Some of the prophetic words being released for this year predict a year of unprecedented harvest and a great awakening. Since September 2008 we have been praying and working for intercessory mindset change. So from the perspective of a transformed mindset, a kingdom of God worldview, what do prophetic statements like these mean? It’s vital that we get this right and it may be that the redemptive purpose of the traces of the old mindset in which some of these are framed is to challenge us to recalibrate them for the age of the kingdom of God. We have been operating from the prophetic perspective that three generations of revival have culminated in Jesus asking for his ecclesia back in order to reposition them for his kingdom in this world. So harvest and awakening can no longer simply mean growing numbers of people joining local churches and networks or multitudes saved out of this world into some future heaven. Given that the structures and priorities of many of these are part of the empire that is coming down and that the heavenly transformation of this world is God’s purpose, either of these outcomes would be a bit of a disaster! Heaven begins here and now and manifests in answer to the prayer of Jesus that his will be done on earth. The fulness of the kingdom of God or heaven is when his will is established everywhere forever in the new heaven and the new earth. When we die we are with the Lord in the place of waiting for this coming fulness. But its manifestation is the resurrection of this world! It is a new heaven and a new earth here. 

 

So this being the case, what might an unprecedented harvest and a great awakening look like? The intention of this month’s Daywatch guidelines is to give a couple of leads in answer to this question and then attempt a corporate exercise in divine imagining. By all means reflect on the following points, but then let the imagining begin, which it of course already has for many people. Then please let’s share what we see a great awakening of the work of the kingdom of God and an unprecedented harvest in terms of this world and the resurrection of Europe and its family of nations looking like. What will be the implications for the rest of the planet? Please use this blog or email admin@passion.org.uk and we will post your contributions unless you tell us otherwise. Some of the recent posts and discussions on my own blog at http: www.rogerhaydonmitchell.wordpress.com  may also suggest a direction for our re-imaginings

 

Leads for prayer and reflection:

 

1. A Great Awakening

Jim Wallis’ book The Great Awakening: Seven Ways to Change the World emphasises awakening as the emergence of real actions for and embodiments of justice for the poor. A great awakening is therefore a theopolitical awakening! But this does not mean we forget the Holy Spirit character of the kingdom of God which is after all “Justice, joy and peace in the Holy Spirit.” However it must mean that the manifest presence of Jesus is marked by justice and social change and certainly not just by meetings for worship and spiritual experiences without it. As Amos underlines

"I can't stand your religious meetings. I'm fed up with your conferences and conventions. I want nothing to do with your religion projects, your pretentious slogans and goals. I'm sick of your fund-raising schemes, your public relations and image making. I've had all I can take of your noisy ego-music. When was the last time you sang to me? Do you know what I want? I want justice -- oceans of it. I want fairness -- rivers of it. That's what I want. That's all I want.”  (Amos 5:21-24 The Message Bible) 

 

2. An Unprecedented Harvest.

Jesus’ parable of the harvest [Lk 20:9-18; Mtt 21:33-44] clearly links harvest with the coming down of empire in the prophetic context of Daniel 2:32,45 as it culminates with the statement “But Jesus looked at them and said, "What then is this that is written: 'The stone which the builders rejected, this became the chief cornerstone? Everyone who falls on that stone will be broken to pieces; but on whomever it falls, it will scatter him like dust."

In this way harvest can be seen as the days of the coming down of empire and the manifestation of the kingdom of God. But what will it look like? Once again this confirms the call for prophetic reimagination, not based on past mindsets and their default to empire or Christendom and its associated past ways of understanding the ecclesia and the gospel. But harvest in terms of the kingdom of God. This is vital for it is this harvest that Jesus proclaimed the fields white for! It is the manifestation of this that we must pray, prophesy and above all live out in the power of the Spirit.

 

This is our challenge for this first month this decade of 2010

 

With love

 

ROGER AND TEAM

This month the focus is on prayer for mindset change in relation to the role of the ecclesia in the vital matter of the politics of climate change. As you will be aware politicians and the media are particularly focused on this in Copenhagen at this time. As well as points for prayer this month’s material will of course be attempting to challenge our mindsets and we look forward to ongoing discussion via the blog and email communication to admin@passion.org.uk  Once again can we remind you that your email feedback may be placed on the blog unless you specifically request otherwise. If you wish to explore Roger’s thinking on this and other topics further, please have a look at his blog: http://www.rogerhaydonmitchell.wordpress.com 

 

 

A) “THE EARTH IS THE LORD’S!” 

 

This statement comes three times in the scriptures, in Exodus 9:29; Psalm 24:1; and 1 Cor 10:26. In Exodus the context is Moses reminding Pharaoh after hail had destroyed the flax and the barley crop that intercession can change the climate even when the unjust exercise of empire has brought about the problem.  The second connects holiness and the creation and the third then puts together the creation, grace that overcomes law, and godly compromise for the benefit of our neighbour. 

 

Understood through the revelation of Christ it would seem to follow from these verses that:

 

1. The exercise of empire, or seeing the earth as a resource for the dominance of an individual, family, group, nation over others, causes the creation to react negatively and in the end God allows this to happen. In this context intercession is for the purpose of bringing down the political powers responsible for the injustice and abuse that causes the problem.

 

2. God is central for the earth and the earth is central for God. Ascending the hill of the Lord is about connecting the heaven and earth, Incarnation takes this to its fulness. God became a human being and now a resurrected human is in God, Quite literally a human being, and with him potentially the whole human race, is in the trinity. This has changed God forever at his own initiative.

 

3. By grace we receive God's loving gift of himself and his world. Then we cooperate with him to steward the world for the benefit of others more than ourselves, including our enemies. It follows that it is both subhuman and ungodly not to connect with or care properly for the creation in this way.

 

 

B) THE FINANCIAL SHAKING AND THE DISCLOSURE OF GLOBAL WARMING IS FROM GOD

 

1. Three generations of revival, the prayer movement and the prophetic movement is bringing down the human empires which exploit the earth. It is reconfiguring the people of God to come in the opposite spirit and care for the poor and their enemies more than themselves. And it will issue in the renewal of creation culminating in the new heaven and the new earth of which the resurrection of Jesus is the first fruits

 

2. The UN Copenhagen conference on climate change is a huge opportunity for humanity to correct the ongoing abuse of the planet. This makes it a vital target for intercessory prayer. Unfortunately the misplaced idea that the sovereingty of the nation state is something that God wants to preserve at all costs has led some intercessors, prophets, national and church leaders to miss the point of what is happening at this time. The same tendency that has led some British intercessors to oppose the EU, as if British sovereignty as an institution were in some way a good thing and spiritually superior to any other, is making many American intercessors fear the UN. As a result lots of prayer and prophetic interpretation is being misdirected. However western sovereignty has long been submitted to the rule of Mammon which makes it an unjust empire that is in fact a major cause of the rapidity and extent of climate change.

 

3. It is for this reason that it is to be hoped that any political leaders with real vision and courage are heading for Copenhagen in order to try to find some internationally agreed way of preventing the unhindered impact of global capital on the planet. Of course an attempt at new world legal institutions will risk repeating some of the same evils of empire that western Christendom has unleashed on the world. But the US and the UK or any other western nation can hardly cast itself as the protectors of the planet. Let’s thank God for Barack Obama and George Brown and whoever is representing your nation at the UN for a start, and pray for grace for them to steer as just a compromise course as possible for the good of the poor of the earth.

 

With love and blessing

ROGER and the DAYWATCH TEAM

Last month’s questions on the Holy Spirit raised some great responses which were encouraging and helpful. They can be viewed on the blog, and if you would like to receive a copy of them by email attachment please ask admin@passion.org.uk and we will send them to you.

