Lighthouse Keeper

Keeping the lights on to guide you home

recent posts

Pray…Study…Do…Teach

  • Nourished and empowered

    I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me. You must continually let my love nourish your hearts. If you keep my commands, you will live in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands, for I continually live nourished and empowered by his love. My purpose for telling you these things is so that the joy I experience will fill your heart with overflowing gladness! (John 15:9-11 TPT). 

    If there ever was a cure for those burnt out on church culture and religion it’s this verse. 

    Who doesn’t want to live nourished and empowered and overflowing with gladness? Everyone. And Jesus teaches us that the way we do this is to stay in the vine, in union with him (John 15:5) which is the love covenant of the New Testament. 

    Note this has a lot more to do with “being” than “doing”. Receiving the love that is ever present in the trinity between Jesus and the Father (and ultimately the Holy Spirit as the love emanates from the Father) (John 15:26). 

    It’s an unconditional love and assurance that you have been chosen and commissioned by God to bear fruit. It’s an escape from striving and trying to “be somebody” in this life. You are somebody and you are not an accident or a random explosion of atoms. You are designed and purposed to be on earth and reflect the image of your Creator. 

    Trying to “be somebody” has haunted me my whole life. And when you surrender to the life of Christ, it’s easy to transfer your worldly striving (status, power, money, control, attention, performance) into your religious and church life. 

    I see so many people (and I know I’m projecting here) who work very hard to “be the best Christian”. 

    Look at me, I’m on fire for God

    Look at me I brought someone to church

    Look at me I worship enthusiastically

    Look at me, I know the Bible. 

    Look at me I’m on all the church rosters. 

    Constantly seeking external validation in a church setting is no different than seeking validation in Hollywood, or the corporate world, or in a material, worldly sense. 

    Notice me-I’m the best Christian

    Our modern churches are rampant with this platform=promotion and an obsession with leadership and titles and people’s little empires we politely call “ministries”. 

    It happens in big and small churches. In cities and towns. Across all denominations. It’s a cancer in our souls that we strive to earn God’s love and he is standing with open arms today saying “you already have my love– you’ve had it since the beginning of time” (1 John 4:19). 

    I love each of you with the same love that the Father loves me.

    Perhaps it’s time to surrender today to the simplicity of walking each day with the Father who loves you and laying down the constructed self we try to sell to God and others as proof that we are worthy. 

    Have a little meditate with Jesus and lay down some of the empires at his feet:

    • The ministries
    • The identity (I’m a pastor, teacher, evangelist, apostle etc)
    • The status (your job, your income, your car, your house and suburb)

    You get the idea. Who are you without these things? Who does Jesus say you are?Let him prune off the window dressing and see the fruit come forth in your life as it overflows from the true and living vine. 

  • Because there is one loaf

    Because there is one loaf, we, who are many, are one body, for we all share the one loaf.
    1 Corinthians 10:17

    The other day, I got my gardening friend to come and have a look at my soil. You see The Lighthouse has lovely gardens but I’m not much of a green thumbs so I needed a crash course. 

    Soil. Parable of the sower. You need good soil (an open mind and heart) to receive the seed (Word of God. Matthew 13

    I was convinced that was the issue and all I needed was a big load of top soil and I would have thriving trees and plants. Experienced gardener friend immediately said “ it’s not a soil issue-your soil is fine. Everything just needs a good feed”. 

    Food. Fertiliser. So he rattled off some names and brands and off I went to the garden centre to buy half the store. I was delighted with this seemingly simple fix and went to it mixing potions to put on my well established plants. Fortunately, I had a quick Google before I started. 

    Nitrophoska Blue is amazing on everything but not Proteas (I have Proteas)...

    Citrus food for citrus but avoid winter and not against the trunk...

    As I continued my investigation I quickly learned that if I had hit everything with equal doses of the blue stuff, I would have killed a quarter of my garden. What you feed is important. Timing is important. Seasons. 

    Different plants need different food at different times. 

