Lynn Green

Category: Worldview

  • Covid-19 A Kingdom Perspective.

    Covid-19 A Kingdom Perspective.

    Photo by Anika Huizinga 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.**


    (This article is by a friend who is also a mentor to me. He was called by the Holy Spirit to a life of celibacy and seclusion shortly after his extensive education and initiation into a profession he loved. He was a medical research doctor. Since he was called, he has lived much of his adult life in seclusion in the desert and has been refined by God to a great extent.

    Many people feel a most unusual sense of God’s presence when they come into contact with him. He very often has God-given insight into the affairs of our world and this Covid virus pandemic is no exception. I commend this perspective to all who will receive it.)

    Lynn Green

    Covid-19 review from a Kingdom of God perspective

    April 2020 (Easter Day in the Western Church/Palm Sunday in the East)

    We are now one month further on than when we last considered this issue and so need to know how to have a Kingdom viewpoint and to recognize our responsibility in this situation.

    • Throughout Scripture we see how The Lord takes His people by surprise
    “But God shall shoot at them with an arrow; Suddenly they shall be wounded.” Psalm 64v7

    “For man also does not know his time: Like fish taken in a cruel net, Like birds caught in a snare, So the sons of men are snared in an evil time, When it falls suddenly upon them.” Ecc 9v12

    “But take heed to yourselves, lest your hearts be weighed down with carousing, drunkenness, and cares of this life, and that Day come on you unexpectedly.” Luke 21v34

    “For when they say, “Peace and safety!” then sudden destruction comes upon them, as labor pains upon a pregnant woman. And they shall not escape.“ 1Thess 5v3

    • There is only one word to describe what is happening and that is… STOP!!!!!!!!! The world is hurtling towards a destiny that it does not perceive and does not understand.

    “For God may speak in one way, or in another, Yet man does not perceive it.” Job 33v14

    God is trying to gain our attention. The whole point of this suffering is to turn our attention back to God and to ask, ‘what does this mean’? We must learn discernment. Our role is to:

    • Inform the world, • Proclaim the Word • Pray.

    JUDGEMENT BEGINS WITH THE CHURCH

    For the time has come for judgment to begin at the house of God; and if it begins with us first, what will be the end of those who do not obey the gospel of God? Now “If the righteous one is scarcely saved, Where will the ungodly and the sinner appear?” 1Pet 4 v17+18

    We are the ones who are supposed to be able to ‘understand the times’ and to discern God’s purpose. If we cannot do this we must STOP and ask for revelation. We need to STOP
    all our busyness and entanglements. We must STOP clinging to old ideas and ways of seeing things. We must exchange our worldly mindset for the mind of Christ and exercise faith informed by Scripture.

    “Your word is a lamp to my feet And a light to my path.” Psa 119v5

    We must kindle the light of the Spirit within and calibrate with each other and with those who are our spiritual mentors and elders.

    “Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God. These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual.” 1Cor 2v12+13

    We need to approach this time with deep purification and consecration, with holy fear and seriousness in the same way that the Early Church lived.

    “that He might present her to Himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing, but that she should be holy and without blemish.” Eph 5 v 27

    We also need to humble ourselves and submit to each other so that the unity of the Body which commands blessing can follow. We must wake up!!!!!

    “Awake to righteousness, and do not sin; for some do not have the knowledge of God. I speak this to your shame.” 1Cor 15v34

    SIGNS OF THE END TIMES

    1. Confusion, fear, terror and loss of peace. This is because we follow the news of the broadcasters and not the instructions and directions of Scripture. We may even be bored as we are denied our usual distractions!

    “And there will be signs in the sun, in the moon, and in the stars; and on the earth distress of nations, with perplexity, the sea and the waves roaring; men’s hearts failing them from fear and the expectation of those things which are coming on the earth, for the powers of the heavens will be shaken.” Luke 21v25+26

    “Watch therefore, and pray always that you may be counted worthy to escape all these things that will come to pass, and to stand before the Son of Man.” Luke 21v36

    “I tell you that He will avenge them speedily. Nevertheless, when the Son of Man comes, will He really find faith on the earth?” Luke 18v8

    Fear is not caused by the enemy as the enemy is also in great fear as he sees his time drawing to a close. What is absent is the fear of God leading to true repentance.

