Yes, there are answers, fulfilments and victories in this age, and our hearts need them, but they are always partial, provisional, limited and point forward beyond themselves. Wilberforce succeeded in seeing the slave trade ended in England in his day, and that was a great good, but the battle for righteousness and against evil continues, and will continue until the end of the age.

Does that mean we stop contending for answers? Do we stop healing the sick, serving the poor, exposing injustice, contending for righteousness? Not at all. We must by all means continue to do these things. But we do them with our eyes fixed not on what is seen, but on what is as yet unseen. We fix our hope, not on specific outcomes that we want to see, but on the character and consistency of the One who raised Jesus Christ from the dead and who promises that He will return to rule. The ultimate answer to evil is that Messiah Jesus is Lord. Now his Lordship is visible only to those who see with the eyes of faith, but one day it will be manifested openly, visibly, for all to see.

The ultimate hope of the apostolic church was in the return of the Lord, the resurrection of the dead and the life of the world to come. Let that be our hope too.

Minister Moore,

I am deeply disturbed at the reports I have heard concerning the explicit sexual content of the exhibition “Sex: A Tell All Exhibition” that is scheduled to open May 17 in the Canada Science and Technology Museum.

Journalist Patrick Meagher was among those invited to attend a preview of this exhibition.  He reports that it includes graphic presentations of masturbation, nudity and condom use. As well, the exhibition features videos of a woman who says she approves of multiple partners, and a young woman who shares sexual favours among friends. In a video discussion on sexual orientation, not one of the twelve people interviewed is heterosexual.  Yet another station reportedly answers questions on what to do about an unwanted pregnancy. The option of adoption or keeping the child is not mentioned. The advice is to have an abortion as soon as possible. Such reports leave me with the impression that the entire exhibition is ideologically-motivated, with an agenda to undermine all notions of responsible behaviour and to portray all forms of sexual expression as morally acceptable.

My son and his wife and two pre-school daughters will be visiting Ottawa in a few weeks’ time. My wife and I were talking earlier today about possible activities for the girls while they are in our beautiful capital city. Prior to reading reports of the exhibition on sexuality, we had considered suggesting that our son and his wife take their girls to visit the Museum of Science and Technology. We remembered taking our children there when they were young.  They were enthralled by the trains, the baby chicks, the display of how telephones developed, and the crazy kitchen. It was a fascinating, stimulating yet safe environment for a young child. Apparently this is no longer the case. No parent in his or her right mind would bring a child to this exhibition if it resembles even remotely the descriptions I have read thus far. I am deeply disturbed at the thought that such a sleazy, pornographic exhibition would be permitted in any public place in Canada, even more disturbed that it would be intended for children and youth, and outraged at the thought that public funds would be used to pay for it.

Minister Moore, I believe that you are a man who cares for the public good. My sincere hope is that you were simply unaware of this exhibition. If the reports of this exhibition’s content are accurate, I plead with you to take immediate action to stop this exhibition from taking place.  If they are inaccurate, I plead with you to set the record straight, so that no-one will think that the Government of Canada would support an event that reflects so poorly on the cultural values of this nation.

A concerned citizen, father and grandfather

Peter Hartgerink
Ottawa, Canada

Proof #1 : Now that the youngest of my offspring has attained the ripe old age of twenty, I no longer have any teenage children. Instead, I have grandchildren. They are lots of fun, but their seemingly boundless energy also proves to me that I am no longer young.

Proof #2 : I have gray hair – what’s left of it, anyway – although my three-year-old granddaughter Sophie, while riding on my shoulders recently, patted my bald pate and loudly proclaimed “Gwampa, you don’t got hair – you got a head!”

Proof #3 : I also have glasses – not only the reading glasses that I began using a few years ago, but progressives, with a lens that has zones for short-range, medium-range and long-range vision, with no abrupt line between them.

Progressives are great, but they also have their limitations. The part of the lens devoted to close-up vision is quite small, and this can be annoying. Because of this, I have kept an old pair of half-glasses, which were originally intended for reading and computer work. I got them before my progressives, and I still prefer them if I want to look really closely at something – but that’s all they’re good for.  If I want to see long-range, they are no good to me at all.  I have to look over top of them.  If I do wear them while looking at something farther away, they make everything go very blurry. This can be quite dangerous when going up or down stairs.