    The primary source of food for the living Christian is the Word of God (The Bible) and the various ways it is communicated through writing, preaching and teaching, personal devotionals-that sort of thing. Paul talks about moving the church from living on milk (basic teachings), to solid food or meat (more complex teachings) 1 Corinthians 3:12. 

    Jesus says “I am the bread of life” (John 6:35) and when we feed on Him through communion, prayer, reading and meditating on Scripture, fellowship with other Believers; we get spiritually nourished. Just like the human body, what you feed on will determine your spiritual health. 

    I think we have to be careful as Christians that we don’t “food shame” other people who are either trying to learn about Christianity and Jesus or walking with the Lord already. 

    When I first became a Christian, I read a lot of Philip Yancey and Max Lucado. I then became more hungry for the Word and changed up to John Piper teaching and preaching. After wandering back to the world, Jesus gave me the Joyce Meyer on-ramp back into the church and put me into the teaching hothouse that is Hillsong Sydney. I studied the Bible ravenously. Currently I’m reading a lot of NT Wright, Oswald Chambers, and Charles Spurgeon (and of course the Bible every morning and evening). I would consider all of these teachings good spiritual food. 

    I went through a Bill Johnson YouTube preaching season. I love TD Jakes and Steven Furtick when I need some motivation. To say “well I go to a line-by-line Bible study so I’m a superior Christian to you” is silly. To say you “don’t need motivation and encouragement because you just need knowledge” is counter to Scripture (Hebrews 3:13). We all need variety in our diet and being a food snob about someone else’s journey in the Word (or your own) is limiting. 

    I’ll go into more detail in another post about how I read the Bible but for now, just let people enjoy their time with the Lord in whatever form that takes. It might be a season they’re going through that you don’t have much idea about.  We all feed from the one loaf, the bread of life, in the living Word of Jesus. (1 Corinthians 10:17).

  • Remain in me

    Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me. John 15:4. 

    Before the death and resurrection of Jesus, our sins separated us from God so we need a sacrifice to atone for (cover or reconcile) ourselves.  Now you may think that’s a bit weird, why do I need a sacrifice? It may have made sense to ancient Mayans or even the Jewish nation but we’ve moved on from that sort of thing. 

    One of the things I’ve learned in my studies and exploration of the things of Jesus is that you need to accept things as they are, not how you want them to be. As a non-believer in my early 20’s I came to a point where I just wanted to know either way, was this God stuff real or not? Was Jesus a real person? Why is everyone so obsessed with him? The more I studied (I have a Master’s degree so book study comes easy for me) the more captivated I became with the mysteries of the Bible and the story of Jesus. Why is the story still going? Why do people “see the light” and go all ga-ga from him? Did these historical events really happen and if so, how does that change things? 

    The central point, or the most powerful influence, of my life is the atonement of the Lord, then every aspect of my life will bear fruit for Him (Oswald Chambers). 

    The gospel message is not one of establishing a moral code, being a good person, or finding a nice way to meet wholesome people in a church. Believe me, there are many people who come in and out of churches over the years who want these things and eventually turn away disappointed. The death (atonement by the blood of Jesus) and resurrection of God in the flesh is a gift of moving from death to life- a new creation. And it is this newly created or born again person who follows (or abides, remains with) Jesus to bear fruit. 

    So what is the fruit?  

    Galatians 5:22-23 tells us, “But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.”

    This fruit is the evidence of a person who is being conformed to be like Jesus. Not how often they go to church. Not how many charities they serve. Not if they have the most Bible knowledge. Put simply, the fruit is who you are, not what you do. Now some people try to twist this around and say “well if you love the church then you’ll be on five church rosters”. It’s a joyless nonsense more aligned with trying to earn God’s love than be like Him.  How you are with your family and friends at home, how you talk to the staff at a cafe, how you approach life with optimism and courage and peace; these are the fruits of the Spirit. 

    Your loyalty to Him, your sticking with Him. 

    It doesn’t require striving or manufacturing of projects to try and force the fruit. The abide and remain of John 15:4 will feed and water you. You are reconciled to God by the atonement of Jesus Christ and in this way, you will bear fruit. Remain in me. 

