June 8, 2010

You are my Son, chosen and marked by My love, the pride of my life And the Holy Spirit descended upon him in bodily form, as a dove (Luke 3:22)

The baptism of Jesus marked a new beginning in the life of Jesus. It marked the end of life as Joe and Mary’s Boy and signified the beginning of God’s Son. It marked the end of his occupation as a carpenter and signified the beginning of his ministry as Saviour. It marked the end of his life as he knew it and signified the beginning of a life that he didn’t know all the details but soon discovered his destiny (the cross).

At his baptism, the Lord God spoke to him. I like the Message translation that you see above: chosen and marked by My love, the pride of my life.

These words are not just for Jesus but for you and me. Paul put it this way in Ephesians 1:

Long before the foundations of the earth, he had us in mind, had settled on us as the focus of His love. Long before we had heard of Christ and got our hopes up, he had his eye on us, had designs on us for glorious living.

Life as a Christian, difficult as it may be at times, is still marked by the truth that God chose you, marked you with his love. You are the pride of His life. He had his eye on you before you had your eye on Him!

This gives us a sense of belonging and no one or nothing can take that away from us. In my mainline denomination, we believe that this sense of belonging is emphasized at our baptism in the same way it was at Jesus’ baptism.

Whatever your tradition may be, it is important to know in your hearts that you are chosen and marked by God’s love. You are the pride of His life.

The second thing that happened at Jesus’ baptism was the Holy Spirit descending upon Jesus. The image above captures that descending moment when the Holy Spirit didn’t flutter down on top of Jesus like a little bird but truly immersed him, covered and filled him, baptised him.

This experience of the Spirit changed Jesus’ life and ministry.

It gave Jesus supernatural ability to communicate with God; to see and hear the spiritual realm; to heal the sick and cast our demons; to perform miracles and to  teach through parables.

This baptism of the Spirit came upon Peter, Jesus’ disciples at Pentecost. Later that same Spirit came upon Philip and Stephen; Cornelius and other gentiles and then Paul.

Later it came upon people through church history as the Spirit led and expanded God’s Kingdom.

Sadly we have “dumbed down” baptism of the Spirit as speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues has become the standard of baptism of the Spirit. As such if you do not speak in tongues, you are not baptised in the Spirit!

God’s church in the western world needs to discover again the Baptism of the Spirit that equips and empowers God’s people for ministry where the marks of the baptism reflect the ministry of Jesus. The fruit of that baptism is bold speaking; people being healed and set free; powerful praying and people being saved and disciple.

We need a fresh baptism of the Spirit not for own personal sake to feel great but that God’s Kingdom can be expanded, risks being taken and people being saved and disciple.

We are too preoccupied with survival rather than serving God’s Kingdom through the power of the Spirit.

Let me encourage you to reflect on your life with Jesus. Are you baptised in the Spirit viz does the presence and power of the Holy Spirit energize and guide your living or have you got yourself in a religious, righteous  rut.

Let me invite you to seek out a fresh filling (baptism) of the Holy Spirit to energise your living and give you a Kingdom focus.

This word challenges me as I seek to live the life of Jesus. While there have been some good things happening, I need a fresh vision of what God wants to do with our ministry.

The good news is that we are still seeing people being healed and set free. Each time we pray, we see God bringing further healing and improvement to our clients.

While they are not the miraculous, instantaneous kind, people are being healed and life is improving through the power of God. We have a few clients struggling with cancer and this is very challenging for them and us. But we are seeing progress though these people need weekly prayer with the laying on of hands.

It is hard to do this over the phone!

The joy for us is seeing the improvement over the months of praying enabling people to pick up the pieces of their lives and live again.

We are still doing 20-25 ministry sessions a month with some clients getting two sessions per month. We now need some new clients as some clients are coming to an end of their sessions.

We have no new opportunities to visit churches though we have spoken to some and we will see where the seed will fall and germinate.

The local church, Twin Towns, is also challenging. We need 30 new people, our age, and committed to do the work of Jesus. We get retired people coming or people who holiday for a week or so but we need new residents to come.

This is the challenge. I am now looking to talk with the people about establishing a healing presence at Twin Towns church. This will be a challenge as many people do not have the spiritual mindset as yet. I am teaching on the Holy Spirit to build a foundation of spirituality that the people can have confidence in.

We go to Adelaide for family and we pray that all will go well as we close the chapter of Liz’s mum living at the family home. It has been a focul point over the years and it will be sad and happy as we reflect on 50+ years.

I pray that your life is fulfilling and the Lord is encouraging you to walk by faith and live by His Spirit.

Thank you for your prayers and support

Prayer Points

• Thank God that He chose you
• Thank God that you are the pride of His life
• Thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit to energize your life and ministry
• Thank God that He provides for all our needs.
• Pray for spiritual courage to follow the promptings of the Spirit.
• Pray for God’s next steps for Walking Free.
• Pray for us as we try and do two 0.5 ministries that demand more than 0.5 time.
• Pray for an increase of clients.
• Pray for the right timing to train people on the Gold Coast for our ministry.
• Pray for our prayer teams: Hal and Debbie, Barbara,Robyn, Jenny, Lyn, Liz and myself.
• Pray for our management team: John, Liz, Jamie, Robyn, Rod, Jen and Craig.  Pray that we receive God’s leading for our ministry.
• Pray for the Toowoomba site of Walking Free. Pray for the foundations to be continued to be built. Pray for new team members and a leadership team.
• Thank God for the financial provision of this ministry. We are grateful to the many that are obedient and give to our ministry weekly, monthly and one off. We have been blessed with gifts of merchandise and money, computers and printing. We have been blessed with many talented and gifted people who give of their time, talent and treasure each week to help this ministry have a Kingdom impact.