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The Power of Love

For a while I have had the gnawing sense that the Lord has been trying to prise open a door in my heart that has long since been locked and the key thrown away. The door in question is the door to the charismatic. There had been a time, another lifetime ago when I had been very active in the ministry of the Spirit. I guess that I should not have been surprised given that we are transitioning from the child to the teenage phase in our work that the Lord would choose to revisit this subject with me. Having just finished the manuscript for the The Apprentice which deals with this second phase of life in which I discuss the characteristics of the teenage phase; it was naïve of me to have thought that I would not be also invited to reappraise my position on the charismatic. I guess what is becoming more and more apparent to me is that it is unnatural for us not to operate in the supernatural.

We are as I have said time and again supernatural naturally. Yet, when I came out of Pentecostalism I had little difficulty leaving behind not only the self-effort which was so much a feature but also the so called gifts of the Spirit which were very much its hallmark. Why? I want to be candid with you, what I was sensing in that environment was the very thing that that apostle Paul rebuked the Corinthians about. In all his church plants there was no more a charismatic community than the brothers at Corinth. Yet Paul told them that:

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The Toronto Blessing

Flying home from Canada this week I had good reason to reflect on the things that the Lord had shown me whilst I was away. I came home from Philadelphia via Toronto. I had been my invited there by my friend Mike Zenker who is the pastor of Hope Fellowship. Mike had asked me to come and facilitate a leadership conference on the Saturday and then to speak in the church on the Sunday morning. I was honoured. When I asked Mike what was on his heart he said that he wanted to discuss with his leaders what leadership in the grace paradigm looks like. Having just finished writing The Apprentice which is the second book in the Until Christ is Formed series I couldn’t have wished for a better subject to be asked to speak on. The book is due for publication early in 2008. As I waited upon the Lord for a lead about what was on His heart for the Saturday conference I felt led to teach through the book of Philippians in four one hour sessions under the heading of “The Poured Out Life.” And this I did, dividing the book into four segments:

• Chapter 1 “To live is Christ”
• Chapter 2 “Emptying Oneself of ‘Self’
• Chapter 3 “From Self-Confidence to Christ’s Confidants”
• Chapter 4 “I Can Do All Things”

It was a blast. You can listen to the Sunday morning talk which was called Deep Calls to Deep online and if you ask Mike nicely he might be able to source you the MP3’s from the Saturday sessions as well.

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