  • Make it your ambition

    The modern church is obsessed with church building which is often defined by lots of activity and “ministries” and not a lot of contemplation, prayer, and listening to God. In a world that is drowning in anxiety and busyness, I think it’s important that our churches offer a place of respite and peace from the worries of the world so people have space to fix their eyes on things above (Colossians 3:2). 

    Striving to bear fruit for the kingdom is often striving to bear fruit for human validation,  or simply distraction from what can be drudgery or struggle if we fail to grasp the peace and joy and simplicity that flows from new covenant promises. 

    Jesus has already come to earth. The new covenant was forged in His resurrection and the new life has been purchased for us. Getting “church busy”  because Jesus is coming back is quite silly when you think of it in New Testament terms. 

    Yes there is a race marked out for us (Hebrews 12: 1-3).  Yes there are good works He has prepared in advance (Ephesians 2:10). And those good works can look like helping your child with their homework or letting someone in front of you in the grocery store line. An offering of thanks can be singing a song or planting a tree.  If you constantly feel like you aren’t “doing” enough for God, you’ve missed the point of the Atonement. He is all sufficient and requires nothing from us (Psalm 50:12). 

    God doesn’t want you to be frazzled and stressed out and angry at the world. And the way to counter this in our lives is to be how Jesus is observed in Luke 5:16 where He “often withdrew to lonely places and prayed”. 

    Seek the kingdom. Seek the quiet. Seek His face.

  • Why ChatGPT won’t make you a Bible scholar

    One of the main reasons people get intimidated by the Bible is because they haven’t received a revelation that the Holy Spirit is the great Teacher and will always be teaching his Word. 

    Racing straight into a commentary, or nowadays ChatGPT, will guarantee that you get someone else’s revealed word and not necessarily your own. It’s challenging because it has become very fashionable to scream “context” at anyone when they start preaching or teaching the word of God. While context is important, it can also dilute a unique revealed Word and assumes that there is only one correct way to interpret a scripture. There isn’t. (We currently have 45,000 Christian denominations so there’s your first clue). Prayerful reflection and meditation on the word of God is always the best place to start. Then you can do a bit of colouring in with other people’s teaching and commentaries as necessary. 

    I’ll give you an example. 

    The other morning, I was doing a little study on Paul’s shipwreck in the book of Acts. 

    One passage that jumped out at me was in Acts 27: 43-44.

    43 But the centurion wanted to spare Paul’s life and kept them from carrying out their plan. He ordered those who could swim to jump overboard first and get to land. 44 The rest were to get there on planks or on other pieces of the ship. In this way everyone reached land safely.

    Those who could swim were ordered to swim for shore. The ones that couldn’t float on pieces of the broken ship. 

    My personal revelation of this Scripture was concern that a shipwreck was occurring in a supposely safe harbour. Why did the shipwreck need to occur if it was always God’s divine providence to save all the lives on board the boat at Malta? Why did the able swimmers make for the shore and not rescue the others? Those that couldn’t swim were left on broken planks?

    I went to another commentary that had a completely different revelation. The boat (often a picture of the church or Jesus, Jesus and Noah’s ark redemption etc) was a symbol of the saving grace of salvation and how we can’t save ourselves and need the broken boat (the body of Christ) to get us safely to shore. Instantly I thought, “wow I’ve completely missed all that”. 

    Then, I went to the great Matthew Henry commentary and read his analysis:

    “Although there are great difficulties on the on the way of promised salvation , that salvation will be brought about without fail and even a shipwreck may be a means of saving lives so that when all seems to be lost, everything proves to be safe ,even though it is on boards and broken pieces of ship” 

    You see the scriptures and commentaries build on each other so you start to get a clearer view of the picture of salvation that is being illustrated here in Paul’s story. Simply screaming “context” at people and hammering away at ChatGPT will not get you to the wonderful revelation that the Holy Spirit can teach through his own, very much alive, Word. 

