One I Wrote Earlier.

Budget March 2011

Dear George,

I am writing to you to express my profound dismay at the proposals in your budget to add a 'carbon floor price' to producers of energy using coal or gas by 2013. This is in fact a stealth tax which will ultimately fall on the shoulders of the energy consumers. We have had to suffer an ongoing levy on our fuel bills to pay for a grandiose and inefficient windmill 'green policy', yet you will now burden us with yet more energy costs.

I remember writing to you last September asking you to retain the winter fuel payment for pensioners. I see in the budget that you propose to cut the 'add on' portion of this benefit. Both these measures add up to considerable hardship for the elderly and will cause many more to fall into energy poverty. As you are aware food and fuel are the areas in which the elderly spend most of their fixed income. With inflation rising, food and fuel prices included, the elderly are going to suffer ongoing fiscal pressure. Whilst you would like us to adopt the attitude that 'we are all in this together', it is obvious when I look at Local Government Chief Executive's salaries etc. we clearly are not.

May I beg to remind you that the years of 'boom' were not orchestrated by the electorate, neither are the years of 'bust'. Politicians in Government do this time after time and we the voters have to bite the bullet when MPs are claiming millions of pounds in expenses. You wonder why the nation is apathetic regarding politics, wait until we take to the streets and demand to be rid of you.

Yours sincerely,

Denis Moon.

With Fresh Eyes.......

I don't know whether it is the same for you but sometimes for me the important can become mundane. When I first became a Christian I wanted the book of Acts to replicate itself in my life, not just the signs and wonders, but the conversions to Christ as well. For years I looked around locally to see if there was any band of disciples actually doing the stuff. Unfortunately I appeared to be on my own. Over time the mandate from Jesus to go into all the world cooled as I kept going and nothing seemed to happen. Many other things came to claim the first place in my life, not all of them were wrong, many could be claimed to have been initiated by the Holy Spirit, including a journey of decentralisation of church structures.
Just recently I have been prompted to look once again at Christ's commission to His disciples.
'All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things I have commanded you and lo, I Am with you always, even to the end of the age.' Matth. 28:18-20.
Pretty simple?
Yes but somehow I think the church generally, and me included, didn't get it. It's the same as the new commandment Jesus gave us. Two thousand years has passed and still we don't take it seriously. One thing is apparent though. The old wineskin of church as we knew it is over. The unsaved don't want to be part of religious church any more than christians. With the increase in militant secularism the best weapon the church has for this is the gospel, and de-centralisation.

Continuing saga of the least of the least Evangelists........

Having returned my trusty scooter to shopmobility today I engaged in conversation with a young woman having a smoke on her work break. It was an amicable conversation, the sort that happen spontaneously, and doesn't appear to have any lasting impact.
I left her saying to the Lord. 'Nothing much happened there, I didn't cast out any demons, or tell her about you. All I seem able to do is be friendly and polite.'
'Listen to Me.' was all I heard in reply.
Later as I stood in line for the bus home, we had to wait while they changed drivers, I remarked to a man next to me, who I recognised from previous journeys; that I encountered a driver change quite frequently. This started a conversation that was to continue in the bus. He had lost his wife to cancer last October and because he and his wife were so close at 71 yrs. old he has no supporting family, or friends. I just listened and to be truthful I also listened to the Lord. I didn't here Him say anything. I've never lost a partner so I didn't know what the man was going through, but I was genuinely interested in listening to him, and tried not to say anything too stupid or insensitive.
He left the bus before me and the Holy Spirit said. 'Would you have wanted to say anything about Me in that conversation with the man?'
I thought for a moment and replied. 'I didn't want to say anything to him that would have given him the idea that he was an item on my agenda, as he said he was quite suspicious.'
'Can you believe that I arranged that and My presence on you was sufficient to let him know there was something different about you?'
'Yes Lord I can.'
'You will see him again. Stay open to my voice.'

Can heroes be weak?

Jesus said He was meek and lowly of heart. Nowhere do we see Jesus mentioning any of His strengths, but we do hear of Him asking the disciples to pray for Him in His time of need. I believe His strength can be found in His deep dependency on Holy Spirit. You have to be weak in your own strength to be dependent on another. When Jesus declared to His listeners that the Kingdom of God had arrived, He was signalling a shift of allegiance. If you choose Jesus, you choose His Kingship. But at the heart of following Jesus is the issue of trust. What a deep and complex area trust is. I can't love Jesus if I don't trust Him, and I cant obey Him if I don't love Him.
In the last 28 yrs. of my life there has been one single issue that has often been addressed but never really dealt with. Until this issue is once and for all sorted, I shall never become the hero that I yearn to be, and will by definition lead a compromised life until the grave.

The way we are made?

Looking at the needs God put in everyone He created we cannot overlook the need for heroism. We know about the need to be loved, and to give love. We know about the basic needs, physical, emotional, physical, and the spiritual. But what about the need for heroism? I am indebted to Neil Cole for the input I have received from him over the last week or so. Neil is a true hero, as he has stuck to the task, and has been successful. Heroism though is more than success, its the deliberate choice of laying down your life for someone, or something else. All of us pine to be heroes. Growing up we look to imaginary heroes like Superman, Biggles, Dan Dare, or more recently for me Indiana Jones. But they are characters of someone's imagination. The real Hero was Jesua. He laid Himself down for everyone. He laid His life down at Calvary for those who would accept Him, and those who hated Him. Remarkable as it is He chose weak men to be His disciples. Ordinary men, men with 'issues'. One man who was 'successful' He dumped on the road to Damascus, and taught him that weakness was to be the key of the Kingdom.
Jesus chooses weak people, and strong people, to be His followers. But only those who are willing to give up their lives for the 'mission' will be heroic. To be a hero you must accept that something, or somebody must be more important than you. Jesus is the ultimate calling. But He initiated a movement that cannot be stopped, and everyone who choses to follow Jesus must by definition become part of that movement.
What was the movement? It is the multiplication of disciples. Maybe the commission of Jesus has been misunderstood by both the evangelical, and charismatic wing of the church. When I got so excited about the book of Acts 28yrs, ago I really didn't understand what was going on. Revisiting the commissioning of the disciples by Jesus is shedding much needed revelation into why I am who I am.