REV. LYNN’S BLOG

It’s a new year. Of course, that’s only true in the western world that counts January 1st as the beginning of the year - other cultures observe different New Year’s Days. Technically, to observe a true new year, we would need to know the date on which God first spoke the words “Let there be …” and with them flung the universe into existence - and that’s a detail that none of us is likely to discover this side of heaven (and when we get there, we probably won’t care.)

Yet even knowing that the date on which we observe the beginning of a new year is totally arbitrary, I find it impossible to miss the freshness that the new year brings. Somehow, totally irrationally, there is new hope in the air. Somehow, for no logical reason, the tiredness of the old year has slipped away and been replaced with a new excitement and enthusiasm.

I’m reminded yet again of all the places in the Word where God talks about new things … a new heart, a new spirit, a new life, a new Covenant, a new heaven and a new earth. He promises that He will do new things. He calls us onward to a new day, and offers us a new beginning every time we turn to Him in repentance and faith. Clearly God is very much about the new.

I’m reminded, too, that God is also about the old. He is from everlasting to everlasting. In the Old Testament He said, “I am the Lord, I change not”, whilst the New Testament reminds us that “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today and forever.” God does not change, because He is perfect, and perfection is absolute. Growth implies that there was a lack, and there is no lack in God.

It seems like a contradiction in terms … how can God be always new, yet always the same?

The contradiction only arises from our earth-bound, limited perspective. The “new” things are only new to us, they are not new to God. The New Covenant, for instance, was always part of God’s purposes; but it had to be preceded by the Old Covenant to give it a firm foundation. The “new” things that God plans to do in your life and mine in 2010 have been planned by Him for all eternity … He has just been waiting for us to be ready for them.

So, as we enjoy the “newness” of 2010, let’s also take a few moments to rejoice in the “oldness” of our relationship with God … that “old, old story” of the Covenant set in the heart of God before the universe began, and fulfilled 2000 years ago when God stepped into the pages of human history to pay our debt to Himself. Let’s remind us of the unchangeableness of His character and the certainty of His promises. And let’s rest in the sure knowledge that the ageless and unchanging God already knows every nanosecond of the year ahead - and of all the years to follow - and has gone ahead of us. No doubt this year will hold many things that will be new to us, but they will not be new to Him.

I wish you all God’s super-abundant blessings for every area of your lives in 2010.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Here in Australia it is Christmas morning. Although the temperature on Wednesday soared to 39 Celsius, this morning is pleasantly cool and the predicted top is in the low twenties. The tree is up, and surrounded with presents for family and friends. The food for today’s lunch is all prepared. All that remains is to decorate the table. Friends will come and eat with me for lunch, then I will go and join them for dinner, an arrangement we have had for the past 4 years. A quiet day, nothing big or exciting. In the new year I will travel to Queensland, along the way catching up with my son and his family in Wollongong, and then when I get to Queensland with my other son and his family up there, as well as a few other special friends.

Last night I watched on television the second of the major Christmas carols productions for the year, the Carols by Candelight from the Sidney Myer Music Bowl in Melbourne. Last Sunday I had watched the carols from the Domain in Sydney. Maybe it’s just me, but it seemed that this year both leaned a little more strongly toward the true spiritual meaning of Christmas than they have for quite a few years now. It was wonderful to hear the true Gospel story proclaimed in song - in some cases, at least, by people who obviously actually believed it - to a huge audience throughout Australia. Maybe, just maybe, this long, hard year has had a positive effect… maybe, just maybe, it has caused people to begin to look for spiritual truth.

I know there are Christians who don’t celebrate Christmas, including some of my dear personal friends. They say it is just a pagan celebration (yet we say “Jesus is the reason for the Season.”) They say that Jeremiah 10 says Christmas trees are an abomination (even though Jeremiah was writing to his own generation, hundreds of years before the birth of Christ, and was simply talking about the making of wooden idols.) They say Jesus wasn’t born on 25th December (no, He wasn’t - but then, neither was the Queen born on the day we celebrate as her birthday.)

