Christmas in Alhaurín

Perhaps not quite as spectacular as the crowd that greeted the turning on of Málaga's Christmas lights…. but Alhaurín also does Christmas in style, as you can see in this video. It has some lovely aerial shots of the town that has been my home for the past seven years.

Christmas is coming….

More than a hundred thousand people turned out last night to see the switching on of Malaga's Christmas lights. I can hardly imagine that many people crowding the streets. (I, of course, was safely in bed, thanks to a bout of bronchitis.) Click here, though, if you'd like to see a video clip produced by a Malaga newspaper. (You might get an advertisement first :-)

Back in Spain..

Click to enlarge photo

Our KKI regional conference came to an end last weekend. Despite our invited speaker cancelling at short notice, the conference went well, with plenty of time for prayer and processing. People's feedback confirmed that we had succeeded in meeting our stated goals of hearing from God and hearing from the nations. In the photo, you can see the conference group, gathered just outside the youth hostel where we were staying.

I've been back in Spain for a few days, but I came down with a respiratory infection (something that happens with horrible regularity after winter travels in planes with excessive air conditioning!) and have spent the last few days in bed. I'm beginning to feel a little better now, but still coughing a bit, and on antibiotics for another few days to come.

Going up to see Jesus

We've had some full but very fruitful days meeting with KKI national leaders from all over Europe, and had an encouraging sense of God's presence in our midst as we prayed together and made decisions about future leadership and ministry initiatives.

This afternoon we've given everyone some free time, and we're welcoming another forty or fifty people before the larger conference begins this evening. As some of us gathered outside the youth hostel after lunch, someone asked me, "Are you going to the beach or are you going up to see Jesus?"  What a funny question… but, in fact, a group of us was making the half hour walk from the hostel to see the "Christ the King" statue and take the lift up to the observation deck with its amazing view across the river to the city of Lisbon. I enjoyed getting some exercise and being able to enjoy the wonderful view.

In fact, the view from our youth hostel is pretty amazing too.  From the dining room where we eat breakfast, we can see right across the river to the Belem Tower and the Monument to the Discoverers (see first two photos above.) Sometimes, in the morning, the view is obscured by thick fog around the bridge, but it clears by afternoon, and we can see right across the river. This afternoon, we also saw a huge submarine making its way under the bridge and out to sea.

Clash of continents…?

I'm up bright and early, and moving today to our KKI conference location: a youth hostel in the Almada part of Lisbon, on the south bank of the river Tagus. You'd be forgiven in Almada for wondering which continent you're in. Their "Christ the King" statue looks very much like the "Christ the Redeemer" statue in Rio de Janeiro, and their "25 April" bridge was modelled after the Golden Gate bridge in San Francisco. Despite these icons of North and South America, Almada is very much in Europe, and we're looking forward to hosting our European KKI gathering there.

I'm in Portugal...

I flew to Lisbon this morning in one of those little bi-prop planes that only seat around 40 people. When we landed and I went to baggage reclaim, mine was the one and only suitcase on the belt. I guess all the other passengers on my plane were travelling onward to Brazil or Africa.

I'm staying tonight with KKI friends in Sintra, Portugal. They've been married for five years, and have a 7-month old daughter… but they actually met 20 years ago on a KKI outreach when she was eight and he was twelve!! Romance only blossomed after many summer outreaches together, though. I had fun today, visiting the old city of Sintra with all its rather impressive palaces. Tomorrow morning, I'll move to the youth hostel where our conference is being held this week, and we'll  start our two days of meetings with the ELT. 

On Tuesday evening, the KKI national leaders will arrive from all over the continent. Some of them are supposed to be flying via Paris, so we're trusting that the recent terrorist activity in Paris won't cause airports to be closed, and prevent people from being able to get to Lisbon. Thanks for your prayers.

Already, completely…. and also not yet

This morning I read a paradoxical truth about the sovereignty of God. In Hebrews 2: 8, we're told - past tense - that absolutely everything has been put under the feet of Jesus. He has complete authority and there is nothing that is not subject to Him. Then, in the very next breath, we are told that "we do not yet see everything subject to Him" here on earth. God's kingdom coming to earth is not only an established fact in the past, it is also a progressive reality in the present, and an unfailing promise for the future.

