New Worship Song: Evermore

Some years ago I started feeling there was something missing from my Christian life. As I thought more about it, I realized what the problem was: I was no longer doing any personal evangelism. When I first met the Lord, I was on fire for Him and shared Christ with anyone who would listen. I was not embarrassed to do this, though I was puzzled by some of the negative responses I received. After all, why would anybody *not* want to meet God and have eternal life? Over time my fire of enthusiasm diminished however. Part of the reason for this was the church circle I moved in. I started out as an Evangelical where becoming educated seemed to be the goal, so I studied hard and read many books. But my hunger for God wasn't satisfied by this, so I moved over to the Charismatics where the goal seemed to be having cool experiences. But this didn't satisfy me either. What I really wanted was greater intimacy with God, a closer relationship with Him. And when I encountered the Vineyard movement and its emphasis on worship as our highest priority, I found what I was looking for. But even so, the way is hard that leads to life. And as my walk with God progressed, thorns grew up and began to choke my Christian life. It didn't help too that there was an Enemy that was trying to knock me off the Way. But I had reached a point where I had stopped bearing fruit. What should I do? I decided to try and rekindle my desire for doing personal evangelism by reading some books on the subject. So I went to our local Christian bookstore to see what I could find. And after perusing the shelves of top-selling titles, this is what I found: About 30 books on the subject of "the prophetic" More than 300 "Christian novels" Three books on personal evangelism, all of them first published in the 1960s. I was shocked. Is being excited and entertained what Christians here in North America crave most nowadays? By this point of my life I had already spent several years working in West Africa, and the Christians I met there viewed personal evangelism as a lifestyle, not some unpleasant activity they were occasionally required to engage in. Will the Son of Man find faith when he returns? I wonder. Because faith doesn't just mean believing, it also means doing. And sharing the Good News with people is part of what being a follower of Jesus is all about. But how can one get going again if one's efforts have dried up in this area? I'll share some thoughts on this in a future post. Cheers, —Mitch

