The Lord doesn’t believe in performance. There is nothing you can do that would make God love you more, and there is nothing you can do that would make Him love you less!

Graham Cooke (from The Church Has Left The Building)

I’m so grateful to God that this is so true. Thank you, Graham Cooke for posting it. If I tried to perform, it’d be a disaster, yet the temptation is always there, as there is SO much competition in the church, and especially in ministry….I’ve been told by people I’d once have considered very close to me, that I need to push myself…self-publicise…to try to get onto ‘main platforms’ at big conferences, to write endless books and waste wonderful ministry time after a ‘preach’ by advertising them, selling them, and sadly, destroying the atmosphere in which God moves when faith has been raised….
I’ve been told to push to get into the growing number of films that are coming out now about miracles. I know people who’ve been in them, and they’ve changed, not for the better…I’ve suffered at the words of ‘great friends’ who’ve laid into me to charge ludicrous fees (perhaps because they feel guilty that they do, and the ‘Jesus way’ challenges them)….Jesus’s comment on it was ‘Freely you’ve received, freely give’. I can’t charge, I just CAN’T. God told me I was never to charge 39 years ago. And I’m relieved to say that, even when desperate, I haven’t, for which I thank my Heavenly Father….and, in not charging, I’m blessed by God honouring his promises to provide, through friends, and sometimes offerings: I’m hardly anorexic as a result of not charging, and I’ve been to 110 countries, many of them multiple times (Romania 131, Colombia 75, Mexico 35, USA 100+….) and I’ve never sent out an invoice, demanded an airfare, never sent a list of food requirements to be in my room….. that’s not a boast, just a massive statement of gratitude to a faithful God and faithful people.

A long-time friend, who regularly spoke at one of the big conferences in the UK, decided he didn’t want to go to it any more, as there was so much competition – one up-manship – among the speeakers. How unbelievebly dreadful and ungodly is that?

There are also people who want to ‘out-do’ another person by the outrageousness or magnitude of what God did through them…. I love to let people I take with me do the preaching, the praying – and then hear them tell THEIR stories of what God through them, with them, and in them. That thrills
I’m just preparing for a trip to Colombia, at my expense, as with each of the guys going with me, Thanney Pyper, and Davy King, who again are going to build, this time a new roof on a children’s foundation, so very poor, at their own expense.
We’re trying to raise that money at the moment, along with the money to build a new home for the street kids that the guys couldn’t in November, as the house had to be condemned. This time, it’ll be built from scratch, at £55,000. There’s no competition, no kudos to be gained, just a lot of prayer, love, sweat, and toil in raising the money….
The trip in just over 3 weeks is costing each of us about £1500-2000 after all expenses….a big platform offering would cover it, yes, but if I COULD get that invitation, I’d be selling my soul…. We need the airfare this week, really: but it’s in God’s hands, as is the money for the building. Would I want to sell my soul for it? I don’t think so….nor would Thanney and Davy….