I finished reading the book by William P Young yesterday. This publishing phenomenon has swept the USA and has now become very popular here. The story is that a little girl is murdered in a shack by a serial killer. Sometime later her father receives a letter from God inviting him to meet the father (papa) son (Jesus) and Holy Ghost (Sarayu) at The Shack. 

It has blessed millions, including my wife Lesley. One of my blog readers said it was the most healing book she had ever read. My verdict? I did not enjoy it at all. The biggest issue was I had no interest in any of the characters. Even once I had accepted the premise of God revealing himself as some Whoopi Goldberg type character, the biggest   issue, I was totally disinterested, which is why it took me so long to finish it!

Most of this week has been spent at a conference at my home church Cardiff City Temple www.citytemple.info , The teaching has been remarkable and the display of actual healing miracles has been astounding. I have loved being in the presence of God, soaking in His Holy Spirit. Bill Johnson has a remarkable gift of making the supernatural, natural. Each day Lesley and I have driven into town with anticipation and expectation. We were not disappointed. Our prayer is the enemy will not be able to rob anything that was imparted this week. 

Today, is a busy one. I start by leading devotions for Care for the Family, the organisation headed up by my friend Rob Parsons. They gather the entire staff  for this twice weekly meeting. I am anxious to ensure that the word I bring is exactly what God wants me to share with them at this point. I then travel into Highfields church for a meeting that is planning the visit of the OM ship Logos Hope to Cardiff Bay in May. Ignite will be providing the youth events. Then I am into another bunch of meetings.

For the next few days, Lesley and I are at a conference with Bill Johnson of Bethel Church, Readding, California. It is as City Temple, Cardiff and I am delighted to say sold out. We heard some pretty good teaching last night and a bunch of people got healed. So we are excited about today ....BUT... looking at the snow outside, we wonder if we will get there!

In many ways I have got out of the habit of watching much tv. I catch the odd programme but rarely watch a series. An exception was made this week for Big Chef takes on Little Chef. In this programme, legendary chef, Heston Blumenthal agreed to develop a new menu for the ailing roadside diner. Occasionally, on the trip to North Wales, Nigel and I will stop at the Little Chef in Builth Wells. It is a habit and not a good one at that. For year Little Chef has been synonymous with poor quality, over priced food. It is the sort of business that the Americans can do easily and that the UK has failed abysmally to imitate. 

The food the Heston produces is often extremely complex using unique ingredients and processes so to watch him assist a company that had no pans and did all its cooking on a griddle and in a microwave was intriguing. The jury is still out on whether the experiment will work but it made fascinating tv. Due to its dire service and food, Little Chef has become bankrupt. Whilst it has been bought out by venture capitalists, the British public have still to be persuaded that the brand has any value. They have fallen so far behind what is expected of them.

RD Laing in his classic text Self and Others quotes Rabbi Kabia "more than the calf wishes to suck, does the cow yearn to suckle"  When we agree to help someone we need to examine our own motives by asking the question. 'Whose need is this meeting' Ultimately we are not God and should not try to replace Him!

Friday night began when Ben and I went to watch the Cardiff Blues. Sat in the BMI stand, we enjoyed a great night at the the Blues trounced Italian team Calvisano 62-20. From there we then went over to the house of my mate Martyn Evans. This was for "The Call" an all night prayer meeting, organised by Band of Brothers for men to fight for marriages and families. It was an awesome night, where the Holy Spirit met we us as we studied the word of God, prayed for some key issues and had a great time together. It was interesting as we looked as men of the spirit how quickly we could become men of the flesh, if we did not take capture of our thoughts. As I looked around the room I was amazed to think that only God could gather such a diverse bunch of men, united in a common worthy cause. Key business was done, some of it we will be aware of in weeks and months to come, some of it we will never be aware this side of heaven. I returned home for a a few hours kip before heading off for Street Pastors Training.

We were looking at the subject of Apologetics. It was lead by my mate Nigel James and we looked at what the Christian message was, how would we share it and easy answers to difficult questions. The primary purpose of Street Pastors is not to preach at people but to show the love of Jesus by "loving our neighbours as ourselves" It was a good session with a great bunch of people.

I went home and cooked my wife haggis, tatties and neeps for a traditional burns night supper (even though it was the day before burns night). As she came in from work and enquired what we were  having. On my repsonse Lesley said that was I sure it did not contain offal as she could not eat that. I surreptitiously checked the packet to see the meat ingredients consisted of pork lungs, pork heart and pork liver! I decided not to share this key information until after she had enjoyed the feast. Suffice to say, she is unlikely to eat this traditional scottish delicacy anytime soon. Sunday was sandwiched by excellent church services at www.citytemple.info with a tasty sunday lunch and some further painting of the lounge.

It is likely today the the British government will announce that the economy is in recession. There will be a feeding frenzy by the press. News headlines will be dominated by it. People will be concerned. It will disproportionately affect the stock and currency markets. What people are less likely to hear is that whilst the report will be public today, it will also say that we have been in recession for the last 6 months. In other words, we have been living in this for half a year but reporting and spin will most likely cost jobs, affect pensions and generally depress the population. In reality the economic situation today will be no different than it was yesterday but because of the way we deal with news today the economy will model our perception.

There is a funny bit in the BBC series "I'm Alan Partridge" where as things seem to be spiraling out of control for him (again!) his PA Lynn tries to offer some comfort.

After more than 14 years, ace vocalist, Guy Penrod is to leave the Gaither Vocal Band to begin a solo career. 

Bishop TD Jakes gave the address at the private prayer service that traditionally takes place at the National Cathedral. According to AP the summary of his sermon were as follows:

Tuesday, January 20th is an historic day. Today the USA inaugurates its first black president. This is an amazing turn of events. In a country where black people have memories and even experience of oppression and segregation. Where slavery was not only allowed but even today by some celebrated. Where arguably the greatest leader of the civil rights movement, Dr Martin Luther King Jr was not only prophetic but also assassinated in this country, democracy remarkably elects an black leader. 

I am looking forward to the inauguration and am excited to hear the prayer of Pastor Rick Warren, author of "The purpose driven life". Strangely his selection for this job in controversial because he has orthodox Christian evangelical views. The controversy even stretches to other members of the US clergy. As a fellow Christian, my prayers, admiration and sympathy are with him!

Today during my quiet time I have been looking at Freedom in Christ the apostle Paul writes about to the the Galatian church (Galatians 5) It seems that at that time there where "spies" within the church suggested a return to the legalism of the old covenant. Paul encourages them by saying:

"It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened by a yoke of slavery"

His point is clear that we can not be justified by the law but only by his grace. Indeed the more we chase after legalism, the more we move away from Christ. I love the thing that the only thing that he says that the only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love. Whilst we know we cannot be justified by our works there is still a requirement that the outpouring of his love for us that we have faith should result in us outpouring love for others.

The freedom from legalism is indeed a freedom from slavery but it is what we are freed into that is so much more exciting.

Let's pray for President Obama that he experiences not just the awesome honour and responsibility of the office but also the freedom of Christ

In recent months I have heard some tragic stories of marriages imploding under the impact of extra marital affairs. The reality is that the devil has marriage in his sights. This does not excuse the weakness of the flesh which in many respects is the biggest threat to this institution. Most people are aware of their weaknesses and these need to protected. I also think that we also should not be complacent about areas we consider our strengths as inadvertently these can through pride become our weakness.