 

This month we continue the question of what the Holy Spirit is for by asking the question to the first four chapters of Luke’s gospel. Probably we will continue to follow him via Luke’s suggested directions in months to come. This is important for our prayers and mindset change in the context of being repositioned in the world for two reasons at least. The first is that the church, or what from now on I will be referring to as the ecclesia, has tended in its history to get separated from Jesus whose body it is supposed to be. The mindset change and repositioning that we are experiencing as God’s people appears to be the result of three generations of Holy Spirit visitation aimed at getting Jesus’ ecclesia back where he wants it. So the question relates to the purpose of those visitations and the changes that seem to have been the result. Secondly, there is an increasing sense that the Holy Spirit is way ahead of us, which is why so many are no longer finding him present in meetings and worship events which he seems less and less keen on. So we need to know where he is likely to be so that we can find him there.

 

THE HOLY SPIRIT IN LUKE CHAPTERS1-4

 

a) THE PREPARER

 

i) The Holy Spirit is the inseminator of Christ. As he quite literally initiated the presence of the embryonic Jesus into the world, it seems that his job is to do the same with the now risen Christ among teenage girls and anyone else willing to receive him into the culturally mixed-up and unjust situations of today. Then as now his purpose will be to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their heart, bring down the mighty from their thrones and exalt those of lowly estate. It will be to fill the hungry with good things and to send away the rich empty-handed (1:51-53). So let’s pray for this and make ourselves available to achieve it.

 

ii) The Holy Spirit is the aligner of times.  As was the case with Simeon he seeks out and rests on people who are looking for genuine comfort and encouragement for their people group and guides them to the real Jesus (2:25-32). Let’s pray for sons of peace like these and where we can, help them to the real Jesus. This is not so easy these days when the image of Jesus has been so misrepresented in our capital cities that he is often associated with the false images of war, patriotism, political domination and money.

 

iii) The Holy Spirit is the fulness of repentance. John the Baptist prepared the way by baptising in water for repentance. But when Jesus was baptised in water, the Holy Spirit baptised him. This is the one who baptises us with the Holy Spirit and fire. If baptism in water carried the challenge to the crowds that anyone who has two coats is to share with him who has none and he who has food is to do the same, then what does the fulness of repentance mean? And if those who collect taxes and manage large accounts should do it justly what does the fire of God lead to? And if soldiers, who were baptised in water, as the King James Version puts it so succinctly, were to “do violence to no man” what will the baptism in the Spirit mean for the military? (3:10-16). It’s hardly surprising that Luke later records Jesus’ words "When they bring you before the synagogues and the rulers and the authorities, do not worry about how or what you are to speak in your defence, or what you are to say; for the Holy Spirit will teach you in that very hour what you ought to say" (12:11-12). Let’s pray for courage for all those truly baptised in the Holy Spirit and for help with the altercations with the political authorities in which we are sometimes bound to find ourselves.

 

b) THE ACTIVATOR

 

i) The Holy Spirit is the one Jesus himself is baptised with. It is not until this point that Luke states that Jesus began his ministry (3:21-23). Although Luke introduces Jesus as one who “will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High; and the Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David; and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end" (1:32) this does not begin until after he is baptised with the Holy Spirit. At this point Luke states, using a word that at root literally means first in political rank, Jesus began his ministry. He began to reign then and was, as Paul puts it subsequently, declared the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead (Rom 1:4). Pray for understanding to dawn on us that Jesus is not only Lord of all, but that the Holy Spirit makes him the first ranking political authority on earth today, although by a totally different kind of power to the power of this world. Pray too that we his people will understand who that makes us and how to live it out practically like he did.

 

ii)  The first work of the Holy Spirit in Jesus’ leadership on earth was to lead him into spiritual confrontation with Satan and the strongholds of his dominion (Lk 4: 1-14). The first focus of Jesus’ leadership was to confront the way that the devil manipulated human appetites, maintained the political systems of the world and challenged God for fame and position. Only when he had overcome these strongholds of satanic power was he ready for public life. Pray for all those called to lead among their fellow human beings to discover this work of the Holy Spirit and for those who have experienced this, to walk in it and be given room wherever they operate.

 

iii) The Holy Spirit anointed Jesus to announce good news to the poor, proclaim release to prisoners of war (this is the literal meaning of the words), proclaim sight to the blind, to send away free those who were oppressed (literally crushed or bruised) and proclaim the favourable year of the supreme authority (4: 18-19). This summary of the kingdom rule of God surely describes the power and purpose of the Holy Spirit. Supremely this is what he is for. He is here to displace and replace all other forms of authority. But he does not do it by domination and control but by mercy towards those in awe of his totally different kind of power to the world’s (1: 50). Let’s pray for the Holy Spirit’s anointing on his ecclesia, so that we display his alternative but supreme authority like we see in Jesus’ extraordinary rule on this planet.

 

Please respond to this material on the blog at www.daywatch.eu or if you are still finding difficulty with blogging, email us at admin@passion.org.uk and we will enter your responses for you and also put you in touch with Mike on the team who will try and help you master the few simple steps to working with the blog.

 

For those who would like to explore some of the living and thinking behind this daywatch material you might like to explore Roger’s blog at http://www.rogerhaydonmitchell.wordpress.com

 

WITH LOVE

ROGER AND TEAM

Welcome to the second year of the Daywatch, a monthly prayer focus for mindset change and the repositioning of the church in Europe. We  encourage further revelation and discussion through the Daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu Please try hard to blog if you can because we want to get an online community up and running, but if not you can of course email us on admin@passion.org.uk

 

There are two aspects to this months watch.

1. Can we please bring a strong recommendation to you all to take up a very helpful German prayer initiative particularly aimed at those praying for and living out the repositioning of the church?

They have begun 40 days of prayer and now taken the trouble to translate it into English especially for us all to use.  Please don’t miss the opportunity for 40 days of some great guided prayer that you can fit to your own life and diary.  If you would like to receive this then please let us know as soon as possible and we will send it you as an email attachment.

 

2. Here are some new questions about the Holy Spirit and some tentative possible answers.

Please respond!

 

1. What is the Holy Spirit for? How would you answer this question? Please try it in a sentence or two and enter it on the blog, or if you would rather email it and we will enter it for you.

2. Where is he heading, where does he want to be, where is his focus?

I'm thinking that if he is the carrier of the kingdom and if he is the Spirit of Jesus, then he is heading for the city, the poor, the brokenhearted, the captives, the blind, the crushed to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord (Lk 4:18). So his arrival may have been gathering centred and room centred, but his future direction and purpose has always been out among the rest of humanity (as with Jesus in Lk 6:11-38). So when they got together as at the end of Acts 2 this was only a staging post and the Holy Spirit was uneasy the longer it continued.

3. If he wishes to locate himself and the people of God out among the people, has this always been his long term focus?

Note the trouble Stephen got into with the established authorities and how clearly his words underline the Spirit's long term focus: for "the Most High does not dwell in human constructs" (Act 7:48). As a result they were scattered. Not I suggest so that more people could be gathered in Antioch but so that the church would go where the Spirit has always wanted to position them - in the world

4. So how does the Holy Spirit see revival?

Presumably along the exact same lines as he wishes for himself and the people of God; for the recovery of his proper preferred location in the world which is not in a gathered structure of some institutional location. So while he may meet us there, it is not where he wants to be in the long term and seemingly never has. There is no evidence that the upper room pleased the Lord any more than the gazing into heaven. Jesus had been giving instructions by the Holy Spirit about the Kingdom of God (Acts1:2) and the outpouring obviously impacted outside as if they hadn't even been in a room. Clearly they did not stay there long!

 

With love,

Roger and Team

 

Here are four connected thoughts to pray into and consider as we press on as the people of God seeking his kingdom in the world

 

i)                     The church was never intended to be an alternative society separate to the world, but like Jesus, people living an alternative way within the world [cf. Jn 17:15]. When John records Jesus’ words “God so loved the world that he gave” [Jn 3:16], and then teaches us to “love not the world” [1 Jn 2:15] it is important to distinguish between humanity in the creation which Christ loved and died for and the world system that is destroying us. This is how to understand Paul’s advice to “come out from among them and be separate” [2 Cor 6:17; Isa 52:11]. Our separation is not from the world’s society but from the demonic structure where the power of the few over the many is wielded to the prosperity, empowerment and status of the few, In other words we are called to reject the essentially Nicolaitan (people-dominating) manner in which the empire based societies of this world operate.