A lot of Christians are like that. We are so focussed on what is right in front of us that our perception of the big picture is blurry at best.

This is a bit like going through life staring through a magnifying glass at the next immediate problem or obstacle. You may see that problem or obstacle very clearly, but you don’t see the big picture, so you end up stumbling over something you didn’t see, and falling flat on your face.

We need both short-range and long-range vision. If either one is missing, we end up in trouble.

Jesus chastised the religious leaders of his time because they had no sense of the big picture. Driven by fear of offending God, they had become so fixated on rules and regulations for staying pure that they totally missed the big things – the things that mattered most to God - justice and mercy and faith.

Others among God’s people - the ordinary folk, who weren’t so religious - were also blinded by short-term thinking. The details of their personal lives and concerns – the heavy struggle for daily bread and daily hope – had blinded them, too, to God’s big picture and their place in it.

To all of them, Jesus held out a golden opportunity to start again – to start fresh. He showed them God’s heart of mercy. lavishing healing and forgiveness on many who were undeserving but needy. He told them of the Father’s love, and invited them to a banquet that was coming soon, when the Son of Man would return in glory to banish evil and restore all things. Sadly, most of them were so busy staring at their current obsession that everything else was completely blurry to them. He warned them that unless they put down their magnifying glass and opened their eyes to the big picture of God’s purpose, the little world they had built for themselves would be torn apart and they would be left with nothing.

Some humbled themselves, heeded his words, and received new life. Most rejected their Messiah, missing their opportunity for mercy and a fresh start. The results were exactly as Jesus had forecast. Within forty years their people and their nation had been torn apart.

We are currently living in a world in increasing turmoil, even if the worst of it has not yet reached our doorstep. My own conviction is that we are rapidly heading towards the final crisis of history. The enemy is raging against the people of God and his rage is increasing. At the same time, the gospel is spreading even where the darkness is at its darkest. I recently read the account of a young man from an Islamic nation who heard about Jesus through an Arabic-language Internet ministry. He went on a pilgrimage to Mecca and all his dreams were filled with thoughts of Jesus. When he told his relatives of these visions, he was hospitalized and subjected to electric shock therapy to rid him of alleged mental illness. Eventually he was released, and has now found a church and some Arabic-speaking Christians who can answer his questions. Praise God that he has discovered mercy and hope through Jesus, and that he didn’t give up during the times of testing.

This young man has found life, but he had to pay a price. His story is one of many – some far more dramatic – that confirm my belief that the end of the age is drawing near.

Meanwhile, I am currently looking for work. This is my most pressing short-range issue at the moment. I can’t ignore it, and I shouldn’t. But I don’t want to become obsessed with this immediate concern. I do need to deal with it, but it’s one small blip in a much bigger picture. I am living for eternity, and I don’t want to lose my reward by losing sight of God’s purpose for me.

Each of you has your own immediate concerns – a house, a job, a child, a parent, a health concern – and they are valid and legitimate. But those immediate concerns need to be kept in perspective. Don’t let short-term thinking lead to blurry vision that robs you of your reward. Put down your spiritual magnifying glass, step back from your immediate concerns, and look at the big picture. Jesus is Lord! He is coming for his Bride! You get to be a part of that. He knows what you are concerned about right now – but he has something bigger for you to be part of. Don’t miss it!

Since then, I have been finding that setting goals is one thing, attaining them is something else again.  I have met a couple of my goals, but I also have several significant goals which keep getting deferred as I experience one delay after another, one obstacle after another.

This morning at our church, Steve spoke about one of Jesus’ best-known stories, featuring a father and his two sons. Son #2 asked for his inheritance while his father was still alive. He then totally mismanaged his inheritance, and ended up with nothing. Steve described him at his lowest point as having absolutely no control over his own life. He ended up at a point where he had to humble himself and return to the father that he had previously spurned and rejected. He had become completely dependent on his father’s willingness to overlook his past behaviour and treat him with a kindness he did not deserve. The only thing he could do for himself was to humble himself and throw himself on his father’s mercy.