    Taking time to meditate, linger, contemplate, and savour the word of God as you ask questions and see new insights in the text ensures that you will always be humbled by the richness and depth of scripture and also have life-long learning with the Person who wrote it.

  • Jesus calms the storm

    He (Jesus) replied, “You of little faith, why are you so afraid?” Then he got up and rebuked the winds and the waves, and it was completely calm. Matthew 8:26

    We had a doozy of a storm here last night. Gale force winds with trees and power lines down. 

    There are many storms in the Bible. The most well known ones are the storm of Jonah at sea (Jonah 1:4-13), the plague storm of Egypt (Exodus 9:23-26), and of course Noah and the great flood (Genesis 6:9).  In the New Testament, Paul experiences a stormy shipwreck (Acts 27) and Peter walks on water in a storm (Matthew 14:22-33). 

    Perhaps the most striking imagery is when Jesus calms the storm in the Gospels  (Matthew 8:26 and others):

    “Then he got up and rebuked the wind and waves, and it was completely calm” (Matthew 8:26)

    Storms demonstrate God’s sovereignty over his creation and encourage us to have faith in the midst of frightening or uncertain events. 

    My first reaction when I saw all the alerts coming out online was to charge my two Kindles, two cellphones, and backup battery packs-in case of a power outage. As the weather intensified it only then occurred to me to pray that Jesus would calm the storm and keep everyone safe. Oops. 

    I could hear our small town’s emergency siren going off as I sat in my room praying for Jesus to calm the storm when suddenly I thought “where is my cat?!”. 

    Grace is a nervy wee thing and at the first signs of danger, she disappears out the cat flap. I called and called into the squall and she eventually resurfaced so I could shoo her inside and give her some Temptations to keep her inside. 

    I wanted her with me. 

    I wanted to give her shelter and comfort and protection. 

    I didn’t want her out in the storm trying to figure things out on her own. 

    You’ll hear Christians saying that the safest place in the world is at the foot of the Cross and I believe it. Jesus wants you with Him. Jesus wants you to run to Him and sit with Him and pray (have a conversation with) Him. He doesn’t want you running off instinct and disappearing into self-reliance and thrashing around in a panic in the storms of your life. 

    When I got up this morning, the storm had passed. We had a bit of upturned outdoor furniture and jumpy cat to show for it but Jesus had calmed the storm and kept us safe. 

    Jesus wants you with Him in your storms. 

    Jesus wants to give you shelter and comfort and protection.

    Jesus doesn’t want you out in the storm trying to figure things out on your own. 

    Turn to Him in your storms. 

  • Does the devil really offer you your past?

    There’s an old timey Christian saying that “the devil will offer you your past”. 

    I was trying to think if there were any Scriptures that support this idea?

    The most obvious one is the Hebrew nation’s journey through the wilderness and when they tried to return to Egypt under the leadership of Moses and Aaron in Numbers 14:1-4. 

    Remember, the Hebrew people had been slaves in Egypt but they longed for the perceived security of the familiar. In Exodus 16:3, they romanticise the past, dramatically wishing the Lord had killed them in Egypt where at least they had meat to eat and other food they wanted. As slaves, this scenario was unlikely but their fixation on what was behind kept them from moving in faith toward the Promised Land. 

    A New Testament example that springs to mind in John 21:3 when Peter denies Christ three times “I am going fishing” Simon Peter said. God is calling Peter forward to follow him but instead he chooses to return to what he knows, the comfortable pair of shoes found in his fishing job. 

    We all do this- texting the old boyfriend, hanging out with people God has removed from your life, nostalgia over an old job, nostalgia over an old city you lived in when you were younger. Left unchecked, it can lead to dangerous decisions like leaving a marriage, job, or responsibilities God has given to you. Living in whimsy for the past also robs you of the “daily bread” and “daily grace” that God supplies to his children.

    Change is hard. Change is unfamiliar and can be scary but the simple command of Jesus to follow me is the true essence of the Christian daily walk. The follow me is always forward and not backward. We see this again in Matthew 8:21 when a disciple asks Jesus if he can go back and bury his father.