I was sitting in the living room at Mandy's place where the house church I belonged to was meeting. One of the elders was speaking on some topic. I was bored, so my mind began to wander and I had the following daydream: I needed to talk with my father about something, so I went to the castle where my father was the king. I walked across the drawbridge under the portcullis hanging above the gate and into the courtyard. Two guards in armor were standing by the castle entrance, and they ignored me as I reached to open the door and enter the castle. I walked down the hallway where other guards were silently standing at attention on either side of the hall. I approached the door to the king's chamber and looked up at the guards standing silently on either side of the doorway. I slowly opened the door and looked into the room. The king was hunched over his table together with his counsellors. They were discussing important matters while examining some papers on the table. Realizing the king was too busy that I should interrupt him for such an unimportant matter as mine was, I turned around and left the room, quietly closing the door behind me. With my head hanging and feeling sad, I walked slowly back down the passageway and out through the castle door. I walked across the courtyard, under the portcullis, and onto the drawbridge. But just as I was about to step off the drawbridge, I remembered something: Wait a minute — he's my FATHER!!! I quickly turned around and ran back through the gate into the courtyard. The guards saluted me as I approached and opened the castle door for me. I ran down the hallway and the guards on either side briskly saluted as I ran past. And when I reached the door to the king's chamber, the guards standing there opened it and waved me in to enter. I ran into the room where my father the king was busy conferring with his counsellors, and I shouted "Dad! Dad!!" The king immediately straightened up and looked straight at me. Then he brusquely waved away his counsellors and told them to leave the room. Pushing his papers aside, he lifted me onto his table and putting his arm around me, said, "Son, what's wrong?" I can't help wanting to cry whenever I remember this daydream. I'm crying right now in fact, even though this happened many years ago when I was a young man who had only been a Christian a few years. It was my first powerful experience of the fatherhood of God, and the effect it had on the others in our house church — I think someone had asked me what I thought about the topic being discussed, and when I didn't respond they realized my attention had been elsewhere — but when I told the group what I had been just been daydreaming, the effect on them was electric: "Whoooaaahhh!" most of them said, leaning back on their sofas in amazement. That felt nice. At the end of our house church service, one of the elders asked if I would like to bring the message the following Sunday. I said yes, and I spent that whole week trying to think up more parables (made-up stories that taught a lesson) I could share with the group. Well, the following Sunday finally arrived, and the church members looked on with smiling expectation as I began sharing my parables... They were hugely disappointed. My thought-up parables were contrived and lame, and I felt more and more embarrassed as I shared them under the increasing frowns of the listeners. Needless to say, no one thanked me at the end of my sermon. That didn't feel nice. Some thoughts and analysis Clearly my experience had been more than just a daydream: it was a revelation of the Father's love. One might expect that such a revelation would have had a deep and lasting effect on my understanding of the Fatherhood of God and my relationship with Him. It didn't. I was still the same insecure young man afterwards: passive, unassertive, lacking in confidence, full of self-doubt and plagued with anxiety. My revelation didn't "take" in my innermost being and had zero impact on my spiritual growth as a young Christian. Why? Perhaps it was because I already understood that God was my Father and that He loved me, for I knew I had eternal life because of what Jesus had done for me on the cross. So my daydream didn't really tell me anything that I didn't already know. But I think the real reason my daydream had so little impact on me was because of my relationship with my earthly father. I loved my dad, and I know he loved me too; he proved that in so many ways when I was growing up. But my dad had his own struggles with insecurity that affected his behavior towards me and which left me feeling uncertain about his love for me. For example, dad could be demonstrative in showing affection by giving me hugs and expressing admiration for my achievements. But he could also be sharp and cutting with his words, calling me a jerk when I did something stupid or withdrawing in coldness whenever I rejected his advice. Because of these mixed messages I received from him, I found it difficult to approach my father whenever I needed something, fearing he might reject my request. But whenever I did ask him for something, he almost always gave it to me. I think this confusion I experienced regarding my earthly father's feelings towards me probably carried over into my relationship with my new Father when I became a Christian. The first part of my daydream seems to confirm this, while the dream's ending shows my Heavenly Father's true feelings towards me. But just as my dad's demonstrations of affection could be negated by a single expression of his criticism, my assurance of God's love towards me was similarly precariously balanced at this point in my Christian life. After all, what if I don't live up to my Heavenly Father's expectations? Will He still love me? And yes, I was aware that Romans 8 says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus. But what if I sometimes still walked according to the flesh instead of according to the Spirit? Was I truly in Christ if I struggled so often with sin in my life? These kinds of arguments raged through my mind in the early years of my Christian life. Truth is, even though I had become a convinced Evangelical by that point, all the sound doctrine I had learned didn't really help me very much — and this despite having read all six volumes of Martin Lloyd-Jones's commentary on Romans and memorized much of the first eight chapters of Romans in the original Greek! In a future post I'll explore this question of why experiences of God's love don't always help help us grow spiritually. But for now, let me just conclude with one final, and I think very important, observation concerning my house church daydream/revelation. I believe that the most fundamental reason why this particular revelation had so little impact upon me personally is because it wasn't actually intended for me: it was intended for the others who attended that house church meeting. My daydream was a gift from the Holy Spirit, and such gifts are given for the common good (1 Corinthians 12:7) not to bring the person who delivers the gift high regard from others or boost their self-esteem. But none of us in our house church understood this as we were all die-hard Evangelicals: good, solid Christians, but limited in some ways by our cessationist theology. So when I shared my daydream with them, the elders reacted by thinking I must be a gifted teacher and invited me to bring the message next time. And since among Evangelicals being a gifted preacher is often viewed as the sina qua non of being a committed Christian, I readily assented to their invitation — and was then deeply hurt by their reaction on the following Sunday. Fortunately I now have a better understanding of what the Christian life is supposed to be like, some of which Ingrid and I have tried to describe in our free book Simple Kingdom: Discipleship . But I'm telling you, it's been a long, hard journey, and I'm looking forward to reaching the finish line. Because then there won't be any more questions —I'll see Him face to face. Take care, and be filled to overflowing with the Father's love. —Mitch