The description of the runaway son as having no control over his own life resonated with me because of my own recent experience. During this period between contracts, I have realized again that in reality, I also have very little control over my own life. I haven’t succeeded in getting myself a work contract, and I can do very little to speed up the process. I haven’t succeeded in fixing my Highlander (I tried to avoid an expensive repair yesterday by fixing the cabin heat control myself – a job that involved soldering a broken connection on a circuit board, a skill with which I have very little experience  - and was unsuccessful). And to complete my litany of woe, I haven’t even succeeded thus far in installing the latest release of the Oracle Enterprise database on my laptop.  For most of you, that last item may be totally meaningless, but I’m an Oracle professional so I ought to be able to accomplish at least that one item on my list!

Lest any of you start to worry that I’m really losing it, things aren’t actually as bad as I just made them sound. Putting it all in perspective, I do have several reasonably good work prospects, one in particular that has quite a good chance of materializing. I also have reason to expect that over the next month or so, a number of other prospects will surface. I’m pretty sure that finding work is mostly a matter of timing, and the Lord has provided Marion and me with a financial buffer so we are not under any immediate pressure.  As for the Highlander, I do have a feasible plan B (get a replacement component from a vehicle recycler and install it myself).  And as for the Oracle installation, this is a complex and notoriously trouble-prone  process, and each failed attempt teaches me something new, so I’m actually quite confident of eventual success.

We’re sometimes tempted to lose sight of the big picture when we are under pressure. But I am a man who is on a journey from despair to hope, and I am determined to hold on to God’s promises. Before surrendering control of my life to Jesus twenty-five years ago, I was plagued with many of the maladies that spring from pride and rebellion. My life was dominated by anxiety, fear, worry, and a critical spirit. God has been renewing my mind with His truth for the last twenty-five years with the result that today I am a much more confident and hopeful man than before. I have been learning to cultivate an expectant faith that looks for the provision of God in every situation. So, most of the time, when I face obstacles like the ones I just listed, I remember that I am not a failure – I am a chosen son of God who is going through a period of testing.

Most of us would prefer not to be tested. Still, there is no growth without testing. The purpose of this particular period of testing, I believe, is twofold. In part, it’s to train me to continue cultivating an attitude of faith and hope even when the circumstances don’t seem to be in my favour. But I believe God has another agenda as well. The testing is also designed to remind me who is really in control. God loves me too much to let me get independent. He wants me to be confident in His provision, but he also wants me to remember where it comes from. I am freshly aware that I am truly not in control of my own life. I do have a good Father who wants to bless me and intends to prepare me to carry an increasing measure of His glory as the end of the age approaches. I also have a good Father who likes to remind me every now and then – lest I forget – that despite the illusion of control, in reality I am not in control of my own life at all. The reality is that I am totally, utterly, completely, blissfully dependent on a good God who will not fail to bless me, but also will not fail to remind me where the blessing comes from.

As my role in this undertaking was mostly that of an observer and occasional assistant, I had plenty of time to reflect on the process. Doreen came from a line of people who placed high value on the past, and saved anything that might someday be of value. True to her upbringing, she rarely threw anything out. She kept anything that reminded her of projects or people that had been important to her throughout her life. Now she is taking a long walk down memory lane, reliving days gone by and deciding what to give away to each of her nieces and nephews. The things that she is sorting through represent people and places long gone, and the process of letting go of these valued items is in reality a process of saying goodbye to the past and its memories.

But Doreen is not only a child of her upbringing. She is also a woman of faith. She remembers the past with gratitude but she knows she can’t live in it. She has to look ahead to whatever future God has left for her in this life, and beyond that to the hope of eternal life in Jesus’ Kingdom.

When the Israelites crossed the Jordan into the Promised Land after their forty years of wandering in the wilderness, the Lord instructed Joshua to have them take twelve stones with them from out of the Jordan, one for each tribe. The stones were to remind the Israelites of the great miracle that God had done for them when he stopped the waters of the Jordan from flowing so that the people could cross on dry ground.

Joshua didn’t build the memorial so that the Israelites could live in the past, remembering how wonderful it was when the Lord had delivered them, and wishing nostalgically that He would do something like that again. God wanted His people to remember the miracle, but he didn’t want them to spend their lives looking back. Joshua built the memorial so that they would remember how wonderfully God had delivered them in the past, realize that without him they would be completely and hopelessly lost, and put their complete confidence in Him for the present and for the future.

