Wednesday 23 January 2008

Heath Ledger dies


Heath Ledger dies. I wrote those words in my pocket sized notebook that I habitually carry around with me. A Portuguese pastor in Benfica referred to my notebook as my 'camera', because he constantly saw me jot down details wherever he took me.
As I drove to fetch my son at school I saw the Cape Argus headlines on the telephone pole posters: Heath Ledger dies.
When I wrote those words, I thought at first to write, Heath Ledger died. But it was too past tense, too distant, too long ago. The present tense sounded better. The newspaper editor obviously agreed with my way of thinking.
But how sad, how utterly sad, whether it was an accident or suicide we will never know. The 28 year old actor, understudy of Mel Gibson, found dead in his NY apartment. He was nominated for an Oscar in Brokeback Mountain.
It is a flashback to James Dean's youthful tragedy.
Just the other day, we agreed that if anyone ever could play the part of Jonny Wilkinson, it would be Heath Ledger. They look like twins. Jonny kicked over a last minute drop kick in the 2003 Rugby World Cup final vs. Australia and won the cup for England.
Few people know what actors and actress have to go through in their daily routines and the stress levels they handle in order to entertain the public. Tragedies are common among celebrities. Think of Marily, Elvis, Jimmy Hendrix...
People are not made to be worshipped. Only God can handle that kind of adoration.
Some people make little gods out of their own children. Some make idols of their pastors. People love to create idols. Americans are past masters at it. The rest of us can probably learn to be a bit more lavish with praise.
But, I'm off to the beach to surf in the sunset with Hilton and Mac the border collie!
Tomorrow is another day...
By the Grace of God we are still alive...God rest Heath's soul and comfort his family and friends.

Wednesday 16 January 2008

God speaks German


God speaks German

Wow! I forgot that God created all the nations of the world and scattered them by confusion their languages. So He does speak German as well. I learned German at school, at Cape Town university and through correspondence with Unisa. I remember the first few lessons at university so well - I didn't understand a word the professor was saying, but eventually got used to the sound of the foreign language and passed reasonably well.
When I went to Germany the first time I could help myself in the street and in restaurants. We helped with some ministry all over Germany and then helped a couple in Berlin that spent three years in our church. But after that I never returned.
One day I had a dream. I dreamt I was with the elders in heaven. They said, 'you are known up here!' The one said, 'I see you are reading your French bible?' The other added, 'dont' stop reading your German bible either.' This was proof enough that they knew me, because no one knows that I have both those bibles next to my bed, permanently. Then another one told me it was about time I started playing piano again.
So I have been diligently reading bit by bit in those bibles for almost a year now.
When we were on holiday with some friends I heard the Spirit tell me in German to return to Zurich, Switzerland, where I made my vow to serve God and humanity. I should go to the church where Frau Fleischmann worshipped and build a memorial in the spirit for her. She was the least in that assembly and the only one willing to take me in. When she sent me to climb the mountain after 4 days of heavy snow fall, I had my supernatural encounter with the Lord on a snowy mountain side and made my vow.


I should go and tell that church that as a result of the least of their members showing kindness to a stranger, that body of believers have a share in the 40 odd nations I have been to as a missionary. They should be encouraged that the least of their members have a major share in a ministry that has touched so many nations. This should stimulate more good works amongst them to realise what they do to the least of the disciples of Christ Jesus, they do to Him and there will be a definite reward.
I believe God speaks to you in the language you read in the bible and are prepared to offer prayers. If you do King James, He will speak King James to you. If you do Portuguese, He will respond accordingly.
But this message in German surprised me, because I have never considered going back to Zurich to that church...I only thought of Fray Fleischmann, the poor old widow who had mercy on a stranger...
Nothing we do for God goes unnoticed and unrewarded. May this encourage all of us to do what we can when we can - even for strangers at our door...