I think that's why Jesus told us to pray, "May your kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven." His life, death and resurrection established a bridgehead for the kingdom of God on earth, but Jesus knew that seeing God's rule come completely would be a progressive and ongoing process that the people of God would need to participate in. We participate by praying for God's kingdom to come on earth, and also share in making it happen when we live lives that are submitted to Him, and when we engage in other kinds of spiritual warfare as necessary.

Jesus didn't usually say, "The kingdom of God is here." He more often said, "The kingdom of God is near." And He invites us to be part of bringing it nearer!

How's your footwear?

This month I’ve been reading different Bible passages about spiritual warfare and yesterday I came to the well known passage in Ephesians 6 - the one about putting on the armour of God. We’re probably all familiar with the different pieces of the armour, and could list them if asked to: the shield of faith, the belt of truth, etc.

What stood out to me yesterday were the shoes, and the fact that they are described as the shoes of the gospel of peace. How interesting that peace is one of the weapons when we’re speaking about waging warfare.

Because of my arthritis, I’ve become very aware of how critical it is to have the right kind of shoes: footwear that fits well, is comfortable and gives us enough support to enable us to go far. A year ago, I couldn’t walk for more than fifteen minutes without having to give up in pain.  This year, I’ve been really encouraged to see a slight improvement and since the summer months I’ve been able to take the dog for a walk on the mountain for up to an hour every day. That’s a real answer to prayer.

Just the past couple of weeks, however, my bones have been sore again, and even lying in bed at night, the weight of the duvet feels painful on the sides of my feet. Is this because the colder winter weather is beginning... or is it because I’ve had to start wearing winter shoes again, instead of the sandals that I wore all summer? It’s probably due to the shoes, as my bones have suddenly felt some pressure on them again. And so perhaps I’m more aware than most people of how critical it is to have the right kind of shoes.

I wonder if these warfare shoes are shoes of peace because there is such a risk of our attacking the wrong enemy: of fighting against “flesh and blood”  instead of discerning who our real enemy is. Sometimes the devil’s attacks against us come through people close to us: the colleague who criticises us, the family member who betrays us, the friend who misjudges us, the journalist who slanders us in the press.... It would be so easy to leap into action, either to defend ourselves or to attack back with the weapons of insult and accusation.

Instead, the shoes of peace will enable us to move forward with gentleness and to come in the opposite spirit: responding to the people with humility, forgiveness and integrity, but targetting the real enemy with the weapons of truth, righteousness and praying in the Spirit. 

Read on in the post below for more thoughts about perseverance and prayer.

Standing firm...

I recently completed writing some Bible study materials for young people and families. (Read here.) One of the tools we often use when studying a whole chapter of the Bible is to identify what words or ideas are repeated within the text. If something is repeated again and again, it is probably an important truth to be grasped from that passage, and something that we should pay attention to.

When re-reading in Ephesians 6 this morning, I was struck by how often the idea of standing firm is repeated in the text. Throughout the description of the spiritual armour, there seems to be a recurring theme of perseverance:
vs 10: Be strong
vs 11: Take your stand
vs 13: able to stand your ground... and, in the end, to stand
vs 14: Stand firm, then

Our perseverance sends a powerful message to the enemy. It declares that we are commimtted to God and are not going to give up. But our standing strong needs to be in God’s power (vs 10) and needs to be bolstered by prayer (vs 18) - prayer that is also “in the Spirit” and characterised by tenacity: “Be alert and always keep on praying....”

Prayer and perseverance; they are the important foundation of our spiritual battle. Just by standing firm, and by not giving up, we are waging warfare against the enemy.

Dystopia and discernment

If you’re the parent or grandparent of a teenager, you may have noticed the recent trend in dystopian books and films for young people. The Divergent trilogy, the Hunger Games, the Maze Runner, and more... These novels and movies are all set in a future society where young people live in a world with amazing technological advances, but have to combat situations of incredible injustice, depravity and war.

Why should this be so? What has drawn these authors and their young readers to the theme of fighting for survival in a world of human selfishness and cruelty? Is it perhaps their awareness, consciously or unconsciously, that we do live in a fallen world, a world of lawlessness and moral ambiguity that threatens to destroy us if we don’t know how to wage war against it? We can’t afford to be passive, gullible or unaware, like some of the young protagonists in those books and movies.