 

ii)                   We are getting these views from an incarnational hermeneutic. As we have tried to clarify many times, this is a way of understanding and interpreting scripture and creation from the way of life of the person of Christ as found in the gospel accounts in which Jesus is portrayed as both God and human. In his flesh the fullness of God dwells [Jn 1:14-18]. In him the Hebrew worldview is taken beyond the Old Testament scriptures to its fullness in him, and the OT can only be understood in its fullness through him. Similarly the rest of the New Testament and the subsequent story of humanity and the rest of creation and our future can only be understood and interpreted in his light.

 

iii)                  This has very serious implications for leadership. In her response to last month’s Daywatch material Janet Locke offered an interesting discussion of the word translated “obey” in the statement “obey your leaders” in Hebrews. She pointed out that the word used in the Greek is not the general word for obey but a word which means persuade.

 

“The word ‘obey’ in Hebrews 13:17 is actually peitho, and it is in the passive voice, so it means ‘Let yourself be persuaded by your leaders.’ …. Leaders in the Kingdom of God are not people who want power, nor do they want people to obey them without question, but they are like good fathers.  They should try to convince others of everything they feel passionately about not so these people bow to their superior wisdom and learning, but so that they will be able to say ‘Yes, I agree because I now know for myself this is true.’” (For the full text see the blog).

 

However it is also important to take note of the word used for leaders in the same verse, which is hēgeomai, a word generally understood to refer to hierarchical leadership and which is the word used by Jesus to refer to leadership in Luke 22:26. By now be getting used to the way in which Jesus stood this word on its head by stating, "the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader (hēgeomai) like the servant.” This reverses the order of Hebrew culture where the eldest is first, [see Helene’s comment in last month’s blog] and the Greek or Roman view where the servant is the last in the hierarchy.

 

iv)                  To be true to a Jesus hermeneutic we must now read leader (hēgeomai) in terms of the upside down power of the kingdom of God and seek to constantly model this emptying out, giving away, and kenotic style of leadership as the people of God in the world. To maintain either an OT Hebrew or a Greco-Roman view of hierarchical leadership is to substitute the world for the kingdom of God and constitutes a failure to come apart from the world while living in it. The big problem with the way we have often shaped the church is that we have made the double whammy of separating from the world instead of remaining in it, and yet following the world’s domination system of hierarchical authority. The result is that the church has seemed to be of the world but not in it! This is the time to discover how to give a counter cultural lead in the world, and the Holy Spirit is ahead of us and with us and behind us to achieve this through us. We can do this!

     

More anon!

In the meantime let’s have your interaction. Once again can we remind you that if you are getting this via email, you can comment directly via the blog at www.daywatch.eu, or email us at admin@passion.org.uk, and we will post your responses on the blog unless you tell us otherwise. If you need help with using the blog please let us know and one of the team will be in touch with you.

 

With love

ROGER AND TEAM

 

 

My passions have been so stirred by the comments you shared in the July Daywatch that I have to reply.

 

I believe at this time many Christians are in a transition period, they are experiencing a personal journey of discovering that something is not quite right with church as we know it, or rather, church as we have inherited it.

I think it is a good thing to share our own experiences in order to help others with their personal transition.

Below is my current understanding:

 

Paul wrote to the Corinthians (4:15) For if you were to have countless tutors in Christ, yet you would not have many fathers, for in Christ Jesus I became your father through the gospel.  Some Christian leaders want to teach the people and increase their church membership, but not all have real Fathers hearts.  We hear horrible stories about abusive church leaders who control people and build their own churchs reputation, rather than listening to Jesus definition of Christian leadership from Matt 20 - Jesus called them together and said, "You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their high officials exercise authority over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave - just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many." I think Jesus really intended Christian leaders to be like fathers, not like rulers. Good parents want their children to develop into all their potential, whatever that may be, so Christian leaders should desire that all the people in their care will grow into their full potential in God, and of course grow more and more into the likeness of Jesus in their character.  In fact this lines up with the desire of Father God.  He has just two desires: to have as many babies born into His family as possible (evangelism) and that each one of His children will grow up to be like Jesus (discipleship).  Not just the first desire, but also the second.  This is why Jesus tells His followers to go and make disciples of all the nations, not merely to get decisions for Jesus.  Then teach them to heed all that Jesus commanded (- only 2 love commandments).

Hebrews 13:7 puts responsibility squarely on the shoulders of the believer, Remember those who led you and spoke the word of God to you, and considering the result of their conduct, imitate their faith. Use your own discernment and observation.  Do you really want to go where these men are going, to become like them?  Are they being transformed from one degree of glory to the next?  Paul said imitate me as I imitate Christ (1 Cor 11:1) and Brethren join in following my example, and observe those who walk according to the pattern you have in us (Phil 3:17)

But in Hebrews 13:17 almost all translations in English and German say obey your leaders.  I know that many church leaders have used this one verse to control their people, who, in turn, believe they are being obedient to God by doing everything their leader tells them to do.

-In the NT Greek there is a word for obey, which is 5219 Gr  hupakouo  used when Jesus cast out demons and they obeyed at His command; and where in a storm Jesus commanded the wind and the waves to be still and they obeyed Him, and it is used for children obeying parents.

But in Hebrews 13:17 the word translated as obey is not really obey at all it is 3983 Gr  peitho persuade cf Act 28:24 Acts 27:11  Acts 21:14  Acts 19:26  Acts 17:4  Luke 16:31  Matt 27:20  Acts 19:8  Acts 18:4  Acts 26:28  Acts 28:23  2 Cor 5:11  and 3982 Gr   convince cf 2 Tim 1:12  Heb 6:9  Phil 1:25  Romans 15:14  Rom 14:14  Rom 8:37  Luke 20:6 

to persuade vt  

1.  to successfully urge somebody to perform a particular action, especially by reasoning, pleading, or coaxing  

2.  to make somebody believe something, especially by giving good reasons for doing so

 

Fatherhood leaders in the Kingdom of God are not people who want power, nor do they want people to obey them without question, but they are like good fathers.  They should try to convince others of everything they feel passionately about not so these people bow to their superior wisdom and learning, but so that they will be able to say  Yes, I agree because I now know for myself this is true.  Fatherhood leaders want to convince others and persuade them of all the wonderful things they have discovered about God and His amazing goodness.  So when we read in Hebrews Obey your leaders and submit for they keep watch over your souls as those who will give an account.  The word obey in Hebrews 13:17 is actually peitho, and it is in the passive voice, so it means Let yourself be persuaded by your leaders. We have a choice. With 'obey' we do not have a choice. God gives discernment and wants us to use it.

-Our duty as royal priests is to take personal responsibility and check whether we really want to go in the direction people in leadership positions are going.

The Eph 4:10-12 tells us the reason there are 5 ministries (apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers) is to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  There we are again, Father Gods desire that all His children get more and more like Jesus.  This is where fatherhood leadership leads us it is about going on a journey together, and some have been on the journey longer than others, so they can help us on the way.  Christianity was originally called the way for this very reason.

 

All God's blessings

Janet Lock

We did pretty well with comments on the blog this month – the subject of hierarchy certainly seemed to strike a chord. Can I point out that this is hardly surprising given that it lies at the heart of the mindset change that we are attempting to negotiate? The correspondence on the blog particularly picked up on hierarchy in relation to the nature of God and the normality of hierarchy in everyday life. If you haven’t had the chance to look at the comments and discussion on the blog, here are excerpts of both. If you are reading this again on the blog, please forgive the repetition.

 

On hierarchy and God:

“I firmly believe that there is clearly and strongly demonstrated 'a sovereign hierarchical authority over the world' through Gods' love of the world, but it is erroneous to suggest that he is the same as the devil, no, no, no, the devil is trying to copy the way Father does things, but because he has no love, he can only offer a distorted image of rule and authority, hence, a distorted rule and dominion and a forced submission. Is that not the case?”

