Did we in our own strength confide, our striving would be losing;
Were not the right Man on our side, the Man of God’s own choosing:
Dost ask who that may be? Christ Jesus, it is He;
Lord Sabaoth, His Name, from age to age the same,
And He must win the battle.

And though this world, with devils filled, should threaten to undo us,
We will not fear, for God hath willed His truth to triumph through us:
The Prince of Darkness grim, we tremble not for him;
His rage we can endure, for lo, his doom is sure,
One little word shall fell him.

That word above all earthly powers, no thanks to them, abideth;
The Spirit and the gifts are ours through Him Who with us sideth:
Let goods and kindred go, this mortal life also;
The body they may kill: God’s truth abideth still,
His kingdom is forever.

Words & Music: Mar­tin Lut­her, 1529; trans­lat­ed from Ger­man to Eng­lish by Fred­er­ic H. Hedge, 1853.

Puncture a human heart and it will bleed; pierce it spiritually and the result is tears.

Columba Stewart, Prayer and Community: The Benedictine Tradition

It tastes like the fresh fruit of Eden.
It sounds like “Father forgive”.

It feels like nail holes in the hands.
It feels like a weight lifted from around my neck.

“It is finished”, he said, and it was.

A phrase often used, and not just about newly marrieds. The press say this about a new Prime Minister or leader of a political party, or about a new football manager. They’ll say it about the new US President. It of course refers to the end of the period of newness and excitement. The possibility of a change from the old ways and new beginnings that promised so much. Then reality hits, and the dawning that there is no change. There is no new. The new leader is just the same as the old one. Excitement diminishes and life returns to normal.

God spoke through the prophet Jeremiah to the people of Israel:

“I remember how eager you were to please me
as a young bride long ago,
how you loved me and followed me
even through the barren wilderness”
Jeremiah 2:2b, NLT

Again in the New Testament God speaks to the church:

“Yet I hold this against you: You have forsaken your first love.”
Revelation 2:4, NIV

God is saying the people’s honeymoon with him is over.  They have drifted away and forgotten about their first love.

Does the honeymoon have to end? Why does it seem as though it ends.

I think the answer lies in our feelings.  Reality hasn’t changed.  In the case of a marriage, when you come back from honeymoon you are still married.  The new leader is still the leader.  The new manager is still the manager.  How we feel about these situations is what has changed.

In his book Walking with God, John Eldredge asks the question what agreements have we made about love?

I’ve been noticing that most mornings I don’t wake up super-happy, and I’m not sure why. I’ve also been noticing for some time now that when I first wake up, I find myself racing through the coming day in my mind, bracing myself for what’s required of me, but even more so searching to see if there’s anything to look forward to. It’s not really voluntary. It’s almost as if my heart has a life of it’s own, and it wakes up before I do and begins to assess the prospects before me. “I slept but my heart was awake” (Song of Songs 5:2).

By the way, I think this is how our addictions get their claws deeper into us. Our day-to-day grind isn’t anything close to Eden, and our hurting and desperate hearts look for something to which we can attach all those yearnings. We’ll settle for a doughnut if that’s all there is to look forward to. We have to be careful what we give our hearts over to.
Walking with God, John Eldredge

I think this is the key.  Our emotions, and in particular what we give our hearts over to which determine our emotions, have a dramatic impact on our day.  We eat the doughnut, but then then memory of it fades and we wish the day over to yearn for the next day’s doughnut. We buy the latest gadget, and then look forward to the time we can buy the updated version. We have a great holiday and then return to work and book the next holiday so we have something to look forward to. We give up on a relationship because it doesn’t feel the same anymore. We don’t commit to things in case something better comes along. We aren’t present with the people we are speaking to, we instead wonder about the next thing and whether that will be better.

Why do we live in tomorrow or yesterday, but never today? Never now?

What then is the answer?  What should we be doing instead of yearning after doughnuts? God says through Jeremiah:

“For my people have done two evil things:
They have abandoned me—
the fountain of living water.
And they have dug for themselves cracked cisterns
that can hold no water at all!”
Jeremiah 2:13, NLT

Losing our first love, means giving our heart over to something other than God.  God promises a fountain of living water, but we are happy to rummage in the mud looking for other sources that won’t sustain us.  We should give our heart over to something that will last.  Then each day is not about looking forward to some illusory promise. Each day should be about living in the now of the Kingdom.  Yes our emotions will go up or down.  Life is hard sometimes, and these hardships will affect our feelings.  But they don’t affect the reality of our relationship with God.  Even what we eat or drink will affect our moods.  But that is not who we are. We drink to excess to blot out our feelings.  We eat to much or too little because of how we view ourselves.  We let our random emotions rule our live.  God calls us to have one emotion.  Love.  Love God and love our neighbour as our self.