Recently, in my daily reading of the Bible, I became aware that the Bible paints a picture of a fallen world that is not so different from the dystopia of those modern novels. It speaks of a world where human selfishness, depravity and ambition can cause us to turn our backs on the truth and embrace the kind of deception that could ultimately cause us to lose our lives; it speaks of a world where moral values are being discarded, where people do whatever seems right in their own eyes, and where many are confused about what is true and right and good in the world.

Just like in those teenage novels, the Bible calls us to rise up and do warfare against the enemy who would rob us of our decency, integrity and humanity. It calls us to be divergent (not afraid to go against the flow and be different from the world around us.) It calls us to be insurgent (to rebel against the devil and refuse to be governed by his lies.) And it calls us to be allegiant (radically committed and loyal to the God who created our world in the first place.)

Read on, in the post below, for more thoughts about engaging in spiritual warfare and winning victories in a fallen world.

Waging war in a fallen world

This morning, I was reading in the very last book of the Bible. In Revelation chapter twelve, we read of a violent battle in the heavenlies and are given a clear insight into one of the main strategies of our enemy. Not unlike the plot of some recent books and movies for young people, we see that we need to know how to fight if we want to survive. An important starting point in spiritual warfare is our recognising that some of the most challenging battlefields are the ones within ourselves: the battle for our heart and the battle for our mind. Revelation 12:10 - 11 lifts the veil for us and gives us a glimpse of the enemy’s weapons in the battle for our minds and thoughts. We see that lies, deception and accusation are some of Satan’s key weapons in seeking to pull us down and neutralise us in the battle. 

The Hebrew word שָׂטָן, transliterated as "Satan," means an enemy or one who opposes and resists us. The Greek word διάβολος (diabolos) usually translated as "the devil," means a slanderer or one who accuses us.  And so it's not surprising that this passage in Revelation describes our enemy as "the accuser" of the believers, and says that he is busy accusing us before God, both day and night. Sometimes he accuses us through other people, sadly even sometimes through our Christian brothers and sisters.  But his most usual way of accusing us is through our own thoughts: memories of failure, feelings of inadequacy, awareness of sin will all be exploited by the enemy to accuse and condemn us. That's why a key strategy for us is the one described in 2 Corinthians 10: 3 - 5. We need to learn how to "take our own thoughts captive," so that the enemy can't use them to bring us down.

This Revelation passage mentions two more weapons in our armoury: the blood of the Lamb (our authority to proclaim the death and resurrection of Jesus) and the word of our testimony  (remembering and speaking out the ways that God has been there for us and has triumphed in the past.) It's probably also key in this passage, that the believers "didn't love their lives" and were willing to die for their faith. But perhaps it's easier to die a heroic death than to live with a hurtful accusation or slur on your character/reputation, and this may be why accusation is still the enemy's most powerful weapon against us.

Reading this passage a couple of years ago, I got to thinking and meditating on why two such different weapons are mentioned… and my theory is that it's because there are also two different kinds of accusation from the enemy. Very often the enemy's accusations against us are blatant deception, not even based in truth. Jesus Himself called the devil the "father of lies" (John 8:44) and said that there is no truth in him. The enemy will lie to us, telling us that we're not good enough, that God doesn't love us, or that our prayers won't be answered. It's at such times that we need to call forth the word of our testimony and proclaim the truth of how God has been faithful and has answered our prayers and used us to win victories in the past. The Word of God (the Bible) and the word of our own experience of God are powerful weapons against the enemy's lies. 

Just occasionally, though, the enemy's accusations are true: he'll tell us that we've sinned, that we're weak, or that we're lacking in faith. These things are probably true, and so that's when we resort to our other weapon, the blood of the Lamb. We can remind the enemy that, even though we are sinners, we have been cleansed and forgiven because of Jesus' death. We can proclaim that even though we're weak, we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. And we can rest in the fact that winning the war does not depend on how strong or weak our faith is, but rather on how strong and powerful God is.

These are the things, together with our praise and worship of the living God (even the praise and worship of little children; see Psalm 8 vs 2) that will silence the enemy's accusations and cause him to flee from us. Let's remember that much of the battle takes place in our mind and thoughts. If we take our thoughts captive, draw near to God and resist the enemy (James 4: 7) our accuser will need to flee from us.