I've been re-reading John Wimber's book Power Healing lately for about the fifth or sixth time. I'm doing this because I want to get better at healing the sick and demonized. Because that's something that disciples — followers of Jesus — are supposed to do. See the first two chapters of our book Simple Kingdom: Discipleship if you're not yet clear about this. Anyways, in chapter 11 of John's book he talks about prayer selection, which means answering the question of what kind of prayer is needed to help the person you're trying to heal. He gives some examples of different kinds of healing prayers that include prayers of petition, prayers of intercession, words of pronouncement, words of command, and so on. One type of healing engagement he doesn't talk about here is what might be called a word of instruction. An example of this can be found in chapter 5 of Second Kings where the prophet Elisha sends a messenger to Naaman, the Syrian army commander who suffered from leprosy, telling him to go and bathe himself seven times in the Jordan river if he wants to be cured from his leprosy. Over the years Ingrid and I have occasionally given such words of instruction to people whose healing we were praying for. One such example involved myself: During our early days when we were just beginning to learn about healing from Wimber's cassette tape series and other Vineyard materials, I developed some painful sores in my mouth. This got worse and worse over the next few days until I began having difficulty swallowing. At this point Ingrid laid hands on me and started to pray for my condition. As we waited for the Holy Spirit to lead us in our prayers, I suddenly saw a vision of a red bottle. Ingrid and I discussed this and concluded that God was probably instructing me to go look for a red bottle containing some liquid that would heal my condition. So I went to our local pharmacy and started walking through the aisles. When I reached the oral health section, I suddenly saw a red bottle that had the exact same color and shape as the one I had seen in my vision. It was a product called Sterisol, and the bottle's label described it as a therapeutic oral rinse that contained hexitidine, an anti-bacterial and anti-fungal agent. I was unfamiliar with the product, but because of my vision I concluded that God was telling me I should use it to heal my condition. So I bought it and went home and washed my mouth with it several times. The next morning my sores had greatly diminished and were no longer painful. And by the second day they were completely gone. As a postscript to this story, many years later I developed a small sore in my mouth. After about a week it went away, but I thought I'd better buy a bottle of Sterisol and have it around just in case I ever needed it in the future. But when I went to the pharmacy I couldn't find it, and looking online I discovered that the product had been taken off the market here in Canada because our health authorities had decided that the ingredient hexitidine was unsafe. Argh! Fortunately upon further research I found that this was not the case in the UK and that one could still buy a similar hexitidene-based mouthwash there called Oraldene, so I ordered a bottle of it from amazon.co.uk. Thank you, Amazon :-) In conclusion then, when you pray for healing for others, or even for yourself, be open for the Lord telling you to do something in order to be healed. Not all healing happens through divine power released during prayer; sometimes you have to actually take concrete steps to get healed. Be blessed, and be healed in Jesus' name. —Mitch

Just wanted to let everyone who visits our website that we (finally!) have a *proper* newsletter as opposed to me occasionally sending emails to Undisclosed Recipient (myself) and bcc'ing a bunch of others. Our newsletter will keep you informed about what's new on our website i.e. new blog posts, articles, free books, worship songs etc. The newsletter is being hosted on Cakemail to make it GDPR-compliant, and you can sign up here to receive it. When you click this link your browser should open a form that looks like this:

