All posts by Bob Hext

I am an author and bible teacher, and lead the prophetic ministry at Wildwood Church (A New Frontiers church) in Stafford, UK. I founded Crossbow Education Ltd, an educational supplies company for supporting people with dyslexia, in 1993, and retired as CEO on March 28th 2025. I married Anne in 1980: we have three children and 7 grandchildren. As a disciple of Jesus, my motivation is to see the Kingdom of God advance in every walk of life: workplace and business as well as marriage, family and church, and I write to fulfil Ephesians 4:12 - "for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ." Because the work of ministry is for all of us, all of the time. I don't spend all my time doing "spiritual" stuff though: I like to spend time with friends, to travel, and - my main hobby - to watch and photograph birds.
Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

Stepping up to the coming move of God

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“The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love.” (Gal 5:6)

This is a prophetic word I received on Easter Sunday. A “move of God” has been prophesied for this season by many people, significantly by Smith Wigglesworth in 1947, but by a growing number of people in recent times. What the different prophesies have in common is that it will be greater than any that has gone before, and will be unlike anything that we have experienced before. I believe this word relates to it.

I saw a platform at a station, except it was it on a higher level then where I was standing and the track was running in a different direction: it was at 90°, as if it was going over a bridge. The only way to reach the platform with by two flights of steps that were pushed into place, rather like stage scenery. The second flight of steps sat behind the first, starting where the first one ended so that the two flights became a single flight. I felt the Lord was saying, “The train is coming, but it won’t pull in for you just where you’re standing. You need to take the steps to the higher level. If you don’t take the steps, you will miss the train. And it’s not coming from the direction that you expect and that you are used to; it’s coming from a completely different direction. It’s not what you expect. It’s not another train like the last one because it’s on a different track going a different way.”

I said: “What are the two flights of steps? Why are there two?“
He said, “The two flights of steps are Faith and Love. Pushed together they become one. You need to take steps of both reach the level where my train is coming in. The first flight is faith, because you cannot love selflessly without faith. But faith alone is not enough, because without love, you are nothing.”


I asked, “Why are they mobile, like stage scenery that is pushed into place?”
He said, “Because you have to ask me for them. You can’t just walk up them on your own. When you are ready, I will push them into place for you. Are you ready to take the steps? Because my train is coming, and I don’t want you to miss it.”

Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

By Himself Alone

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“Therefore, when Jesus perceived that they were about to take him by force and make him King, He departed again to the mountain by himself alone.” (John 6:15)

After Jesus had fed the 5,000 He walked on the water towards the disciples. The narrative account of this really begins while he was still on land, after distributing loaves and fishes to the crowd. They wanted to make Him king, but He went off to the mountain to be alone. If we look at this miracle through the lens of what it demonstrates of Christ’s authority and our authority in Him, we can see here the enemy  inciting the crowd to offer Jesus the same temptation that He faced in the wilderness, when Satan offered to give Him all the kingdoms of the world in return for His Worship.

The crowd had seen the power of God at work through Jesus before the miracle of the loaves and the fishes, but it was when they saw His ability to produce food out of thin air that they wanted His kingship. As He said to them in Capernaum, after He had taken the disciples across the stormy lake, “you seek Me not because you saw the signs, but because you ate of the loaves and were filled.” John 6:26). They weren’t interested in Jesus because of what the sign said about Him, but because He conjured free food.

John’s narrative tells us that He departed “by himself alone.” He uses two words – autos monos in Greek – when one would have made the meaning clear enough. So why is the scripture so emphatic? I think there are two sides to this. The first one is clear enough: the authority of Jesus came from the mountain and not from the world; from the Father and not from men. His kingdom was “not of this world.” Satan could tempt Jesus with “all the kingdoms of this world and their glory“ (Matthew 4:8) because he had stolen them from Adam; in Christ, the second Adam, we, “the violent,” seize them back from him “by force.” (Matt: 11:12) Sometimes the glory of the kingdoms of this world can clutch at us like the hands of the crowd were clutching at Jesus; and if we are to walk after the spirit are not after the flesh we have to resolutely turn away from them, as Jesus did, to reach the mountain where we stand in His authority and power.