 

In response:

“I think, if I read you right, you are suggesting that God has sovereign power over the world but that he does his dominion through loving people into his submission rather than the devil who doesn't love while exercising dominion. I think …that perspective might be coloured by the invasion of our worldview by the empire idea. Are we so sure that God has a sovereignty that is based in hierarchy ('...for I am among you as one who serves')? Or is there any element of that idea that might have its origins in the empire system? Personally I find a lot of resonance with the conclusion of Roger's analysis and wonder whether our real question here might not be ‘what kind of power does God have/use if it is not a sovereign hierarchical authority over the world as demonstrated by the devil and the world's empires?’”

 

On the normality of hierarchy:

“I confess I am struggling a bit with what you put out. Are you equating hierarchy in human social relations with empire? It comes across as that. And due to the fact that I read evolutionary biology and psychology as well as history I find myself confused in that equation. Hierarchy is normal in human group relations of cooperation. Generally for a group to make decisions regarding the whole, someone assumes leadership. It may be temporary. It may be of little change in status except for the fact that the others become followers (at least at that moment) but it is a hierarchy, a recognized one, if only for a time (think chairman of a board vs. a CEO). Hierarchy can become institutionalized and perhaps that is what you are referring to.”

 

In response:

“Actually I think that temporary hierarchies which are subject to change (like goose formations) are probably fine in lots of circumstances. Most of our work in this world provides examples of hierarchies that are at least efficient if not wholesome... and this is a not-yet-new-creation world! But this is not really our beef here, surely. As I understand it we're talking specifically about sovereign hierarchical authority. I.e. there is a difference between the recognition of contingent leadership in human relationships and the self-assumption of power over others when there are real opportunities to lay our lives down and prefer the others. Perhaps the best window on how we should relate to hierarchy is the path to the cross. There is no sovereign hierarchical authority there. Yes, the powers do their thing but Jesus gives himself away. In so doing he summarily robs them of their power without using any of his own and presses through sin and death to be resurrected. Now that's what I want to follow, particularly when I engage in everyday life with hierarchies that are about shoring up social/political/financial authority over others.”

 

If you would like to join in the web discussion, go to www.daywatch.eu and follow the instructions there. If you have any difficulty, please don’t hesitate to email us at admin@passion.org.uk and one of the daywatch team will get in touch with you and help you negotiate the blog. It is very easy once you get the hang of it!

 

It is our conviction that the renewal of our minds about the nature of God and the way of his kingdom is his direct intention for us in response to the three generations of Holy Spirit visitation through which the church has passed and is his desired result of the movement of intercessory prayer and repentance of the last two decades. If this is part of what it means for God to have his church back then it must be the focus of our ongoing prayer and be manifest in our daily life in the world.

 

For the sake of our ongoing prayer, reflection and the reconfiguration of our life in the world can I emphasise the following. Hierarchy of roles in a limited practical situation for the purposes of getting a job done may well be OK. However if a major mistake has been made in ascribing hierarchy universally to the outworking of power and authority then even the ‘normal’ use of hierarchy may need to be set aside for alternative ways of getting the job done in order to avoid strengthening the oppressive impact of an otherwise satanic system. Make no mistake; it IS the assumption that God exercises his undoubted power and authority in a hierarchical manner that is being challenged here. As I commented on the blog,

“If God's rule is hierarchical sovereignty over people, the way of the kingdom is hierarchical sovereignty over people, which is what Christendom has been all about. But if God's rule is life laid down loving among us, then the way of the kingdom is this self-emptying love in our daily life in the world and it is this that is the nature and basis of God's power and what being church is all about.”

 

BLESSINGS

ROGER AND TEAM

i) A reminder

Let me begin by a reminder of what we as a team of folk involved in preparing and participating in the Daywatch heard from the Lord last September when we made the transition from the weekly Nightwatch for Europe. The transition was not from a weekly to a monthly watch but from a weekly watch to a total immersion into intercession in and for the world. We shifted from standing in the gap by prayer to filling the gap as the church is re-positioned. For many of us this has been quite literal. We have rediscovered our daily work as the work of the kingdom of God, or have moved in part or in full from our ‘ministries’ as intercessors, evangelists, pastors, teachers, prophets and apostles into serving the world from within its practical need for ministry in caring professions, care for the environment, politics, business, education, agriculture the arts and so on. This monthly Daywatch material is an attempt to provide material for intercessory mindset change in our task of the ministry of the kingdom in the world. What is offered here is for prayer, reflection and practical response.

 

We encourage further revelation and discussion through the Daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu Please try hard to blog if you can because we want to get an online community up and running, but if not you can of course email us on admin@passion.org.uk If you email but don’t want the content of your mail to be posted on the blog please say so, otherwise we will post it there if we think it will be helpful. I have decided to give in to the desire of some to treat the blog like its just mine! There actually is a team and not just me, but obviously most of the input so far is mine. So please feel free to engage personally with me on the blog, and the rest of the team and participants can join in as and when they want and we’ll see where that takes us!

 

ii) Following on from last month

In May I shared some of the findings of the research that I believe God has led me in. I outlined the way in which the church has been infiltrated by empire in the course of history and has itself promoted it and still continues to do so. I outlined the way that the nation state and today’s globalised empire of war, money and media have been the outcome of the church’s ongoing partnership with empire. I stated that two things followed from this; firstly, the church is largely responsible for the mixture of blessing and oppressing that has marked the centuries of European history and become its heritage throughout the world. Secondly, the nation state and the global empire that is following on its heels today is the offspring of the church even although the world, the flesh and the devil are all over it. I emphasised that this is why we cannot give up on the nation state or the globalised empire but must embrace its territory and take responsibility for its peace.

 

I am not of course suggesting that we in any way affirm the empire system that the world is based on. The point is that the church as we have grown used to it is in many ways the world too. The time has come to recognise and subvert domination wherever we find it as Jesus shows us how. This month I will continue from this point by describing a way I have been developing to interact with Jesus in the world.

 

 iii) Thinking empire

One of the results of the church’s infiltration is that the very way we think and form doctrine is contaminated by an empire approach. We have developed systems of interpretation and doctrinal formulations which we have used to dominate people rather than encouraging freedom of thought and development in relationship with the Lord together by the Spirit. As a result today’s world is understandably resistant to systematic and dogmatic statements and those who wish to communicate effectively with the postmodern world have to find another more accessible way of doing it. With this in view I have been working on a helpful hermeneutical approach (if the word hermeneutic is new to you, it simply means a tool for interpretation). This approach is known as an economy of response and I have integrated aspects of it with my own Gospel primacy hermeneutic that I have talked about before. The economy of response is basically an intensely personal way of interfacing with the Jesus of scripture, and then with the rest of culture, without importing received systems and formulae. It encourages the reader to be willing for an experimental relational yielding of themselves to Christ, first as they encounter him in the gospel text, and then as they lay down their lives together with him into all the cultural contexts life provides. It particularly emphasises the incarnation of Christ, of God become flesh, by highlighting the physical presence of Christ in the gospel text. It does this by deliberately connecting with the more sensual aspects of Jesus’ behaviour such as look and touch as well as the more familiar spoken words and takes careful note of the impact he is having on those present, including myself as the reader. The purpose is to help develop a radical Christology in which our understanding of the incarnation and the atonement are properly integrated into our life in creation and our way of being church.

 

iv) a temptation narrative

Jesus’ encounter with the devil at the beginning of his ministry gives very clear insight into the nature of the empire systems of this world. The following is a part of a study of the temptations by means of the hermeneutic I have been describing that I have adapted from a recently completed chapter of my PhD thesis. Please interact with it and see whether you agree with my interpretation and find what else you get from it.