The affirmation of a loving father is important for the emotional development of a growing adolescent. The mother's role is to nurture the young child. The father's role is to prepare the adolescent for separation — for entry into the world as an independent person. One day when I was still a young man who had recently married and was starting his career, I went to visit my parents. After talking with my mother and devouring some of her recent baking, I went outside to greet my dad. He was sitting in the back yard with his two golf buddies, the Dawn Patrol, enjoying drinks together and talking about old times. Dad was on supplementary oxygen at the time; it was a couple of years before his death from pulmonary fibrosis. I loved my dad, and I know he loved me, but I also knew he wasn't very demonstrative, so I had no expectations as I sat down to join them for a few minutes. I decided however that instead of just being the passive son who mostly listened, I would try to actively join their "adult" conversation. And I did. I asked questions, made comments, and joked around for a while. Then when I got up to say goodbye and leave, I stretched out my arm to shake hands with each of Dad's friends, and last of all with him. Dad grasped my hand tightly and squeezed it hard, and looked into my eyes with a smile on his face. I understood immediately what he was silently trying to communicate to me: "I'm proud of you. You're a man now, and you joined us and behaved just like a man should. I'm so proud of you, my son." My heart thrilled as I walked to my car. My father had just affirmed my manhood, and for the next couple of days I was flying high. Even now I almost cry as I remember this experience. Many years later I had a similar experience with my Heavenly Father. The church family I belonged to had allowed idolatry and immorality to creep into their teaching and practice. God showed me that I should address this matter, so I wrote a book and sent it to all of their leaders and to individuals I knew in various congregations. The response I got surprised me. Those who were not in leadership said "Hey, this is good teaching!" Those in leadership however either sharply criticized me or ignored me. But I knew in my heart that I had been faithful, because I did what the Lord had told me to do. A few weeks later Ingrid and I were watching an action movie together in our den. We were movie buffs at that time and had built up quite a DVD collection which later on helped us weather the isolation of the COVID lockdown period. Anyways, about two-third of the way through the movie, something remarkable happened. Heaven opened, just a crack, up above my left shoulder and near the window in our loft. And a soft voice came from heaven, saying, "My son." This experience only lasted a second or two, then the voice of Tom Cruise or whoever it was entered my awareness again. This really happened — I kid you not. I immediately understood that my Heavenly Father was affirming me, telling me He was proud of me, of what I had done — being obedient to Him regardless of the cost. But my reaction to this experience surprised me. Unlike my earthly father's handshake many years ago, this time I felt no great emotional high afterwards. Instead, I just felt warm contentment, and silently said "Thanks Father, I love you too" in my heart. I guess I'm more mature today than I was back then. But while I may be a fully-grown man now, I'm still just His child. May you too know the affirming love of your Heavenly Father. —Mitch

This morning I was reading in First Timothy and came across the following passage: If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not agree with the sound words of our Lord Jesus Christ and the teaching that accords with godliness, he is puffed up with conceit and understands nothing... (1 Tim 6:3-4 ESV) I was actually reading this in my Greek New Testament and I translated it differently: If anyone teaches a different doctrine and does not come forward with the sound words... The ESV and almost every other English version translates the Greek word προσέρχεται here as either "agree with" or "consent to" or something along those lines. But it doesn't mean that. The lexicons clearly state that the Greek verb προσερχομαι means to come or go to or towards someone or someplace. In particular, it can mean to come forward in order to speak and address a group of people. This struck me, because it gives such a clear picture of what church meetings were like during those early days. When the disciples gathered together, different ones would stand up or step forward to share a short teaching or a word of encouragement or an exhortation or revelation or prophecy and so on (see 1 Cor 12:26). The elders leading these meetings encouraged and allowed such participation, making room for the Holy Spirit to do His work among the saints. The result was that the people were strengthened and encouraged, and some were probably even healed or delivered during each meeting (see 1 Cor 12:9-10). While Paul here is warning Timothy that some who come forward like this may be conceited and argumentative, my point is that if the early church gave freedom to everyone to share during their meetings — and thus gave freedom to the Holy Spirit to do whatever He wanted to do at the meeting — then shouldn't we be "doing church" the same way today? This isn't practical of course if your church gathering has hundreds of people. But it's easy to do if you only have a dozen or so attending your meeting, for example in a home fellowship. That's why Ingrid and I have always maintained that home fellowships are where church really happens. We explain this in detail in chapter 2 of our book Simple Kingdom: Home Fellowships which you can read online or download as a free PDF. I encourage you to read it if you are in church leadership and have a heart for equipping the saints for the work of the ministry (Eph 4:12). And I'm not suggesting that having a big church is bad, or that you should break your church up into a bunch of smaller churches (though that might not be such a bad idea.) What I'm saying is that church should be somewhere where everyone gets to play , as Wimber used to day. Otherwise, what's the point? Are you trying to build an army or an audience? Let them come forward! Hear what I'm sayin'?  —Mitch

