Roots 2006 and a holiness manifesto!

I went to Roots expecting God to deal with some specific concerns and he dealt with all four.

Although I attended the first 5 Roots events I have not been since – until this year. I chose to go this year only because I wanted to hear some of the advertised speakers.

There were four areas of my life where I needed God to work;

1) Past sin and present guilt.
2) Destiny
3) Lifestyle
4) Self

Jeff Lucas was used by God to deal with issue number one. Jeff preached on Peter’s restoration following his betrayal of Christ. This was a powerful message and left me trembling. Ultimately I allowed the God who forgave me to also take away my guilt.

Danielle Strickland was used by God to deal with issue number two. She took the text that was part of a word first given to me 12 years ago when I got saved. She took the words ‘Mighty warrior God is with you’ from the story of Gideon and spoke of true humility. She explained that to back away from one’s destiny because we feel unworthy is false humility, whereas true humility is to accept what God says and respond accordingly. When I was prayed for to receive the Holy Spirit the man who prayed for me spoke a prophetic word. The word concerned my life and what God wanted to do with it within TSA and it also spoke of the scope and proportion of that potential work. In spite of repeated ‘fleeces’ and repeated confirmation I have baulked at the massive scale of that word. Sunday night I responded to the call (not to Officership that was done a long time ago) but to destiny, my destiny and I exercised true humility and accepted it – watch this space! I have to stress here, if Danielle knew me well and was familiar with all my circumstances she could not have been more personal, specific or accurate as was this address, it was if God had singled me out.

The third issue had already partially been dealt with before I arrived in Southport but the confirmation I received at Roots was profound. For some months now I have been uncomfortable with the issue of lifestyle. Before going to Roots I penned some resolutions which I have now turned into a personal manifesto, these can be read at my webpage blood and fire Steve Court’s book and campaign ‘Be a hero’, together with the UK Watershed and Human Trafficking initiatives underlined the importance of embracing an ascetic, Franciscan (or to use an SA saint) Railtonian lifestyle – this may not be for everyone but it is certainly for me. Then when I returned home I looked up my good friend Matt Clifton’s Blog and saw a William Booth vision that was suggesting the same thing – more confirmation!

The final issue was nailed without anyone’s help apart from Gods!. During the final song, in the last session, I rescued the Army flag from a flag holder in the shadows in the corner of the tent and confidently marched around the Big Top with it – did anyone follow? I don’t know I didn’t look behind me. Did anyone object? I didn’t care. I crucified self using the flag as my cross. It wasn’t about me or anyone else it was about parading the fact that both my sin and guilt were gone; it was about parading the fact that I was happy with the massive impossibility of my destiny, it was about being obedient. It was both hearing and responding to that little divine whisper that said ‘go and get the flag and parade it, stake your claim, make your case and start taking ground.’

Quite a bargain for £150 and 500 mile round trip!

Yours irrepressibly under Christ and over the devil!