Dead Man Walking

Want to start this blog with a video

Green Mile

Its a clip from the Movie, The Green Mile, an adaptation of the Stephen King Novel of the same name. Its a fantastic movie and this clip is the near the end of the film.

But why start this blog with something so graphic and so touching at the same time?

Its something that has been a big impact on me and the way I have been looking atthings this week.

I have been re-reading a book I bought a number of years ago called Extreme God Chasers by a man called Tommy Tenny. In the book there is a chapter called 'Dead men see His face'

As the chapter progesses Tommy Tenny outlines the fact that God made it clear in the bible that alive we can not stand in His presence.

Starting with Moses in Exodus 33:18-19 God tells Moses that he can not see His face as...there shall no man see me and live

And so I started thinking about that very thing, about how dead men see God's face and started to wonder about it, thinking through the scriptures about what I know about what it says and I started to notice that death is a recurrent theme when meeting with God.

The OT preists would tie a rope around their foot incase they were to die in the Holy of Holies, as the only way that others could retrieve the his body should God's glory destroy the living flesh.

Paul tells us that to live is Christ and to die is gain, even Jesus himself said that to follow Him we must lay down our lives and take up our cross.

These are but a few of the examples of where the bible points out that death is a key.

Romans 12:1 - 1Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual[a] act of worship

Well what is a sacrifice? The dictionary calls it an act of giving up something valued for the sake of something deemed as more important or worthy.

Even love is about death - for greater love has no man than this, than he who would lay down his life for his friends

As Christians we are told to love not our lives even unto death. Should this not be our outlook of life, as Dead Men Walking.

God moved upon the alters built in the Old Testament, from Cain and Abel to Abraham through to the prophet Elijah, they each loaded up the alter and a sacrifice was made, and God came upon that sacrifice, fire fell on the alter. and Fire will not fall upon an empty alter, there has to be a sacrifice.

But are you willing to be the fuel? Are you willing to climb up on the alter and call down God's fire?

John Wesley is well known as a founder of the methodist movement and his involvement in the first great awaking in the 1700's once explained that the reason that huge crowds gathered was because
'I set myself on fire, and the people come to see me burn'

Wesley was prepared to climb up on the alter as a living sacrifice and say 'God whatever it takes, I lay on the alter send your fire to consume me Lord'


We need to see Christian more like this, as Philippians 2 tells us to be like Christ in our attitude

And being found in appearance as a man,



he humbled himself


and became obedient to death—


even death on a cross!

Do you want to see Revival, do you want to see God move, we have to get past this mindset of seeking God's hand, looking to God for what he will do, looking for the miricles and the healings.

Stop praising the healing and start praising the healer. Stop looking for the gift and focus on the giver.

We need to seek after the Face of God, and to do that we must die to self, Moses was hidden in the cleft of a rock and could only see God as He passed Moses by, he could only look upon God's back as He walked away.

Moses was desperate to see the Face of God. Are you???

DO you realise that you are in a priviledged position as a redeemed son of the most high. You can see His face because of what Jesus has done on the cross. But you must lay down your life, die to your sinful nature, and become a dead man walking.

The New Testament equivelent of this death is brokeness and repentance. Because of the spilled blood of Christ the work already done on the cross (which by the way if you look at the greek word for cross - stauros - means figuratively, exposure to death ie self denial) we no longer are in need of the blood that the preists of old would spread on their ears, toes and thumbs to depict the dead. Instead you are now the meeting place of the Lord, not the church building you go into on a sunday.

You are the dwelling place of the most high.

Christ in YOU the hope of glory.

It means that you can seek God's face, you can have what Moses desired most, to meet with God face to face, and you can be assured that if you come through repentance and brokeness that you will not die.

why???

Because God looks upon you through the sacrifice of Jesus, you are a dead man walking.

Faith Guitars

Todays blog is a little different from my normal posts, as instead of the usual ramblings of the inner workings of my mind and the thought processes of things theological or things that have struck me from a christian viewpoint, this blog is more of an announcement.

As of This week, The Wap has become the newest endorsee of Faith Guitars. I am now the proud owner of a Faith Eclipse Saturn Cutaway electro acoustic.

Its a beautiful guitar and I must say it is the best acoustic guitar I have ever played and the sound is amazing.

From the first time I played a Faith guitar I fell in love with the sound, I was blown away by the clarity of the sound and the balance of its tone, and frankly had to have one.

