aren't good enough to be a child of God, created new in Christ, washed clean by the blood of the lamb, you are forgiven.

Every day you get to put that Jersey back on and take the field for God's team.

Amazing.... yes, that's what Grace is...

Worthiness

Being an awful sinner with apast I am not very proud of the subject of worthiness is very dear to me.

On a couple of occasions recently when I have given talks i have chosen to focus on people whose track record makes them pretty unworthy of being used by God...

• St Paul (as Saul stood and watched St Ste[hen's martyrdom, arrested hundreds of early believers etc etc)
• St Paul - denied Jesus three times, acts of violence at the arrest, having a row with Jesus( "get behind me satan!"
• Moses (murderer)
• The Thief on the Cross  (I say to you tonight you will be with me in Paradise)

Last night at HTB I heard the incredible Bill Johnson add to the list... the twelve apostles...

I strongly recommend you go and dowload the talk at htb.org

Anyway Bill, once again makes clear that God, in His Grace, doesn't care what you did. He cares what you WILL DO.

If a voice is telling you you are unworthy to bring God's Kingdom closer... well I think we all know whose voice that is.

You don't need to do anything to make God love you... He just does.  Nothing you do makes Him love you more. But we all know Jesus told us all to go and work for His kingdom to come.

Don't make your supposed 'unworthiness' a reason not to do so...

Jesus and the hedonic treadmill

I was reading a book about the financial crash and discovered a theory called "The Hedonic Treadmill"

You can read a bit about it here.

The thing that occured to me is that when someone wrote about this in 1971 they were about 1940 years behind the times. Because Jesus made it pretty clear to us in all his teaching that fulfilment comes only through Him. That although he doesn't insist on selflessness and sacrifice, because His Grace is so huge that we can fail and fail and never lose His love, he makes it clear that sleflessness and love are what really make us happy. He told us then that man cannot worship both GOD and Money. And we have spent 2000 years proving that of all the false Gods and idols created by the enemy the most alluring and tempting and finally deeply dissatisfying is money.

It's good that God's Grace is so huge - because I need it so often.

I pray I have the courage every day to step off the hedonic treadmill and find my happiness in kindness, love, faith and charity. Because no amount of money will ever make me as happy and as secure as the great deluge of Holy Spirit does.

I pray that I don't need to suffer to learn this truth, because suffering is the fastest route to that truth, I pray that my comfort and success lead me to kindness and love and charity. 

I spent the last 50 years proving money is a false God - let me now live as if I KNOW that truth. Every day, in every way.

In Jesus Name...Amen

Prayer Request

Hello all readers...

some of you may know that two Iranian women go on trial tomorrow for "propagating Christianity and Apostasy"

I ask all of you to pray for them... i can only repeat the request i got from Prayerforce:

Tomorrow, 13th April 2010 Maryam and Marzieh will appear at court in Tehran where they face charges of propagating Christianity and apostasy.
 

Please pray:

• For a tangible presence of the Holy Spirit with Maryam and Marzieh during their court appearance.
• For courage to stand in the knowledge that believers throughout are standing with them.
• That the charges against them will be dropped.
• For continued strength and healing after their imprisonment in Evin Prison

For more information on their case please go to the Open Doors or Elam web-site.

Let's stand in solidarity with Maryam and Marzieh

Hebrews 13:3

I don't want this blog to be political, but I am glad that Muslims are free to propagate their faith in my country. I may know that the only way to heaven is through Christ Jesus, but that doesn't make me feel compelled to lock up the people in my country who disagree.

Did you realise ...

This is a part of the bible that even the Atheists agree with

¹⁵ As for man, his days are like grass,
       he flourishes like a flower of the field;

 ¹⁶ the wind blows over it and it is gone,
       and its place remembers it no more.

That's Psalm 103, for you students.

The good news for Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens though is God is a God of love and forgiveness.

So on the day they meet Him, he will still accept their apology.

A few stolen thoughts

I got an email from an Alpha buddy in Botswana today and I steal selectively a couple of her thoughts for wider dissemination

Thanks Mokgadi

Why
is it so hard to tell the truth but Yet so easy to tell a
lie?  

Why
is it so easy to delete a Godly e-mail, but yet we forward
all of the nasty ones?  

Isn't it
funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then
wonder why the world's going to hell.  

Isn't it funny
how someone can say 'I believe in God' but still follow
Satan (who, by the way, also 'believes' in God).

Science is not evil

The point has been made by Richard that...

Science doesn't kill people - People kill people.

True

The NRA agree - they point out all that time that guns don;t kill people, people kill people.

And, guess what, religion doesn't kill people either. People kill people.

Of course millions of people have been killed in the name of religion. And up to about 1930 it was probably true to say that religion had caused the murder of more people than any other single cause. (I say probably - I haven't done the study).

However i am reasonably confident that since the two great Atheists (Hitler and Stalin) went to work that they overtook 2000 years of history in about 20 years. They had the advantage of course that science helped them be more efficient.

This doesn't make science evil, it doesn't even make Atheism evil.

It makes Hitler and Stalin evil.

Human nature is capable of awesome evil and awesome love.

Science can enable one human driven by love to do more good and one human driven by hate to do more harm.

So, I think its fair to say that in the past 60-70 years science has been on the up and up. Huge progress. At the same time its fair to say that religion is on the down and down. Less belief, less church attendance etc.

I offer the view that in the same period of time society has been in decline. More crime, more murder, more gangs, more children torturing and murdering children. More divorce. More broken families. More anti social behaviour.

So am i saying this is science's fault?

NO

But its clearly not religions fault. Religion is losing. Science is winning.

Science has not saved society.

Sure its not an argument that has much scientific rigour that the falling back of religion is connected to the decline in society. But its about time we stopped blaming religion for the world's ills. Hitler and Stalin were atheists, science has uncovered all sorts of truths, but those truths havent stopped society's meltdown.

Religion is not the answer. Jesus Christ and the Cross are.

Humans are capable of great love and great evil.

I am not sure that there is an example of how science has inspired great love, although it has helped those who love to do more good, and those who hate to do more ill.

There are examples of how Jesus has helped inspire enormous love.

Jesus, who represents God;s new covenant with us. Said that The Law still mattered but it could be summed up in two key commandments.

Love the Lord your God with all your hearty and all your soul and all your strength.

Love your neighbour as you love yourself.

I know from my own experience that for many many people there is NO intellectual argument that convinces you of God's existance. For me, and doubtless for others it requires an emotional experience of God's love.

But if you read a blog that discusses God's word you cannot expect a non God view to predominate (although God in his gift of free will encourages all sorts of negative comments).

Jesus has more chance of mending this crime ridden, murder ridden, gang ridden, divorce ridden, broken home ridden, corrupt politician ridden society than Science has.

Science has done all sorts of good but its not going to save society and I am not going to worship it.