I will soon be fifty-nine years old. The longer I live, the more I have to remember. But I have learned that nostalgia is a trap. I don’t want to live my older years nostalgically reminiscing about past years and wishing I was young again. No matter how few or how many years remain to me in this life, I want to live the rest of my days looking forward to God’s future. I want to take my cue from the way the apostle Paul lived his life. Even though he was an apostle, he knew he still had growing to do, and he knew that God had not called him to be preoccupied with the past. His advice was to forget what lies behind and focus on what lies ahead, for the sake of God’s call. That sounds like good advice to me.

Since then, I have made my living in the field of information technology. After a couple of years working for Graham’s company, I launched out on my own and began working as a consultant. Though I felt very green and still had a lot to learn, the Lord has blessed me in this new field of endeavour. He has provided work for me time and again, and I have had numerous confirmations that the world of business and technology – which at the time seemed like totally foreign territory to me – was a field in which he wanted me to grow and prosper.

A few days ago, I heard myself described as someone who “used to be in ministry”. The label prompted some reflection. Since “ministry” simply means “service”, am I less of a minister – less of a servant of God – because I now make my living in the world of business? I don’t think so. In fact, I am more and more convinced that God placed me in this field so that I could serve Him there.

I’ve re-examined this decision at numerous forks in the road – in fact, pretty much every time a work opportunity comes to an end, which has happened multiple times since I’ve been in this line of work. Do I bid on new IT work, or is there something else the Lord has in mind for me? So far, His consistent leading has been to keep doing what I’m doing. Last year when Marion and I were in Kansas City visiting International House of Prayer, I received a major prophetic word – from someone who knew none of the details of my life – identifying and confirming some of the purposes of God in my life that could only have been fulfilled through involvement in the worlds of business and finance.

I used to have a very religious view of money. Although I might not have said this out loud to anyone (or even acknowledged it to myself), I believed that prosperity was somehow unspiritual. I now see that money is simply a tool, which can be used to do good or evil. If I make it the aim of my life to accumulate wealth, then I have become a slave and have totally missed the point of my existence. But if I make it my aim to serve the Lord, prosperity can be a means of great blessing to many. One of the goals that Marion and I have adopted is financial freedom – not so that we can spend an easy retirement on the beach, but for the sake of increased capacity to serve the Lord both with our finances and our spiritual gifts.

This morning Marion and I had coffee with our good friends Mark and Jane, who have just decided to spend the next six years of their lives living in Indonesia, serving as long-term volunteers in a mission assignment with Mennonite Central Committee. We are excited for them. They were free to make this choice because they are not owned by their stuff. They have placed their hope in God, so they are free to do whatever He leads them to do.

Their decision is a challenge to us. Could we lay everything down, and contemplate such a radical change of direction? It seems like an important question, and yet in reality, it’s a bit of a phony question. I mean, it’s not as if I had any real control anyway. All around me I see people working hard to control their world – and for what? Control is an illusion anyway. People die unexpectedly every day, and when they do, all their plans come to an end. Since I have no real control over my future, it’s best to settle the issue of ownership at the outset. My life is not my own, and I’m glad it’s not. I can make good business decisions without being owned by my business, because I’m only in business as long as Jesus wants me there.  As long as I’m there, I’ll give it my best shot, and seek to be a faithful representative of my King where he has placed me. When he has a different assignment for me, he’ll tell me.

Another fork in the road? How exciting! Thank you, Lord, for the freedom to follow.

This morning I awoke with what seemed like an odd dream fresh in my mind.  In the dream I had travelled on St Patrick’s Day to the border town of Prescott, ON or Ogdensburg, NY (I’m really not sure which – I had the impression that I was in both places at once.  It’s strange what happens in dreams). It seems I was there with a group of friends but I don’t recall any of them. We all went into a large building to get ready for some special activity which seemed very important at the time – I was quite caught up in the excitement and anticipation of it. I remember thinking that I had a lot of money to spend and I felt quite rich. I had several US twenty dollar bills as well as several Canadian twenties and tens in my wallet. I went to what seemed like a ticket counter in this large building and spent quite a lot of my US cash to buy tickets.  When I was about to spend my last US twenty, the ticket guy said to me “You might want to keep that in case you want to go down the street and get pizza later”.  When I woke up I realized that the tickets I had bought were all for gambling. I was in a bar where there was going to be a large St Patrick’s Day party.  They were getting the green beer ready.  I had apparently been planning to go along with this group of unknown friends for an evening of drinking and gambling.

