The Spoken Word

I thought that the spoken word could change anybody...

I spoke with passion and I spoke without end sometimes... I thought my passion would be contagious and that the hearing of the truth and word of God could change anybody and any situation... Like it changes me...

Turns out I was wrong. The more I spoke the less I felt understood, the more I tried to explain... a vicious circle.

This was utterly disappointing, because I longed to see someone transformed by the power and the revelation of God, and I longed to share the life and passion in me. But I have learned that the field is not always ready for the seed.

The seed might be sown with good intentions but the field might not be ready. It is no use sowing seed in unfruitful ground and I have also learned that throwing pearls before the swine is a saying to be heeded indeed ;-)

Don't think that you can change anybody in the way that you were changed, this is the work and privilege of the Holy Spirit. Sow where He leads, where your seed is welcomed and respected less you frustrate yourself and your listeners...

The “Basic” Gospel

I was recently told that all I can talk about is the Gospel and that it is 'basic', that I am preaching to the choir.  This person basically meant that “everyone” already knows what Im talking about and that they are “past” the gospel long ago onto greater things.

Wow… I never had that train of thought in my life before.. What this person failed to realise is that I went onto greater thoughts about that just same way of thinking 7 years ago and came to the realisation that the greatest thing is “the gospel”. If you think you’re past it you have never known what it is in the first place - hence my inability to stop speaking about it ;-).

The gospel is the beginning and the end of everything. Paul said he came preaching nothing else but Christ and Him crucified. (1 Cor 2:2).

Heb 5:13 For everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced in the message of righteousness, because he is an infant. 14 But solid food is for the mature, whose perceptions are trained by practice to discern both good and evil.

Here Paul basically says that “the Message of Righteousness” is maturity or solid food. The message of righteousness is the Gospel. The elementary things mentioned in Hebrews 6 are : “repentance from dead works and faith in God, 2 teaching about baptisms, laying on of hands, resurrection of the dead, and eternal judgment.” - These things are basic because they are teachings that are about peripheral things, things around the Gospel and not the message of Righteousness or the Gospel itself.

In Hebrews 5:13 Paul says “those whose perceptions are trained by practise to discern both good and evil” - in referring to being mature. I suspect he is speaking about training our thoughts to be in line with the Gospel, in line with the righteousness we already have in Christ and training our perceptions by the truth and not our feelings, or fleshly or sinful perceptions, but looking to the cross for our righteousness, forgiveness and wholeness.

Maturity is to be about Jesus, and as Paul says in Col 1:28 "He is the one we proclaim, admonishing and teaching everyone with all wisdom, so that we may present everyone fully mature in Christ."

and also : Eph 4:13 until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. -

We become mature in Christ if we look to Him and him crucified. By doing this we realise what He has done in us, for us and who we are in Him. This is the way to grow in maturity, maturity not in normal knowledge but in revelation knowledge of who He is and who we are through Him.

Going past the gospel means missing it entirely...

The "Man" Christ Jesus

God became a Man, a human so that men may sit in the company of God.