So restoring our first love, and giving our heart over to something that will last forever means tapping into this living water. But where do we get the living water?

Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘streams of living water will flow from within him’.” By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified
John 7:37-39, NIV

Jesus is the only true source of living water that we can drink from and never thirst again. I make this song my prayer.

Let Your living water flow over my soul
Let Your Holy Spirit come and take control
Of every situation that has troubled my mind
All my cares and burdens on to You I roll

Jesus, Jesus, Jesus
Father, Father, Father
Spirit, Spirit, Spirit

Come now, Holy Spirit, and take control
Hold me in Your loving arms and make me whole
Wipe away all doubt and fear and take my pride
Draw me to Your love and keep me by Your side

Give your life to Jesus, let Him fill your soul
Let Him take you in His arms and make you whole
As you give your life to Him He’ll set you free
You will live and reign with Him eternally

© 1986 Ampelos Music

Jacob Wrestles with God
So Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him till daybreak.
When the man saw that he could not overpower him, he touched the socket of Jacob’s hip so that his hip was wrenched as he wrestled with the man.
Then the man said, “Let me go, for it is daybreak.” But Jacob replied, “I will not let you go unless you bless me.”
The man asked him, “What is your name?” “Jacob”, he answered.
Then the man said, “Your name will no longer be Jacob, but Israel, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome.”
Jacob said, “Please tell me your name”. But he replied, “Why do you ask my name?” Then he blessed him there.
So Jacob called the place Peniel, saying, “It is because I saw God face to face, and yet my life was spared.”
The sun rose above him as he passed Peniel, and he was limping because of his hip.
Genesis 32:24-31, NIV

I was reminded of these verses at Hungry For God last night.

Jacob wrestled with God and refused to let go until he was blessed.  There was a personal cost – his hip was put out.

But in this wrestling with God:

• he was blessed
• he received a new identity – Israel
• and through his descendants the whole world has been blessed.

Mark talked about passion last night.  Pressing in and wrestling as we contend with God.  And through this contending passion is revealed.

Jacob carried the memory of that struggle with him for the rest of his life as he limped because of his hip being put out.  He also carried his new identity in God and the blessing.  My prayer is that I do not give up wrestling with God as I work out my passion with his help.

But in recent months, as our Church leadership have discerned an increased move of God around the world, the frequency of these meetings have increased to two or three times a week.

They’ve all been different. I’ve heard from God at some, prayed for others at some and received prayer at others.

I’ve had a couple of thoughts about these evenings in recent weeks.

Firstly, the title: Hungry for God. I initially thought it meant those who went were hungry for God and all that he has for us. But I now think it’s actually a question for me. Am I hungry for God? Rather than go with an agenda I’ve tried to go with a mind set in receive mode.

Secondly, who is it – and this move of the Holy Spirit in particular – for? The night is moving to a regular Thursday slot. This presents a problem for me as Thursday night is Mrs A and my date night, and has been since long before we were married.

Incidently, I could not recommend highly enough the value of a date night for the health of a relationship. But that could be the subject of another post.

If the purpose of going to Hungry for God is a warm, fuzzy feeling of being blessed then it would be missing out on what I feel is the real purpose. Which is to equip the church to: “preach good news to the poor,
… to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

I have not yet resolved what to do about the clash of nights, but I am challenged about the need, well the urgency really, to take it outside the doors of Trinity to the streets, shops and offices of Cheltenham. To be Jesus to my neighbours. Very scary and well outside my comfort zone.

Evan Roberts

Evan Roberts

….Within a month he felt compelled to share this message of the reality of God and the possibility of complete forgiveness of sins with his home youth group at Moriah Loughor.
Summing up the message in 4 parts, Evan pressed it home to the astonished church

1. Confess all known sin

2. Deal with and get rid of anything ‘doubtful’ in your life

3. Be ready to obey the Holy Spirit instantly

4. Confess Christ publicly

By the end of the first week over 60 responded. By the end of the second week Evan had already started on a whirl-wind tour of the South Wales valleys with his team of 5 girl singers and within a year or so 100,000 converts were said to be added to the Welsh Church….

Extract from the Evan Roberts Section http://www.welshrevival.com/.