Dust... Dust..Dust.....

Dust…… dust…….. dust…..

Do you ever get fed up of dust….. dust accumulates…no sooner have you cleared it, but it is back again, making everything look messy.  We spend so much time trying to eliminate dust from our lives.

Definition of DUST. 1: fine particles of matter (as of earth) 2: the particles into which something disintegrates . 3. a: something worthless . b: a state of humiliation

Some thing worthless, something that has fallen into disrepair, is breaking down.   We see dust as worthless and often find ourselves striving to keep a dust free environment.

We are however formed from Dust, from dust we came, God took the dust, the base the worthless stuff of this earth, and created something of value, so many masterpieces. What can you make from the dust of your life? Can there be anything useful from Dust?

I am reminded of the story of the woman caught in adultery, brought out before her accusers, only to find Jesus, who bending down and wrote in the Dust.     What a picture, for her, life was about to go back to dust, from dust she came and from dust she was about to return.   Her life was about to end, she was expecting to be stoned, to die and fall back to the dust.   What an amazing picture here, the creator of all, once again goes back to the dust and writes in the dust, causing all her accusers to withdraw, and recreating her once again.  Jesus formed and created new life once again from the dust of a life.     There is much debate over what was written, but my focus is not on the words but actually on the DUST.    How often do you feel as if all your efforts have fallen into dust, how often do you feel as if you have been brought low, almost to the dust, how often are your dreams and visions, lying dead in the DUST… what a great moment of realization, the dust is useful, the dust can live again.   What will God write or recreate in the dust of your life?   Every life has its own unique dust, what will you write in your dust?   

As I meditated on dust, I discovered that there is actually no rain with out dust:-

“Raindrops begin forming when water vapor condenses on micrometer-sized particles of dust floating in the atmosphere. The dust particles grow to millimeter-sized droplets, which are heavy enough to begin falling. As they fall, the droplets accumulate more and more moisture, until they become the large raindrops that we see here on the ground.”

We so often cry for the rain of God to come, for God to pour out upon us, but I am reminded how God always desires to work in partnership with us.   Once again what an amazing picture, God actually requires the Dust of our lives to be combined with the water of the word to create the rain of heaven which can bring refreshing to world around us…. Wow,  am I ready to give God the dust of my life, am I ready for the living water to mix with my dust to form refreshment to others?

Why not measure out your dust today, why not consider the dust in your life right now, and allow it to be mixed with the water of heaven, allow the creator to make the dust of your life useful.

There is a choice to be made, we can choose to make our dust useful or we can sit in our dust, pour it over our heads and fall into further decay and destruction.   The word is clear I set before you a choice, Life or Death, choose life.    My choice is simple, Lord take my dust and reform my life, my dust is useful. 

The Spoil of Battle by T. Austin Sparks

The Spoil of Battle  by T. Austin Sparks

1 Chron 26;27

From this passage we gather that the house of the Lord is constituted out of conflict.  The Lord builds from the fruit of conflict.

When that temple was completed it stood as a monument to Universal victory.   The silver and the gold and all the precious things which it comprised, had been taken in battle and made the House of God.

The enemy had the resources for the house of God and the enemy had to be despoiled so the House could be built.

The House of God: the People of God – there is a spiritual and moral side to the building of the house. You may have a great number of individuals saved and still fail to have the truest meaning of the House of God; you may have a congregation and not a Church.

The time is coming when the Lord will cause His name to be upon His own; that is we shall receive a white stone, and in that white stone a new name, and we shall be called by His name, His name will be in our foreheads.  That is all symbolic language and its meaning is just this: the Lord will be so fully manifested in His own that as you look at them you will say: that speaks of Jesus, that is the nature of Christ.   Christ will be universally revealed through his own.

The character and Nature of Christ will be seen, this character is formed through conflict, just as the House in the OT was built through conflict.  The divine economy has been so ordered that, although the Lord Jesus has in himself a universal triumph over all His foes, the foes are left for us to deal with.   The Lord has not put our foes out of the universe, though He himself has triumphed.

It is by conflict, by battle, by grim and terrible warfare spiritually, that the moral excellencies of our triumphal Head are brought out in us.   We triumph in His victory, but we know that faith is so tested in a conflict, so deeply tried in a battle, that it is something more than just objectively holding on; that very exercise of faith brings out from Him, into our own souls, the strength of His victory.   We are made morally one with Him in His triumph by a test of faith which is so grim and so terrible that nothing that is not of him in us would be sufficient to carry us through.   When you are in such a place of holding on, Calvary’s victory is not something just objectively being taken hold of, but it is being inwardly established, and at last that victory is in us as it is in the Lord.

Remember Joseph,”until the time that his  word came to pass, the word of Jehovah tried him.”   The word of the Lord tries us, but it is in that conflict that spiritual and moral elements are developed.    Conflict secures the spoil for future building. 

Whatever conflict you may be facing recognise that it can become future building material for the House of God, producing gold, silver and precious stones in you.

Empty ... Empty.. Empty....

Empty …  Empty…… Empty…..there has been no writing in my blog……. 

Ok I admit it has been a long, yes long, long time since I wrote anything, so I decided that has to change.    Here are some of my most recent thoughts……

The TABLE of the LORD…..

Empty chairs and empty tables, did you hear that song in the musical Les Miserables? Let me share with you some of the Lyrics in case you have not seen either the musical or the movie:

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Now my friends are dead and gone.

