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Body-Builders |
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Issue 22 from |
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In this issue ·
Feedback For new subscribers: ·
Introducing
“Artios Ministries” |
Welcome to Body-Builders! This is a new series of teaching articles intended to
bless and build the Body of Christ. I trust you enjoy this issue, and I welcome your
feedback. For my latest personal newsletter, please click here. Every blessing, George Alexander For Artios Ministries |
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(For a
printer-friendly version of this article, click here.) It happens to us all — but it happened to Lazarus
earlier than expected. Lazarus died. Jesus was not there, but was a distance away, and news
came to Him from the sisters Martha and Mary that Lazarus was sick. Hearing this news, Jesus stayed where He
was for two more days. When He
eventually arrived at the scene, Lazarus had been in the tomb for four
days. Therefore even if Jesus had
hurried to his aid immediately He’d heard of the illness, He would have
arrived only two days earlier, so that Lazarus would have been in the tomb
for two days. In other words, Jesus
would still have been “too late”. However, Jesus knew from the very beginning what the
Father had in mind. He immediately
said, “This sickness will not end in death. No, it is for God's glory so that God's Son may be glorified
through it.” (Jn 11:4) After the
two days, He told the disciples euphemistically, “Our friend Lazarus has
fallen asleep; but I am going there to wake him up.” They misunderstood, so then he told
them plainly, “Lazarus is dead, and for your sake I am glad I was not there,
so that you may believe.” (Jn
11:11,14,15) The dividing line between a healing and a miracle is not
always clear, but this was to be a miracle.
Jesus knew the Father’s intention from the start, yet some things had to
be worked out in terms of the co-operation of the participants. The Condition for God’s Miracle:
Moving in Faith By the “tomb time”, the initial stage was complete. The sisters had applied to Jesus (v3) and
had made a faith confession (v21-27, 32). Often we do that, think it’s enough, and stop. But we must continue to move in faith. Standing there at the tomb in compassion and in the
emotion of the moment, Jesus instructed, “Take away the stone.” It was an outward step that had to
happen. Often referred to as
“breaking the natural”, it was a step of faith. And yet, for all her faith confession, Martha immediately
voiced a practical objection: “But, Lord, by this time there is a bad
odour, for he has been there four days.”
It was true, but it was natural thinking on the natural plane. Jesus reminded her of the faith dimension,
“Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?” Typically for unbelievers, seeing is believing. Jesus had earlier told a concerned father,
“Unless you people see miraculous signs and wonders, you will never
believe.” (Jn 4:48). However for believers the phrase is
reversed: believing is seeing.
Yet neither is an absolute rule.
For many people believe as best they know how, and do not see a miracle;
while many others see, and do not believe. The stone was removed, and (in all likelihood) there was
indeed a bad odour. Faith must press through
natural conditions, even though the circumstances scream, “told you so!” or,
“it’s not working.” Faith is outward, not inward; active, not passive. They would have looked foolish if it
hadn’t worked precisely because they’d removed the stone. Faith is not “positive thinking”;
faith acts. Faith is a choice
we make, an action we take, on the basis of the Word of God. The Goal of God’s Miracle: God’s Son
Glorified The style of the next moments in the narrative is not
spectacular, although Jesus is aware of the spectators. He came to a place outside the
village. First Martha, and then Mary
went to Him and dialogued. The Jews
followed Mary uninvited. In talking
to the sisters, Jesus was deeply moved, a fact the crowd observed, and
discussed it among themselves (v36,37). Jesus neither raised a crowd nor played to the
crowd. Impressing the crowd was not
His main goal. As would happen later
at Pentecost, there was no marshalling of a crowd to witness the moving of
God. God simply moved, and the crowd
became aware of it. Already clear that this was to be for God’s glory and
that He was to be glorified as God’s Son through it, Jesus knew that the
matter was already settled — “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.” Apparently, He did not need to say
anything at all in prayer, but did so in awareness of and for the benefit of
the spectators (v41,42), so that on the one hand they would not think that He
had done it, but the Father to whom He’d prayed; and on the other that they
would believe that He was sent from the Father. Jesus models something for us here. When we as God’s sons are involved in
miracles, we should not play to the gallery, nor act in such a way that it
seems we ourselves are doing something laudable or spectacular. It’s all about God and His
glory. We may function as the
mouthpiece, but He is the one sounding the trumpet. The showman would have entered the cave and emerged a
few moments later with a fully revived, unwrapped and cleaned-up Lazarus, to
whoops and shouts from the crowd and with appropriate acknowledgment and
bowing, leaving them wondering, “How did he do that?” But there was no such spectacular
performance from Jesus, only the words, “Lazarus, come out!” And the man who had been dead for four
days stumbled out of the tomb unaided, his face, hands and feet still
wrapped, for the crowd to unbind and release him. No tricks, no gimmicks, and God gets the glory. As a result many of the Jews put their faith in Jesus
(v45). Miracles don’t achieve
evangelism, but they may lead to evangelism.