    But Jesus said to him “follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead” Matthew 8:22

    Jesus’ place is with the spiritually alive and not with the dead. He’s always reminding us to keep moving forward on our journey Home. 

    Yes, the devil will offer you your past-because he wants you to turn back and miss out on the Promised Land of Jesus. The old timey Christians were right 😉

  • Why I’m not singing ‘Oceans’ anymore

    Spirit lead me where my trust is without borders, let me walk upon the waters, wherever you would call me 
    Oceans (Where Feet May Fail) Hillsong United

    I spent five years at Hillsong City in Sydney,  at the peak of Taya’s beautiful “Oceans”. 

    I’ve worshipped and experienced it live with Taya, I’ve blasted it on my Spotify, and sung it in other churches back in New Zealand; even a dreadful Irish Mumford version that would make your ears bleed.  Oceans carried me through some of the most difficult seasons of my life and I’m super grateful for such a beautiful piece of Worship. 

    Oceans was the jewel in the Hillsong Creative crown around 2013. It catapulted the humble and brilliant Taya on to the world stage and has been viewed 69 million times on YouTube. It used to be a joke at Hillsong City that if someone was going through a hard time we would say “uh oh, must have been singing Oceans too hard out”. 

    That’s because of the haunting image in the bridge of Peter being called on to the water to “trust is without borders /walk upon the waters” with Jesus (Matthew 14:22-33).  It’s a wonderful and very biblically sound expression- but I don’t want to sing it anymore. 

    I’ve been to the Oceans. I’ve experienced the storms and the wilderness and the Book of Job and yes, I am familiar with suffering (Isaiah 53). And after years of wailing out my surrender to the movement of the Holy Spirit, He is trying to teach me to trust him- this time with my feet firmly planted on the shore. 

    You see us humans can get addicted to struggle and survival mode and fighting the enemy and taking ground for the Kingdom so much that we forget about the Sabbath and the rest (Hebrews 4:9-11) and the calm and the hedge of protection (Job 1) and the safety and the hundreds of other promises in the Bible that we can experience and enjoy in this present age. 

    The Lord is telling me you are safe, you are home, you are loved, you are protected, you are provided for, and I must admit, I’m finding it very difficult to receive this comfort after so many years of “the struggle is real”. Strive-mode is exhausting. Building on the rock is exhausting. Can I really trust Jesus to give me the rest of Matthew 11? 

    Now I know what you’re going to say. There’s a war in the Middle East and life is always going to have its ups and downs and here comes the mega-church toxic positivity. The still small voice is telling me to turn my swords into ploughshares, to burn my plow and oxen of self-reliance (1 Kings 19:21), and walk humbly with the Lord everyday (Micah 6:8). No more going to sea, no more training for war (Isaiah 2:3, Micah 4:3), and no more Oceans. It’s such spectacular grace I can barely receive it and my hyper-vigilance keeps looking for a trap. Jesus says trust me. So I will forever be grateful to Hillsong Creative and that unique time in history I had with the song but no more. I’m staying on land in my lighthouse.  

  • How the lighthouse keeper got its name

    How the lighthouse keeper got its name

    The people walking in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of deep darkness a light has dawned. Isaiah 9:2 NIV

    On my Dad’s 70th birthday, I think that was about six years ago, we went around to a man named Paul’s house to check out his amazing, green and lush, lawn.

    Paul was a retired gent and famous in our small town for his lawn care. He proudly showed me bags and bags of fertilisers and mulches and various potions he used to grow his outstanding lawn.

    I loved Paul’s house. It backed on to a reserve that went down to a small creek. It was wooden and modest and tended with love and his gardens, as well as the carpet-like lawns, were the life’s work of his wife who had developed dementia and was no longer able to tend them.

    Fast forward six years and I’m now sitting in Paul’s house. Yes, I bought the house off him. The financial provision miracles that sit behind this fact I could write 65 posts on but we’ll get to that. His wife eventually passed and he downsized and put the house on the market. There were five offers on the house when it was listed and, by the grace of God, I was able to secure it and make it my forever home.