Friday 11 January 2008

The Greatness of Fairness


How fair is fair? Who could decide what is fair for everyone involved? Who could possible be fair to all parties? Only God our creator could be considerate to everyone and make sure we all get a fair deal - eventually. There are those who have all they want right now; there are those who wait a life time and never seem to get it. There is a promise of an after life where those who gave up things for the Gospel's sake will get 100 fold rewards: those who gave up houses and lands, mothers and fathers, sister and brothers, possessions and wealth will receive 100 fold in this life and in the life to come plus some persecution in this life.
Isn't so that when you get, others want? Gary Player said after winning a golf tournament all the charity organizations wanted his winnings! If someone is known to be rich he is envied and people curse him behind his back. Envy, jealousy and hatred go with the package!
Reinhard Bonnke a German missionary to Africa received a brand new BMW as a gift from a friend and suddenly his sponsorships diminished for his missions! Only after he got rid of the new car did people start giving again.
There seems to be a balance in the universe: some get it now, some later, but the good Lord sees to it that we all get our fair share of love and hatred; abundance and lack; praise and criticism; acceptance and rejection. For how would one appreciate acceptance if you have never tasted rejection?
A mother was worried about the ego's of her two boys when she baked the first pancake and introduced the subject with the line, 'if Jesus was here he would certainly take the second pancake!' So the one boy said to the other:' Ok, Jake, you be Jesus today!'
In our home we had a situation that seemed impossible to solve: Nola has to go to UK and Scotland to minister about praise and worship and she and Mimi one of her friends from Pretoria is going along with her. They want to visit Holland and Italy on the same trip. Initially I thought it was a bit long, but they insisted, so Graham in Birmingham helped me set up the tour.
But a few nights before Nola's departure Hilton our 12 year old turning 13 voiced his opinion: 'I don't want you to go away for such a long time, Mom!' Nola is the mainstay in his preparations for his Music Scholarship for College and he also talks a lot to her before going to bed. I'm his sports coach and buddy at this age! (Surfing, golf, cricket!) So I understood his tearful plea for her to cancel the trip.
I was thinking, 'how will I ever be able to set all this ministry up for Nola again? Will they ever believe me if I say, this time she is really coming to you?' I made peace with the fact that she would not go. Nola cried in bed and said, 'why must things be so hard?' She has given herself to her children for a life time and went without many things for the sake of raising children and being in the ministry with me. It's not been easy!
The following day Eben our travel agent suggested, 'why don't they go for a shorter period?' I approached Hilton with the suggestion. 'Last year Mom went to France for two weeks and I handled it well. But three weeks is too long!' So I asked Nola if she would cut out the week in Holland. Mimi could still go. She consented. So we did not have to cut out any ministry appointments and Mimi could spend some time alone, something she always wanted to do and everyone concerned received a fair treatment in the end.
The Spirit of the Lord is a spirit of counsel. He leads us and guides us into all truth and shows us things to come!
There is a balance in nature, in life, in sport, in relationships - we just have to learn to trust. Look at Nelson Mandela: 27 years in prison and then President in our nation and an International person of the Century! Joseph sold as a slave and thrown into prison and then becomes the Prime Minister of Egypt and eventually feeds his entire family! Saul persecutes the church and then suffers greatly for the sake of the Gospel but writes more than half of the New Testament: the glory outweighs the suffering.
There is a balance: a fairness in everything, in the end, if we can learn to put our trust in our Maker who alone is wise enough to give everyone a fair deal!

Tuesday 8 January 2008

They shoot presidents, don't they?


'They shoot presidents, don't they?' my little boy asked. It reminded me of the '70's movie, 'They shoot horses, don't they?' starring Jane Fonda and Michael Sarrazin, having to endure a dance marathon till the last couple that remains standing on the dance floor wins the prize!
Butho got assasinated in December and everyone knew she was going to get it - from Al Quaida.
I saw a programme on Carte Blanche on Sunday night about an Economic Hitman. Who on earth knew there were such jobs up for grabs? It was the confessions of a Hitman. He explained how he used to get money, power and women for corrupting the minds of African and Asian leaders to secure the investment of Trillion and Billion dollar American companies to build airports, develop mines and export oil from these nations by vowing to keep the leader in power as long as he plays along with them.
Thus Saddam Hussein got nailed when he no longer played into the hands of the American Money Muscle Men. So did many others. They die in strange ways: air crashes, accidents, shootouts...
The Hitman got his revelation on a mountain overlooking a sugar plantation when he realised how slaves built the plantation and then got angry at slave traders. Then he came to the sobering conclusion that he himself was a Slaver (as he put it) and decided to resign from his highly compensated job and began to expose the dealings of these giant corporations that rule the finances of the world.
But nothing much will come of it...if they take him out it will be proof that he was right. So they will just sit it out.
'There's trillions to be made during war situations, like Vietnam and Iraq,' he said. 'Africa is a Hitman's paradise! We corrupt the leaders and they corrupt their nation! And I got paid to do it!'
Suddenly every news cast, every movie, every novel took on a new dimension after hearing the confessions of the Hitman! All the King's Men with Sean Penn and Jude Law and Anthony Hopkins suddenly looked different when we hired the video to watch it for the second time. Politicians using people to further their causes, digging for dirt in people's lives to blackmail them and to set them up as targets!
But I found a lot of these things in the church world where I came from: the trappings of man's organizations are all the same, everywhere!
I used to be starry eyed about the church world until I went through the mill several times and learned the hard way how corrupt the so-called 'men of God' are - still just as human as the next man in their congregations. Power mad, ambitious pastors use the same systems the worldly organizations use to build their ' fast-growing' churches. They bully people into submission to the Lord' without letting the people know that they are the actual 'lord' the people are bowing to!
How often have a heard disillusioned pastors tell me when they resigned from another pastor's church that they were threatened with the words, 'I'll open up a church opposite your church and close you down!'
Yet, in all this power-mad, greed-festering, cess pool of organized religion, there are the souls who have been tempered by the fire and have come out purer, not without weakness, but a more humble, meek soul, with a real desire to know God in truth. These souls are the salt of the earth.
Business people tend to call the ones they make money out of as the salt of the earth - those simple individuals who do not know how to make money!
But there is a kingdom, an invisible one, there is a reality beyond the one we can measure in earthly standards, a heavenly domain that responds to an upright heart, a sincere plea: it is the kingdom of heaven. The true Gospel of the kingdom of heaven produces a quality in a soul that none of the forced religions can imitate! Blessed are the poor in spirit.
There is a drum beat in the spirit realm that the soldiers of the cross march to. That beat is heard by people all over the globe and in every denomination and network where the heart is turned towards truth. Slowly but surely, these souls are being drawn together, and there is a recognition of kindred spirits when they meet...like: 'It feels like I've known you all my life!'
But there is a price to pay: it is free but not cheap to enter that dimension of relationship.
Perhaps that is the narrow road that Jesus spoke about, that few will find?
Religion and Politics and Business make people dance until they drop. Presidents are appointed and assasinated. Nothing has changed. These things will go on and on and nothing will stop it until the final day when the kingdoms of this world will be become the kingdom of our Lord and He shall reign forever more and in His kingdom righteousness shall reign and those who did business otherwise will no longer be able to operate but will weep, for Babylonian systems will no longer be applicable, in politics, religion or business...
Then presidents and horses will no longer be shot!