Here they talked of revolution.

Here it was they lit the flame.

Here they sang about `tomorrow'

And tomorrow never came.

From the table in the corner

They could see a world reborn

And they rose with voices ringing

I can hear them now!

The very words that they had sung

Became their last communion

On the lonely barricade at dawn.

Oh my friends, my friends forgive me

That I live and you are gone.

There's a grief that can't be spoken.

There's a pain goes on and on.

Phantom faces at the window.

Phantom shadows on the floor.

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more.

Oh my friends, my friends, don't ask me

What your sacrifice was for

Empty chairs at empty tables

Where my friends will meet no more

A moving song, about those who dreamed together, whilst sat together, of a better day to come, and then continued on to give their lives in pursuit of that dream.    

Whilst meditating on the thought of those who have gone before us, those who dreamed of a Kingdom, those who saw a revelation of Christ filling all in all, those who dreamed of Heaven coming to earth, I began to see this …. The Table of the LORD.

This table of the LORD, is a never ending table, it stretches throughout time and eternity, and there are actually no empty chairs at the table.

The table is laid out before us, it is a feasting table, a table with no sadness and no division, it is a table of celebration, a wedding table, a continual table not bound by time.

At a wedding celebration family members all come together, those you have not seen for a long time, those you see regularly, those you do not get along with so well, and those you eat and live and play with on a regular basis.  Even those you do not know too well, from the other side of the family, perhaps those with a different slant on their understanding and theology than you, they all come together and sit at the table of celebration.

The table of the Lord is set, and we are welcome at all times to sit and feast.   I believe God is calling us to feast together, feast with those who have gone before us, even if we have changed slightly in our understanding; feast with those who will come after us even though they might also see differently from us, feast with those who are along side us and those who are far away in their understanding and theology.

There are no empty places at the Table of the LORD, the Lord himself will ensure that, so come now with great excitement and full confidence to this amazing miracle table, you belong at this table.   Feast at this miracle table of Health, may you find healing to your bones, joy unspeakable and peace overwhelming.

Lets Dream Together........

Dreams  sustain us and give us hope  for the future

Take a moment to consider what dreams you are holding on to today........

Where did these dreams come from?   

We can think of many major dreamers throughout history...

...Martin Luther King...........  1963....... A dream of freedom .....     let freedom reign.....all men are created equal.....

I have a dream today!

"we are not satisfied, and we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream."

"Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my friends.

And so even though we face the difficulties of today and tomorrow, I still have a dream." 

Mother Teresa

"We can do no great things only small things with great love

If you can’t feed a hundred people then feed just one."

Nelson Mandela

” I have fought against white domination, and I have fought against black domination. I have cherished the ideal of a democratic and free society in which all persons live together in harmony and with equal opportunities. It is an ideal which I hope to live for and to achieve. But if needs be, it is an ideal for which I am prepared to die.”

I am challenged as I think on these dreams of such high standing, they are dreams that are not simply reaching for simple solutions, but dreams that reach into the depth of mankind and seek to release the heart of God into society..... dreams of freedom, equality and Love.

What of my dreams, are they dreams that have been shaped and moulded by our culture and our society?   Are my dreams dreams ones that bring freedom, love and equality, dreams that seek to see the kingdom of God increase?     

Dreamers seeking for the establishment of Gods Kingdom here on earth, some would say that these dreamers, are idealists, having their minds drenched in unreality....... however what reality would we see...??

God has a dream...

Desmond Tutu says- "God says to you, 'I have a dream. Please help me to realize it.’ It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts."

Will we let go of our own dreams to give ourselves for the bigger picture... the bringing about of His dream......?

We read of Joseph the dreamer on the Old Testament...

His dream took a life time to come to pass.....

before he saw the dream in reality, he experienced life in the pit and in the prison, far away from the reality of that dream.

What do we dream of?   

What about the dreams that still have not happened....?  I am reminded of the words in the song....

I dreamed a dream in time gone by

When hope was high and life worth living

I dreamed that love would never die

I dreamed that God would be forgiving

But the tigers come at night

With their voices soft as thunder

As they turn your hope apart

As they turn your dreams to shame

Now life has killed the dream I dreamed 

Life can be hard.... we can find ourselves in what looks like a pit or a prison, it can appear as though the dream has been robbed from us, we can become  too disappointed to continue to pursue the dream......

We have to remind ourselves of the folk mentioned above, much heartache went into the realisation of their dreams, but they did all come to pass.

We should stir up our hope and live in that hope daily.

Some of our dreams have been coloured by the culture of our day.....   we need ... a God dream......   

In the day when hierarchy was seen as the pinacle we dreamed of gaining position.... 

In our day church was the pinacle and we have sought position in the church

Today the day in which we live is a kingdom day a day where the body is coming into maturity......

Dreams may change....... as we see differently....

Our dreams that have been shaped and moulded by our culture and our society?   We can keep a check on our dreams, are our dreams ones that bring freedom or do they in fact box me into a  paradigm?    

Lets dream again.... a great big God dream......

"God says to you, 'I have a dream. Please help me to realize it.’ It is a dream of a world whose ugliness and squalor and poverty, its war and hostility, its greed and harsh competitiveness, its alienation and disharmony are changed into their glorious counterparts."