LETTER FOR MAY 1991
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Dear Friends,

The Bible is our guide. The Bible is our prophetic message - the revelation of God to us. The Psalmist declares, "Your Word (the Word of God) is a lamp to my feet and a light to my us". (Psalm 119:105). The Bible is our rule in all our believing and in all our doing. Our faith and practice must come from and be founded on the Scriptures. Not simply that we should believe and do nothing contrary to the Word of God, but that we should believe and do only what is in an accordance with the Word of God.

This is true when we come to the gifts of the Spirit. If these gifts are to be exercised they must only be exercised so that they produce and encourage Scriptural rules. They must be exercised so that they produce and encourage Scriptural faith and practice. It is very easy to be carried away in excitement and allow the fleshly and human characteristics to result.

When the Apostle Paul wrestled with the spiritual problems in Corinth, he makes plain the criteria by which we must evaluate all church life.

He starts his letter, (1 Corinthians 1:4, 5), by saying that saving grace was given in Christ Jesus, and that it is in Christ we are enriched in every way. In 1 Corinthians 1:15 he emphasises that the Gospel of Christ and his cross is the power to save and bless, and if the cross of Christ is not central and paramount in all our life, we are emptied of power. The cross of Christ is the power of God. (1 Corinthians 1:18).

Paul observes further in 1 Corinthians 1:22, 23 that "the Jews demanded miraculous signs and the Greeks wisdom, but we preached Christ crucified, a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Greeks". Here is the heart of the matter. The flesh demands experience or it demands intellectual proofs. We are always in danger of falling back on these things, to experience or to intellectual wisdom, according to our practical preference. But the Christian faith is Christ and his cross.

Paul ends the chapter with the assertion of the fullness of Christ. 1 Corinthians 1: 30. Christ is our wisdom, our righteousness, our sanctification and our redemption. To look anywhere else is folly and to slip into the backwater of spiritual life. It may be exciting, comforting, mind blowing, stimulating, peaceful or whatever, but it leads nowhere and leads in the end to spiritual poverty and powerlessness. The real main river of spiritual life is Christ and his cross, and he alone leads to life and glory.

Thus Paul affirms in 1 Corinthians 2:2 "I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified." He goes on to say that the spiritual person has the mind of Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:16. He is instructed in Christ and his saving love.

In 1 Corinthians 3:11Paul point out the danger and poverty of our faith and life centred on anything or anyone else than Jesus and him crucified. Our faith must be founded on Jesus or else it will be wood, hay and straw. Such will be found worthless and to be burnt up at Christ's return. Because often we do not centre our lives on Christ, but on experience, we find that we have nothing in the time of testing and need.

It is Christ of the Bible that must be our foundation. We must not go beyond what is written. 1 Corinthians 4:6.

Let me now apply all this to church life. The question we must ask in all that is done is "where is Christ in it?" Is he proclaimed? Is he made known? Further, is he central? Is Christ first? Further still, is Christ glorified? Is he exalted?

We must ask ourselves what place Christ has in every aspect of church life. If he is not first then something is wrong, for Paul tells us in Colossians 1: 18 "Christ is the head of the body, the Church; he is the beginning and the first born from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy." If the end result of our witness is ourselves, or some aspect of church life, or anything but Christ, something is desperately wrong.

What is the evidence of the Spirit's reviving grace and ministry amongst us. The Lord Jesus tells us what the evidence is. It is that Christ is glorified, set forth and made known and made much of. Why? Because the Spirit's work is to glorify Jesus. Jesus tells us this in and John 16:14 -- "He will bring glory to me by taking from what is mine and make it known to you." Jesus had already implied this because when he speaks of the Holy Spirit being sent in John 14:16, he implies the result of the Spirit's coming will be an increased awareness of Christ's presence, because he says in John 14:18 -- "I will not leave you orphans, I will come to you."

My earnest and heartfelt prayer is that we may, by God's grace, understand this spiritual and Biblical religion, and that our church life may be marked by this and this alone.

Your servant for Christ's sake,