The Sword of the Lord and the Rest of the Lord

Biblical accounts of the moment of Christ’s death on the cross tell of a tearing, from top to bottom, of the curtain in the temple isolating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the synagogue. None but the High Priest could enter that most sacred space, and only once a year on Yom Kippur (or the Day of Atonement, the holiest on the Jewish calendar) to make amends for the people’s sins. This tremendous curtain-cleaving event signalled an end to the separation of God from humanity. People now had and have access to God Himself.

So we can now, if we choose, freely access the Kingdom of heaven. The caveat of course is that entry is possible only through the door Christ has flung open, the door he himself is (John 4:16; 10:7). As we do, we can find the proverbial ‘rest for our souls’.

Yet even Christians have trouble with the concept, let alone reality, of rest. What, really, does rest mean? How can we rest when so much needs to be done? When the world around us seems to be falling apart?

A recent book and CD set by Kevin Basconi rends all of this wider open to understanding. In The Sword of the Lord and the Rest of the Lord, Kevin recounts what he calls a parabolic vision he had a few years ago. His dramatic encounter, on the Day of Atonement in 2011, resembles Paul’s being transported to the third heaven in its intensity and revelation.

Kevin describes precisely what he saw, felt, heard and sensed, and then proceeds to provide the interpretation the Lord gave him of the experience. He witnesses, with all his senses, encroaching and terrifying darkness beginning to engulf humanity.

He then sees the Lord flashing his sword, with the words “Rest of the Lord” ornately engraved on it. Kevin discovers the levels of meaning behind, within and beyond those words. He hears the Lord admonish: “Be diligent to enter in to my rest,” as he points the sword to the Heavenly Hosts behind him. “When you learn to enter into my rest, you can enter into the REST of the Lord.”

What he learns about ‘end times’ and ‘the rest of the Lord’ from this experience differ considerably from how the Church has traditionally boxed up those concepts. His matter-of-fact presentation, combined with scriptural support, makes what would otherwise seem a flakey outta-this-world incident completely solid and credible.

Kevin learns and shares with us how yes, ‘rest’ can imply just that: resting from works, as in a Sabbath rest. It can also mean the meditative resting prayer we enter into after praying all the necessary prayers. But he also discovers another interesting aspect: ‘the rest of the Lord’s Body’—those saints who have preceded us to heaven. And so much more!

Here is the acronym for REST the Lord gave Kevin after his experience:

R:   Return to me and cease from your works
E:  Expect me to move and work on your behalf
S:  Stop doing things I did not initiate
T:  Trust me to enable you and empower you to fulfill your destiny and your calling"

Holy Chutzpah! Viewing Israel from the inside with the movie 'Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference'

As we approach the most important time of the Christian year—the death and resurrection of our founder/friend Jesus—it may be good time to also honour and celebrate the roots of our Jewish Jesus, as well as his own Jewish brothers and sisters in the land of his birth and elsewhere.

First the bad news: A BBC poll spanning 22 countries suggests people view North Korea and Israel equally negatively. The utterly cool movie Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference (link below) may change some naysayers’ minds … then again, maybe not. Closed minds are just that.

Narrated by New York Times bestselling author and former Harvard lecturer, Dr. Tal Ben Shahar, the film uncovers how despite incredible challenges, Israeli creativity, innovation and chutzpah have triumphed over adversities ranging from geographic to unspeakable.

Israeli-born and American-raised, Dr. Tal taught Harvard’s most popular course ever, 'Positive Psychology', and his international best sellers Being Happy and Happier have been translated into 25 languages.

Hundreds of TV networks and programs have profiled the brilliant, personable PhD and family man, including 60 Minutes and The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.

Tal now consults and lectures around the world to executives in multinational corporations, Fortune 500 companies, educational institutions, and for the general public. His topics include leadership, education, ethics, happiness, self-esteem, resilience, goal-setting, and mindfulness.

