of greater worth than cardboard

There's an illness I've noticed that we Australians can suffer from, and I hereby choose to call it LCS - Lonely Culture Syndrome. Our culture is so far removed from it's roots that we experience a distance from the world around us. It is the result of being surrounded by countries with non-European cultures, and being so far from the European cultures from which many of our ancestors came. They brought with them what they could when they settled here but that could only go so far, and even today with seemingly limitless electronic communications connecting us to the rest of the world, Australia remains geographically isolated from the cultures that seem familiar to our own. I speak from my experiences - England felt like home when I went there, because it was familiar, yet it was so, so far away from home. Being home now, I know I am home but I do feel a long way from anywhere. I think that since we feel distant, we become detached. The events of world history, and even the events of today, can feel like stories made up specially for TV so stressed-out business people can imagine that there's worse things going on when they get home after a 12hr day at the office. I felt very sobered walking around Berlin, where events of huge world significance occurred even in my own short lifetime. Those things actually did happen, right there. That stretch of the Berlin Wall is not a replica. People actually died because of decisions made in that building. And in Dachau, about 60 years ago, there was a pile of dead bodies outside that building when the Americans came along and liberated the concentration camp. It is stunning, and alarming, just how unreal it felt just because it was so real.

Why am I writing about this now, when it's late and I could be sleeping? Because I believe I have found the reason for the notable absence of some spiritual gifts in our churches. Have you ever stopped to think why we see no miracles these days? Or like me, do you simply think that miracles these days are limited to what may seem, to the untrained eye, to be coincidences? Let me ask you: what has changed about God since Jesus and the Apostles walked the earth, since the blind received their sight, the lame walked, the lepers were cleansed, the deaf heard, the dead were raised and the poor were preached the good news? Has God's Spirit been weakened? Is the Spirit sleeping? Has it taken longer than expected for Jesus to return, so that God is economising the Spirit's power so it'll last out until that day? Surely not, for we well know that the Spirit is alive and active in our churches and amongst our brothers and sisters, renewing lives from the inside out, giving gifts and bearing fruit, and guiding through prophecy and the understanding of the Scriptures. So why don't we see healings, conversions by the thousands in a single day, or even the raising of the dead, in many of our churches?

He said to them, "Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, 'Move from here to there,' and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.

- Matthew 17:20

I hear stories from missionaries of miraculous things happening in Africa and Asia, of the sort I would expect only to find within the covers of the Bible. For instance, the story of a girl being rescued from the clutches of a demon that was levitating her above the ground. I think to myself when I hear of things like this, "Wow! Isn't it amazing what God does over there?"

I spoke with a girl tonight, the sister of one of my friends. She grew up in an Anglican church, and so knows solid doctrine when she hears it. She now goes to a church that runs a healing ministry, where people are actually healed, and where this ministry is founded on biblically solid teaching. And I think to myself as I hear her speak, "Wow! Isn't it amazing what God is doing at that church?"

What kind of a reaction is "Wow!" anyway? I know what it's not - an expression of expectant faith. The Holy Spirit that works through missionaries to cast out demons in Africa is the same that transforms the hearts and minds of Christians in Sydney. The Holy Spirit which heals people in the Blue Mountains is the same that prophecies through the ministers at St Barnabas Broadway every Sunday. So why am I surprised, as though the Australian Customs people were so strict that demons just don't get into Australia, or as though healings can't happen when we have so many good doctors around? Why is my first reaction, "Wow!", without even a hint of "Well of course... if Jesus did it, of course His followers will do the same"? You see, it's not a "Wow!" of joy, it's a "Wow!" of suddenly-uncovered disbelief, because it is an almost completely foreign concept to me that this stuff actually happens now. And it's an even more foreign concept that it can happen here, right here in Sydney, at St Barnabas, in the EU, in the Terraces, through my ministers, my friends or even myself. In my world, I don't expect to see the power of the Most High at work in much more than a good run of green traffic lights... but it's not my world. In my world, the greatest spiritual battle is often to stand up against the temptation to let my Christianity be ignored as I talk to non-Christians (I don't belittle this battle, it's a huge and a very important one)... but again, it's not my world. In God's world, there are demons, who have a very powerful and treacherous master in Satan, but there is also the Almighty Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ, who made demons tremble, who made the sick well, and who has defeated death, and there is the Holy Spirit, who Jesus sent to live in us, to teach us all things and to empower us with His power to do the things He did. God's world is this world, the one we live in, even this geographically, historically and culturally isolated country Australia, and He is the same here as He is anywhere else in it.

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you.

- John 14:12-17

Do you believe in Him? And if so, do you believe Him? When you approach Him in prayer and ask Him for something, do you expect to be given it? I know I have trouble believing that he will even help me to understand what I read in the bible; the thought that I could pray for healing, or ask someone to pray that I be healed, and that such a thing would be given, is mind-blowing to me. I find that as hard as I try, I cannot believe it, and so I dishonour the Lord and sin against Him by not believing what He said. So I'll start by repenting of my disbelief, and asking for the increase of my faith. I'll ask Him to teach me to come before Him the same way the beggars, blind men, cripples and lepers did - expectantly and earnestly trusting in His love and power. I will ask for a Christ-like heart, so that the desires of my heart will match that of His and the things I ask for will be pleasing to Him. I will take Jesus at his word - that when I ask for anything in His name, no matter how ballistically out-of-this-world my request is, and no matter whether it's a missionary in Africa who asks or just little old me, He will do it. He will do it, because it brings glory to the Father, and because He said so.

Do you believe Him?