SO I wrote off to the nice people at Barnes and Mullins in Oswestry telling them all about the things I have been up to over the years musically, leading worship and running the Sanctuary church, and they were kind enough to offer me an artist deal which I gladly accepted.

For me it was proof of a biblical principle I will not quickly forget.

James 4:2 says you have not because you ask not

also Luke 11:9 


want to finish up by saying that I highly recommend you acoustic guitar lovers to go out and get yourself a Faith Acoustic. Check out their website here

until next time

Brotherhood

Its been a fair whie since I last wrote a blog, life has been getting in the way of me pouring the inner workings of my mind out onto webspace, Its not been through a lack of things to say, but rather more a case of I have two small children and getting at the computer for long enough to type anything even remotely coherent is next to impossible. Yet here I am in this rare moment of peace rambling on again.

I say that life has been hectic, yet recently we have managed to find a new TV seres to watch on DVD, since we dont have normal TV in our house, we have to get everything on DVD, normally a long time after everyone else has seen and forgotten something Menna and I start raving about how great something is. Now you may have noticed that a number of my blog are about things I have seen on DVD, movies or TV series and the like, and that is simply because it is a passion of mine, I love movies. ANd for me I find God uses that to speak to me,

So recently we had run out of things to watch and started looking to rent a movie from our local Blockbuster, when Menna stumbled across a trailer for a TV series called Sons Of Anarchy. The trailer looked pretty good so we decided to treat ourselves and bought the series off of the internet. And boy oh boy were we glad we did, two weeks later we bought the second season on DVD because we just HAD to.

For those who have not seen it, it based around an Outlaw Motorcycle club in the fictional town of Charming, California, I found this synopsis on another website that covers the basics

"Sons of Anarchy" is an adrenalized drama with darkly comedic undertones about a notorious outlaw motorcycle club intent on protecting their sheltered small town against encroaching drug dealers, corporate developers and overzealous law officers. The club is equally determined to protect their ruthless and illegally thriving arms business. Charlie Hunnam stars as Jackson 'Jax' Teller, a man whose love for the brotherhood is tested by his growing apprehension for its lawlessness. Katey Sagal stars as Gemma Teller Morrow, Jax's force-of-nature mother, who along with Ron Perlman as Clarance 'Clay' Morrow, Jax's stepfather and MC president, have their own darker vision for the club"

While I do not wish to spoil it for anyone, at one point in the show a member of the club fails to show up for a meeting at the clubhouse and so the main character Jax go looking for him, drive to his house to see whats going on.

It got me thinking about my experiences with Church. The series is about a brotherhood, and looking out for each other no matter what. During one of the interviews with the shows creator Kurt Sutter said that for the MC's if they get a call telling them to strap on a gun and go help, theres no excuses, no gettong out of it, you strap on a gun and go help out your brother.

Those two things combined, the depiction of Jax heading out looking for a member of his club when they dont turn up along with the interview with Kurt Sutter, really got me thinking about how that should really speak of how we are in the church.

Now dont get me wrong, I am not saying that I condone or encourage the church or christians to start doing the things the Sons do in the series, illegal activities and so on are not the way fporward for the church and that is not what I am saying. However the unity and the brotherhood that is displayed in the series, the fierce loyalty of the members to the club, and each other most of the time, these are the things that surely the church should be displaying to each other.

When was the last time you called someone that you didnt see in church sunday to make sure everything is ok? In this age of text messaging and facebook, its so easy to paper over the issues in our lives in a way that you feel that you have done your bit by sending a text and getting a flat yeah I'm fine reply.

Motorcycle clubs wear colours, a back patch that is earned and respected, they often have different charters to represent where they are from, bt the top rocker and logo are the same and it means something. when was the last time you were so fierce about your christianity that people came up and asked you whats so different about you? Are you proud to wear the colours of Christ?

Are you willing and ready to act upon the words of Christ John 15:13 do you love your fellowship enough to give it all up?


John 17 talks of us having unity with each other as Christ had unity with the Father, John the baptist talked of Christ increasing as he decreased, Ephesians speaks of unity as bringing about the fulness of God.

Are we not one body, are we not one family, should we not fight for each other?