 

Again, the devil took him to a very high mountain and showed him all the kingdoms of the world and their glory; and he said to him, ‘All these things I will give you, if you fall down and worship me.’ Then Jesus said to him, ‘Go, Satan! For it is written: 'you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.’  Then the devil left him; and behold, angels came and began to minister to him. (Mtt 4:1-11) 

 

 

I am drawn towards the relationship between Jesus, the devil and the mountain. Jesus is submitting to the devil’s initiative and accompanies him up to a very high place. The immediate question posed is “Will I go with the devil to the mountain?” The response of the disciple will be yes, because Jesus is going with him there. Even for a more tentative reader the practical and theological implications are clearly serious. It would appear that at certain times, human beings in all their potentiality are invited to be positioned with Christ and the devil at the heart of the possibilities of power, which is today represented by the daily social, economic and moral decisions I face over the progress of the nation state and the globalised empire of the western world. It is here that the devil deliberately confronts Jesus with the sight of all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. The words used in the Greek text are basileia and doxa, basic words for monarchy and glory. Jesus is then, being invited to appraise the universal scope and reputation of empire and I am invited with him to do the same.  The devil suggests that all the kingdoms of this world belong to him and that they will be conferred on the one who accepts Satan’s invitation to bow down and worship. Two moves appear to be proposed here. Jesus is being asked to accept that the worship of the devil confers authority and then to accept the transferral of the world’s empires and their glory to himself by this means. As I reach out to consider this proposal I am confronted by the clear implication that to accept the transcendent other (in this case the devil) as a sovereign exerting hierarchical power is to worship Satan. Jesus refuses the devil’s invitation with a strong dismissal accompanied by the explicitly proclaimed embrace of an alternative transcendence associated with service of the other: “you shall worship the Lord your God, and serve him only.” That a mutuality of service is in view is borne out by the final statement “angels came and began to minister to him.” By this means, I am confronted with the challenge of to whom I will make a relational surrender. I am invited to conclude with Jesus that to associate the glory of the kingdoms of this world with transcendence is to agree with the devil. So to suggest that the God and Father of the Lord Jesus Christ operates as a sovereign hierarchical authority over the world is to suggest that he is the same as the devil. So I am challenged that to follow Christ in his refusal to accept this necessitates the embrace of God as a radically different kind of transcendent power.

More next time!

 

Blessings,

Roger and team

DAYWATCH THURSDAY MAY 28TH 2009 I guess I have two main topics to bring following on from David’s contribution of last month. They relate to the nature of the nation state and our relation to it as the body of Christ. I offer them as usual for prayer, reflection and practical response and to encourage further revelation and discussion through the Daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu Please try hard to blog if you can because we want to get an online community up and running, but if not you can of course email us on admin@passion.org.uk 1. As many of you know my current main job is researching the relationship between church and empire, a task that I have been brought to by prayer and revival and that the Holy Spirit has indicated is necessary to the mindset change needed for an overcoming church positioned in the world. The main conclusions emerging from the historical side of my work are a) Jesus came as a deliberate antidote to the Roman Empire which was at that very time attempting to colonise heaven itself in order to rule the earth with the appearance of divine approval. Through the Caesar cult the Roman emperors called themselves Son of God and Saviour and the Pax Romana was regarded as the divine peace. So when Jesus came in direct contrast to the Roman emperor, calling himself by the same names used by the imperial cult and declaring the kingdom of God, it was obvious that he and his church were of a completely different kind of power and nature to Rome. b) The disciples never fully got the hang of this although Paul’s insistence on pushing first back to Jerusalem and then on to Rome indicates that he saw the gospel of the kingdom as opposed to and moving against the strongholds of empire. But in the end the lure of peace through empire proved too much for the church and demonstrated just how successful empire’s invasion of heaven had been. For by the early fourth century it was simply assumed that God was sovereign like worldly emperors and that his kingdom was an empire like theirs, in fact the Roman Empire just needed a Christian emperor and to adopt the church as its legitimator and it was the kingdom of God after all! c) This idea was so convincing that even when Rome fell, the church carried on looking for earthly rulers with which they could partner in imposing peace through sovereignty. The church and the competing political powers spent centuries fighting one another and among themselves over who would bring the peace. The reformation was frankly as much about this as about important issues of doctrine such as justification by faith. In the consequent Thirty Years War during the first half of the seventeenth century some nine million people were slaughtered throughout Europe in the argument over who would best bring the peace of God’s kingdom through earthly empire. d) As a result the surviving church in northern Europe, particularly in Britain and the Netherlands, resolved to find political partners with whom they could create a new agency that could take responsibility for the political peace that Rome had embodied centuries before. Out of this endeavour the nation state was born. Its very birth in the second part of the seventeenth century was established by war, justified by propaganda and facilitated by money so it is hardly surprising that the history of the modern European states is the story of these three interconnected powers and their impact on ordinary people. These three foundational strongholds are now taking on a life of their own in terms of a new global empire based on war money and the media. Two things follow from all this, firstly, the church is largely responsible for the mixture of blessing and oppressing that has marked the centuries of European history and become its heritage throughout the world. There is no way we can distance ourselves and blame the world (secularisation), the flesh (personal sin) or the devil alone for it all. Rather it is the result of the church’s misunderstanding of the gospel and its wrong alliance with empire. Secondly, the nation state and the global empire that is following on its heels today is the offspring of the church even although the world, the flesh and the devil are all over it. This is why we cannot give up on it but must embrace its territory and take responsibility for its peace. 2. Our calling as agents of the kingdom is opposed to the whole concept of hierarchical rule. This could hardly be more clear from the circumstances of Jesus’ birth, his identification with the poor and his clear instructions to his disciples “the kings of the nations lord it over them; and those who have authority over them are called 'Benefactors.' but it is not this way with you” (Lk 22:25-26). Several implications follow from this. a) We were never supposed be to set up a system but rather to journey into the world in relationship with the Lord, both individually and corporately laying our lives down, sometimes by what might seem like compromise and other times in strategic sacrifice. b) We are called to be a dynamic relational community on a journey. We need to find those fellow disciples and sons and daughters of peace and build together relationally in ways that strengthens our life in the world, in it but not of it. We need to avoid those allegiances that take us out of the world while still binding us to the shapes and domination systems that we are called out of. c) By partnership with the life of the trinity in prayer and loving service we walk on into an institutional church that often still misunderstands the gospel and aligns with the encroaching global empire in its teaching and practice. We pilgrim on through the political, legal, educational and business structures of the global empire of money, war and media and the caring professions and charities that have been set up to mitigate the worse aspects of their rule but are still shaped by it. We carry the kingdom of God knowing that here we have as yet no continuing city, but that the nations of the earth will ultimately find their peace in the kingdom whose seed we are scattering all along the road we travel. I am aware that my words for all this are getting increasingly metaphorical. More concrete outworkings are yet to come. But before they do, more and more of us will need to press into intimacy with God at the same time as we press on into our imperial centres of Jerusalem and Rome, wherever we find them, even if we are threatened, misunderstood or lose our heads there, knowing without a doubt that Jesus’ resurrection is the evidence that this way of life works and that this kingdom can never ultimately be destroyed.   more »

DAYWATCH TUESDAY 21^ST APRIL 2009

 

The Daywatch for April is provided by David Leigh, part of the Daywatch team. As usual please read and contemplate its contents prayerfully with particular reference to mindset change and being the church serving the world.

 

This month's post is bit of a departure perhaps to what you've become accustomed to in Nightwatch/Daywatch materiel.  First off, to set the stage, I'm an American living in Europe, which has afforded me some rich fodder for cultural perspective.  As an adopted son of Europe, my "identity" as a European is not a "given" that runs as an undercurrent, woven into all thought and practice.  No, for me, it has been a subject of ardent seeking, joy, consternation, purposeful reflection, frustration, etc.  Add to that a call to intercession and I'm reminded of Paul's discourse to the Athenians (Europeans), that God has carefully placed us at a specific time/space intersection in order that we might "grope" to find Him (Acts 17:26-27).  The realities and implications of my adoptive cultural identity have often left me groping for God to assure myself that He's still with me and to actively bring Him into my circumstances.  Additionally, a bit of distance from the States also gives me new perspectives on the land where I spent the first 38 years of my life. 

 

Consequently, I've come to think that there is perhaps a pseudo-command in the Athenian discourse with respect to our cultures...be they adoptive or native.

