So a few weeks ago, I went to Tampere (about 2 hours from Helsinki by car) for about 4 days, the first two of those with Eva. It was great to see Antti and Anni, Aki and Maria and their families, who I've known for a few years. We got to spend time with them and pray for them, which was cool. Their hospitality and generosity was a real blessing.
On the second day we visited a nearby cafe, which is run by local Christians. It has an area for people to come and worship and pray, and also sells tasty waffles. We spent some time just worshiping Jesus there and praying for the area, and also prayed for two of the staff there. We did eat waffles too - they were good.
The third day was Saturday, and I was at a 'housechurch day' for people from different parts of Finland. I helped lead some worship there, which was good - always fun singing in finnish. I'm starting to try to be adventurous and sing 'free-flow' in finnish - usually only very basic phrases, but hey. The day was really good - we shared in small groups about our experiences of housechurch, and inpsired and challenged each other. Thankfully the people in my small group were all able to speak english well.
The next day I took a train to Kauhava, about 2 hours north by train, and then got a lift from there to Evijärvi, where I was at a 12-day-long Intercession Seminar (will write about that soonish)
So, after the 'housechurch day' I felt really encouraged to keep pursuing this vision of small communities, focused around worship and prayer, and relationship with one another. It was good to be challenged again on being 'missional' communities, because our small communities can quite easily remain inward-focused. It is personally a challenge as I'm not particularly a natural evangelist, but I know God wants to bring His life to people around me and I'm a channel for His life. Sometimes we think we have nothing to give, but when we look at some of the truly broken people around us, we see that we have so much to share. The same Holy Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead is in us, but it is so easy for me to forget this.
I really want to see these communities among young people here. We've been having gatherings with some people here recently, and it's been great to worship together, to cry out to God for our city and nation (and other things), and pray and prophesy into each other's lives.
Yesterday afternoon we spent about 4 hours doing these things, and it was wonderful. I'm hoping and praying that in the new year we will be able to keep these gatherings going and perhaps make them more regular.
I pray that we as young people would have a clear vision of Who God is, of what He wants to do (so we may intercede, and be part of the answer to our prayers), and that God would continue to heal us and transform us from glory into glory.
Monday, November 29, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Taste and See
A thought I've been having recently is that the act of remembering is one of the keys to life with God. Throughout the Psalms, there are exhortations to remember who God is and what He's done. It is so easy to forget how good God is.
But we have all tasted and seen that God is good. Throughout the last year I've tasted so much of God's goodness, yet at many times I doubted his goodness. We need to choose to remember God's love and goodness. As it says in Song of Songs 1:4 "We will remember Your love"(NKJV) and Psalm 103:2 "May I never forget the good things He does for me."(NLT)
So, this weekend was pretty amazing, and I definitely experienced God's goodness. I was at a conference called 'Radical Love', organised by Gospel Boarders and some other groups, on Friday eve, Satuday morning and eve and then Sunday afternoon. We worshiped, had teaching, heard testimonies, and had 'fire tunnels'. It was great time of encountering God's love for us.
There were people there from the Nordic School of Supernatural Ministry in Norway, a bunch of people who've planted a church amongst the winter sports community in Sweden, and people from some other places. It was great to meet them, get to know some of them a bit and pray with them. These guys were really filled with God's love, and you could see it by the way the loved each other. It was pretty infectious; I couldn't help but love them.
On the Saturday morning, before going to the gathering, I'd been asking God about an Intercession Seminar I'm going to next Sunday at a YWAM base several hours north of Helsinki. I really felt I was meant to go, but I didn't have all the money for it. So I gave these feelings of uncertainty to God, and resisted the temptation to worry. At the meeting that morning, the guy leading it took a money collection, but he didn't say what for. He then asked us to all take some of the money that had just been collected, and to ask God who to give the money to. It was really cool just to bless each other. Then He asked if anyone had any particular financial needs. I had totally forgotten that I did, but then Eva (a spiritual mother to me here) pointed me out. Then a whole bunch of people gave me money they'd been given. After giving some of it away, the meeting ended. When I got home, I counted the money, and realised that it covered the whole price of the seminar next week! I was pretty overwhelmed by that.