You can view a ten-minute version of the movie here: Israel Inside: How a Small Nation Makes a Big Difference.

Revival: Is simple desperation enough?

So many of us pray for, talk about and hope for revival … but what does the concept mean to you, or for you or your community?

We hear stories from history of the great Welsh revival with Evan Roberts, or the Great Awakening with Wesley, Whitefield and Edwards. Modern-day missionaries tell of amazing moves of God in otherwise miserable places such as, for example, Mozambique.

Obviously a key ingredient is to have a felt need to be revived. If we’re comfortable where we are, who or what needs reviving?

The first time this idea whacked me was while listening to the stories of a friend working with Open Doors with Brother Andrew. In visiting difficult areas of the world, he had been struck by the fact of capital-L Christian Life thriving in areas where Christians live (and often die) under severe persecution.

Kevin Turner has me agonizing again over my—our—comfortable little worlds with a powerful article in this month's Charisma Magazine (see below for link*). An evangelist ministering primarily in regions of the globe where the gospel is restricted, Turner reminds us with first-person authority and passion of the too-prevalent sad fact of lack of Life in the Christian comfort zone.

While he addresses the American Church in particular, his points and questions obviously apply for most western churches.

"How is it that God can visit a mud hut in the middle of Africa yet bypass the comfortable sanctuaries we created for Him in our country? ...  Why are other nations experiencing revival and we aren't? Could it be that calamity clarifies while comfort confuses? Calamity is an excellent teacher. It shows us in an instant what is truly important. Our materialism leaves us content without God.”

Turner sees real life and growth in the churches of devastated areas of the world, and like my friend and many others, identifies desperation as the key to revival.

Certainly it is of critical importance, but who among us would invite calamity even with the promise of a magnificent move of God? We can feel desperate for many reasons, and any one of them can be enough to have us begging God for relief. For the affluent westerner it may well be an anguished cry of: “Is that all there is?”

Still, turning to God in desperation, alone, isn’t enough for genuine growth (a by-product of revival, after all) to happen. After Jesus tells us that all authority in heaven and on earth has been given to him, he says, in what we’ve come to call The Great Commission:

"Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” (Matt. 28: 18-20)

They not only help identify felt needs and so ‘catch the fish’, but help clean them up, train them, and release them—revived—into their own spheres of influence to do the same. Neither comfortable Christians nor simple converts can create or even enable revival, but desperate disciples can and do. So to my mind, the 'equation' might become:
Desperation + Discipleship = Revival

* Why Isn't the American Church Experiencing Revival? by Kevin Turner, in Charisma

Dying Man Finds Life in Dying Church

Three years ago, Greg Thomas told his family to start planning his funeral. Diagnosed with stage four cancer, he began taking long walks in the country around his home in Montgomery, Minnesota … alone with his dog and his thoughts.

One day, a sort of spiritual serendipity led him to a little church which had been built in 1868 by Czech settlers, but abandoned for the last 100 years. Thomas would have loved to go inside, but the doors to the old Catholic church were locked tight.

 "I tried it more than once," he says. But the church was always locked. Its foundations were crumbling, the paint peeling, but it was there on the church steps, a man crumbling himself began to pray.

Eventually, Thomas contacted the foundation responsible for the upkeep of the church cemetery, telling them he wanted to repair the church. The foundation called Thomas' offer "a godsend."

Today, as Thomas works, he also prays inside the church.

"There's been a lot of tears shed on these [church] steps, and they've been tears of joy, tears of pain, but tears of blessings too."

Photo: KARE 11 News

Miraculously, as the tiny church's exterior was restored, it seemed Greg's body was being restored as well.

"The old church is newly clothed in white," narrates KARE 11 News' Boyd Huppert in a video report. "And Greg's cancer is now in remission."

"It's what He's done for me," Greg explains, referring to the Lord Jesus, "and this is my way of saying thank you.”