    “There is no fear of God before their eyes.” Rom 3v18

    “For observe this very thing, that you sorrowed in a godly manner: What diligence it produced in you, what clearing of yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what vehement desire, what zeal, what vindication! In all things you proved yourselves to be clear in this matter.” 2Cor 7v11

    Fear of death is a sort of slavery but fear of the Lord brings freedom by the death of Christ

    “through death He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil, and release those who through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage.” Heb 2v15

    1. Manifestation of the Kingdom of the Beast and the number of the Beast.

    “He causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his name.” Rev 13v16+17

    We need to beware of human wisdom concerning this matter and its many misrepresentations. It is a time when there will be total control of the population with the potential for exclusion and persecution of those who do not submit. We need to consider if we, as the Body, are ready for this? The early church used to pray: ‘As it was so shall it be’ as a way of demonstrating their acceptance of the persecution that will always be part of the Church’s experience. In the time of the persecution of Christians by Islam many denied their faith but later recanted. They travelled to Mt Athos to be trained to accept suffering as part of normal discipleship. When they were considered to be mature in this they were sent back and were then martyred. This helps us to ask ourselves if we are ready to suffer in the name of Christ and whether or not we have the grace to endure? This calls for circumcision of the heart. We are in a season when the Holy Spirit pours His grace into hearts that are prepared.

    FORGIVENESS AND REPENTANCE

    There needs to be an awakening to the plans and purposes of God in these times leading to a deepening of faith in Christ and consecration of lives lived solely for Him. There is a need for Ministers and Pastors who have the knowledge of God so that souls can be nourished and their thirst for the Love of God, quenched. This is how the Bride of Christ will appear but first we must be made ready and prepared.

    “Who is she who looks forth as the morning, Fair as the moon, Clear as the sun, Awesome as an army with banners?” Song of Songs 6v10

    Amen

  • Are you ready to catch the Wave? This is still the year of breakthrough!

    Are you ready to catch the Wave? This is still the year of breakthrough!

    Photo by Álvaro Serrano 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.**

    Vikki, a leader in one of our training bases in north western Uganda, sent the following article.  I think it is really important.  She and her husband, John, have clung on to the word of the Lord as they understand it and have not given up, though they have experienced one hardship after another.  I believe they have pioneered something that will be an example to many.

    I felt this letter was so important that I read it out on my weekly Facebook Live-stream.  You can find it there and it will be posted here soon.

    In my summary statements, I recommended  a book. It is Reinventing Organizations, by Frederic Laloux.  I recommend the illustrated version.

    Here is Vikki’s letter:

    A letter to my brothers and sisters in YWAM

    April 2020

    Warm greetings from YWAM Arua, Uganda, East Africa. In the middle of this global pandemic, I would love to share with you what God has been putting on my heart in terms of what He is doing, and what we are still waiting to see. First, allow me to give you some background information for context.

    Six years ago, we first started hearing about a Word of the Lord to the Body of Christ worldwide foretelling a Wave of Revival, a global move of the Holy Spirit that would usher in a Billion Soul Harvest. The timeline predicted this Wave would start in 2020 and continue. For YWAM as a global movement, that Word included a promise of multiplication times ten. God spoke to our founder, Loren Cunningham, about flattening our YWAM leadership structures even more into circles of leadership and relationship, rather than top down hierarchical leadership, in order to prepare for this growth and multiplication.

    In YWAM Uganda, our National Director responded to that Word by removing his title of Director, and taking steps towards expanding the national leadership team into an Eldership Circle with more representation from the various YWAM bases.

    Our response in YWAM Arua to that Word and the promise of multiplication was to look at our current leadership structure and ask God how to position ourselves for this Wave and the subsequent growth. At the time, the encouragement to move into circles of leadership was meant for the regional and national levels, but was not expected to be done at the YWAM base level. There was a sense that YWAM bases functioning at a local, operational level, needed a more top down leadership approach in order to keep things moving smoothly.

    As we prayed in Arua base, however, we felt that in order for this Word to our global YWAM family to come to pass, it needed to reach the base level where the majority of YWAM ministry takes place. We felt strongly that for us to ride the Wave, we needed to move into a base leadership circle that would position us for growth and multiplication.

