Tree of Life Blog

This post is a guest post from international evangelist Christopher Alam.  He is one of my heroes, one of the steadiest, most balanced and wisest men I have ever met.  It was our honour to have him preach at the Tree of Life in Dagenham this year.

Here, he shares one of the secrets to a Christian life, a sadly neglected secret – faithfulness to local church.

My wife Britta and I have been married for 35 years. We have lived in several different cities during these years. With every move we have made, the first thing that we always made sure of was that there was a good church there for us, and that we always chose a house that was close to the church.

Having a home church and living close to it have always been priorities to us. Wherever we have lived, we have always been involved in the life of our home church. With my travels and preaching schedule I am gone a lot but I always make sure that I attend services at my home church whenever I am home. My wife and children are faithful in their attendance. We give our tithes and our offerings, and we are submitted to our Pastor and receive his input, advice and prayers. We are not “church hoppers” who change churches because we get easily offended by people or are moved by the latest Charismatic fads and trends that come through town. Here in Lancaster we have been members of the same church for 21 years, ever since we moved here from Sweden. I know that there are a few people there who do not really like me, my style of ministry, or even some of my views on other things, but that does not faze me. That is their problem and not mine. God put us here and this is our spiritual home and we are not leaving because of them. There are many times more there who love us and believe in us than those that don’t!

Whatever you are doing this Christmas, have an awesome time.  I am going to have a holiday from posting until the first week in January.  Remember, you don’t stop influencing people just because you are at a party with them.  Be sober minded and gracious whatever you are doing.

Thanks for reading this blog, thanks for the comments – here’s to an awesome Christmas and a Happy New Year,

Grace and peace,

Benjamin

It’s a busy time of year – we know it.  And it shouldn’t be time to ignore our Lord and Saviour!  Here are some simple steps you can take to ensure that you keep Christ in Christmas!

5.  Sit down, have a cup of tea and read Matthew 2 then Luke 1.  Beautiful!

4.  Go to a Christmas service.  Go high church – candles, holly, mulled wine, and all the Scripture reading and carols.

3.  Watch the Nativity.

2.  Buy a CD of Christmas Carols, or use Youtube to find your favourite.

1.  Keep praying and reading your Bible and doing your daily devotional routine, no matter what else is going on.  Not legalism – discipline!

It’s the second of December.  You have just over three weeks to get ready for Christmas.  I’m not talking about presents and cakes and turkeys and mince pies and cranberry sauce.  I’m talking about the fact that Christmas softens people’s hearts.  It’s amazing – the combination of the cold, snow making everything look clean, the idea of Santa giving gifts gratis, and possibly too much Christmas wine – but people are softer right now than they ever are.

People associated Christmas with church still as well.  So this is the single best time to invite people to church!  That is the simple truth.

So think about who you know – friends, family, work colleagues – people who will turn down an invite to “church” will probably accept an invitation to a Carol Service.

So use this season wisely!

Carbon Monoxide is called the “silent killer”.  It has no taste, no smell, no colour.  If inhaled it stops your body bonding with oxygen – it stops you breathing from the inside!

In your thought life, there is another silent killer.  It infects you from the inside out and stops you living the abundant life that God has created for you.  It’s called envy.

James 3.16 tells us that:

For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there.

Consider that carefully – where there is envy, confusion and every evil thing are.  Envy brings confusion and every evil thing into your life.

The first symptoms of carbon monoxide poisoning are dizziness, vomiting and confusion.  The confusion isn’t caused by the carbon monoxide, but by the fact that it prevents you getting the oxygen you need.

Envy doesn’t attract every evil thing into your life by itself, but because envy stops you from seeing and grasping how much God loves you, how much you are loved and looked after, and from realizing the riches of your inheritance.

Envious thoughts are essentially negative thoughts about other people’s success.  When someone else gets a new car, new house, new handbag, a new ministry, a new spouse… you want what they have.  You are now immediately heading for a negative thought.  You are thinking about how come they are blessed, how come they have that.  You are taking your eyes away from your blessings, from gratitude and from faith.

Faith and thanksgiving are the oxygen for Christians.  That’s what we need to breathe in our emotions, our thoughts, our life so we can soar, so we can do everything God called us to do.

Envy takes your eyes off the fact that God loves you, that God is for you, that God has a unique plan for you that He is working through with you.

Deal with envy.  It’s a silent killer.  It’s stopped many, many, many people from walking in the abundance God has for you.

4.  Tidy a room in your house

3.  Listen to Pachelbel’s Canon in D while drinking green tea

2.  Tell someone you love them

1.  Go for a walk outdoors

7.  Bring a box of doughnuts and hand them out to people.  Everyone loves doughnuts!

6.  Write out a thank you card to someone you encouraged you at church last week and hand it to them.

5.  Today, read Ephesians 3.14-21 and pray it for the first person in your church who comes to mind as you read it.

4. When you pick up your children from Sunday School, thank the people who gave up their Sunday morning not to worship and hear the Word but to look after and help your children learn about God and free you up to enjoy church.  Better still, give them chocolates.

