Dublin you're shaking

Dublin you're shaking
I can hear your heart quaking
There is no point in faking
I know your head is aching

From boom to bust, dreams have hit the dust
What used to be a 'must',
We can now see was 'lust',
Anxious minds are taking time to adjust.

Dublin you're quaking but hold on...
Could this be your making?
In this cold new IMF/EU undertaking
To which we are waking...

Isaiah 61 - The Saviour's Commission

Good news for the poor
The brokenhearted and captives set free
A year of the Lord's favour?
A new kind of dignity...

Thank God for His mission
Which He suffered to achieve
So that now all He requires
Is that I bend my knee to believe...

Dublin you're shaking
I can hear your heart quaking,
Could this be your making?
There is just no point in faking...

Whosoever

For God SO loved the world (every nation, tribe and tongue, including this little girl selling Puja flowers on the ghats of the 'holy' river Ganges at Varanasi...) that He gave us Jesus His one and only Son that WHOSOEVER believes in Him shall not perish but will have eternal life...

Christ died for All Nations....ask of me He says and He will make the nations as His/our inheritance...

Who will go?

Blown away........

Since last Sundays amazing South City Church morning meeting I have been processing something so obvious and yet so deep within me that its only now that it is hitting me.

Last Sundays testimonies in church just blew me away! To hear of God healing Margaret's chronic knee problem and to witness Vitalija moved to tears and almost speechless at the power of God's hand in her family has left me mesmerised, blown away by the love, majesty and Grace of our great and awesome God who stoops down to bless people who look to Him (and even those who don't!)

Today, I just simply recognise that God is good. He is so so so so GOOD! Even when He hides His face from us it has never ever compromised one iota of His goodness or love. To have him reveal Himself in such ways last Sunday must never get 'lost' on us. God is love.

Lord, keep moving by your Holy Spirit in our lives and beyond our lives. Touch the city through us. Rescue unbelievers, shed abroad the knowledge of your Glory and Grace. Heal the sick, set the oppressed free, surprise us with joy and wonder at breakthroughs in impossible situations. Whisper anew in our inner ear today.

God is so Good! Can you see Him today? Wait...His goodness will pass before you!

JS

First love

First love, but First His love.

Clamour, clamour and more clamour. No-one makes me succomb-I just do.
I'll get around to you Lord I promise myself but when this happens I
seldom do.
Information-age idol and busyness mix, why do I bow down to this below
the radar fix?
No demands are made from heaven just eternity's heart cry, no jilted lover syndrome, just our spirits that sigh.

Friends, time is short - to meet, our Maker in awe and liquid love
replete.
Arrest this day, apprehend this hour, arise anew to Christ our great High Tower.
The drug of sleep, its power can keep, us from our God with life most deep.

First love, first love but first His love.

Only then can we capture and make place for the Dove.
Throw off the guilt but not the call, from Father's heart,
first love, our all.

Sons of Yearning

SONS OF YEARNING (God of Burning)

Flood our lives with hunger burning
Nations wait for sons of yearning
God of fire, Grace and Awe
We give to you, our lives our all

Lamb of God the Lion roaring
Deep to deep your Spirit calling
Heirs with Christ, in Promise stand
Arising called to take the land

Burn in your Kingdom bright
Christ the light giving sight
Hope of the nations, salvation is here
Visions that all may see
Glimpses of glory
With Signs & wonders, Your Heavens draw near

Marshall now your troops deploy
The works of satan to destroy
In Majesty you ride ahead
In victory risen from the dead

Til you again return one day
We’ll trim our lamps with oil and pray
Then angels praise will join our cries
And ring like bells from Heaven’s skies

The empty chair and prayer

Brendan Manning told a story about a lady who called at his door, about 35 yrs of age, in tears. She asked him to go and visit her dying father and to pray for him, citing the fact that she had asked her Pastor three times and he said he would but always seemed to forget amidst his administrative duties and busy schedule...

Manning arrived at the hospital to find the father with an empty chair next to his bed as though he had been expecting a visitor. Seeing Manning's inquisitive look, the man said, ‘Oh the chair’ and went on to relate why the chair was by his bedside...

He had struggled with prayer all his life and confided this to Manning as a life-long struggle and had after many years approached his Pastor with courage and told him that he could hardly pray two words and also that he got little or nothing from his sermons on prayer as they seemed to 'fly over his head'. The Pastor gave him a theological book by a Swiss theologian that he couldn’t understand either which was returned the next week.

The dying man went on to relate how it was a good friend of his, by no means the most ‘spiritual person that he knew, that had given him some simple but profound advice on prayer....

‘Prayer’ he said, ‘is just a simple matter of having a conversation with Jesus’. ‘All you do is sit down next to an empty chair and by faith see Jesus on that empty chair, and he has promised to be with you until the end of time, then just speak to Him and listen as you would in a conversation with your best friend’

I am making a trip to INDIA and NEPAL soon

Your prayers are appreciated

My niece Bekkie Williamson will be there for 2 months

Check out the link below - thanks to Krista Burns for the video,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vi4cAniXqvc

Destabilize your unhealthy equilibrium (a link to my sermon)

Sermon I preached in South City Church Dublin - 21/8/11

"Disturb your unhealthy equilibrium"!

Whilst away on holiday in W and SW Ireland I really felt I heard God's direction and passion downloaded to me. Much of this applies to me personally but was also very much I believe for the 'Western Church' in general and the church in particular that I have the privilege of leading in Dublin!!

Its a message about courage, passion for God and breaking into your destiny. Its about recovering a freedom that causes us to live boldly, even wildly for Christ.

Hope you enjoy!