Miracles achieve interest, and in some cases, openness. But faith comes by hearing the word of
Christ, not by the miracle (Rom 10:17).
The outcome here was evangelistic, glorifying God and
God’s Son. It’s not the we use
signs and wonders for evangelism, but that God does signs and wonders
for the purpose of evangelism. The Alternative to God’s Miracle The miraculous is at God’s initiation. But if we do not move in faith, we will
not see it. We will miss the miracle,
and yet we will not be aware of missing out, for we will have no knowledge of
what could have been. In that
case, we are likely to interpret what was supposed to be a miracle to glorify
God as a “bad experience” — and we may even blame God for it. What if Martha and Mary had not co-operated? What if they had not removed the
stone? God would not have been
glorified, but they would not have known.
People would not have believed, but they would not have known
either. Lazarus would still have been
dead. If they had not moved in faith, they would have
interpreted what was meant to be a mighty miracle of God as a bad experience
— Lazarus had died young — and they might even have blamed God. Of Faith and Miracles Especially in time of need, come to Jesus, confess faith
in Him — and then move in faith.
This involves obedience and action.
It may involve stepping out, breaking the natural, taking away the
stone. We must persist and press on
through the smell, the social awkwardness and the negative indicators. Our concern must be for God’s Son to be
glorified. Who knows how many times in our past lives we’ve been in
a situation where God had in mind a miracle — but it did not happen — because
we did not move in faith? There is no “magic key” that unlocks all negative
situations and guarantees that things always work out as we would wish. Yet there are situations, and perhaps more
than we think, which remain negative, but which God had intended to
transform. Unless we move in faith, it may well be true for us
that God had something in mind that was miraculous and glorious, but all that
happened and all that we saw was a bad experience, where something went wrong
that was not put right. And,
without knowing it, we missed out, because having allowed thoughts of smells
and other practical matters to determine our responses, we failed to move in
faith. George Alexander March 2007 Note: All Bible
quotations are NIV unless otherwise stated. For a printer-friendly
version of this article, click here.
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News and Update |
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The year 2007 is well under way.
Time waits for no one, but seems to me to be moving faster than ever! In this Issue, I’m basing the article on the very familiar account of
Lazarus being raised from the dead.
All feedback appreciated. In response to a request, printer-friendly versions of
the Body-Builder Articles are now available.
To access the list, click here. Also in this Issue, there’s general update information on the Artios School of Theology,
including correspondence
courses, and links to any
previous issues of Body-Builders that you may have missed. There’s also a link to my latest personal newsletter. After a little space to enable some other things to happen, the new Biblical Interpretation course module is
in process in Dunfermline, with a record attendance. (For more information, click here.) A re-designed website
was launched in February. There is still
much development to do, but check it out anyway: www.artios.org So much unwanted e-mail flies around that ISPs are always trying new
ways to curtail it. This is generally
welcome, but it sometimes affects the distribution of the likes of
Body-Builders. We’re investigating
alternative ways to send out the Body-Builders, ways we trust will solve the
problems. In addition, please add mail@artios.org to your address book so that any
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and you suspect it’s not showing as it was intended to (I know it looks a
little strange in Hotmail for instance), please let me know and I’ll try to
solve the problem. Alternatively, you
could try the web version (click here). I continue to receive more requests to subscribe to Body-Builders. If you have received this e-mail
second-hand and would like to be subscribed, please click here. If you’d like to subscribe a friend,
please click here.