Then I woke up. I thought to myself, “Why would I be so excited about something like that?  I think gambling is stupid, it has no appeal at all for me, and while I like the occasional beer, I hate the idea of celebrating St Patricks Day – or any special day – by setting out purposely to get drunk.  Why would I dream about something like that?”

I asked the Lord for understanding because I knew the dream was probably significant. As I prayed, I sensed that if I began journalling,   the meaning would become clear. I started writing and as I wrote, the Holy Spirit began to reveal the meaning of the dream. The interpretation of the dream was fairly detailed and specific but here is the core of it.

This culture is sick and getting sicker. It has traded in almost everything of real value (the money in my dream) for trivialities that are worth nothing at all (the tickets entitling me to gamble : at this point I realized the significance of having kept one twenty for something of actual value – pizza, i.e. real food).  It has believed liars and no longer wants to listen to the truth. It celebrates the feast day of a great, noble, heroic and godly man by getting drunk and gambling away its inheritance in his name. It is no longer worthy of being preserved. It will endure for a while longer because I am giving its people time to wake up before I destroy them.

Not a very encouraging message, you say? That’s what I thought too. All around me I hear sincere, earnest friends in Christ speaking messages of relentless good cheer, and I get this bizarre dream with the sobering interpretation. A lot of my friends already think I’m a bit of a nutbar – what will they think if I proclaim a message this sombre? Yet I have been sitting on a sense of foreboding for several months now – as though things are going to happen in the next few years – big things, momentous things – that will shake our complacent, entertainment-driven, self-preoccupied culture to the core.

I knew it was not insignificant that the dream took place in a border town. I had the sense that the dream straddled both countries, and as I prayed the Spirit confirmed this perception.

I then asked if there was not some good left?

Yes, there is some good left. That is why I am allowing time for repentance. I still have a remnant in both countries of people who love me. But for the most part both these nations have forgotten what made them great, they have become accustomed to peace and plenty without recognizing the price of integrity and sacrifice that made them strong, and they think nothing can shake them from their secure position.

Even most of my people are asleep.  They see my blessings and get drunk on them, and do not realize that it is time to repent. Like Samson with Delilah, they have thought that they could have whatever they wanted with no consequences, and they have been lulled to sleep. They talk of my glory and my Kingdom as if there were no crisis coming. Yet on those who truly fear my name, I will pour out my grace and my power. To those who truly revere my holiness, I will reveal my glory, and they will indeed have entrance into my Kingdom.

Don’t misunderstand me. I am not without hope. In fact I am full of hope. I know that Jesus is Lord and that he will reign as undisputed king across the whole earth. I believe in the Kingdom of God – not just an ethereal heavenly realm, but a real kingdom on a real restored earth. I know that God has a relentless, pursuing passion for the people he has made, that he loves to save all who will humble themselves and throw themselves on his mercy. I know that he gave his Son’s life for the world and that he loves to heal broken hearts and restore shattered lives. I know that even now in many places there are outpourings of the Holy Spirit accompanied by signs and wonders and miracles of various descriptions – what the book of Hebrews calls the powers of the age to come. But I also know that our culture has lost its moorings and is rotting at its core, and that debt-fuelled living has made us economically vulnerable despite our seeming prosperity. As well, I know that there is a dark power rising in the Middle East that wants to rule the entire world and is quite seriously bent on destroying Christianity, Judaism and Western civilization. This is no exaggeration. This monster has been biding its time and gathering its strength for a long time and we have for the most part closed our eyes and ears. Soon it will not be possible to do so any longer.

I have been reluctant to speak about such things because I know that the people of God need above all to be encouraged. But what kind of encouragement is it to speak a message of peace when warnings are what is needed?