 

He made from one man every nation of mankind to live on all the face of the earth, having determined their appointed times and the boundaries of their habitation, that they would seek God, if perhaps they might grope for Him and find Him, though He is not far from each one of us

 

The culture and society in which we find ourselves is not simply to be a "given" in our lives to which we give little to no reflection, as if we were on a raft drifting inexorably with the current of a slow-moving but powerful river.  According to this passage, its particularities should provoke us in some way so that we engage more deeply in our seeking (and finding) of God...who apparently is just waiting for us to start asking important, critical questions about our historical and geographical context.

 

Speaking of Jesus, Paul says in Col 1:18-20:

 

He Himself will come to have first place in everything.  For it was the Father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in Him, and through Him to reconcile all things to Himself, having made peace through the blood of His cross; through Him, I say, whether things on earth or things in heaven.

 

Speaking of us, Paul says in 2 Cor 5:18-19:

 

Now all these things are from God, who reconciled us to Himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation, namely, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and He has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

 

I like to re-phrase "gave us the ministry of reconciliation" as "appointed us to administer His reconciliation."  I think that shakes some of the religious baggage off the verse and gives us a scope that, in my opinion, is more in line with Paul's intention and Jesus' call.

 

When you put these passages together, you see that God has established our lives in an historical and geographical context (which equates, in fact, to a culture) so that we would find Him in it, and once having found Him would administer the reconciliation of all things to Himself in that context.

 

As intercessors working to pull the Church in Europe through to her destiny, I believe that we need to call out to the Church, in the Spirit, to:

 

• "Actively grope" for God in this particular historical/geographical context.  This is in sharp contrast to living in our native cultures, simply assuming that all our societal interactions are "normal." Rather to actively bring things to God's Throne and seek His perspective.
• Meditate on the intersection of our earthly and heavenly citizenships; again asking God what His perspective is and "actively groping" to understand the goal of this intersection in the administration of reconciliation.  We see that Paul is neither ignorant nor indifferent to both his citizenships.

 

To bring this home, and spill the beans a bit more on my particular situation, I want to give an example.  In French language school, our professor (a Christian) told us that whenever there is a problem in a French person's life, one of the first reactions is to look to a government-supplied solution.  According to him, this was the general reaction amongst Christians as well.  Certainly this would be a broad generalization, but there is certainly some truth to it.  This is an example of the French Church drifting on the cultural stream instead of hoisting the sail to see what the Wind of the Spirit might be saying. Certainly there is nothing intrinsically wrong with the government providing solutions to problems and certainly God can and does provide using many different agencies.  There is something wrong, however, with the Body of Christ (individually or corporately) assuming that the government is their first-stop solution for challenges they face.  A similar trap for the Body of Christ exists in the States with respect to tax-exempt status for charitable organizations.  And in Canada for example, Christian Schools enjoyed government subsidies for a period.  When the subsidies ended, a large percentage of those schools failed.

 

Our collusion with culture is extremely subtle but also extremely powerful.  Now is the time for the Church to begin to earnestly ask the Lord for light to reveal where we are colluding and grace to walk a different path.

 

David Leigh on behalf of the Daywatch team

 

 

SOME THOUGHTS ABOUT CHURCH AND STATE:

 

Yesterday I found myself on the panel for the Dreams for Living youth forum in the Lloyd George Room of the House of Commons in the British Parliament together with a Roman Catholic Labour backbencher, the Conservative shadow justice minister, the chairman of the Liberal Democrats, the leader of the Christian Party, the Chairman of the evangelical agency Care, and a barrister representing the Christian Legal Centre.  The panel began with the subject of Church and State, the leader of the Christian party having put forward the suggestion that Britain is a Christian nation and that we must fight in humility and with peace to preserve that heritage, commending the contemporary practice of Christian prayer at the opening of parliamentary business. The chairman of the Liberal Democrats strongly affirmed his own Christian faith but strongly argued for the complete separation of church and state and regarded the official practice of Christian prayer as out of place in such a context. It was clear from the questions and responses of some of the young adults present that they easily confused the concept of the separation of church and state with the separation of the sacred and the secular. I suspect many people do the same not just in the political arena but in other social contexts and so this month I propose to share some thoughts about the topic in the hope of stimulating prayer, discussion and the practice of the kingdom of God in the world.

 

1. CHURCH AND STATE:

Last month I made the comment that while the state is in part a Christian construct it can never be the primary means to the kingdom of God because the domination component central to it is antichristian and in the end opposes the kingdom. (The full text can be found on the blog at www.daywatch.eu) Let’s be clear that when the church is expressed through the same kind of centralised structures of domination as the state it is not a kingdom structure either but simply a religious structure of the world and equally opposed to the kingdom. It was this kind of expression of church that was able to partner with empire and bring the nation state to birth. This kind of church construct is actually the world too! This does not mean however that we can simply turn our backs on these misshapen and misaligned expressions whether of church or state, rather we must stand in the gap and intercede for them, seeking in every way we can to express the church as the agent of the kingdom that it is meant to be in the world. And because we love the world we will do all we can to disregard and deconstruct the domination systems of church and state. When the scripture says “love not the world, nor the things in the world” Walter Wink helpfully points out that this can correctly be read as “love not the domination systems of the world.” This has to be our attitude to both church and state.

 

2. SACRED AND SECULAR:

On the other hand there really is no such thing as sacred and secular. God created everything good, and the presence of human beings made it very good. While it is clear that the material proceeded from the spiritual there was no separation between the two, in fact everything is made spiritual thereby. Naming the animals is talking with God. The fall was where we doubted God’s love and friendship and set up our selfish personal and corporate systems of domination. This has equally touched our relationship with God, with our fellow humans and the created environment. The good news of the kingdom of God is about a restored relationship with God as father but it is also about reconfiguring our relationship with our fellow humans (the polis, or people, from which we get police and politics) and the creation. So the church of the kingdom is in world that is structured by the state, but it resists and reforms its attempts to dominate people and it seeks the elevation of the poor and the conservation and healing of the environment in expectation of a new heaven and a new earth that provides a home for justice joy and peace.

 

3. PRACTICING THE KINGDOM OF GOD:

On the cross Jesus drew all things to himself, descended into hell and left sin and death there, coming back with the first fruits of the new heaven and the new earth in his resurrection body. As we accept his actions on our behalf by faith and allow his love to overwhelm us, we too receive his new creation. Now our lives in the world draw sin and death to us and we can swallow them up through him and deposit them into hell and give out the first fruits of the new creation in return. This is what sanctification is all about, not personal “holier than thou” holiness but holiness for others! This is especially true of our encounters with the domination systems of this world, at whatever point our lives intersect them. As we come into contact with them and their lust for power, status and money like Jesus did in the temptations, we overcome the powers of this world through him.

 

Please respond to these thoughts. I have deliberately not tracked them all to the relevant biblical passages, but hopefully it is obvious. Where you would like to challenge, question or refer back to Christ in the scriptures or your or others’ experiences please do.

 

Let’s change things!

 

With love,

Roger and Team

 

This months’ watch material comes in three related parts. The first relates to the current state of our nations and the continent of which we are a part, the second to God and chaos, and the third addresses the feedback that we have received on nation states, Israel and the divine nature. So there is plenty to pray into and challenge our mindsets with and then relate to our daily life in the world!

 

1. THE STATE OF OUR NATION AND CONTINENT

 

A recent letter calling British Christian leaders to prayer begins: “The United Kingdom is in great trouble. The economic problems have exposed the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of the nation. The foundations of our society are being shaken.” Although I recognise the need for united prayer and appreciate the sense of responsibility of friends and colleagues involved in this initiative, I find myself distinctly uneasy at the assumptions behind this call to prayer. While I agree with the conclusion that the foundations of the nation are being shaken, I regard that fact as the desired conclusion of three generations of revival, two decades of intercession and an extraordinary season of prophecy. The signs are that the UK might be getting OUT of trouble at last! And while I recognise many moral and spiritual failings in the nation, it seems premature to equate the economic problems with moral and spiritual bankruptcy. It may rather be that the exposure of the moral and spiritual bankruptcy of our western economic system is a sign of impending moral and spiritual revival. That God is pleased with the desire for justice and concern for the environment of many young sons and daughters of peace out there who haven’t yet discovered him personally. These alternative ways of viewing what is happening can be applied to our whole continent so let’s all take courage and think about praying along these lines.