Yet its the one thing that we lack, the fall down point of our lives, we have too much of a 'them and us attitude' and the scary thing is that it is not limited to a few, but its a curse that effects the many, we try to cover it over with 'church in the city/churches together' meetings or events, but when the rubber meets the road (sticking to the motorcyle theme) How many of your church would go to the local apostolic/baptist/presberteryn/add a demonination here when they were putting on an event to support them. How many of our churches would cancel their normal meeting on a sunday for the change to join with the other churches in your area for a corporate worship time?

Sadly the answer is few, there are some exceptions to the rule, but generally we are to interested in our own little services, to caught up in the way that we do things, the 'we cant change this is the way its always been done' or the back biting, name calling, cant trust them they are XYZ and they do it this way, so they cant be saved.

And then we wonder why we dont see revival, why moves of God seep away, how the enemy gets into our churches breaking up marriages and families. How the occult takes a foothold in our towns?

Is it really any surprise when the only authority to stop it s infighting and concentrated on themselves or pulling down those we should be supporting and building up.

We wont see these things we desire until we adopt an attitude of brotherhood, not just in your church building but for all the churches in our areas. Our denominations should be like the charters of a MC, it shouldnt matter if you worship with hymns or to contemporary music, or if your church building says evangelical or baptist etc. For the Sons of Anarchy, the thing that counts is that its says Sons of Anarchy on the back patch and for us as christians all that should matter is the Cross, Jesus paid much to high a price for us to pick and choose who should come. Much to high a price for us to fight each other, we should back our brothers

Body of Christ Casting Crowns

Prayer Of Jabez

This was something that exploded onto the Christian scene a few years back. I was the next big thing in Christianity, despite it having been a part of the bible since it was God breathed.

It can be found in 1 Chronicles 4:9-10 you can read it here

About 4 years ago I moved from my hometown in London to Neath, leaving behind a box of books with a good friend that I simply didnt have room for at the time.

This past weekend, I got the chance to get back up to London to visit and my friend handed me my box of books.

I had almost totally forgotten them after all this time, and as I looked through them, I found books that I had forgotten I even owned and a few that I am still convinced are not mine, but obviously God wants me to read them.

Within the books was a small book by Bob Gass, many people may know the name as part of UCB and the Word for Today. This small book offers 'Fresh insight on the prayer of Jabez.  First of all I want to recommend reading this book, it took me no time at all to finish and God spoke to me all through it.

I want to share some things that grabbed me and to do this I am going to use quotes directly from the book as I think it holds a timely message for the church and us today. (therefore I would like to add that a fair bit of what follows is directly copied from the book and no my own work)

here it is

'Because God's promisescome with conditions...in this 'microwave mentality' generation, we risk turning the Prayer of Jabez into a get rich quick formula, or a way of manipulating God to get what we want, instead of taking the time to ask what we need'

 As a church, but maybe even more importantly as individuals, we have to grasp this fact. God doesn't pander to us. It is we, as examples of Christ that should take on the serving role just as we are told in philippiams 2 read

We need to be the ones serving God in what we do.

'...if you want what Jabez had, you have to do what Jebez did. His prayer was backed up by a lifestyle of obedience...'

Bob Gass continues in his book with what follows, and I want to state now that I in no way have gotten there with this, I am not yet at this point and I am learning this lesson even as I write this today.

'As a devout Israeli...Jabez would have been a tither. Actually the thought of not giving the first tenth of his income would never have occurred to him...'

Malachi 3:10 gives us the promise of God on this very subject, Matthew 23:23 then shows us that it is not a teaching just of the old covenant.

'Jabez would have grown up hearing the words of scripture on a regular basis and Deuteronomy 28:2 says "You will experience all the blessings if you obey the Lord your God"

...God can not bless you beyond your last act of disobedience'

Also read Dt28:1-13

'Now let me show you something else that will keep the prayer from working for you... Psalm 66:18 NLT

this scripture simply means, if you refuse to acknowledge your sin and seek forgiveness, God wont answer your prayers. He cant! if He did He'd be violating the very conditions He Himself laid down in His word'

You see we have to come before God with a confidence, in who HE is, who WE are, and mostly in WHERE we stand before Him.1 john 3:21-22

'...its not praying for what we want that brings God's blessing. But having the confidence that we're praying according to what He wants for us. He already has a plan in place for us. The trouble is most of us have no idea where we are in His plan, so we ask for right now things that He hasn't scheduled until later ( and in some cases not at all) You see, you can pray for a roof until you are blue in the face, but if your foundation hasn't been properly laid, you wont get one because you dont need one yet'

Hebrews 10 tells us if we continue to do God's will then you will recieve His promises - isnt that what we ultimately want out of life, the promies of God, His best for us???

The bottom line in our lives has to be Christ, He must be the ficus, we cant continue to live for ourselves, when the price that was paid was so great. We need to refocus our lives on what the cross is all about, john 15:13 'greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.' But thats not the end of it there at all. its that the price that was paid was in our place. And if our God can give up that much in sacrifice in our place then we need to grasp this final thing from the first chapter of the Bob Gass book

'...God knows the where's, the when's, and the how's of blessing you. You can trust Him to know WHAT you need, WHEN you need it, and HOW to get it to you...'

Lets stop trying to rip the calender of our lives from the grasp of God telling Him that He somehow forgot about x,y and z on our agenda, and realise that to fully experience the blessings of God we need to know He is in control and take the choose to life by the John the Baptist principle 'He must increase, but I must decrease' John 3:30 KJV

I leave you with a fantastic song by OneHundredHours that I love

At the foot of the cross

The Old Man and the new

I recently rented Solomon Kane from Blockbuster, its a film about a man who spent his life as a mercenary, until he comes face to face with the Devil Reaper and tells Solomon his evil deeds have irrevocably damned his soul, and he is now destined for Hell.


As a result of this encounter, Kane finds sanctuary with Monks, until he is forced to leave one day. Having enbraced a life of peace in an effort to attone for the evils of his past, when events take place Kane choses not to fight back. However when a family that befriends Kane are attacked, mostly killed and the daughter kidnapped, Kane vows to return the daughter to the only surviving member of the family. And the film follows Kane as he embraces his past life of violence to fulfill his vow.


The important part of the film for me is the reason that Kane makes the vow to find the kidnapped girl. With his dying words the father of the family declares that Kane will redeem his soul if he rescues Meredith the kidnapped daughter.


Its a film about redemption fundamentally


Now from a completely theological standpoint, Solomon Kane, could not be any less biblical if it tried, the idea that you can save yourself with your actions is so far short of the mark we know that all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, and that it is faith and not works that brings about our salvation and therefore our redemption, however, as I walked through town today after finishing the film, I felt God prompting something to be learned from its mistake.


The bible in Colossians 3 says
...seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. (ESV)

As Christians when you accept the gift He offers of salvation you become a new creation,  (2 corinthians 5:17) the old things have passed away and everything becomes new. The past is something that we need not focus or linger on, Paul himself writes in Philippians 3 that he was focusing all his energies into this one thing, Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead.


And so we too should be doing this also. An this brings me to the point I would like to look at.


Paul says he is forgetting the past and looking to the future and I agree with this sentiment, however I believe that we can not pass our life experiences up to today out of hand in our walks with Christ.


Now for Solomon Kane, when looking for redemption he sought Christianity out and found sanctuary with God and a lifestyle of peace, however ultimately it was in the film his past that brought about his redemption, the previous life he had chosen gave him the skills and the ability to complete the vow taht lead to His avoidence of Hell.


For us as Christians, its not quite the same, but we need to keep our past mindful, not dwell on it, but learn from it. Our past experiences have formed the person we are today in the same way the our future experiences will continue to create what we become. Character, personality etc are all effected by our circumstances.


A fantastic speaker called Denis Morgan-Donar once said 'we need to stop praying that our circumstances will change, because what do you get when they do???


Another set of circumstances.'


Whats my point here, - simply that we are told to learn from our past mistakes Hebrews 12: 10-11. SO we can not totally forget the past.


The Old testament showed the Isrealites making notches in their staff as a reminder of the things God had done for them, and our mistakes should be viewed in the same way. Not to dwell on them but to learn from them and move on.


This is what I believe Paul was talking about. Remember that Paul was a Pharasee, he persecued christians and was standing at the stoning of Stephen before being knocked from his donkey in a visitation with the Lord. That he was leaving the past behind him and learning from what had gone on and hoping for the coming future.


Your experiences will always colour your view. They will carve out how your react to situations, how you approach something. AN example from my own life is this: -


Not too long after we moved into our home, I had been feeling unwell and decided to go to bed early. Normally I go round checking that the house is locked and secure before going to bed, however since it was so early I assumed that my wife would do the locking up. SHe however assumed that since I always do it out of habit, that I had done this night also.


At about 3am the following morning, I was woken by the sound of someone downstairs, naturally I flew out of bed, to find a man standing in my hall way. No the sight of me at 3am in my undies is probably not the best view point of me, in fact its probably pretty frighting I must say, add to that at this time I owned a jet black huskey lab cross (who looked very much like a black wolf) who slept at the top of the stairs and had somehow not seen this guy walking into our house as a concern until I hit the stairs at pace, and she went nuts. Being dark it was fierce barking and white teeth and not alot else could be seen.


Thankfully nothing had been stolen from our house, but I learned a valuable lesson that night. Every night since that day, even if I know tha its been done I will go and check that the house is locked up at night.


Its learning from past mistakes, I dont dwell on what could have happened that night, the possiblities are worrying, but that I might not be so lucky next time, so there will not be a next time.


We are an ongoing process, to be Christian means to be christ like, 'little christ' you are not there yet. Aerosmith sing 'lifes a journey not a destination' and for us as christians we know the destination, its the journey that we are on currently to become more like Jesus each day


Philippians 2:5-11 should be the focus of our journey, that basis of it, chooseing everyday to take this on board.


Learning from our mistakes, learning from what the bible calls the old man and becoming a new creation in Christ Jesus. Putting on the New man. Its a process.


28And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:28


Not somethings, but ALL things - Past present and future.


Amen and Amen

secular or christian

My brother in law was in Neath this past weekend, on sunday while heading out to Living Word Church Carmarthen, we were listening to some music and I recognised one tune as being Rhianna's Unbrella, only it was a guy singing and the lyrics were not the ones written for the original song. That was my introduction to Coffey Anderson, a guitarist from Texas. If you have never had the change to listen to this guy, I recommend you change that right now

HERE

At the end of the video he says ' You gotta re-do that if the aint do it right' and sitting up at almost 1am this morning with my 3 week old daughter, I was listening to some worship songs ad remembered something that was said during a preach back in my Elim pentecostal days. Now for the life of me I can not remember who said it, at least not the first time but it stuck me as interesting at the time.

This guy said that we should not try to seperate the secular from the christian, as it cant be done. Now at first I didnt really agree with that statement, and found myself thinking, 'this guy is off his rocker, obviously never listened to someone like Slipknot. But I started to look into hat he was saying a little more.

Lets start with the Gospel of John - chapter 1 verse 3 ESV version
All things were made through Him, and without Him was not any thing made that was made.

So music was created by Him, and since we know from the beginning of John that the Him we are talking about here is Jesus, then all music was created by God. Can anything then be 'secular' it would appear not.

Throughout the bible as well as many other recorded bits of history, music plays a major role in the lives of us humans. The Bible documents music as a means of readying an army for battle (Ps. 68), inspiring people to worship (Ps. 100), evangelism (Rom. 15:9), prophecy (Is. 23), lament, testimony (Is. 27:1-3), and celebration (James 5:13).

Music has essentially a spiritual nature.

Now dont misunderstand me, I am not saying that all songs as they are written can be used for worship, I dont for a second think that you can use The Animals 'House of the Rising Sun' in its original form as worship, however you can take it and redeem its content much in the way that Coffey Anderson did with umbrella, and as such this has been done in a number of cases: -

these are a few links

Blind Boys of Alabama - Amazing Grace, a fantastic example of just what I am talking about

Ken Norburg  - another example of taking the supposedly secular and redeeming it for the Lord

It is said that Martin Luther used tavern songs in writing his hymns, having looked into it, ther are as many references to say he did as those that say its baseless, however common is the case that at least one song was 'secular'. And others from german folk songs.

For me, I dont think this happens enough, there are many genres of music that are largely viewed in the church today as the devils music, metal is one such example, however if nothing was created outside of Jesus as the bible tells us then how can the enemy have any music, its all open to redemption by the saints.

we gotta redo that if it aint done right

Polemistis

Over the past 15 years I have lost count of the number of times that I have had the prophetic word 'Warrior' spoken over my life. It's been such a big part of who God is calling me to be that a few years ago I decided to make a reminder of that calling. Moses had his staff to mark off the things God had done for the Isrealites as a reminder, I used my left arm and had the word as a tattoo as a constant reminder of what God has called me.

I read a lot, all kinds of things really, and recently I picked up a book in the library off the cuff called Raven: Blood Eye, its about a band of Norse Vikings who land on the south coast of England and destroy the village they come across taking two prisoners with them. One of those has one red eye due to a blood clot.

Throughout the book so far (I am only half way through it) the Norsemen have gotten into a few battles with the English, and there has been a lot of mentions about things such as Brynja, as well as the weapons that the Norsemen use, however there has not been much in the way of explaining what they are, so I looked them up.

Brynja was the chain mail body armour that the vikings wore, historians speculate that it was probably elbow and knee length and worn over thick clothing, and was designed to protect against cuts from bladed weapons. Recently the Spike TV programme Deadliest Warrior demonstrated it effective capabilities against a Katana sword.

Then today in church one of the guys came to the service in full medieval armour, this guy does re-enactments and spends most of his weekends off somewhere fighting with authentic armour and swords and the like.

For hundreds of years men have relied on armour for battles, for all manner of reasons wars have been fought for all kinds of gains, and armour has played a massive part in all these warriors lives, just the other day I was reading a newspaper article about new advancements in modern body armour for our armed forces. There was a photo with the article that showed this new armour which made the soldier look like a Star Wars storm trooper.

As Christian we are no different, we are in a battle: -

For we are not fighting against people made of flesh and blood, but against the evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against those mighty powers of darkness who rule this world, and against wicked spirits in the heavenly realms
Ephesians 6:12

Its true that the weapons of our warfare are prayer and fasting etc, but just like many aspects of life the natural speaks of the invisible, and God Himself has set aside armour for those in the fight.

Ephesians 6:13-17 gives us the details of this armour

Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand.Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet
of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the saints. (KJV)

I have always been a firm believer that is the bible says something in a particular way then there must be a reason God chose to state it that way. So I will stick with the same format here.

Belt of Truth
As Christians we stand on the truth of God's word, as a warrior, the belt would have held everything together, it kept the clothing in place, provided a place to hang your weapons, its the very thing that keeps it all together, and without the truth of God, then its really all for nothing

Breast Plate of Righteousness
Its our protection, when Anthony wore his armour into our church service tonight, he demonstrated how the bastplate protects him, he had our Pastor take his sword and strike him hard in the chest, his point was that yes he still felt the blows, but he could move forward with confidence that the breastplate protected him from any harm. The fact that is it righteousness attached to is is all about our conduct, if we can stand firm on God's truth with is girded round our waist, our character shines through as that of Christ Jesus, our protection is clear.

Gospel Shoes of Peace
The commission of Matthew 28:16-20 tells us make disciples of all nations, we can not do this without the gospel, its central to our story of Jesus. But its not just something we can speak, as a witness we have to put on the gospel, walk it out. Francis of Assisi is attested to have said ' in all things preach the gospel and if necessarily use words' The gospel message is one that actions speak far greater than any words will, we need to walk it as well as talk it.

Shield of Faith
More protection, the passage itself says its so you can extinguish the flaming arrows of the enemy.


Helmet Of Salvation
This part of the armour seems self explanitory, but there are more aspects to look at, its about having purity of mind, Jesus took the commandments and expanded on their actual meanings, salvation brings a new creation for christians, so the helmet is in place to protect the mind from the 'old man' as well as salvation being vital for our souls.

Sword of Truth
I mentioned earlier about the weapons of our warfare being things like prayer and fasting, but the most important weapon in our arsenal is the sword of the spirit. Its our protection and our offense, without it we are lost. Its our direction and our guide.


The interesting thing is that in feudal Japan, the Samurai viewed theor sword as their honour, their beliefs taught them that the Katana was the samurai's soul.


If these warriors could view their sword so strongly, and be wrong about their views and belief, how much more should we view our sword as christians in the army of the Almighty???

The sword that we carry as part of the Armour of God is none other than the word of God its our bible.


In 2000, I attended a conference were the speakers were Pastor Judah Smith of The City Church in Seattle - you can view his website here and Noalan Clark of Jesus Feast Fellowship in Canada (Jesus feast Fellowship website)


During the conference they were talking about the importance of the word to us as christians, and something that was said really impacted me, and it should be one of the fundamental aspects of our walk.


'What Kind of a warrior can you be without your sword?'


We need to know the word, we need to carry the word, I hopeimpacts you as much as it did me.