Also this weekend there was a weekend of prayer happening in Helsinki (24/3). I booked a slot in the night on saturday/sunday - midnight to 5am. It was pretty great really. When i got there, the person doing the slot before me gave me some money and a card to encourage me that "worshiping is as good a job as any". Again, I was pretty speechless.
The 5 hours in the prayer room went amazingly quickly. There's something great about spending time alone with God at night, worshiping, crying out to Him for this nation, and just being with Him. It was well worth the tiredness I feel now.
And on Saturday afternoon I sat down and wrote a song about God's love. I'll probably do a basic recording of it pretty soon, and when i do it'll be here: http://www.myspace.com/bonoa
On Thursday I'm going to Tampere, and on Saturday I'm helping facilitate worship at a 'Housechurch day' for people involved in housechurch to network and be encouraged. Then on Sunday I'm going on to a YWAM base in Ruurikkala (where I had a pretty crazy encounter with God on the Burn tour in August). I'm going to a 12-day-long seminar on intercession - should be a pretty great time of learning, meeting new people and being inspired.
So be blessed and remember God's love and goodness.
But we have all tasted and seen that God is good. Throughout the last year I've tasted so much of God's goodness, yet at many times I doubted his goodness. We need to choose to remember God's love and goodness. As it says in Song of Songs 1:4 "We will remember Your love"(NKJV) and Psalm 103:2 "May I never forget the good things He does for me."(NLT)
So, this weekend was pretty amazing, and I definitely experienced God's goodness. I was at a conference called 'Radical Love', organised by Gospel Boarders and some other groups, on Friday eve, Satuday morning and eve and then Sunday afternoon. We worshiped, had teaching, heard testimonies, and had 'fire tunnels'. It was great time of encountering God's love for us.
There were people there from the Nordic School of Supernatural Ministry in Norway, a bunch of people who've planted a church amongst the winter sports community in Sweden, and people from some other places. It was great to meet them, get to know some of them a bit and pray with them. These guys were really filled with God's love, and you could see it by the way the loved each other. It was pretty infectious; I couldn't help but love them.
On the Saturday morning, before going to the gathering, I'd been asking God about an Intercession Seminar I'm going to next Sunday at a YWAM base several hours north of Helsinki. I really felt I was meant to go, but I didn't have all the money for it. So I gave these feelings of uncertainty to God, and resisted the temptation to worry. At the meeting that morning, the guy leading it took a money collection, but he didn't say what for. He then asked us to all take some of the money that had just been collected, and to ask God who to give the money to. It was really cool just to bless each other. Then He asked if anyone had any particular financial needs. I had totally forgotten that I did, but then Eva (a spiritual mother to me here) pointed me out. Then a whole bunch of people gave me money they'd been given. After giving some of it away, the meeting ended. When I got home, I counted the money, and realised that it covered the whole price of the seminar next week! I was pretty overwhelmed by that.
Also this weekend there was a weekend of prayer happening in Helsinki (24/3). I booked a slot in the night on saturday/sunday - midnight to 5am. It was pretty great really. When i got there, the person doing the slot before me gave me some money and a card to encourage me that "worshiping is as good a job as any". Again, I was pretty speechless.
The 5 hours in the prayer room went amazingly quickly. There's something great about spending time alone with God at night, worshiping, crying out to Him for this nation, and just being with Him. It was well worth the tiredness I feel now.
And on Saturday afternoon I sat down and wrote a song about God's love. I'll probably do a basic recording of it pretty soon, and when i do it'll be here: http://www.myspace.com/bonoa
On Thursday I'm going to Tampere, and on Saturday I'm helping facilitate worship at a 'Housechurch day' for people involved in housechurch to network and be encouraged. Then on Sunday I'm going on to a YWAM base in Ruurikkala (where I had a pretty crazy encounter with God on the Burn tour in August). I'm going to a 12-day-long seminar on intercession - should be a pretty great time of learning, meeting new people and being inspired.
So be blessed and remember God's love and goodness.
