Beauty for Ashes

In many church traditions, today is called Ash Wednesday, and marks the start of 40 days of fasting known as Lent, when we remember the 40 days Jesus spent in the wilderness being tempted by the Devil, and overcoming him by not only the Word of God, but by His humility and utter dependence on His Father.

Many believers, and even people outside the Church, think of Lent as a time to show their identification with Christ in His time of temptation by giving up chocolate (ouch!), smoking, television etc. In the Church of England, the foreheads of those who attend the Ash Wednesday services are marked with ashes made from the Palm Crosses of the previous Easter season....if people still have their crosses after nearly a year!

I have always felt something in me rebelling against this imposition of ashes....I know that is good to be reminded that we have come from dust, and to dust must return (painfully obvious to me as my close friend has recently died). But on the other hand, does the Lord not promise to give us BEAUTY for ashes in His word (Isaiah 61), even a CROWN of beauty for ashes?

I feel the Lord is prompting me not so much as to give up stuff for Lent as to spend MORE time in His presence, receiving His love and meditating with thanksgiving about the complete victory Jesus won over Satan not only in the wilderness, but ultimately by giving His life for us on the cross.

The thought also occurred to me that tradition has it that the Lord received 40 stripes minus one at the Roman whipping post, and there are 40 days in Lent. Every wound Jesus took during His passion was for YOU and ME, for our healing and restoration - and I hope to share a few more specific thoughts about this during Lent, as the Holy Spirit enables me.

I am sorry not to have written anything here for so long!

One reason is because I had some very sad and totally unexpected news just before Christmas: my best friend and faithful prayer partner Ali Whyte, who had been like a sister to me, died in her sleep at only 42, apparently from pneumonia and heart failure. Getting accurate and up-to-date information about her death has been difficult for various reasons, not least the fact that she had been living in Toronto for the past few months and was planning to live there permanently. Neither she nor I were in contact with her immediate family in the UK, and the news of her death reached me via two lovely online friends on MSN Messenger, who live in Australia - thank God for the Internet!

Ali was very happy at TACF, the "Toronto Blessing" church, and was finding a level of healing and acceptance there that I had never known her to find in any church in her native Britain. I am very grateful to all at that fellowship who made her so welcome, and held a special memorial service for her last week.

I have been "knocked for six" by Ali's death, not least because she more than anyone else knew all about the complex and difficult family situation I am in, and followed the Holy Spirit's leading to intercede for me when I most needed it. Looking back now, I can see that the Lord had been preparing me for her loss, by encouraging me (and her) to depend less on one another and more on our Father in Heaven for our comfort and salvation.

Ali's prayers for the healing of my heart and home situation had not apparently been answered before her "promotion to Glory", as her old fellow-soldiers in the Salvation Army would put it....however, the Lord reminded me of the scripture in Revelation that mentions the prayers of the saints being there before God like a huge bowl of incense, outside of time and earthly limitations. I have sought specific prayer from a ministry specialising in bereavement and other forms of loss - and feel the Lord is saying that He will surely do for me just as much as He did for Ali during the latter part of her lifetime on earth.

One specific promise from the Book of Job which Ali held onto was that the Lord would take her out of the jaws of destruction and seat her at a table laden with choicest food and drink! She had suffered from hormonal problems and diabetes during much of her life, and also from an eating disorder - and did receive a lot of healing of all these conditions in her last few months. Now of course, she is enjoying the best feast of all, the marriage supper of the Lamb in Heaven!!

- and the joy of the Lord break out in your life and mine, because God has promised!


(And I promise to write again here soon!)

There is certainly a rise in public interest in the whole area of the supernatural - indeed, a popular novel at the moment is titled Angels and Demons - yet many Christians doubt whether demon spirits really exist! Some say that when Jesus rebuked evil (or unclean, to use the literal translation) spirits and set people free from their effects, He was simply following the ideas of His time, and now that we have modern science, we are more enlightened in our thinking.....

But if demons do not exist, why is there still such a general interest in their power even today? Why do horror films continue to be so popular? More important, why did Jesus tell His followers that they would have power to cast demons out in His name, if there would be no need for this ability in the centuries to come? And there has never been a greater need, with many illnesses failing to respond to the best medical treatment, people being driven by forces which feel beyond their control, the highest ever levels of suicide, addiction, sexual crime, terrorism -

Jesus said that in the last days before His return, many people's hearts would fail them because of fear and anxiety. The world has seen major changes in the last century: two world wars, the near-extermination of the Jews in Europe, the horrors of 9/11, and only today, terrible train bombings in Mumbai. We need the peace that comes from knowing that Jesus has given us His authority and protection over all the power of the Evil One.