    Through a significant process of seeking wisdom from other international YWAM leaders, prayer, revisiting the Words of the Lord to YWAM globally and YWAM Arua specifically, as well as reviewing our personal Words of the Lord as individuals … a process that spanned three years… we finally made the move into a leadership circle. John removed his title of base leader and took up the role of elder. Others of us joined John in eldership, and still others came together as ministry leaders for their various teams.

    As I speak, our base of 40 staff has 4 elders and 11 ministry circle leaders working together to run this base and prepare for the Wave… that’s more than a third of the staff in leadership. And no, none of us holds the title Base Leader. It is also important to note that our team includes 3 bases that were operating in South Sudan until the civil war broke out in 2016 when they fled to Arua for refuge. This is one of the reasons we have a plethora of leaders in Arua base.

    It sounds crazy, a recipe for disaster, too many cooks in the kitchen.

    But what if it’s true? What if the Wave is about to hit, revival breaks out, and many new believers come into the Kingdom? What if doors of opportunity that have been locked down for weeks, sometimes months or years, suddenly fling open?

    My hope is that we’ll be ready to jump up on our ministry surfboards and ride that Wave. My prayer is that we’ll be able to multiply quickly as God leads us; grow rapidly with few hierarchical bottlenecks.

    For years we’ve been laboring and sweating and praying and scratching our heads wondering how in the world to lead in a circle, how to trust God to have the final say, not anyone with a title or a stamp. We’ve wrestled with God’s Words and promises, wondering if we really heard Him right, or have we gotten off track somehow. In moments of insecurity I’ve reached out to international leaders, fathers and mothers of YWAM, asking them if we took the whole circle leadership thing too far. Some encouraged us to keep at, don’t go back, hold the line. Others weren’t sure; they wondered if bases need a more directive style of leadership to give vision and focus.

    Ultimately it was God again who encouraged me, who told me to trust Him, to wait and see. As 2020 neared, I felt a growing sense of expectation…would the Wave start to move across the globe? I kept talking about it to anyone who would listen. By then I think a few people had grown a little tired of all the Wave talk. I didn’t blame them… six years is a long time to work and wait and wonder.

    But I continued to pray. I asked God for eyes to see. I lifted up every member on this base and their kids and prayed that none of us would miss the Wave. I staked everything on the Promise of the Lord, and I didn’t want anyone swept under who should be riding on top.

    So I watched for the Wave that would sweep the earth.

    Then COVID-19 rocked the world.

    Wait a minute. Just one cotton-pickin’ minute.

    This isn’t how it’s supposed to be. People aren’t meant to be going into isolation…we’re meant to be gathering in greater number than ever before.

    People aren’t meant to be full of fear and anxiety…they’re meant to be set free and filled with hope and peace.

    People aren’t meant to be dying… they’re meant to be receiving eternal life!

    Everything that is happening is nothing like I expected. Nothing. In fact, the exact opposite.

    On the 18th of March, God spoke:

    You have been faithful to steward my promises, to carry my words both for you and for the base, to believe in the face of doubt and conflict…the time is coming when you will begin to see the fulfillment of these words. The world is in turmoil but I am about to unleash a move of my Spirit more powerful than coronavirus. You are seeing the enemy’s attempt to bring confusion and fear globally. Soon you will see me bring clarity, hope and salvation globally, and what a difference it will make! The enemy can only imitate, distort, mutate, but the Truth is about to be revealed, and everyone will see.

    Once again, I find myself in the place of trusting God’s word no matter what the circumstances. That is what God’s children do… we listen, we trust, we obey.

    Now it is our job to walk in that victory and power, to move in the opposite spirit to the works of the enemy:

    • Instead of division and isolation, let us reach out to the hurting and scared and draw them into a family.
    • Instead of fear and anxiety, let us minister peace and hope.
    • Instead of focusing on physical death, let us lead people to the Source of eternal life.
    • Instead of lifting up the name of coronavirus, let us lift up the Name of Jesus!
    • Instead of helplessness, let us prayerfully move in the power of the Spirit to see healing, salvation, life.
    • Instead of darkness and despair, let us shine our light on the hilltop, that all may see the salvation of our Lord. Let the whole world be filled with the knowledge of the Glory of the Lord as the waters cover the seas.

     

    Let us not give up at the last minute right before the Wave hits, but let us cling tighter than ever to God’s promises. He is YAHWEH… Promise-Maker AND Promise-Keeper.

