Dear Friends

I greet you at this very special time in the Christian calendar 'Easter'.

For me personally this is the most important time of the year, especially Good Friday when our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ paid a tremendous price for our salvation. I always remember a great preacher saying 'Without the crucifixion there is no resurrection'.

Over this period please try and put time aside to meditate on what God has done for us, particularly reading Isaiah 53. Remember that this book was written approximately 700 years before the birth of Christ. You will find healing, deliverance and most of all hope, through this chapter.
In our busy schedule and sometimes doing “good Christian work”, we tend to neglect our personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Let us make this Easter different because without Jesus at the centre of our lives, everything else will become futile. Remember what St. Augustine said, 'Love the Lord with all your heart and then live as you please'.

I can not believe that another month has already gone past and that it is time for another newsletter. I read a lovely little book that was sent to me by an intercessor in Ireland, Ernie McKeown, who has become one of the most effective and devoted prayer warriors.  He sent me a book written by an evangelist by the name of Roy Todd. It is a very encouraging book and in it he mentioned that “LESS IS MORE.”
It is a very interesting concept and basically he uses the example of the wedding in Cana where all the wine had run out, there was nothing left and because of that, Jesus performed his first miracle. The servants filled the wine vats with water and Jesus prayed over the wine vats and they turned into the finest wine of the whole wedding. It was because there was less that wine was made.

So often in life we allow ourselves to get too cluttered up with things. Not only physical things but also spiritual things. Roy Todd encourages us not to clutter up our lives with baggage. Not to keep looking back on past victories. They are wonderful to be reminded of, to build ourselves up in the Lord, but they can clutter us up.  We need to move forward and to de-clutter our lives. We need to give away what we don’t need so that God can compensate us with new things. Don’t become a spiritual hoarder. Don’t become so busy with “so many” things that God has got no room to speak to us. We have got to allow Jesus space to perform new miracles in our lives.

Yes, the past miracles and events were great but he has more for us if we can just trust him for that. We need to be single-minded and we need to make sure there is no doubt in our lives when we believe God for bigger things. A gentlemen by the name of J. John said there is only time to do “God’s will”, in other words there is no time to do things that we think God wants us to do, there is no time for good ideas or even for personal effort. There is only time left to do God’s will.

We need to find out what God’s will is and so often its pride that gets into our way and becomes a major barrier to us, de-cluttering our lives. De-cluttering our lives is what we need to do and when we humble ourselves and allow God to do it for us then he fills our lives with brand new priorities. The writer talks about a very famous modern interior decorator and he says less is more. He says this, because some people think that the more they can fit into their houses, the more beautiful their houses become and in fact sometimes they become totally cluttered up. One can almost become claustrophobic in one of those old houses. He prefers to have less in the home which then gives the occupants more space and bigger windows, less furniture and the result is a beautiful home. So more is not always good, sometimes less is better. So let that be a lesson for us in our own spiritual lives. As we de-clutter our lives then God is allowed more room to show us new things.  I am so excited about what God has got installed for my life. I don’t believe in retirement, I can’t find the word in the Bible. Promotion yes, retirement never!

As I write this newsletter to you I am so encouraged, I have been to four premieres of the movie Ordinary People and they have truly blessed me. When you go and see it, make sure you take lots of tissues with you or if you are a man, wear long sleeve shirts because you are going to have plenty tears flowing, that is a guarantee.  If you don’t, there must be something severely wrong with your heart and maybe it needs to be broken.  Like the Bible says in Jeremiah 23:29 “Is not my word like a fire? says the Lord. Like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?”  

I am so excited about what God is doing in our nation at the moment but I am also aware that many of us are under severe tests. So I write you this letter, I am sitting here on the farm and, we are experiencing a heat wave of 35° plus and have not had rain for some time. But it is always through hardship that God performs and builds character.  I’ve yet to meet a man or woman worth their salt who have not been through fiery trials that is called ‘character building stuff’, so keep it up! Keep up the good work. Remember we can’t live on the mountain top always, we need to come down into the valley and it is only when we have suffered and been through trials like those stories in Ordinary People that God can use us to touch other lives.

If you feeling that you are unworthy or unqualified or maybe just not up to standard, don’t you believe it for a moment! Jesus always uses ordinary people, supposedly the nobodies to do his work. I was just contemplating the other day and meditating on the great men of God in the Bible. If you think about it, I mean the father of faith was a farmer and his name was Abraham. The slayer of giants was a shepherd boy by the name of David who became the greatest king that Israel has ever had to this day apart from Jesus himself. The man that was responsible in writing two thirds of the New Testament under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit was a tent maker by trade; his name was Paul, the apostle. The Lord trusted country fishermen, unlearned fishermen to do his bidding for him and to touch this world and it has never been the same since. In fact if you look at Act 4:13 “Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marvelled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus.” So don’t sell yourself short and don’t allow the devil to condemn you, he is very good at that. Remember only the Lord convicts, he never condemns, and it’s the devil that condemns us. If God is convicting you about areas in your life that are not coming up to standard then repent of them and put them behind you and press on.

Time is very short.  Remember there is only time to do God’s will, nothing more and nothing less.

And so mighty man and mighty woman of God, be done with lesser things, press on and dream your dream and live your vision.

Yours in Christ
Angus & Jill and Shalom team

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