The door opened and I was about to step off the bus when God spoke to me: "I have healed you." I paused in wonder for a moment, and then becoming aware that the bus driver was impatiently waiting, I stepped down and walked towards the high school where I was the Physics teacher. As I walked, I reflected on what God had said and realized that what He was telling me was that I was no longer an insecure adolescent like the students I was teaching. I was now an adult — I was then in my early 30s and had been married several years — and though I could still remember what it felt like to be a teenager, there was now a healthy distance between myself and my students. I felt that God was affirming my manhood by these words, and this made me feel happy inside. But then a few days later, and again while I was on the bus to work, God spoke to me once more: "I will heal your manhood." Argh, I don't understand, Lord! You told me I was healed, and now you promise that you're going to heal me?? I struggled for several weeks over these two seemingly contradictory divine utterances, but then slowly I began to understand what God was saying to me. He was indeed affirming me, but He was also saying that I still had some way to go before I reached mature manhood. It's now several decades after these early experiences, and I'm thankful that I'm now a lot closer to being fully mature. But I'm not quite there yet; I'm still learning and growing as my Heavenly Father continues to father me. My prayer for you today is what Paul prayed for the Ephesians: that with the Father's help you may reach "mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ" (Eph 4:13). Be blessed and filled with the Father's love for you. —Mitch

What is the kingdom of heaven like? And what it is like to enter it? Before I met the Lord, it was like I was living in a dark room. As I moved around, I would bump my shin and knock my head against obstacles I couldn't see. I would step on something sharp and hurt myself. I would slip on other things and fall. My life was full of pain, and the darkness made me fearful of trying to move. And it just got worse and worse over time. Then I met God through Jesus, and it was like someone had suddenly turned on the lights! Now I could see clearly the things that were causing me pain: the misplaced furniture, the lamp hanging low from the ceiling, the broken glass on the floor, the loose rug with no backing. And the dirt everywhere — so much of it! But now with the lights turned on and brightly shining, I could move around again without hurting myself. And I could start getting my room in order. I began moving furniture to where it belonged. I raised the lamp I had been bumping my head on. I swept up the broken glass and got rid of the slippery rug. And I started to clean out all the dirt that had accumulated in my life. Jesus is the light of the world. May he shine his light in your heart today and lead you upward from this dark world into his heavenly kingdom. —Mitch P.S. Ingrid and I want to wish all of you a Merry Christmas and a Happy (and safe!) New Year's eve celebration. We will be back again early in the new year, so stay tuned!

And here is one more beautiful Christmas carol that my beautiful wife Ingrid has written. She also composed the music for it, but I had to tweak her melody a bit when I arranged it. The song is in a minor key and has a kind of Celtic lilt to it, I think. My recording can be found here on our SoundCloud stream, and yes, it would have sounded a lot better if a young woman had sung it instead of an old dude like myself ;-) Come And See Song ©2016 by Ingrid Tulloch Come and see that the Lord is good, come behold his face. Bend your knee to him, Christ the King, come behold his face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. He will suffer and die for us: Come behold his face. Jesus, Savior, Emmanuel: Come behold his face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Jesus Christ, our living Lord, we behold your face. Alleluia, alleluia, we behold your face. Alleluia, alleluia, we behold your face. Merry Christmas to all from Mitch and Ingrid :-)