Thursday 3 January 2008

Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds



Lucy in the sky with diamonds...a little drawing the late John Lennon's child brought home from school that became a Lennon/MacCartney hit and which religious spirits interpreted as the LSD drug anthem! From and innocent picture to a banned substance! How proposterous.
Yesterday I returned home from a lovely holiday with friends at Eersterivier, felt rested, and ready to face the new year, when I opened the emails and found messages such as ' Barbara passed away in Portland...' and Stephen Stills is being operated on for prostate cancer on his birthday'...on today the 03 of January 08.
Emails have opened up a whole new world of communications. The IT world is ever expanding like the universe, so in a sense it is writing in the sky again...
Here's an amazing picture, which my friend Jako in Houston sent me: while the Aussies were frantically celeberating the New Year (they get it first because it is the most Eastern country) a skywriter was scribbling the letters J-E-S-U-S across the dawnlit sky.
Luke Skywalker became Luke Skywriter! The Gospel of Luke was actually written for the audience of one man! One man! All that trouble! Who on earth would do a thing like that? Luke did. And he was a physician and an historian. He wrote both the Gospel of Luke and the book of Acts to Theophilus, a dear friend!
Would you show your love to a friend like that? To take on the task of researching the life of an amazing man until you can write a book about it, but not try to make any money out of your effort, but simply dedicate it to your friend? Luke never thought his work would be taken up in the volume called the Bible! He had no materialistic goals set for his serious task. He simply did it for a friend.
Yet, today, 2000 years later we are still reading it...Now that is famous is ever there was any fame attached to a letter to a friend! And so many kids around the world are called 'Luke' - even in Star Wars they chose the name Luke Skywalker!
There is something in the sky that makes you look up, not down. When you are downcast, look up, and suddenly you feel so much better! Hills and Mountains have a way to draw your eyes ever upward!
Aje's school song at Kenton Primary in Alberton had the logo: 'Ever Upward!' It stayed with me since that time. (I was on that school committee, you know, and helped with coaching cricket...somethings I did at most schools my kids attended, except of course Herschel the girls school Yvette went to).
So Lucy in the Sky, Luke Skywalker, and the Skywriter in Sydney all have something in common: they make you look up...into the blue yonder, into the future, into the possibilities of the year that lie ahead.
Jesus is the lifter of your head...in the Jerusalem days, people with debts they could not pay would sit at the entrance to the city with their heads bowed their eyes downcast, because they could not look anyone in the eye, because of their debt! Then if a beneficiary would approach them that decided to pay their debt, he would touch their chin with his walking stick or rod and lift up their heads to look him in the eye. That was his way of saying, your debt is my debt now, you are a free man! You can rise up and look people in the eye again!
This act of kindness was rare, but it did happen frequently enough to make the Psalmist write about it that his Lord is the lifter of his head!
Today the Lord Jesus Christ is willing to touch you and say, 'I have paid your debt of sin on Calvary! You no longer have to be bowed over and downcast: you can look people straight in the eye again! Your self-worth is worth something again! I give you your dignity back again! You are debt free and you may go on from here! Your debt has been cleared! Look up! I am your Saviour!'
Here is a tone of victory, a tone of hope, a tone of glorious forgiveness and joy of salvation! To all who would respond, it becomes a reality! Accept him now and say a prayer for healing for Stephen Stills on his birthday that his operation will be a success and that there will be a speedy recovery. He has blessed the world with such beautiful songs and music. And say a prayer for the comfort of those in Portland who will miss Barabara...
Help to pay the debt of someone else, a son, a daughter, a friend or associate, you will lift their heads and improve their self-worth tremendously! Jesus did it for us. Lets do it for others.