Thursday, November 4, 2010
Passionate love for Jesus
So, over the past weeks I've been going through Mike Bickle's series on the Song of Songs. (you can get mp3s, videos, and notes at http://mikebickle.org/resources/series/song-of-songs)
Now, obviously the book is a natural love song, but this teaching is focusing on the spiritual interpretation. I can honestly say it's changed my relationship with God, and many times now when I worship words from the Song come into my mind and I whisper, speak or sing them out.
Honestly, in the past I've often ignored this book of the Bible; it does seem pretty random at times. But as I've begun to really look at it, it's really changed the way I view God. It's made me see that a passionate, fiery love for Jesus is something we can all have and must all set our lives on. God is raising up a Bride in these days that is passsionately in love with Jesus and will endure anything for Him.
Now, a lot of the church, myself included, is not walking in this passionate love for Jesus. Sure, we love Him and serve Him, but we've settled for what seems 'normal'. We desperately need to encounter God's heart, His jealous passion for us. We need pursue Him violently and tenaciously.
So, here's the notes I made from the teaching session based on Song 1:2 (a lot of this is direct quotes from the teaching). It's pretty epic, but definitely worth reading.
"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth - for Your love is better than wine." (Song 1:2)
- We cry out to the Father, "Let Him (Jesus) kiss me with the kisses of His mouth (Word)." We are asking for the grace to love Jesus with all our heart. (Matt 22:37-38) The first commandment must be the first priority in our lives.
- The theme of the Song is the Bride's cry for the kiss of God's Word to touch the deepest place in her heart - the Word as it reveals the King's emotions for His bride and awakens our heart in the 3-fold love of God (love from God, then love for God which overflows to others).
- Why does she want the kisses of the Word? She says directly to Jesus "For (because) Your love is better than wine." Wine here speaks of the drink of earthly celebration, the intoxicating things of this world, both good and bad.
- As woderful as God's blessings are, they are not to be the primary focus of our hearts. The Bride sees that superior pleasures come from growing in revelation of God's heart (affection).
- God has placed longings in us to woo us into His presence (see Mike's book The Seven Longings of the Human Heart, which you can download free in pdf form at http://mikebickle.org/books
There is a 'God-shaped vacuum' in us that can only be filled by God.
- The greatest 'pleasures' are spiritual ones, experienced by encountering Jesus as the Bridegroom God (Phil 3:8). God frees us from the dominion of the inferior pleasures of sin by allowing us to experience superior spiritual pleasures that are more powerful.
- The reward of a lover is the power to love. A lover does twice as much as a worker and does not care for any reward but the power to love.
- Motivation for Obedience
- "Affection-based obedience" flows from experiencing God's love. It results in the deepest and most consistent obedience - a lovesick person will embrace and endure anything for the sake of love
- "Obedience by faith", or without feeling God's presence, is still required in God's Word. When we don't feel like it we must obey.
- "Fear or shame-based obedience" is Biblical too, but it is not enough to motivate us to consistently resist the pleasures of sin for years.
- Experiencing God is more effective in motivating us to resist sin than the fear of consequences. The fear of sin's consequences does not overpower the tendency in our hearts to sin, but will instead cause us to sin secret, in more creative ways.
- We sin when our heart is hungry and unsatisfied with God. Our struggle for holiness must be set in context to our pursuit to live satisfied in God.
- God loves us in the same way that God loves God.(John 15:9, 17:23, 26) This gives every believer the right to view themselves as 'God's favourite.' This tells of our worth and value.
- The way that the Father loves Jesus is the only accurate measure in which we can understand how Jesus feels about us. God's love is a powerful reality that includes deep desire, enjoyment, pleasure and longing. The Gospel is a call to live in that vast ocean of divine love. (Eph 3:17-19)
- The disciples were sincere but yet still spiritually immature. Jesus' affirmations of love were spoken to weak believers He knew would betray Him that night. Jesus knew that the only thing that would stabilise them was knowing how God felt about them.
- We must make it a priority to meditate on the truths about God's emotions for us. We are transformed most as we understand how God feels about us, especially in our weakness. This revelation causes us to run to Him instead of from Him.