Around the world – especially in the Middle East and Northern Africa, as well as parts of Asia – Christians are being threatened, persecuted and killed in increasing numbers. In several Western European countries, synagogues are being attacked, Jews feel themselves increasingly vulnerable, and cities have no-go zones where Sharia law rules and police are afraid to go. Yet in comfortable North America we are too politically correct to talk or pray about such things. Maybe it isn’t a positive enough message. But Jesus warned us that such things would happen before he returned. The gospel would be preached to all nations, accompanied by miracles, signs and wonders; and at the same time, persecutions would increase, Jerusalem would be surrounded by armies yet again, a great enemy of God’s people would arise, there would be a final time of conflict and then the Lord would return in power and glory to establish his throne openly on the earth.

I believe in the glory of God. I know the glory of God will fill the earth as the waters cover the sea. I know that there is great potential for transformation of lives and communities even now, and I am committed to seeking the welfare of my city and nation. I know the government of Jesus will increase and fill the earth. But my Bible also tells me that this cannot happen without intense testing, purging and shaking. The testing is already underway and it will increase. Everything that can be shaken will be shaken, so that those things which cannot be shaken may remain.

I remember hearing the story of a man who had been a Pentecostal pastor in Germany in the 1930s. Hitler had brought peace, prosperity and order to Germany. As the saying goes, “He made the trains run on time”. Surely all must be well? And if we had reason to believe that maybe everything was not quite so rosy – well, best not to say too much about it.

The church that this man served was close to the railway tracks. On Sunday evenings during their prayer meeting they could hear the trains on their way to the death camps. Although they knew where the trains were going, and also knew or at least suspected what was happening at those camps, no-one talked about it. Instead, they sang louder during their prayer meeting to cover up the noise of the death trains that would later be seen as their nation’s shame.

David Carson, president of Intercessors for Canada, wrote a searching article a few months ago in which he compared the present times to 1938 in Canada. Everything seemed to be going on as normal. Life was quite pleasant for most people. The Depression was coming to an end. Neville Chamberlain came home to Great Britain from meeting with Adolf Hitler and declared, “I believe it is peace in our time.  Go home and sleep quietly in your beds.”  A little over a year later, the world was at war (a war about which I heard many stories from my parents, who at that time were a young engaged couple living in the occupied Netherlands). Among other horrors, six million Jews were killed in the gas chambers. Almost one million Canadians fought in that war – close to ten percent of the nation’s population at that time. And it was not even the final great conflict of history – just an advance warning. You can read David’s article here.

Am I making predictions of specific events? No.  That’s not the message the Lord gave me. He simply told me it is time for the church to wake up and begin recognizing the signs of the times.

A popular message? Probably not. A hopeless message?  Certainly not.  A necessary message? Yes, I believe so. One of the qualities of the end-times church – the glorious Bride for whom Jesus is eager to return – is that it is a church that prays prayers of prevailing faith. It is time to pray in a way that most of us have probably not prayed before. When the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth? That’s a question each of us has to answer for ourselves.

If you’re not sure, stop.  Read the title again. Then stop again and listen to your heart.  As you consider the possibility of truly enjoying God, what is your heart telling you?

Does the idea of enjoying God strike you as selfish? Lots of people feel this way. The belief that it is somehow wrong to enjoy God is a major barrier to a truly intimate and satisfying relationship with him. I should know – I struggled with various forms of this lie for years (although, as with all the Devil’s most effective lies, I didn’t always fully recognize the enemy that was lurking in the shadows of my thought life).

In my last post I confessed my addiction to HGP. I coined HGP as an acronym for His Glorious Presence.

Interestingly, several readers took HGP as a reference to Holy Ghost Power (which simply means “the power of the Holy Spirit”). You could read my previous post and substitute either phrase for HGP – either Holy Ghost Power or His Glorious Presence.  They pretty much amount to the same thing.  Still, there is one subtle but very important difference between the two interpretations.

When we think of the phrase “the power of the Holy Spirit”, we often think of the power to do miraculous works. And of course that is important. When God pours his Holy Spirit into us, we are empowered to do things that we could not otherwise do. The mighty works that are done by the power of the Holy Spirit function as powerful signs of the coming Kingdom of God, and open many hearts to the reality that Jesus is the Risen Messiah.