(The friend will first receive an e-mail offering the chance to
subscribe.) Check out www.artios.org
for updates. More news and
developments soon …. Return to top
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Previous Body-Builders |
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You may have missed or
mislaid a previous issue of Body-Builders.
If so, don’t despair! They can
be accessed by clicking the links below: Issue
2 (The Beginning of Life) Issue
3 (Getting the Word Out) Issue
5 (The Purpose of the Church) Issue
6 (Pointers to Personal Purpose) Issue
8 (Laying Hold of the Word) Issue
9 (The Community of Perfect Love) Issue
10 (What Should We Do With Christmas?) Issue
12 (Internal Prosperity) Issue
13 (How To Develop Spiritual Strength) Issue
14 (Building the Walls of Your Life — 1) Issue
15 (Building the Walls of Your Life — 2) Issue
16 (Building the Walls of Your Life — 3) Issue
17 (Up and Down the Mountain) Issue
18 (Living in the Light of the Word — 1) Issue
19 (Living in the Light of the Word — 2) Issue
20 (Living in the Light of the Word — 3) Issue
21 (Living in the Light of the Word — 4) NEW! Printer-friendly versions of the articles
only are now available. To access the
list, click here. |
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Artios School of Theology |
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Artios School of
Theology is a modular course leading to a Diploma in Theology from Artios
Ministries. The first run of the
School, with classes held in Dunfermline, is currently under way. The first
module, Old Testament Survey, had eighteen students enrolled, and was
completed in June 2004. The second
module, “Acts of the Apostles” had seventeen students, and completed in
December 2004. That was followed by,
“Gifts and Ministries”, “Spiritual Dynamics”, and “New Testament Survey”,
which finished before Christmas 2005. In 2006, we have done “Romans”,
“Healing” and “Pastoral Epistles”.
Now in 2007 “Biblical Interpretation” is in process. For information, click here. If
you’re within striking distance of Dunfermline, you can register in advance
for the next module. Click here. For general information on the Artios School of Theology,
please click here*. “Old Testament Survey”
is now available as a correspondence course (distance learning). The module comes with a notes booklet,
teaching sessions on audio, and email support. The audio teachings are recordings of the “live” class, and are
nominally 20 hours in length. There
is a charge for this course. To
apply, request more information, or ask a specific question, click here.
Other modules are
currently in preparation as correspondence courses and will be introduced
very soon. * If you tried this
and it didn’t work, you may have to download an Acrobat Reader first. This is available free of charge from
Adobe. To get it, click here. |
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Introducing Artios Ministries Building the
Body by Equipping the Saints |
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Artios Ministries
is a pastoral and teaching ministry launched in October 2003 and based in
Dunfermline, Scotland. Deeply concerned for the Church of Jesus Christ and
committed to its restoration to God’s original intention, Artios Ministries
seeks, in partnership with many others, to work towards the development,
maturity and completion of the many-membered Body of Christ on the earth, as
the whole Church attains to the measure of the stature of the fulness of
Christ. The Founder and Director of Artios Ministries is
Rev George Alexander.
An ordained minister, George has been privileged to serve in a
full-time ministry capacity for more than twenty years, spending most of that
time in pastoral ministry. Now
concentrating on teaching and training, he is still based at Liberty Church
in Dunfermline, where formerly he was Senior Pastor. George is married to Mary, and they have
four grown-up children. Artios Ministries is a charitable trust recognised in
Scotland as Scottish Charity number SC 034194. |
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“Artios” is
a Greek word occurring in the New Testament. It means, “complete,
fitted, completely qualified, with all its needed parts”. It
occurs, together with another word derived from it, in 2 Timothy
3:16,17 “All scripture is inspired by God and profitable for
teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in
righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for
every good work.” RSV |
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Contact Information |
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Difficulties or Comments? Just click here and let us know. |
Artios Ministries 13 Whinhill Dunfermline Fife KY11 4YZ U.K. |
01383-739537 (+44-1383-739537) |
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© Copyright 2007 Artios Ministries |
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