3. Turn up 30 minutes early.  Find something that needs doing to set up and do it.  Repeat as necessary!

2. Offer to take someone you barely know or don’t know out for lunch after church.

1.  Do something kind and generous to the pastor’s family.  His wife and children.  It will make his day!

If you see the sick healed on a regular and consistent basis, then eventually someone will ask you “Why do some people not get healed?”  Sometimes it is asked as a hypothetical philosophical question, but mostly it is asked on a very personal, very raw level: “why am I not healed?”, “why did my mother not get healed?”, “why did my friend die of sickness”, “why is this person still sick.”

I don’t have all the answers.  I have three answers though.  The first answer will help you keep looking for the other answers in the right place, and the latter two answers will help you keep standing and adjust your mindset to receive your healing.  Having preached sermons on all three, I know they work and we see people healed – especially people who have chronic sicknesses – when these truths are revealed.

1. Sickness is never God’s fault – the problem is on the receiving end not the transmission end.  

You have to realize this beyond the shadow of a doubt.  Through the work of Jesus Christ, God has done absolutely everything necessary for you to be healed.  Jesus bore your diseases, He carried your sicknesses and by His stripes you were healed.

Jesus took all of your sickness on the cross, and gave you all of His health.  He is the Lord Your Healer.  Lots of religious ideas are just a bunch of excuses why people are still sick – healing passed away with the apostles, healing is only for a select few, healing is only for the holy, sickness can be a blessing in disguise, sickness is God’s way of chastening us, Paul was sick with a thorn in the flesh, we live in a fallen world so sickness just happens.  All these unbiblical lies are unholy excuses to justify the evil of sickness.  The truth of the Word is that Jesus went around doing good and healing all those oppressed by the devil (Acts 10.38).  Sickness is demonic and devilish oppression and Jesus is the Healer.

If you have not received your healing now, don’t beg God to change.  He has already provided your healing.  Don’t hassle God and beg Him to heal you – He has already done it.

Learn how you can change your thinking to receive your healing.

2. You must put your healing in the past tense.

I think more people fail to walk in their healing for this reason than any other: they see healing as something that is going to happen.  When the Bible is very clear: by His stripes we were healed.  If you were healed, you are healed.  So start talking healed, start acting healed.  Start believing God’s Word is done.

Hoping to one day be healed has absolutely nothing to do with what the Bible teaches.  The Bible teaches you are healed.  In Luke’s gospel, Jesus meets a woman who is bound over and cannot straighten up.  He says to her “Woman, you are loosed”.  Not you will be, not one day.  Not it’s coming soon.  He tells her that she is loosed, then he goes and ministers that healing to her.  You need to start saying that you are loosed.  That you are healed.  The more you say it, visualise it, imagine it, speak it – then your healing will manifest.

The more you say “one day my healing will come”, then the more you are saying “I am not healed yet” – you are contradicting the Word.  Say “I am healed”, then start commanding your body to come right with God.

3. You Have to Base Healing On Christ’s Work, not Our Work.

So many people seem to think that if they behave well enough they will be healed.  That if they pray enough, fast enough, give enough then they will be healed.  By His stripes you are healed, not by your behaviour.  Your works don’t earn you healing, His work has already earned you healing.

Stop looking and considering your works, and consider Him!  He has done it all for you to be healed.

Feeling condemned that our behaviour is not good enough to be healed is one of the biggest hindrances to healing.  Start to realize that healing is only through grace and never through works.  Grace is the key to everything.

This week we have a post that I read on Facebook this week, by Barry Bennett.  It’s a powerful word on self-centeredness.  It will change you if you let it!  Grace and peace, Benjamin

Self-Centeredness

What is self-centeredness? When we focus on our perceived needs and wants over all else, we are self-centered. Self-centeredness is the result of the perception of self being deprived of something it wants.

The self-centered person has established their emotions, feelings and desires above the needs around them. Everything revolves around their feelings about others or their circumstances. Rather than seeing themselves as a channel of God’s grace and blessing to others, they establish themselves as the center of life. Offenses come easily, as does strife and frustration.

It’s our self-centeredness that turns a want into a need and then that need into a personal crisis. Your life will follow your focus, and if you focus on yourself you will never be free to live out your purpose in Christ.

For where envy and self-seeking exist, confusion and every evil thing are there. (James 3:14-16)

Self-centeredness bears the fruit of confusion and evil. It is sowing to the flesh, and corruption is the result.

Meditate on this word from Isaiah and abundant life and joy will find you.

“Loose the bonds of wickedness, undo the heavy burdens, let the oppressed go free, And break every yoke. Share your bread with the hungry and bring to your house the poor who are cast out; When you see the naked, cover him.”

“Then your light shall break forth like the morning, Your healing shall spring forth speedily, And your righteousness shall go before you; The glory of the LORD shall be your rear guard. Then you shall call, and the LORD will answer; You shall cry, and He will say, ‘Here I am.’ “If you take away the yoke from your midst, The pointing of the finger, and speaking wickedness, If you extend your soul to the hungry And satisfy the afflicted soul, Then your light shall dawn in the darkness,
And your darkness shall be as the noonday. The LORD will guide you continually, And satisfy your soul in drought, And strengthen your bones; You shall be like a watered garden.” (from Isaiah 58, personalized)