The last few days have been weird as for ages I have been asking God to give me a complete passionate love for Him and I think He might be starting to do it. I seem to slowly be caring less for things that aren’t to do with God and am seeing the futility of living a life that isn’t to glorify Him. Although I asked for this, it’s still a bit disconcerting.

God is showing me at the moment, through the book of Job, a journey we have to take, and a process we must go through to receive healing from pain. When all the terrible things had happened to Job and he had lost everything that was precious to him, when he had suffered such incredible pain in his life, his friends ’saw Job from a distance, and scarcely recognised him’. As I read this the Holy Spirit told me that when we go through a lot of trauma and painful experiences in life, we can become so scarred that, spiritually, we are unrecognisable from the way God created us to be. We are marred and distorted, and we lose the beauty that God put within us. However, Isaiah 52:14 paints a picture of Jesus exactly the same way that Job’s friends saw him when he was broken. ‘But many were amazed when they saw Him. His face was so disfigured he seemed hardly human, and from His appearance one would scarcely know He was a man.’ I have only ever read this scripture before as a description of Jesus’ physical appearance after he was whipped and beaten and was dying on the cross. But actually, this is also a vivid description of how Jesus looked on the inside. His spirit was torn, distorted, and marred beyond recognition as He took upon, and within Himself, all of our pain and brokenness. It is incredible to realise that not only did Jesus save me, and heal my body and emotions; He also bore the disfigurement of my spirit. I can actually be fully restored even to the depth of my spirit. The Lord ’rescues those whose spirits are crushed.’ (Ps 34:18)

I have been seeing how fickle my heart is to God, Often I cry out to Him to fill me and use me and that I want Him to have my life to use in whatever way He wants but then I grow cold towards Him. I was reading Ezekiel recently and God really spoke to my heart with

ch 16 v 17: “You took the very jewels and gold and silver ornaments I had given you and made statues of men and worshiped them, which is adultery against me.”

I have been guilty of this constantly throughout my life, continuously putting God down for other things and other people and I am sick of it. I don’t want to be someone who sporadically loves God, but I want to be someone who continually loves God and I want God to be the most important person in my life. So now I am asking God to renew my love for Him, I want to go deeper into Him and I want to have Him be everything to me, I really want to count all else as loss. Because I am starting to see how much of a precious gift it is to know God and how I literally cannot survive without it.

We have just had the Grace & Glory conference, and God has yet again highlighted the importance of intimacy with Him. There is a part of me that longs for Him, not just part of Him, but all of Him. But how can you have this intimacy if you are forever rushing around, doing stuff? Surely intimacy involves just being with Him?

I’m guilty of being like Martha, while Jesus desires me to be like Mary and just sit at His feet. Don’t get me wrong, there is a place for us to do stuff. But surely, something is wrong if it becomes more important than spending time with Daddy God? How else will I get to know Him?

I think the psalmist states it well in Psalm 46 ….. ‘Be still, and know that I am God.’ So let’s just wait upon God, and find out who He really is.

One of the issues that Fire School regularly prays about is abortion. During the last year, abortion has been increasingly covered by the media, which has not been the case for a number of years.

On Saturday 27th October we joined others outside the House of Parliament for a rally marking the 40th anniversary of the Abortion Act. Hundreds of Christians came together united, across all denominations, to make a stand to say NO to abortion. It was powerful.

Part of the protest involved a peaceful march from Parliament Square to Westminster Cathedral. As we walked past Westminster Abbey, the bells tolled. During that moment the protesters walked in silence. It felt we were in a funeral procession, mourning for the lost of every child aborted.

By the time we had reached Westminster Cathedral, the crowd was chanting. Outside the Cathedral’s closed doors we chanted STOP ABORTION, and then errupted into a loud, sponatenous shout of praise to God. Someone described the scene as a large battering-ram breaking down the enemy’s walls. 

Then we entered the Cathedral for a service for repentance, healing & hope. We asked God for mercy and repented for the murdered babies. But we also prayed for the parents of the aborted children, for God to heal them and cover them in His great love.

This stand is significant, and is only the beginning of things to come. But we must never forget the importance of prayer. Whatever stand we make, it must be out of prayer, that secret intimate place with God.