But that doesn’t necessarily guarantee a truly intimate relationship with God. You can learn to have a functional relationship with the Holy Spirit – by which I mean that you are able to operate in a measure of the Holy Spirit’s miraculous power – without being truly intimate with Father God. Lots of people do this. Some, in fact, operate in a significant level of miraculous power for a period of time while living in sexual immorality, although eventually it always catches up with them. Sadly, whenever this happens, it brings great discredit on the gospel of Jesus. While tragic, this shouldn’t really surprise us – Jesus warned that such things would happen (1).

There’s a good reason why those who focus primarily on power often end up shipwrecked. The power to do mighty works, although very important in displaying the victory of Jesus over the powers of darkness, is not the only reason – or even the first reason – why Father God gives his Holy Spirit to his born-again children. First of all, I believe, He pours the Holy Spirit into our hearts simply to demonstrate that He loves us – as a sort of seal of ownership (2), proving that we really do belong to Him. It’s because of the Holy Spirit in our hearts that we can call God Abba (3) – an intimate, affectionate term of endearment. Father wants us to have a close relationship with Him – so close that we can know His thoughts (4,5) and even His affections towards us. Jesus had such a close relationship with his disciple John that John leaned his head on Jesus’ chest at the Last Supper (6).  Contrary to what some popular authors have written, there is absolutely no basis for the claim that either Jesus or John were gay.  John simply had a very warm, secure relationship with Jesus, and was fully confident of Jesus’ affection for him.

Let’s move from the paradigm of friendship to the paradigm of marriage. The Bible frequently uses both these analogies to describe the kind of relationship that Jesus desires to have with those who belong to him. Now, imagine a scenario in which a man married a woman only for what she could do for him. Sadly, this does happen all too often. But what kind of a marriage would it be? There can be no true intimacy when one party is using the other for selfish ends.  Jesus, on the other hand, freely laid down his life for his bride (7). In calling himself our bridegroom and calling us his bride, he is telling us that he desires a relationship of free acceptance, deep affection,  tenderness and faithfulness. The original lie that the snake planted in Eve’s mind was that God wanted to withhold something from her. Until it is unmasked, this lie – deeply embedded in the thinking of our unredeemed nature, and constantly fed by the Enemy – will always prevent us from truly enjoying God’s love. To truly enjoy God’s presence, you have to trust him enough to believe that he wants only to do you good. Only when you believe this can you truly learn to know his heart and allow him to have unrestricted access to your desires, your deepest motivations, your will and your thoughts.

One of the keys to a good marriage is learning to recognize those things that delight or grieve our partner’s heart, so that we can cultivate the former and avoid the latter. Surely one of the benefits of having the Holy Spirit living in us is so that we can easily and quickly recognize those things that please Jesus’ heart, as well as those things that grieve Him. As we cultivate intimacy with the Holy Spirit, He satisfies us with heaven’s atmosphere of joy and peace, greatly enhancing our desire and ability to please Him. This is where true purity comes from – not from rules, but from a transformed heart that is so full of gratitude to God that it delights to learn what pleases him. Rules and disciplines do have their place in guiding us to the right path, but they cannot produce life. Only the presence of the Holy Spirit living in us – God’s best gift to those who love him – can replace our thoughts and desires with his, so that we increasingly reflect the goodness of Jesus.

I still want to grow in my ability to operate in the gifts, power and boldness of the Holy Spirit. But I am learning to simply enjoy the fact that God enjoys me. This is quite amazing to me, and although I have been on this journey for years, yet I can still sense barriers in my heart coming down that I did not know were there. As I continue to pursue greater intimacy with the Lord – simply because He loves me – I am quite certain that He will find less resistance in me, and a greater level of faith and expectancy, when He wants to do works of power through me. And the more my heart knows how to enjoy his love, the more I will be able to please him and reflect his goodness in the works that I do in His name.

I just can’t get enough of HGP. No matter how often I get a taste of it, I always want more.

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Hard Rock after work on a Friday for drinks with a group of my consultant friends, and I only had two beers. That’s one more than I usually have, but it’s still not much as some people’s Friday night drinking goes. Judging by the stories that were going around the office after the weekend, it would seem that some of my friends kept the bartender busy for quite a few hours that evening. I didn’t stay around to watch, but I’m guessing it was only fun if you were hammered too.