 

2. GOD AND CHAOS

 

A few of us from France, Germany and the UK have just spent several  days in prayer, discussion and prophetic interpretation together in the ongoing attempt to understand and impact the times we are in. We found ourselves led to consider the relationship between God and chaos particularly in the light of the current economic shakings and recent scientific discoveries. We concluded the following: (i) God created out of chaos not out of nothing (Gen1:2). Chaos is not negative but the basic material of creation and life (Jn1:3). This is a helpful corrective to the weird idea promoted by Augustine that God must have created out of nothing and be entirely separate from his creation because it is in some way contaminating. (ii) Whenever something old needs to be completed and a resurrection needs to take place and bring about new creation, fullness, the kingdom of God, then shaking is necessary to precipitate the new, and this makes for a season of chaos (Heb12:26-27). (iii) The current shakings and chaos need to be embraced in faith in order for the kingdom to come. This faith is not passivity, but faithfulness to the love and mercy of the kingdom of God whatever happens.

 

3. RESPONSE TO THE FEEDBACK OF THE LAST MONTHS

 

Nation states, Israel and the divine nature. The full text of the feedback can be found on the blog at www.daywatch.eu

 

i) Nation states

 

It has been suggested that the nation state is a lot older than 500 years. I agree that the state, and particularly the city state, of course goes back to Plato and beyond and was the building block for empire, understood as the means of the domination of the many by the few and featured by the devil in his temptation of Jesus (Lk4:5-8, Mtt4:8-10).  My point is that the modern western nation state as the supposed vehicle for peace over a territory and its inhabitants is the child of Christendom (the word we use in English to describe the marriage of Church and empire). This nation state is a new sovereignty that has been established in the cause of peace, which the church has been dependent on and legitimated, but to which it has given away its responsibility and the future hope for this world. If this is correct then the nation state is in part a Christian construct, but definitely not a kingdom one. Like empire itself God can use it redemptively, but it can never be the primary means to the kingdom of God because the domination component is antichristian and in the end opposes the kingdom of God.

 

(ii) Israel

 

On the basis of a Christological hermeneutic, or put more simply if we interpret the whole of scripture through Jesus as its fulfilment, then we have to conclude that the nation of Israel was the primary agent of the kingdom of God before Jesus came, but is fulfilled in him. Neither he nor his church replaces Israel, but they both fulfil its responsibility as the primary agent of salvation. Israel is now the recipient of salvation together with the other nations, each having their own specific redemptive gift. However these national identities are distinct from the nation states that shackle them. The state is an empire based form of captivity that the kingdom of God has come to destroy. This includes the nation state of Israel, which ultimately works against the kingdom of God like all empire based constructs.

 

iii) The nature of Christ

 

I suggested in the first Daywatch guidelines that the words kenotic and kenosis are good words for describing the way of life in the kingdom of God. I based this on Paul’s use of the term in Philippians 2:7 to describe Jesus giving himself in love in contrast to the empty glory of seeking ones own way (Phil2:3). The question has been raised of the usefulness of ascribing the words ‘kenotic’ and ‘kenosis’ to Jesus’ way of life. I’ve no particular axe to grind about this, and take the point that some people might get a bit put off if they Google or otherwise explore terms that some people have used to suggest that Jesus somehow ceased to be God when he emptied himself. The same contributor has suggested that we build up a glossary of such terms on the blog so that people will know how we are using them. While this could be a good idea, it has the tendency to suggest that we are trying to arrive at certainty here, rather than risk a chaotic season. I prefer the latter at this point. To clarify, when following the Christ of the gospels we encounter one who pours his love and power out for others, rather than holding on to it for himself. I suggest that far from this suggesting that he is less than God, it suggests that this is what God does too.

 

Blessings,

Roger and Team

 

PS The team is NOT just me, and now that I have got things started you can expect to hear more from the others!

 

 

DAYWATCH Friday January 16TH 2009

Over the first two months of this Daywatch initiative we have been praying into the mindset change that a kenotic understanding of God’s rule brings. The whole purpose of this is to help us in the intercessory challenge of being repositioned as God’s people in the world. Each month we have been encouraged to apply the apostolic teaching of the gospels to our every day working lives and to the political and economic situations of our contemporary world.

 

The current situation in Israel-Palestine provides a crucial example for the application of the kenotic, not sovereign, power of the kingdom of God. This is the power of love expressed in the statements “love your enemies”, “lay down his life”, “Christ died for us”, and “humbled himself to the point of death”. This immediately gives us the only advice that can help either side in the conflict. Instead of insisting on their own sovereign rights to land, freedom or peace backed up by violence and war, God’s way is for Palestinian and Israeli to stop pursuing their own interests and put the interests of the other first. To love one another, lay down their lives for each other, and humbly die for one another, trusting God for a resurrection of hope and peace in the situation whether or not they experience it for themselves. This is of course easier said than done, but it does give us a strategy for prayer and dialogue.

 

This is not of course the main voice that is coming from the body of Christ, or even the prayer movement at this time. It is important for the sake of intercessory mindset change to say something about that. The issue is the assumption that somehow these apostolic words of the Lord and his disciples cannot be applied to the situation because of Old Testament prophecies suggesting that the land of Israel must be kept for the Jews and the idea that to remain in the blessing of God Christians must always support Israel. Those who take a different line are often accused of being into replacement theology. What has been described as replacement theology is the idea that the church has replaced Israel as the people of God and that there is no longer any role for them. This cannot be right any more than the idea that all the other nations that God promised Israel would be a blessing to are irrelevant now that the church or new nation is in existence. No, the church exists for the blessing of the nations, not for their replacement. This is why Jesus told the disciples that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in His name to all the nations (Lk 24:47). It is also why Paul makes it so clear that there is a future in Christ for Israel.

 

Nevertheless it is an even worse kind of replacement theology to suggest that Israel replaces the kingdom of God. Neither the church nor Israel must ever be used to do that. And the kingdom of God is the kingdom of love that Jesus embodied and taught in these kenotic phrases and yes it fulfils the Old Testament, all of it. That is the whole thrust of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5: 43-44 "You have heard that it was said, 'you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” The Old Testament, both the Law and the Prophets is completed in Jesus. The whole of the Old Testament and the rest of the New Testament should be read and interpreted in the light of him. He is the word made flesh, our interpreter, or to use the technical word, our hermeneutic, the lens through which we read the scriptures and through the scriptures the rest of life and the universe. Every prophecy, including those referring to Israel, Jerusalem and the land must now be submitted to Christ and his kingdom as we encounter him in the gospels. On these terms, if the return of Israel to the land in 1948 means anything, it must mean that God intends every people group to have a land of their own that they are prepared to share in love with their enemies even if they are killed by them. The kingdom of God comes this way.

 

To finish, just a few words to pray into about nation states, war and bombs. While Jesus encourages us to pray for the nations and preach forgiveness to them, the word used is the Greek word ‘ethnos’ from which we get ethnic and it means nations in the sense of people groups. Nation states came much later, only about five hundred years ago, and they are built on the exercise of sovereign power, and can never be a manifestation of the kingdom of God. It is because they are built on the domination of the many by the few that they have to be maintained by force, and they defend themselves from one another by military might and preserve their power by armies and bombs. They are variations of empire like in Daniel Chapter 2 and 8 that the kingdom of God is bringing down by kenotic power! This is why it can never be the work of the kingdom of God to defend any nation, Israel or Palestine, by the exercise of power by war and bombs.

 

Let’s pray for an immediate cease fire in the Middle East and for much kenotic love for both Palestinians and Israelis at this time.

 

Then PLEASE INTERACT, either by emailing a response to the daywatch team at admin@passion.org.uk or better still by helping to form an online interactive community by signing in and interacting together through the daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu where you will find this material posted.