They can say what they like. For me, the opportunity to publicly declare “Joy to the world, the Lord has come! Let earth receive her King!” overrides all the arguments. Read the words of some of the wonderful old carols like “We Three Kings” - they are the Gospel in a nutshell, designed to teach people who didn’t have the benefits of a readily accessible Bible. If, amid the trees and tinsel, the presents and materialism, the food and grog, people who would never normally open a Bible are willing to open their hearts even a little to the message that God the Son left the glories of heaven to be born into a sinful world, so that He could grow to manhood and die for the sins of mankind - then long live Christmas!

I pray that for you and yours, Christmas 2009 will be a blessed, peaceful and safe celebration.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,

Yesterday I attended a big church in our state’s capital city. I went because one of my favorite preachers, a man whose messages downloaded from the internet have blessed me greatly, was ministering there, and I wanted to get “close up” to his anointing, even though it involved several hours of train travel each way to get there.

This man’s message, as usual, was anointed and powerful, but I was greatly disturbed by the “worship” that preceded it. I arrived late to the first service - an unavoidable consequence of long distance train connections. The meeting was held in a concert hall, and when I arrived the house lights were off and the only lighting was on the stage, with spotlights circling the auditorium. At the natural level this created problems, because the only seating available was on the balcony, and this being tiered there were steps up to the seats - steps that were impossible to see in the darkness. Far more importantly, though, it prompted the question: What does darkness have to do with worship? Are we not children of the light, walking in the light, and worshiping a God who is in the light? Is there darkness in heaven?

The music was loud - so loud that, seated in the back row of the balcony, I could feel the vibrations through my seat! Definitely loud enough to cause hearing damage to every person in that auditorium. Exactly how does this honor God? At one point the pastor stood up and said that “heaven is a noisy place.” This is certainly true, and a point that I have made myself many times through the years - a hundred million angels all declaring the glory of God “in a loud voice” is certainly not quiet! However, heaven is not a closed auditorium where sound reverberates off every surface, nor, I am sure, does it have amplifiers turned up as far as they can go without exploding!

Added to the darkness and noise were colored lights and a smoke machine. The second session, for which I was on time, opened with the auditorium again in darkness, the stage bathed in blue light and billowing smoke, and an explosion of heavy guitar riffs. In other words, exactly what you would find at a rock concert. The total focus was on the stage and the musicians. What was being worshipped here - regardless of what words were put to it - was not God, but the music, the musos, and the experience. How did this offer the hundreds of people in attendance, most of them very young, anything different from what they could have received at any rock concert? In part of his message the preacher said, “It’s not about us” yet the whole atmosphere told these young people that it most definitely was all about them.

The whole thing left me deeply grieved in my spirit. When will God’s people learn that noise does not equate to anointing? When will we learn that we do not have to imitate the world, but rather that we are to be radically different from the world? When will we learn that worship is not about us, but about God? When will we learn that indulging our senses does not bring us into God’s presence? And where are the prophets who would be bold enough to cry out, “This is not the way!”?

Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting that the Church should be stiff and starchy and never sing anything but old hymns. It is not the style of music that is the problem, but the presentation and the focus. If the focus of the worship is the music and the experience rather than the Lord, then it is false worship regardless of whether the style is rock or baroque.

Church, wake up! We are not here to compete with the world on the world’s terms. We are here to counter the spirit of the age with a vastly different spirit. We are not here to call young people to sign up for a free rock concert every week - how difficult is that? - but to call them to a costly commitment of service to the Lord Jesus Christ. We are not here to indulge our flesh, but to manifest the glory of the Lord. Church, it’s time to stop trying to be the word, and start being the Church of the living God.

This blog is © copyright Lynn Fowler.

There is one God, and one mediator between God and people, the man Christ Jesus (1 Timothy 2:51 Timothy 2:5
English: World English Bible - WEB
5 For there is one God, and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus,