TRANSFORMATION OF THE CHURCH: 4. CHARACTERISTICS OF KINGDOM PEOPLE

BROKENNESS PRECEDES HOLINESS

The primary teaching throughout the church today is 'come to God and your life will (at least) improve or become very successful.'

However, this is not the true message of the Gospel. We are to come to God because we are sinners who need to repent. Repentance is to be the core of our faith, and is to be outworked in a changed life. It is no good simply being sorry about our sin. True repentance is putting sin behind us and walking in the opposite direction.

Unfortunately, I have found that the brokenness required by God in my life in order to transform me into the image of Jesus comes primarily from failure rather than success. From the valleys of life rather than the mountain tops.

This is why the message of the kingdom today in no more popular, probably even less so, than it has ever been. To inherit the kingdom we must let go of ourselves, our own precious traits, our own personality, our own desires and ambitions, even our own wallets(!), in order to be moulded by the Father, through the guidance of the Holy Spirit into the image of Jesus.

Brokenness comes through trial and tribulation, through failure, through a real need of God, for He is all that we have left.

Brokenness too, comes in stages. It is not a single experience which we go through and come out the other side 'smelling of roses'. For, like peeling an onion, our human personality has to be peeled off, with tears, layer by layer, in order that God may penetrate and fully take over our lives.

Reality is, if life immediately became 'a bed of roses' upon our conversion, we would have no need to change more than the very superficial of who we are. Roses grow on a stem of thorns. The thorns come before the rose blooms. Without the thorns there is no beautiful rose. So it is with our life. (The garden illustrations are meaningful to me from a former life as a horticulturalist!)

A noticeable characteristic of those who desperately seek the kingdom is the presence and profound effect of failure in their life. For it is the failure that makes one cry out to God! "Lord, I give up! Lord, I need more of You!"

In my life I have known, as I have testified, great success and considerable failure too. But maybe David, you are just trying to justify yourself here!

To show you that this is not just me, I quote from a very mature (age and nature) man of God, Ron Mc Gatlin: Visit www.openheaven.com

God is preparing a holy people. If you are enduring the pain of failures in life you may be on the road to holiness.

The cost of victory is often the pain of failures. The price of holiness is the laying down of self which may involve failures in natural life. Failed dreams, failed business endeavors, failed relationships, failed ministries and other failures are painful tolls paid along the road to the victory of true holiness. These can all be a part of the return of mankind from natural existence in a fallen world into pure holy spiritual life in the higher realm of holy supernatural heavenly living.

Often those of us who seek God with our whole hearts will encounter the failure of our past lives. All that we honored and trusted in to provide what we needed and wanted in life crumbles along the road to holiness. It is like there are toll booths along the road. At each toll booth we must pay the painful cost of more failure in our old natural lives. In the seasons between toll booths we enjoy increased holiness as God fills the void created at the previous toll booth. We feel really good until we approach the next toll booth where more cost must be paid. Another failed area of natural life brings fresh pain. It is hard but the price must be paid if we are to continue on the road to holiness. Again, we feel the pain of death as more of our old life is handed over at the toll both. And again we have more of God and less of us and less of our old natural lives as we move on down the road.

Money, status, position, ministry or church size, even volume of good works, are worldly measurements of success that belong in the realm of kings, not that of the kingdom.

Holiness costs! Kingdom living costs! Costs everything! Costs our life! Maybe literally as well as spiritually! Requires ongoing change! Ongoing repentance! It is not easy! Extremely hard even! But the result of becoming more like our Saviour and Lord, Jesus, is surely worth the cost. Isn't it?

I haven't fully got there yet. Yet more layers to be stripped and tears to be shed! But I am prepared to pay the price.

How about you?

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FROM THE WORD

MOSES FLEES TO MIDIAN

"One day, after Moses had grown up, he went out to where his own people were and watched them at their hard labor. He saw an Egyptian beating a Hebrew, one of his own people. Glancing this way and that and seeing no one, he killed the Egyptian and hid him in the sand. The next day he went out and saw two Hebrews fighting. He asked the one in the wrong, “Why are you hitting your fellow Hebrew?” The man said, “Who made you ruler and judge over us? Are you thinking of killing me as you killed the Egyptian?” Then Moses was afraid and thought, “What I did must have become known.” When Pharaoh heard of this, he tried to kill Moses, but Moses fled from Pharaoh and went to live in Midian, where he sat down by a well. Now a priest of Midian had seven daughters, and they came to draw water and fill the troughs to water their father’s flock. Some shepherds came along and drove them away, but Moses got up and came to their rescue and watered their flock. When the girls returned to Reuel their father, he asked them, “Why have you returned so early today?” They answered, “An Egyptian rescued us from the shepherds. He even drew water for us and watered the flock.” “And where is he?” he asked his daughters. “Why did you leave him? Invite him to have something to eat.” Moses agreed to stay with the man, who gave his daughter Zipporah to Moses in marriage. Zipporah gave birth to a son, and Moses named him Gershom, saying, “I have become an alien in a foreign land.” During that long period, the king of Egypt died. The Israelites groaned in their slavery and cried out, and their cry for help because of their slavery went up to God. God heard their groaning and he remembered his covenant with Abraham, with Isaac and with Jacob. So God looked on the Israelites and was concerned about them.

MOSES AND THE BURNING BUSH

Now Moses was tending the flock of Jethro his father-in-law, the priest of Midian, and he led the flock to the far side of the desert and came to Horeb, the mountain of God. There the angel of the LORD appeared to him in flames of fire from within a bush. Moses saw that though the bush was on fire it did not burn up. So Moses thought, “I will go over and see this strange sight—why the bush does not burn up.” When the LORD saw that he had gone over to look, God called to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” And Moses said, “Here I am.” “Do not come any closer,” God said. “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” Then he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob.” At this, Moses hid his face, because he was afraid to look at God. The LORD said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers, and I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey—the home of the Canaanites, Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. And now the cry of the Israelites has reached me, and I have seen the way the Egyptians are oppressing them. So now, go. I am sending you to Pharaoh to bring my people the Israelites out of Egypt.” But Moses said to God, “Who am I, that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the Israelites out of Egypt?” And God said, “I will be with you. And this will be the sign to you that it is I who have sent you: When you have brought the people out of Egypt, you will worship God on this mountain.” Moses said to God, “Suppose I go to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your fathers has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ Then what shall I tell them?” God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say to the Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’” (Exodus 2:11 - 3:13)

"“Whoever acknowledges me before men, I will also acknowledge him before my Father in heaven. But whoever disowns me before men, I will disown him before my Father in heaven. “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn ”‘a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law— a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’ “Anyone who loves his father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves his son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and anyone who does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. “He who receives you receives me, and he who receives me receives the one who sent me. Anyone who receives a prophet because he is a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and anyone who receives a righteous man because he is a righteous man will receive a righteous man’s reward. And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones because he is my disciple, I tell you the truth, he will certainly not lose his reward.”" (Matthew 10:32-42)

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DAVID'S DOODLINGS

SERVANTHOOD

573. Show me a true servant and I will show you one whom God truly loves.

574. To abuse God’s servant is to abuse God himself.

575. Maturity in God is learning that service is a privilege, not a burden.

576. The firepower of God’s Army is ‘service’.

577. Service is the invincible secret weapon of God’s Army.

578. ‘Service with a smile’ means to ‘go the extra mile.’

579. The world works by taking away, God by giving away.

580. To go down to go up is logical. Ask a bouncy ball!

581. To serve is a blessing, to lead a challenge. To be a servant leader, a challenging blessing!

582. A theologian thinks, a worshiper feels, a servant acts.

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CRANWELL'S CARTOON

6 After forty days Noah opened the window he had made in the ark 7 and sent out a raven, and it kept flying back and forth until the water had dried up from the earth. 8 Then he sent out a dove to see if the water had receded from the surface of the ground. 9 But the dove could find no place to set its feet because there was water over all the surface of the earth; so it returned to Noah in the ark. He reached out his hand and took the dove and brought it back to himself in the ark. 10 He waited seven more days and again sent out the dove from the ark. 11 When the dove returned to him in the evening, there in its beak was a freshly plucked olive leaf! Then Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth. 12 He waited seven more days and sent the dove out again, but this time it did not return to him. (Genesis 8:6-12)








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TUESDAY TEACHINGS

GOD AND MAN continues

We commence our look at the guide the Father has sent to help us on our way in our walk with Jesus.

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LAUGHING AT OURSELVES

***Blessed are those who can laugh at themselves for they shall never cease to be amused***

*** "Those who can't laugh at themselves leave the job to others." ***

750. LET HIM WHO IS WITHOUT SIN...
Jesus saw a crowd chasing down a woman to stone her and approached
them. "What's going on here, anyway?" he asked.

"This woman was found committing adultery and the law
says we should stone her!" one of the crowd responded.

"Wait," yelled Jesus, "Let he who is without sin cast the first stone."

Suddenly, a stone was thrown out from the sky, and
knocked the woman on the side of her head.

"Aw, c'mon, God ... " Jesus cried, "I'm trying to make a point here!"

749. HUGH MCNASTERY AND THE MONKERY
Two members of a small monastery decided to open a florist shop to help raise money for their good works. The idea of buying beautiful flowers from gentle friars appealed to a lot of people in the town, and soon they were flocking to the shop.

Meanwhile, the florist across town saw his business virtually disappear when all his customers began buying flowers from the monks. He thought the monks had an unfair advantage, so he visited them and asked them to return to the monastery and leave business to businessmen. They politely declined.

So he visited the monastery and asked the Abbot to convince the monks to abandon the business. He declined as well.

Next the florist sent his mother, his parish priest and his children to visit the monks, asking them to cease their business so the original florist could make a living. It didn't work.

Finally, in desperation, the florist hired the town thug, Hughson McNasty, to use personal persuasion. Hugh McNasty showed up one night with a cudgel, shattered the windows of the monk's shop, tossed their flowers out into the street, and gave the monk's black eyes, promising them he'd be back unless they closed their business.

Terrified, the monks shut their store and returned to the monastery. Proving, of course... Hugh and only Hugh can prevent florist friars.

FREE DOWNLOAD: You can now download the book 'Laughing At Ourselves' in PDF format at LAUGHING AT OURSELVES

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FACTS FOR FUN

LAST WEEKS QUESTION: What is an ‘interrobang’?

ANSWER: For a short time in 1967, the American Typeros Association
made a new punctuation mark that was a combination of the question
mark and an exclamation point called an interrobang. It was rarely used
and hasn't been seen since. (Why not?!)

THIS WEEK'S QUESTION: Do penguins live at the North Pole?

Answer Next Week.

SOME FUN FACTS

498. LIFESTYLE PAIN
Two out of three adults in the United States have haemorrhoids. (Headline in the “Body Times” – “Bowels Protest Against ‘Hamburger Heaven’!”)

499. PUPPY LOVE
An American Animal Hospital Association poll showed that 33 percent of dog owners admit that they talk to their dogs on the phone or leave messages on an answering machine while away. (The only ones who will listen to them?)

500. NOT TO WORRY
You're just as likely to die by falling out of bed then you are to get struck by lightning; each is a 1 in 2,000,000 chance. You have a 1 in 3,000,000 chance of being killed by a snake. (But if you stay in bed longer…..?)

A WORD PUZZLE FOR YOU

Make another word from this word using all the letters.

LINKAGE

Answer at the end of A David Musing

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BIBLE QUESTION - YOU BE THE JUDGE!

5) Where was the battle fought where Jabin's army was defeated?

A - River Kishon
B - River Jabbor
C - River Jordan
D - River Arnon

Source: www.biblequizzes.com



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IF ONLY I'D THOUGHT OF IT!

"""OTHER'S SAYINGS TO ENLIGHTEN, AMUSE, OR BEMUSE"""

!!!!!!! People are never too busy to tell you all they have to do.

!!!!!! Snowflakes are some of nature's most fragile things but look what happens when they stick together.

!!!!!Some minds are like concrete; all mixed up and permanently set.

!!!! Why is it that all the semi drivers who cut me off or pull out in front of me never seem to have that "How's My Driving?" telephone number on the back of their trucks?

!!! Inflation's at zero? Wow, it's finally keeping up with my salary.

!! In 10 years there will be radio stations playing classic rap.

! "Whoever said you can't buy happiness forgot about puppies." (Gene Hill)

100'S MORE TO BE FOUND AT...

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PETS RULE!

26. SELF-EVIDENT TRUTHS ABOUT PETS
* Although cats are rather delicate creatures, and they are subject to a
good many ailments, I never heard of one who suffered from insomnia.

* Dogs and cats instinctively know the exact moment their owners will wake
up. Then they wake them 10 minutes sooner.

* Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.

* Dogs shed, cats shred.

* I wonder if other dogs think poodles are members of a weird religious
cult?

* No one appreciates the very special genius of your conversation as the dog
does.

* Outside of a dog, a book is probably man's best friend. Inside of a dog,
it's too dark to read.

* I hope to be the kind of person my dog thinks I am.

* Don't accept your dog's admiration as conclusive evidence that you are
wonderful.

* We wonder why the dogs always drink out of our toilets, but look at it
from their point of view: Why do humans keep peeing into their water bowls?

* Women and cats will do as they please ... men and dogs should relax and
get used to the idea.

* When a man's best friend is his dog, that dog has a problem.

27. FRIDAY
Our veterinarian gave us the following instructions for our cat Friday, who was scheduled for surgery: Don't give Friday any food after 8 P.M. on Wednesday. Bring Friday in first thing Thursday morning. You can pick Friday up on Thursday evening, but if you want,
Friday can also stay until Friday.

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BIBLE TRIVIA

THE CRANE

... is tall and stately with a 2 1/2 metre (8ft) wingspan. The largest migrating birds to fly over the Holy Land, its massed flights are dramatic, as the birds’ number in the thousands. They also make a trumpeting sound that fills the air, from their extremely long windpipe. It is coiled like a French horn, producing one of the loudest sounds of all birds.

Adapted from: '1001 Surprising Things You Should Know About The Bible' MacGregor & Prys

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CHINA: On track for Bible boom

A booming Bible industry is turning an atheistic nation into the world's largest supplier of Bibles. China is on track to become the world's largest producer of Bibles, but according to Open Doors' Carl Moeller, "Much is made of the fact that the Chinese government, through its Amity Press, has recently printed its 50 millionth Bible. That is a wonderful statistic, except when you realize that there may be up to 100-million believers in China, and you also realize that 10-percent of the Amity Press Bible printing goes for export." Believers are benefiting most from a pragmatic business approach to the commerce of the Bible. Moeller says prayer makes a big difference in getting the Gospel out. There's still a lot of work to do. "If at best we're talking about maybe 45-million Bibles for 100-million believers, we're talking about 55-plus million believers in China who still have yet to have their first Bible. That's if every Bible that Amity Press has ever printed is still in circulation."

GO GLOBAL MISSIONS REPORT 2008 No. 64

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DAVID'S DOWNLOAD

'TABERNEAGLE' THOUGHTS FROM.....

A poster of thoughts about living life in Tabernacles. Out of a human mind but hopefully with God given inspiration. An A4 sized wall (’loo?’) hanger. A4 size.

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WAXING LYRICAL

Normally writing verse takes longer than writing prose. But not this time! Particularly appropriate at Olympics time!

IN A HURRY!

Time is short,
Too much sport!

Bad attitude,
No gratitude!

Put Jesus first,
Develop thirst!

Do come aboard,
Jesus is Lord!

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A DAVID MUSING

Now that the Olympics have finished, New Zealand has won 9 medals including 3 golds. Adjusted on a population basis, this puts us fifth on both the total medals and gold medals won tables.

Of course, in total medals won, we are well behind China and The USA, and even Great Britain, who have done extremely well this time.

Interestingly, the United States comes in 31st with China at 47.

My point is, size gives a distorted view of performance, not only in the Olympics but in Christianity as well. We look to big ministries and mega-churches as being the most favored in God's sight. But it is not so. Since the time of Jesus, God no longer has a chosen country (Israel in the Old Testament), nor a chosen church, denomination or ministry. He simply has you and me running our individual race of life. If we truly have salvation, it must be reflected in a life of discipleship, so we may win our race of life.

The Olympics, in their purest sense, were set up as a contest between individual athletes. It is primarily in the last century of their reinstatement that man has manipulated them to become a contest between nations and ideologies.

We cannot rely upon belonging to a certain group to obtain our 'ticket to heaven'.

The athletes who stand on the podium at the Olympics do so because they have made huge personal sacrifices to get there, not because they are Chinese, Americans or Kiwis. We are the same. Your heavenly race mine is simply won or lost by you or by me.

May we run the race of our life to gladden the heart of our God.

Kathy is getting better but still not 100%. Camera is working but forgot to take the pictures! Next week! Discussions with Council continue. Your prayers (of those who do pray for us!) are hugely appreciated.

Until next week...

MAY GOD BLESS YOU AND YOU BLESS GOD.

His servant and yours

David Tait

Today's 'Word Puzzle' Answer: LEAKING

TODAY'S 'BIBLE QUESTION': A - River Kishon (Judges 4:7)

REPRODUCTION OF NEWSLETTER CONTENT

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ABOUT US

WALKING WITH JESUS MINISTRIES is a non-profit, non-denominational, Bible based ministry located in Hastings, New Zealand. A ministry dedicated to developing discipleship, fostering unity amongst God’s people to achieve the Great Commission, and in doing so, preparing for Christ’s return. It is securely based upon the foundational principles of the Apostles Creed while recognising the wide and rich diversity of beliefs amongst Christians in other areas. In accordance with the Lord’s direction, materials produced by the ministry are available, free of charge, to genuine enquirers upon request. The ministry is solely funded by donations, as the Lord provides. A list of materials available (plus some fun!) is obtainable and freely downloadable from our website
wwj.org.nz or by contacting us as follows.

Walking With Jesus Ministries
7 Bull Street
Ahuriri
Napier
New Zealand

Phone: (06) 835 0567 International (+64) 6 835 0567

Email: enquiries@wwj.org.nz
Web: wwj.org.nz

Our role is to bless and encourage those in ministry while promoting co-operation and unity of direction amongst the body of Christ, as emphasised 3 times by Jesus in His longest prayer, immediately prior to His arrest and crucifixion. "… so that they may be one as we are one." (John 17:12, 21, 23-4) Our website is currently being developed to encourage your participation one with another, to share resources, and to enable you to promote events and items of interest to the body as a whole – and have a smile while doing it!

For comments upon and contributions to this service, please contact
david@wwj.org.nz