I’m also guessing that some of my friends may find it a little weird that I stopped at two. I mean, the booze was free – our consulting firm paid for everything – so why not indulge?

Why not, indeed? I suppose if all I had to look forward to was a life of no real purpose and gradually-diminished capacities, followed by old age, sickness, and a possibly miserable death, I’d get hammered sometimes too. But as it is, getting drunk has no real appeal. I can enjoy a beer or a glass of wine, but I don’t need to go crazy, because I’ve got better things available to me.

HGP has given me a life of purpose and promise. I am headed for a glorious future, a new age when HGP will fill the earth, the enemies of HGP will be forever banished, and all HGP lovers will be able to have all they want. True, along the way there will be some pain, but that’s a small thing when you are destined for something so incredibly awesome.

But that’s not all.  In the meantime, I can enjoy HGP as often as I want, have a completely clean ride, and wake up without a hangover every time. With HGP, I can still function normally, but colours are brighter, pain is diminished, pleasure is enhanced, and I am happier, more loving, more hopeful, more peaceful. I don’t get sick as often, and I get better faster. And though at this point my body can’t stand the amount of pure, unadulterated HGP that it will be able to handle in the Age to Come, even the amount that I can handle now is wonderful.

Unlike many addictive substances, HGP doesn’t make people violent – it actually makes them more peaceful, happier and productive. In spite of that fact, most Islamic and Communist governments have made HGP illegal.  That’s because once people get addicted to HGP, the government just can’t control them anymore. Even so, in some of those countries, more and more people are getting hooked on HGP. Amazingly, once people are truly hooked on HGP nothing can get them to break the habit – not even prison or the threat of death. It is without a doubt the most powerful addiction known to man.

I have to admit that I do know people who have tried HGP and haven’t found it satisfying. That’s because they only took a small taste – they didn’t really give it a chance. Sadly, what some of these people don’t seem to realize is that with HGP, you can’t sit on the fence. To really appreciate HGP you have to give up your old habits and make HGP a regular part of your life. If you don’t become an HGP lover, you will eventually become an HGP hater. You either become an addict or you eventually become completely allergic and can’t stand HGP at all. It’s completely your choice, but the future for HGP haters isn’t pretty, so you don’t really want to go that route.

On a more positive note, have I told you that HGP is completely free? Truly, it won’t cost you a penny. You can have a lifetime supply for free. It’s all been paid for by JC. If you want to have some, just talk to anyone in JC’s family and they’ll be glad to hook you up. You do need to know, though, that once you truly develop a taste for HGP, you will become part of JC’s family too, and your life will never be the same again. A lot of things that seemed really important to you won’t be all that important anymore, and some of your friends will think you’re a bit weird – that is, until they try HGP too. Once they’ve given HGP a shot, they’ll wonder why they didn’t try it sooner. It really is the greatest thing in the world – it’s what makes life worth living.

Besides giving me a bit of exercise, my brisk morning walk to the bus occasionally also leads to unexpected encounters. This morning, while walking along Montreal Road I ran into JB.  JB is an old friend. We were part of the same spiritual family for a number of years, but life took us in different directions and I no longer see him regularly. Occasionally it happens that our paths cross when he is on his way home from his night shift, and I am on my way to work.

One reason I love JB is because of his smile. As soon as he recognized me this morning, he gave me a big grin, and when I got closer, a bear hug and a blessing. We didn’t talk long because he knew I had a bus to catch, but as I went on my way, my spirit was lighter.

One of the things I always appreciated about JB was his enthusiasm for the Lord. As I said goodbye to him this morning, I remembered how he used to say “There’s no high like the Most High”. He would sometimes share how he used to seek happiness in drugs until he met Jesus. His life exemplified a visible hunger for the real thing – a genuine relationship with God, no faking.

Life isn’t always easy. It’s not easy for anyone, and in some ways, following Jesus makes it harder. His people are called to live by a higher standard than the world around us, and we sometimes encounter opposition in various forms. We know that we are headed for resurrection, and that’s wonderful. But I am so glad that Jesus gives us the promise of His presence with us by the Holy Spirit here and now, as a down payment of what is to come. The grin on JB’s face this morning reminded me of the joy of the Lord. I was grateful for the reminder.