Very often, Christians who minister regularly in healing find that demonic power and sickness (mental and even physical) are closely connected, and prayer for healing is more effective when combined with casting out demonic or unclean spirits - in a similar way to a wound that needs both healing medicine and cleaning-out of any bacteria that have got into it. This is why Jesus told His followers to heal the sick AND cast out demons! Incidentally, the heavenly angelic realm is also very real, and I will share some amazing stories about this soon.....

At the end of Mark's Gospel, there is a short but important teaching of the Lord Jesus before He went up into Heaven. Some experts do not think that this passage appears in all the earliest manuscripts, but it is printed in most modern translations of the Bible. Here it is in the New International Version:

These signs will accompany those who believe: In My name they will drive out demons; they will speak in new tongues; they will pick up snakes with their hands; and when they drink deadly poison, it will not harm them at all; they will place their hands on sick people, and they will get well.

The very fact that there has been some controversy about whether this passage should be included in the text of the Bible shows that Satan does not like Christians to receive the fullness of the Holy Spirit and thus become effective in destroying his kingdom - he particularly dislikes us receiving and using the gift of tongues, as it is a supernatural language of power and direct spirit-to-spirit communication with God. It is completely different from a natural or even an enhanced talent for learning a foreign language.

The gift of tongues is just that: A GIFT to be humbly asked for, and gratefully received from the Father who Jesus said delighted to give good gifts to His children. Anyone who has put their trust in Christ for salvation has the God-given right to ask for and expect this precious gift! Simply ask the Lord to baptise you with His Holy Spirit, and then expect to be able to praise Him in new words, as you run out of words in your natural language to express all that is in your heart. You may only get one or two syllables in your mind or on your tongue to start with - don't doubt that this is God's new language, keep on using it in prayer and praise, and He will add to your flow of words.

One of the last things Jesus told His followers before He ascended into heaven was to wait in Jerusalem until they were "clothed with power from on high", before going out to share the Gospel all over the world. Yet so often we try to share the good news about Jesus in our own strength, with our own "good ideas".....when Jesus Himself clearly tells us that without Him, we can do NOTHING!

Some Christians, and indeed some modern translations of the New Testament, have tried to play down the supernatural elements of our faith, even discouraging new believers from seeking the baptism of the Holy Spirit, which John the Baptist mentioned in all four Gospels as being something Jesus had come to impart, and which Jesus Himself promised in Acts Chapter 1
verse 5. Neither is there any mention that this gift was only for a limited season - in fact, Peter's first sermon on the Day of Pentecost contains these words:

The promise is for you and your children, and for all who are far off -
For all whom the Lord our God will call.

That means that each of us can expect God to baptise us in the same Holy Spirit! So we can expect to receive the same heavenly gifts as the first disciples received at Pentecost, including the gift of communicating effectively with others and with God in languages we have not learned (the gift of tongues), bringing real hope and healing in the Name of Jesus, and being able to sense what the Lord is wanting to say or do right NOW, for THIS person who is in front of me....more about the gifts of the Spirit next time.

On the churches' festival of Ascension Day ten days ago, I had been meaning to share some thoughts about the time when Jesus, having been raised from death and brought new hope to His downcast followers, then found it necessary to leave this Earth and apparently desert those He loved. Has He deserted you and me too?

Before His arrest and terrible death on the Cross, the Lord Jesus had spoken at length to His disciples about why it would be best for them all if He were to go away, back to His Father - Because of what He would do at the Cross, His Father would truly become OUR Father, and to help us to know God as our Father, Jesus promised that when He returned to Heaven, He would send down another Person to be with us for ever. The Holy Spirit would be "another" in the sense of One who was the SAME as Jesus in character, power and love, but who would no longer be limited in time and place as Christ had been while on Earth.

By the way, He did not leave it for good, because after Jesus ascended, two angels were sent to tell the worshipping disciples that this SAME Jesus would return to Earth in the very same manner as He had left it. The return of Jesus Christ in His kingly glory, to bring perfect justice and peace on Earth, is the wonderful hope of all Christians. The Holy Spirit comes to keep that hope real and alive in our hearts - and He also does many other wonderful things which I hope to write about another time.....there is always MORE of the Holy Spirit for us to receive, as long as we have surrendered our heart to Jesus as Lord.