- When God wants to empower us to love Him, He reveals Himself as One Who loves us. We love, enjoy and pursue Him because we understand that He first loved, enjoyed and pursued us. (1 Jn 4:19)
Now, obviously the book is a natural love song, but this teaching is focusing on the spiritual interpretation. I can honestly say it's changed my relationship with God, and many times now when I worship words from the Song come into my mind and I whisper, speak or sing them out.
Honestly, in the past I've often ignored this book of the Bible; it does seem pretty random at times. But as I've begun to really look at it, it's really changed the way I view God. It's made me see that a passionate, fiery love for Jesus is something we can all have and must all set our lives on. God is raising up a Bride in these days that is passsionately in love with Jesus and will endure anything for Him.
Now, a lot of the church, myself included, is not walking in this passionate love for Jesus. Sure, we love Him and serve Him, but we've settled for what seems 'normal'. We desperately need to encounter God's heart, His jealous passion for us. We need pursue Him violently and tenaciously.
So, here's the notes I made from the teaching session based on Song 1:2 (a lot of this is direct quotes from the teaching). It's pretty epic, but definitely worth reading.
"Let Him kiss me with the kisses of His mouth - for Your love is better than wine." (Song 1:2)
- We cry out to the Father, "Let Him (Jesus) kiss me with the kisses of His mouth (Word)." We are asking for the grace to love Jesus with all our heart. (Matt 22:37-38) The first commandment must be the first priority in our lives.
- The theme of the Song is the Bride's cry for the kiss of God's Word to touch the deepest place in her heart - the Word as it reveals the King's emotions for His bride and awakens our heart in the 3-fold love of God (love from God, then love for God which overflows to others).
- Why does she want the kisses of the Word? She says directly to Jesus "For (because) Your love is better than wine." Wine here speaks of the drink of earthly celebration, the intoxicating things of this world, both good and bad.
- As woderful as God's blessings are, they are not to be the primary focus of our hearts. The Bride sees that superior pleasures come from growing in revelation of God's heart (affection).
- God has placed longings in us to woo us into His presence (see Mike's book The Seven Longings of the Human Heart, which you can download free in pdf form at http://mikebickle.org/books
There is a 'God-shaped vacuum' in us that can only be filled by God.
- The greatest 'pleasures' are spiritual ones, experienced by encountering Jesus as the Bridegroom God (Phil 3:8). God frees us from the dominion of the inferior pleasures of sin by allowing us to experience superior spiritual pleasures that are more powerful.
- The reward of a lover is the power to love. A lover does twice as much as a worker and does not care for any reward but the power to love.
- Motivation for Obedience
- "Affection-based obedience" flows from experiencing God's love. It results in the deepest and most consistent obedience - a lovesick person will embrace and endure anything for the sake of love
- "Obedience by faith", or without feeling God's presence, is still required in God's Word. When we don't feel like it we must obey.
- "Fear or shame-based obedience" is Biblical too, but it is not enough to motivate us to consistently resist the pleasures of sin for years.
- Experiencing God is more effective in motivating us to resist sin than the fear of consequences. The fear of sin's consequences does not overpower the tendency in our hearts to sin, but will instead cause us to sin secret, in more creative ways.
- We sin when our heart is hungry and unsatisfied with God. Our struggle for holiness must be set in context to our pursuit to live satisfied in God.
- God loves us in the same way that God loves God.(John 15:9, 17:23, 26) This gives every believer the right to view themselves as 'God's favourite.' This tells of our worth and value.
- The way that the Father loves Jesus is the only accurate measure in which we can understand how Jesus feels about us. God's love is a powerful reality that includes deep desire, enjoyment, pleasure and longing. The Gospel is a call to live in that vast ocean of divine love. (Eph 3:17-19)
- The disciples were sincere but yet still spiritually immature. Jesus' affirmations of love were spoken to weak believers He knew would betray Him that night. Jesus knew that the only thing that would stabilise them was knowing how God felt about them.
- We must make it a priority to meditate on the truths about God's emotions for us. We are transformed most as we understand how God feels about us, especially in our weakness. This revelation causes us to run to Him instead of from Him.
- When God wants to empower us to love Him, He reveals Himself as One Who loves us. We love, enjoy and pursue Him because we understand that He first loved, enjoyed and pursued us. (1 Jn 4:19)
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