I want to finish with a quote I first saw at the end of the film Tears of the Sun. Which for me sums up the importance of being the warrior we are called to be and to daily put on the armour of God in our lives


'The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing'

Agape

Walking home through Neath today, something that my wife said the other day came back to my memory, this is often the case for me, Menna is full of pearls that get me thinking spiritual stuff.

We were recently blessed with our second daughter, and Menna commented on how you can love something so very much that a short time ago you had never even set eyes on. And walking home from the In law's this evening I started thinking about love.

In Greek there are four words that can be translated into English as love.

Storge, Philia, Eros and Agape.

Although each word means love, they each hold a very different meaning: -

Philia - in ancient greek it would have meant friendship, the kind of love that you feel for your friends, the texts read philos, it referred to the love between family and friends, an enjoyment of an activity shared with those people. A Brotherly love.

Storge - its an affection, usually a natural affection like when people tell you that they love pizza, or their computer.

Eros - the type of love that is shared between husband and wife, attraction, sensual, sexual desiring love

Agape - sacrificial, unconditional love.

Now why have I been looking at this, why have I been thinking about it today on my walk home.

Well, let me start by sharing the reason I was walking home. As a family we spent much of the day over at my in laws, since I am still of on paternity leave from my job, it has been a real blessing to be able to head over to my wife's parents and chill out, let gran help out with the kids, killing two birds with one stone - gives my wife and I a bit of a rest and gran cant wait to get her hands on the gran kids, so happiness all round generally.

Today for reasons unknown in the minds of parents the world over I am sure, my eldest daughter, who is only 17 months herself was being - for lack of a better term - a whinge-bag. No matter what was happening she was crying, moaning, or throwing a tantrum. This had been going on most of the afternoon and during dinner I had enough. So stuck her in the buggy to go for a walk to try to settle her off to sleep. Now in fairness to my little girl she is normally very busy and into everything, but not normally grumpy, so the chances are she was a) over-tired from not sleeping the night before. b) teething or c) she's coming down with something.

So off we set for the 15-20 min walk home from the grandparents place, and I got thinking about how even though she was being very naughty around dinner time, I can not stay angry at her for long. She's far to cute for that and I love her way too much.

Then it dawned on me that this is the earthly picture of what God holds towards us His children. Now I don't claim to be anywhere near God's league in the loving people stakes, I realised that God has entrusted my children to me as a way of showing me just how much I mean to Him also.

Children are a gift from God, there is no doubt in my mind, but they are not perfect, but nor are we as humans, since Adam and Eve fell in the garden God has had to look upon His creation as we have turned our backs on Him, ignored Him, made fun of Him at times, and although I doubt my daughters will ever get to this point with me (my wife maybe - but not my girls) God was crucified by His own children.

John 3:16 says For God so Loved the world that he gave His one and only begotten Son...

The word used here is agape

1 Corinthians 13 the love chapter of the bible uses the word agape, '....the greatest of these is love'

So what does that mean for us???

Agape is unconditional, there are no boundaries for it, there are no rules that apply to make it. The whole point it that nothing matters, nothing can affect or change this feeling. This is what God showers upon His creation. Agape.

It doesn't matter that you are a sinner, it doesn't matter that you are not and never will be worthy to stand before God, it doesn't matter that you are as imperfect as you could be, God still loves you.

Does this mean that you can get away with anything you like - well no it doesn't, your actions will not change the fact that God loves you, but your actions with always have consequences. God hates the sin yet loves the sinner.

God loves you period. But there is a response that is required of us also.

John 14:15 'If you love Me, you will keep my commandments'

With this come promises from Christ that as Christians we should hold on to.

The first is one that as born again Christians we should already experience which is that of the promised comforter - the Holy Spirit. the others can be found: -

John 14:21

John 14:23

John 15:10

And then for me I hold fast to 1 John 5:3

For this is the love of God, that we keep His commandments; and His commandments are not burdensome.

Blogging

Over the years I have tried doing this a few times, and I'm sorry to say have failed miserably at blogging.

However, both my brother in laws have blogs, and reading them has been quiet eye opening, looking at the inner workings of their minds on all sorts of subjects, mostly church and theology related recently. But it got me thinking, as you would expect from theology discussions, that I have usually got a lot to say on just about everything, its the bae of my wifes existance I think, but what better than a blog to ramble on.

So this is the start of my new blog, the ramblings of Wap, the increasingly busy life of me