Lynn Green

Category: Spirituality

  • Align for Blessing

    Align for Blessing

    ©Photo by Joshua Woroniecki

    I once produced a livestream on the subject of Alignment.  Within a couple of days I was dismayed to discover that one of my viewers posted a comment in which labelled it as cultish.  I then sounded it out with others who had some sympathy with that interpretation.  I felt unfairly judged!  But in the long run, it was helpful, because it became obvious that my language on the subject must be well-defined. So here is an attempt to clarify.

    The term, as it applies to Youth With A Mission and probably many movements and organisations, came to my attention via my friend John Dawson.  When he was commissioned to be International President of YWAM in 2003 in Singapore his inaugural message was entitled “Alignment”.  John has a great gift for using words accurately, so I think the subject was well and widely understood.

    His point and mine was that when we align ourselves with God’s will, we live in the middle of His blessing.  That doesn’t mean in the middle of ease and prosperity.  As nearly every committed Christian knows, living in the centre of the will of God is sometimes painful, but it’s always the pathway to the greatest lasting fruitfulness your life or mine can bear.  I think it was Gregory Boyd who said, “Life on this earth is best understood as living in a war zone”.  However, Jesus is the Captain of the Hosts of the Lord, and He has said in John 10:10 “My purpose is to give you a rich and satisfying life”.  So we might say “battle and blessing” summarises the life lived well.

    The aligned life remains in the place of victorious battle and blessing.

    Alignment applies to different aspects of our lives.

    Firstly, there is alignment with God’s ways as revealed in Scripture and applied to our lives by the Holy Spirit.  We cannot disobey His commandments and expect Him to bless our lives.

    It also refers to alignment with His specific guidance to each one of us.  Peter says in his first Epistle “we are a royal priesthood”. Each one of us lives in His presence, hears His voice, and has the grace to follow Him, so we must choose to stay aligned with His calling on us individually.

    If we are part of a church or a mission, we should be aligned with the particular calling of that body of people.  As a member of Youth With A Mission I should resonate with our beliefs, purpose, values, and legacy words.  The more I am aligned with God’s calling on YWAM, the more fruitful I will be.

    There is one more facet of alignment, which is where the controversy came when I mentioned it in the livestream.  We are to be aligned with leaders in our lives.  The problem arose because some people thought that meant unquestioning obedience.  But that is not it at all!  We are aligned when we maintain an open, honest relationship where agreements and disagreements are possible without disrupting the relationship.

    Can you easily identify those with whom you should be aligned?  For me, it has been the team of leaders with whom I lead locally, and it also applies to my relationship with Loren and Darlene Cunningham and those who comprise the team of international YWAM elders.  Loren and Dar have been faithful, honest leaders of great character, so alignment with them has almost always been easy.  However, there were a couple of occasion when I disagreed with Loren and didn’t do what he wanted me to do.

    For example, many years ago Marti and I felt we were to take our children to spend a few weeks with my extended family in Colorado, where they had many cousins of similar age.  We were there and enjoying watching the friendships between cousins, aunts and uncles and grandparents deepen when Loren phoned.

    He said he and Joy Dawson had been praying and they felt the Lord told them to call and tell me I should be at the international outreach in Canada that summer.  I explained that we were pretty sure that I should be with Marti and the Kids in the USA.  I agreed to pray about it.  Marti and did pray and felt I was not to go.  Loren rang again to say that several of them were praying together and felt I should be there.  Again, I said no.

    I think in some organisations or churches, the senior leader would have reacted angrily, but Loren didn’t.  He respected that the “priesthood of all believers” included me and knew that no leader has the right to override the divine guidance of others.  He understood that, even if I was mistaken, I should not be there unless I knew that God wanted me there.   I did not obey him, but thanks to his maturity and graciousness, I stayed aligned with him.

    Not all people in authority understand that, but we should still be able to say, with the Apostle Paul when he was on trial, “I always do my best to be at peace with everyone”.

    Marti and I have now lived together in the context of our calling which is global missions, particularly as expressed in Youth With A Mission, for 54 years.  We look back on tests, trials, and hardships, but know that the summary of our experience is exactly what Jesus promised.  He has given us a rich and satisfying life (John 10:10 NLT).  That is because God loves to “give good gifts to His children”, but our part in that rich and satisfying journey is staying aligned—with His ways, His calling, and the people He has called us to be with and to submit to.  So, alignment, when understood that way will lead to God’s blessing on our lives.

  • Certificates and Sacrifices

    Certificates and Sacrifices

    A letter from Tom Hallas.

    Tom Hallas has long been one of our most senior and influential elders in Asia.  He is known for his huge “father’s heart” for everyone he meets.  He is also a deep thinker.  The message that follows, with its horrific opening scene, will provoke any reader to think, reflect, and to wonder at the power of the Truth.

    Dear Ones,

    Enclosed is a short paper that I wrote to give expression to some of my thoughts after I fell into the ditch in Africa. Waiting for a procedure to open my artery I had some thinking time.

    I’m giving you this as I have another paper by another author to send you that more adequately expresses where I have travelled in my thinking to date. This has been a 20 year journey and I am a little more settled now than I was at the beginning  with Certificates and Sacrifices.

