Increase in Healings

One of our young men has just returned from Lakeland. While there he witnessed many healings and supernatural happenings.
But since he has returned he has seen several people healed from various illness. I was watching the rugby last Saturday morning when I received a call from a friend from yesteryear. He told me a story about which he had first hand knowledge. It was about someone with a serious illness whom he had been "seeing." When they came for their last appointment the person had been completely healed! In his own words "it was the worst case I have ever come across but she was completely set free!"
It turns out that the person who had prayed for her was a CFCer and none other than the young man who had recently returned from Lakeland. I for one want to see more healings as they are an obvious evidence of the advancement of the Kingdom of God. See my talk last Sunday on Mark 1&2. Bring it on Lord!
Sorry about the lack of information but I deliberately kept it vague so as to protect people's privacy.

Disintegrated Anticipation!

A number of years ago a friend offered me a critic of the "Charismatic Movement." He coined the phrase disintegrated anticipation. It meant that we are always looking for the next big thing to come along and solve all of our problems! And invariably it's not related to anything we are currently doing. Of course it never does and we still have to read scripture, pray and witness to a lost world. The latest fad comes and goes and wise Christians batten down the hatches in the knowledge that things will return to normal sooner or later. Did the church grow? Were lives changed? That remains to be seen but in my experience we are left with a few more disillusioned Christians and a needy world that still waits for the church to "wise up."
I once did a count of the things that were going to change everything and that have come and largely gone in the past twenty years; there were over thirty of them!
I think Christians in the west are desperate to see God move but be careful what you put your hope in.

Todd Bentley and Lakeland

It was the last Monday in January 1994 when I got a phone call from a former elder of CFC who had emigrated to Toronto the previous year. His Church, The Airport Vineyard, had just had a "special" weekend and something unusual happened; the children, after being prayed for, fell down and started laughing!
The Pastor, John Arnot, had asked the speaker for the weekend to stay for the rest of the week and continue the meetings. My friend continued to call me every so often and give me an update and in August 1994 a group of twelve of us went to Toronto to see for ourselves.
Computers weren't commonplace and cell phones in their infancy but I knew what was going on because of my mate on the ground. The UK didn't have God TV. However something unusual and for many of us new, was happening.
Something is happening in Florida. But is it being driven by the Christian Media? Would it have been better to "wait and see" before everyone, well not everyone, in the UK and Ireland jumped in with both feet?
I haven't been personally but am adopting my own wait and see policy. But if you ask God for years for something and you get an answer but not exactly in the package you expected. What do you do?

Flat earthers!

Yes 'Ianhimself' it is possible to be agnostic on a flat earth [I actually believe it's roundish] but surely you are being disingenuous. Can you be agnostic on the Virgin Birth or Resurrection? You know the one; "something doesn't have to be true in order for there to be truth in it."
If you become what you believe, what do you become if you believe nothing but imaginary stories about a man who may or may not be a sinless Saviour?

It really does matter!

The reason the reliability of Scripture is so important is this;
1 If, for instance the Virgin Birth did not actually happen, then what other parts of the story are also incorrect. Maybe Jesus wasn't sinless after all, just a very good man. How do you discern what is true and what is not? You end up with a great story about a man but you don't know fact from fiction.
2 Possibly more important[sticking to the Virgin Birth] if Jesus wasn't actually born of a Virgin then he inherited a sinful nature from his real father and as such is a sinner, we have no saviour and the whole reason for him dying on a cross achieves nothing and we are lost! No sins forgiven, no relationship with God and no means to God's grace.
Dse; I also believe that the most important thing is being in relationship with God and scripture "is one of the things" that enables me to do that but I need to be sure that the God I am following and developing a relationship with is the true God. I need the scriptures to be sure and unshakable because I'm not that clever and left entirely to my own devices would go astray.

Yer having a laugh

There is a world of difference between some people experimenting with new models of church and those who deny the Virgin Birth and the Resurrection.
One can be healthy and reach more people with the good news. The other is a sure fire way to send people to Hell.
It is old news and will never bring life.