 

May the Lord help us all to be his gift of love in 2009

ROGER AND THE DAYWATCH TEAM

 

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DAYWATCH Friday December 19^th 2008

 

Last month I set the ball rolling for this Daywatch by contrasting the exercise of sovereignty with the kingdom of God. This month, as we give special thanks for Christmas when “the word became flesh and dwelt among us,” (Jn 1:14) I believe we need to take this further for the purpose of intercessory mindset change. So please let’s abandon ourselves once again to Father, Son and Holy Ghost and prayerfully consider the following:

 

In the context of four examples of apostolic teaching (Mtt 5:43-44, Lk 6:27-35, Jn 15:12-16 and Rom 5:7-8), I suggested that the word kenotics best describes the alternative to sovereignty. I well realise that this might be a difficult use of words for those of us who come from what gets termed a ‘Reformed’ background for whom ‘sovereignty’ and especially ‘the sovereignty of God’ connote wonderful qualities. I am happy to decide that my many priceless friends from such a background use the word sovereignty to mean something quite different from what I am refusing here. No doubt they will explain themselves! Nonetheless I am taking issue with the word for several very important reasons, the central of which is the way it is used to refer to the domination of the few over the many.

 

I have for long suspected, and my studies have made clear, that the ease with which the Roman Empire and later empires such as the British Empire were so easily confused with the kingdom of God was because of the confusion over the word sovereignty. The whole semantic field of words such as authority, power, rule, government and especially sovereignty have denoted, or at least connoted, the domination of the many by the few or the one. This has caused people to think that God’s power is also like that. A further step has led some to conclude that sin is the refusal of God’s domination and another step leads them to interpret the cross as the place where Jesus suffered to appease the human rejection of God’s authority over them. The problem with this is that there is no morality involved, only power. What if God were bad? Wouldn’t it then be right to refuse his sovereignty?

 

Fortunately we don’t have to ask this question, because Jesus reveals to us an entirely different kind of power, and his power is God’s power. As John goes on to say, when the word became flesh “we saw his glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth” (Jn 1:14) As he states it again “he who has seen me has seen the Father” (Jn 14:9) and as the writer to the Hebrews puts it “he is the exact representation of his nature, and upholds all things by the word of his power” (Heb 1: 3) Paul explains that “in him all the fullness of Deity dwells in bodily form.” Please take some time to reflect prayerfully over the implications of these extraordinary statements before continuing. Then consider this:

 

On the revelation of Jesus, God is good, but he is not sovereign, not in the way he exercises power. For when his disciples debate who is the greatest he washes their feet and he tells them that it is the lords of this world who dominate over the many. For those who recognise this confusion over the word sovereignty there is a huge problem with the New International Version of the Bible which gratuitously translates ‘Lord Jehovah’ by ‘Sovereign Lord’ literally hundreds of times. The biblical Lord Jehovah, however, is a trinity of mutually loving persons that decide to make humanity in their image (Gen1:26). It is the kenotic, outpoured, love-life of the trinity that those who receive Christ enter into. The purpose of redemption is to seat us together with him in the heavenly places (Eph 2:6), in the midst of a throne that is not over but among the elders and the living creatures (Rev 4:3-6, 5:6). It is precisely the domination of sovereign power over the many that he gives his life to carry away the effects of and which he triumphs over in the resurrection (Mk 10:45, 2 Cor 5:15). He is not appeasing God’s desire to dominate when he dies on the cross but is demonstrating the desire of the whole trinity to love the other more than themselves, including those they have created in their own image (Jn 17:20-23).

 

Why is all this so important? It is because this wrong understanding of power has formed and framed Christendom, Europe and the western world. The exercise of the few over the many is in fact the Antichrist’s power and it’s coming down. If as Daniel describes, we are those to whom all dominion is given (Daniel 7: 27), it clearly has to be of another kind, a kenotic kind! Not to rule and dominate over one another or our enemies but to lay our lives down among our fellow humans in the incarnate power of the Son of God who has gone before us and is alive in us! It is this alternative gospel that we are called to live by and resurrect in the midst of Europe’s corrupt and dying civilisation.

 

Please give time to meditate prayerfully on this material, once again applying it to the desire of the Spirit of Jesus to intervene through us into the world wherever we are. Please be sure to give time to the really difficult questions of what this means in our day to day work situations, the ongoing situation in Congo, and the current economic climate. Then PLEASE INTERACT, either by emailing a response to the daywatch team at admin@passion.org.uk or better still by helping to form an online interactive community by signing in and interacting together through the daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu where you will find this material posted.

 

 

Have a wonderful Christmas

ROGER AND THE DAYWATCH TEAM

 

 

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DAYWATCH Friday November 14^th 2008

 

It IS time for change, not by the exercise of sovereign power or dominion, but by the kingdom of God. The difference between exerting authority by military, economic or cultural dominion and the application of love to friends and enemies alike is perhaps the greatest mindset change of all. It is this that constitutes the difference between the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world and is the heart of the gospel. As biblical Christians who believe in the incarnation and take Jesus’ deity seriously, we must submit the scriptures to the revelation of Christ and his kingdom. This is our hermeneutic, our interpretative starting point.

 

In the four biblical excerpts below we have the apostolic doctrine of the nature of Christ’s rule clearly stated. Four phrases stand out: “love your enemies”, “lay down his life”, “Christ died for us”, “humbled himself to the point of death”. There are a number of ways to personalise the thought behind each of these phrases, such as enemy-lovers, life-prostrators, for-sinners-slain, and self-humblers. But perhaps no word sums it up quite so well as ‘kenotics.’ This comes from the Greek word keno, ‘to empty’ which is applied by Paul to Jesus in Philippians 2:7 in the phrase “emptied himself”. By means of this act of enemy-loving self-humbling prostration of his life, Christ died for sinners. As a result God raised him from the dead and “has given him the name which is above every name.” 

 

As Tom Wright has put it so simply, the resurrection is THE political act which proves forever that the way of life embodied in these phrases that sum up Jesus’ authority really works. He is the Lord right now and the first fruits of the way of life of the new heaven and earth that we are preparing. The change the world needs to see and experience is an authority that operates kenotically. So without awkwardness the overall thrust of this daywatch initiative will be exploring what it means to be kenotics in whatever new position we find ourselves and in every sphere and avenue of society. For some, perhaps for all, this will take us well beyond our comfort zones. Not everyone will be willing to embrace it yet. But let’s respond, dialogue, interact and long for a truly kenotic people to appear in our continent at this time.

 

Please give time to meditate prayerfully on the passages below, applying them to the desire of the Spirit of Jesus to intervene through us into the world wherever we are. Please be sure to give time to the really difficult questions such as what this means in the situation in the Congo and in the current economic climate of our daily lives. Then PLEASE INTERACT, either by emailing a response to the daywatch team at admin@passion.org.uk or better still by helping to form an online interactive community by signing in and interacting together through the daywatch blog www.daywatch.eu where you will find this material posted.

 

 

"You have heard that it was said, 'you shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Mat 5:43-44)

 

"But I say to you who hear, love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Whoever hits you on the cheek, offer him the other also; and whoever takes away your coat, do not withhold your shirt from him either. Give to everyone who asks of you, and whoever takes away what is yours, do not demand it back. Treat others the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. If you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same. If you lend to those from whom you expect to receive, what credit is that to you? Even sinners lend to sinners in order to receive back the same amount. But love your enemies, and do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return; and your reward will be great, and you will be sons of the Most High; for he himself is kind to ungrateful and evil men. (Lk6:27-35) 

 

"This is my commandment, that you love one another, just as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this that one lay down his life for his friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. No longer do I call you slaves, for the slave does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in my name he may give to you.” (Jn15:12-16) 

 

“For one will hardly die for a righteous man; though perhaps for the good man someone would dare even to die. But God demonstrates his own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.” (Rom 5:7-8) 

 

“Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, although he existed in the form of God, did not regard equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a bond-servant, and being made in the likeness of men. Being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. For this reason also, God highly exalted him, and bestowed on him the name which is above every name,

so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow, of those who are in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and that every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil 2:6-11) 

 

We look forward to being together with you on this adventure!

With love

ROGER AND THE DAYWATCH TEAM