    Yes, it will be challenging. Yes, we will face difficult decisions and loss in various forms. But if we can stand our ground, hold firm our faith, I believe we will ride this wave with the Holy Spirit in one of the greatest global revivals the world has ever seen.

    Father, help us not to miss this. We’ve prepared for years; we’re ready to ride. Make us sensitive to Your Spirit so we can join You in bringing Your Kingdom of light, love, hope, healing and everlasting life to a world desperately in need of You. Thank You for the privilege of partnering with You at such a time as this. May Your name be glorified. Amen.

     

  • Is the Prophecy True?

    Is the Prophecy True?

    Photo by Jeremy Yap 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 took an unusual step on April 6th and published a predictive prophecy about Covid-19.  If you have a look at it, you will see that Craig from Northern Ireland said the Lord had told him it would end in 24 days from the time he heard the message.  That would make it April 8th or 9th.  (The context was not global, but UK-wide.)

    Since then, the news has been consistently bad, leaving an overall impression that the pandemic is getting worse in the UK.  Today, with new figures published from the Office of National Statistics (ONS) and the benefit of two weeks of hindsight, Philip Johnson published an article in the Daily Telegraph.  This quote comes from that article:

    “Figures from the ONS yesterday showed that, in the week to April 10, there were 18,500 deaths in the UK which is 7,000 more than average because of Covid-19 but about the same as in the first week of January 2000, a bad flu year.

    According to Prof Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at Oxford University and a clinical epidemiologist, we passed the peak of deaths on April 8, which suggests that the mortality from Covid-19 is not much worse than it was 20 years ago. Indeed, with a much higher and older population, it is statistically less so. Arguably, it has been suppressed by the lockdown and yet two countries that have not had one, Sweden and South Korea, have fared better than the UK.

    Prof Heneghan says infection rates halved after the Government urged people to wash their hands and distance themselves from others on March 16. But ministers “lost sight” of the evidence and rushed into an unnecessary lockdown.”

    In spite of the general impressions conveyed by the media, the worst might well have passed.  The other part of that prophecy was that Covid-19 would disappear faster than it came.  So far, we don’t have a lot of evidence for that, but the statement from Professor Heneghan encourages me to pray in faith that this virus will leave our nation and the other nations of the world faster than the predictions.  It has been written and said many time in the past week or two that we will have live with this for years.  May it not be so!

    With our faith strengthened, let’s pray that well-proven prayer,  “LORD HAVE MERCY, LORD HAVE MERCY, LORD HAVE MERCY” and banish this corona virus!

     

  • Inaccessible Truth

    Inaccessible Truth

    Photo by Moja Msanii 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.**

    A few years ago, Marti and I were invited to meet and talk with the Cardinal of Vienna.  Bruce Clewett a YWAMer, had become close to the Cardinal and had extended the invitation to us and another friend.  We walked to the Palace in the centre of Vienna and were met by one of his assistants who told us we would have 15 minutes.  Everything was formal until the Cardinal appeared, shook our hands warmly and began the conversation by telling us when and how he was filled with the Holy Spirit as a young trainee priest.

    More than two hours later, we were still enjoying very friendly conversation despite the assistant poking his head through the doorway every few minutes.  Before leaving, I asked a sensitive question, after first saying he didn’t have to answer what I was about to ask.  I said, “This has been such a wonderful, easy evening of fellowship around our love for Jesus; are there other senior Catholic clergy who would have been comfortable with this evening?”  Without reservation he named a few, starting with Jorge Bergoglio, Cardinal of Buenos Aires—now Pope Francis.  When he was in Buenos Aires, he was also close to, and remains close to, Alejandro Rodriguez, the YWAM leader in Argentina.

    A GREAT ARCHBISHOP

    On a similar theme, the Canon Residentiary of Coventry Cathedral came to our YWAM base in Harpenden to teach on our reconciliation courses.  Then he was appointed Dean of Liverpool Cathedral, at which point he hosted a YWAM meeting when Loren Cunningham was visiting the UK.  We had a relaxed and very enjoyable dinner in his home and there was no doubt about the depth of his faith, his joy and his remarkable abilities.  Not many years later, he was announced to be the next Archbishop of Canterbury—at which point he also agreed to be Patron of YWAM in England.