    If you’re interested, I would like to hear from you. Nevertheless, I will pass on to you the other paper in a few weeks.

    Love and Blessings

    Tom Hallas.

    tom-article-certificates-and-sacrificesDownload
  • Disciples Who Make Disciples Makers

    Disciples Who Make Disciples Makers

    Photo by Dominik Leiner on Unsplash

     

    **This is a personal website and reflects my thoughts and convictions. It does not represent any official position held by Youth With A Mission.**

     

    I was on a Zoom call with Loren Cunningham a couple of days ago and he said he would sent me a copy of a very important comment Tom Hallas had made recently in a letter to Elisabeth Cochrane.  He felt it was an accurate, prophetic insight into God’s purposes for YWAM.  Here is what Tom wrote.

    I have always felt that the primary calling and anointing that God had endowed us with was to make disciples who would be disciple makers.

    Transformation starts internally and works out.

    There are many models of excellent practice right across the planet, many of which are designed and managed by agents of darkness. Striving for excellence on our own strength is useless.

    We are conversionist missionaries; we hold fast to the idea that the whole Cosmos is under the power of the evil one and that the primary service that we offer is a pathway out of darkness into His glorious light.

    For us, the warfare factor should be a top priority—knowing that the Son of Man was made manifest to destroy the works of the devil.

    We are coming into a new era where our primary tool for survival will not be the arrival at human excellence but sustained spiritual warfare. 

    Blessings, Tom Hallas

    I read this just before going to a prayer meeting.  We had set aside the whole night, if needed, so we would not be limited by a timeframe.   In the end, it was from 9 p.m. to 3 a.m.  It was a wonderful, productive, exciting, deep few hours in God’s presence and it served to underline what Tom has written.  We engaged in the spiritual warfare of listening to the Holy Spirit and praying the prayers he gave us.  We asked him to search our hearts and we put things right with him and others.  These are the weapons God has given us and as we teach others, who teach others, the world is changed.  (2 Timothy 2:2)

  • What is the Point of Prophecy?

    What is the Point of Prophecy?

    WHAT IS THE POINT OF PROPHECY?

    A well known Biblical verse, Amos 3:7, states “The Sovereign Lord never does anything until he reveals his plans to his servants the prophets.”

    Does that seem odd to you?  If the Sovereign Lord decides to do something doesn’t he just do it?

    I want to draw your attention to a prophecy which is well known, but to a limited number of Christians and I want to explain why more of us should know about it.  We should know about well-tested prophecies and we should believe them because that is how and why they come to pass.

    God tells his prophets to tell his people what he intends to do because he works through our faith.  Most prophetic messages are conditional. The very well-know passage from  2 Chronicles 7:14 is a perfect example:

    If my people, which are called by my name, shall ahumble themselves, and bpray, and seek my cface, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.

    Here the Bible clearly states the conditions, and they are at least implied for nearly every prophetic passage.  The most common theme from the major and minor prophets is a warning about impending judgement with the prophet pleading for the people to repent and do what is right so God can relent and not bring the judgement they deserve.

    That is not to say that all prophecy is conditional, because some events are unconditionally predetermined.  An example of this would be the prophecy that Israel would be exiled in Egypt for 400 years.

    But most prophecies in the Bible, and prophetic messages today, are conditional.  This is because the Sovereign Lord has made us in his image and, as such, we are very significant.  We can create together with him!  Or as in Nazareth (Matt 13:58 or Mark 6:5), our unbelief can be a hindrance.

    God so loves us that he wants to work in partnership with us!  Therefore, he tells the prophets what he wants to do, they tell his people and we pray prayers of faith, like Daniel did in Daniel 9 or like Nehemiah did in Neh. 1

    So, it is clear that the Lord brings his word to us, often in the form of prophecies, so we can hear, believe and pray in faith.  That is how we can co-work together with God (1 Corinthians 3:9).

    That brings me to a prophecy that I think we should “lay hold of” and then pray until it happens.  It came from an unusual man, but one who was a well-proven prophet of his time.  God used him to bring thousands to faith, with signs and wonders accompanying his ministry over decades.  Smith Wigglesworth was a plumber but became a well-known evangelist.  The following prophecy and the photograph are taken from www.prophecytoday.uk.

     

    Photo: https://relevantmagazine.com/god/13-smith-wigglesworth-quotes-will-challenge-your-faith/

     

    Smith Wigglesworth was a well-known evangelist. He had humble beginnings in life, took up the trade of a plumber and was then powerfully used in a world-wide ministry of evangelism with miraculous healings and miracles accompanying the ministry of the word. He lived from 8 June 1859 to 12 March 1947.1

    Shortly before he died in 1947, he delivered the following prophecy:

     

    During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it and will be characterised by the restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.

    The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches. In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is a great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival but both are steps towards it.’

    When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit.

    When the word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the world have ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years.

    The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.

    I believe this prophecy is from God and it is for now!

    There are many signs that we are about to see unprecedented numbers of people, especially young people, to come to faith in Jesus.  But the “biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nations, and indeed, the wold have ever seen” is not a foregone conclusion.  Let us cling onto God’s loving intention and pray it into being!

     

    Lynn Green.