    My own Dad would sadly too develop Parkinson’s and dementia and we were able to care for him here at home for the last few years before he went into fulltime care- where he is today.

    So back to the lighthouse.

    Dad’s bedroom had a painting left behind on the wall that we just sort of left there. The blue colours went with the curtains and it was a calm scene of a boat and a lighthouse in a safe harbour. In my prayer life, I started seeing pictures of a white lighthouse. Easy, Jesus is the light, Jesus is the lighthouse.

    One evening when I was putting Dad into his bed I looked up at the blue painting on the wall- it’s the lighthouse. For the first time I noticed in the picture that there was only a light on in the keeper’s house at the back of the tower. The Lord spoke to me in my heart “keep the lights on, you’re the lighthouse keeper, you stay here.”

    I have wrestled with God on this one.

    “But surely He is the light and I can’t keep the lights on so you must be the lighthouse keeper not me.” I have toyed with selling the house and moving to a bigger town. I have dated and perhaps thought I would move in with my future spouse -God ordered my steps and that never eventuated (I’m happily single –please don’t @ me).

    At that place of surrender I have agreed with God that I can make my own small attempt to reflect the light of Him who calls us out of darkness :

    But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 NIV

    So here I am–in the lighthouse. Let’s begin.

  • When Grace got saved

    When Grace got saved

    However, I consider my life worth nothing to me; my only aim is to finish the race and complete the task the Lord Jesus has given me—the task of testifying to the good news of God’s grace.
    Acts 20:24 NIV

    My cat is called Grace. She is a fluffy tabby with no tail (manx) which sounds very fancy but her start in life was not fancy at all.

    Grace comes from an outside colony of stray cats that were dumped when some people left a rental house. The cat colony has grown and today, there are about 30 cats in Grace’s family who live outside in the weather.

    About five years ago, I put an ad on our community noticeboard that I wanted a potty trained cat for our small business office. A lady replied on Messenger and I drove 10 minutes around the corner to an old rental house. She had a lot of cats. She picked up the fluffy tabby and said “this one’s cute” and I instantly fell in love. The cat had no name, had never been to a vet, and bolted when we tried to bundle her into my car. The lady then offered to bring her around the next day and, just like that, the fluffy tabby with no tail and no name was transferred into a life of, well…. grace.

    Grace hid under the bed in my spare room for a week and cried at night as she had never been away from her colony before. I would sit with her on the bedroom floor as she stared wide-eyed at me from under the bed- terrified. I instantly thought “this cat is no office cat, she’s freaking out” and wondered if I’d made a mistake. I fed her treats under the bed which was all very new to her (her former diet was dog roll) and tried to convince her my intentions were good. Day by day, she got used to the treats (and me) until one day she ventured out of the spare bedroom and jumped up on my queen bed. She sat staring at me for a while and then started to purr and then Grace let me pat her.

    Each day I introduced her to new things like being brushed, cat biscuits, coming for walks around the garden with me, and listening to the silly little songs I sung her. Grace wasn’t used to all the attention she was getting and would sometimes retreat to a bush in the garden to decompress by herself.

    I learned all her funny little ways, and she learned mine. As I sit next to her here on a cold winter’s night and she dozes on an electric heated throw, I wonder what her life would have been like if I had never put that ad on Facebook or driven around to see, or the lady had picked up a different cat to show me. I think of her family of cats out in the weather and think- that could have been her life too.

    I think of the great kindness Jesus had extended to me by receiving me into the new creation life and the beautiful mystery of his death and resurrection. And I think how much I want my fluffy Grace just to be with me, to sit with me, to let me look after her and buy her customised pet bowls on Temu. To care for her health and keep her safe. To provide for her physical and emotional needs. For her to have a good life.

    If a thief on a cross like me can think these things. imagine how much more our Lord cares for us.

    God doesn’t want me to build a mega church or save 5000 souls or run 10 soup kitchens if it means that I don’t receive from Him and testify of His grace. The good news of his grace.

    So that’s what I’m going to do here. Next post, how the Lighthouse Keeper got its name.