    This is not really an exercise in name-dropping; My aim is to make it clear that I know that these two men have a strong, Biblical faith.  Each of them has been working hard to move their Church towards living, outworked faith in Jesus and I am both pleased and amazed to have seen this wonderful development.  But it is very hard work and I doubt that either of them is overjoyed to see the progress they have, or haven’t, made. 

    NO REAL THREAT

    The truth is not a threat to the kingdom of darkness if it is inaccessible.  The offices these two men hold require them to appear almost entirely in formal and carefully managed situations.  They must wear clothing that no one else wears.  Not to put too fine a point on it, they often wear funny hats that you never see on anyone else and the cassocks they wear are more like dresses than the clothes men usually wear.  They often address us from the grandest and most historic buildings, surrounded by priceless works of art.  They must preside over ceremonies that must seem like mumbo jumbo to anyone without an education in the practices of the formal churches. 

    The Archbishop still conducts friendly evangelistic dinners in Lambeth Palace.  On those occasions, he is a wonderful host and shares the Good News about Jesus naturally and confidently.  But we, the public, only see a carefully managed man who seems to have little in common with us.

    A SCANDALOUS MISREPRESENTATION

    The media and entertainment world don’t often give any exposure to the Christian faith these days, but when they do, they like to focus on the “professional Christians”, who dress funny, seem rather stiff and distant and, in the media narrative, often turn out to be hypocrites.

    Jesus was so very different from all this.  He completely avoided all the professional religion of his day.  There was just one thing that made him stand out—WHO HE WAS.  He didn’t need or want to dress differently.  He did not have servants surrounding him and keeping other people away.  There were no crowd barriers and he did not confine himself to religious buildings. 

    THE CHURCH BECOMES SOCIALLY ACCEPTABLE

    For more than three centuries, the Church largely followed in the pattern Jesus established.  But, in 326, the soon-to-be Emperor of Rome, Constantine, had some sort of conversion experience and by the end of his life eleven years later, he had elevated the leaders of the Church to positions of formal social power.  We have never fully recovered from that.

    I certainly don’t stand in judgment against the Pope, or Archbishops, or Cardinals or Bishops of Vicars—or celebrity preachers!  But they are trapped in a world that looks like it has little relevance to the daily lives of most people. That serves to make the Good News seem irrelevant.

    HE WAS INCARNATE AND WE INCARNATE HIM

    Ordinary Christians hold the key to solving the problem of accessibility.  “We” are the ordinary people, who dress like anyone else, who live in ordinary houses, cook our meals, do our laundry, go to work (when allowed to!) raise children—but we have a true faith that makes us very different—or certainly should do.

    Perhaps a testimony from Wuhan, ground zero of the Covid-19 virus, will illustrate.  From about 1950, the Christian faith in China grew at the greatest rate ever known in human history.  For every believer in 1950, there were probably more than a 1000 by 1995.  Then the government relaxed its persecution of Christians.  Pastors became more powerful; church buildings sprang up across the nation—some of them big enough to qualify as cathedrals—and the conversion growth slowed down.  After two decades of greater freedom, the government focussed pressure on churches; their buildings were torn down.

    Then the virus hit Wuhan and some of our friends there were very ill.  They grieved and prayed over their city in their isolation.  But they also rejoiced that something in the spiritual atmosphere had changed.  People in their thousands sought out Christians to find out why they were not afraid, why their lives radiated peace.  The number of Chinese people becoming Christians grew dramatically again.

    TRANSFORMING THE ORDINARY

    The TRUTH becomes accessible again when ordinary people live Christ-like lives; when they meet to support each other, to care for others in need, to pray together, to absorb truth from the Scriptures together. 

    Undoubtedly, some of the very large congregations meeting in church buildings in other parts of the world will survive this crisis, but many will not.  Although congregational meeting can be encouraging and large worship celebrations can be uplifting, we might be at turning point when these are no longer the primary expression of Christian faith.  If we become more known for meeting together in neighbourhood groups, sharing our joys and pains together, reaching out to our neighbourhoods, loving the lost and needy, searching the Scriptures together, learning to be open and transparent, becoming more loving and kind—then we might see the kind of growth that Christian saw in the early centuries and has seen again in China.

    Let’s pray and work to make the truth accessible!

    Lynn Green.