The second aspect is not so much about Christ Himself and our position in Him, but it’s about us. However, the manifestation of what we receive on the mountain depends on it. Each one of us stands before God, “by himself alone.”  God loves each one of us and Jesus died for each one of us as individuals, and He wants us to love each other as individuals as well. The truth of His great love applies to everyone, but my experience of His love is not the same as yours: we work out our own salvation in fear and trembling. (Phil 2:12) We love one another for who they are ‘by themselves alone,’ we don’t try and make them into somebody else – especially not replicas of ourselves. Even if I disagree with your theology, that is ultimately between you and Jesus. If I think you are an error, I can share what I believe, and whether it’s truth spoken in Love or my own error spoken in love, what is important before God is that it is spoken in Love. The apostle Peter tells us that “judgement begins at the house of God.“ (1 Pe 4:17) This doesn’t mean that I judge you because I think you walk in error, but that God judges me if I’m not walking in love. When we, the body of Christ, become practised in taking every critical and judgemental thought captive to the obedience of Christ and can learn to truly embrace our differences, the love of God will break through and bring unity where the judgement of man has previously brought division. And we all know Psalm 133 and what it is that unity commands. 

So our spiritual authority rests in the power of Love and the mercy which triumphs over judgement, and it comes from the mountain, not from the crowd. Because it’s just as important not to seek the approval of others as it is for us not to disapprove of them. Our spiritual authority has a dual core: it rests in our relationship with God and the love for our neighbour that we receive from Him. We do not love for the power, the influence or any other reward that we can receive from people, but only out of what we receive from God. He is our very great reward. We don’t run to the crowd; we run to the mountain, by ourselves alone. But having been up on the mountain, Jesus headed out across the waves towards His friends. We can only walk on water in the dark when we have stood on the mountain in the Light.

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God

What can I give You, Jesus?

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In our small group recently, one of the members was telling us about a book she and her husband have been reading: “Humility, the journey towards holiness,“ by Andrew Murray. I had heard of him and knew he lived at the beginning of the last century, but that was it, so I looked him up. He lived from 1828 to 1917, was a South African pastor and Bible teacher. He believed that “the chief end of Church is mission,“ and wrote about 50 books and many more tracts and pamphlets. He had a notable influence on other ministers around the turn of the century, including Rees Howells.

As I scanned through the bibliography, I was struck by the journey that the books he wrote suggest that he was on at around the time he wrote about humility. The particular sequence of titles that stood out was this: “Have mercy on me,” “Absolute surrender,” “Humility, the journey towards holiness,” “The deeper Christian life“ “Waiting on God,“ “The divine indwelling,“ and “Lord teach us to pray.“

I haven’t read any of these books, so this is purely conjecture, but there seems to be a picture here of a spiritual journey that speaks powerful truth for all of us. It goes like this: When we recognise how desperately we need God’s mercy we give our lives to Him completely, and in doing so we learn the meaning of true humility. In that place we can go much deeper in our relationship with God, which is where we learn what it is to really wait on Him. It is only when we spend time seeking His presence that we start to grasp something of the reality of “Christ in us, the hope of glory,” and that is when we begin to learn the true power of prayer.

Murray was a prolific writer, and all these titles were written within two years. “Humility, the journey towards holiness,” gives us a window into the intensity of the journey he was on. He writes about how God was dealing with pride in his life, and how the Lord told him to spend a month shut off from all communication with others, including his wife and the family, reading nothing (I don’t know if this included the Bible or not, but certainly nothing else) and writing nothing; communing only with the Lord while He dealt with Murray’s pride.

Did Andrew Murray have such a mountain of pride in his life? Or do we all have mountains that need  months on our knees before God before He can deal with them, and only spiritual giants like Andrew Murray and Rees Howells – who had similar extreme dealings with the Lord – have the commitment and devotion to really allow God to have His way?

I was turning this over in my mind and was wondering how far I actually fell short of being a “good and faithful servant“ in the light of what He had asked of Andrew Murray. So I asked Him: “What do you want from me, Jesus?” His answer came straight back, and of course it was full of grace, yet deeply challenging at the same time. “What can you give me?“ He said.

Immediately I started going through different things in my life that I hold dear or that seem important, but everything I looked at seemed to be either indispensable or to have significance to other people as well as for myself. I can’t give him that, because… And I certainly can’t give him THAT, because… You can guess how it went.  Then I thought of Christina Rosetti’s words in her beautiful Christmas hymn “In the bleak midwinter:“  “What can I give Him, poor as I am? If I were a shepherd I could bring a Lamb. If I were a wise man, I would play my part, yet what I can I give him: give him my heart.” Yes, I could do that, I thought; except I already have – when I became a Christian more than 40 years ago. How can I give him my heart again? Then the thought struck me. It’s not just a one-off moment. Well yes, in a sense it is, because when we are born again God gives us a new heart, a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone.  But the heart represents the centre and the driving force of our lives. It’s the seat of our will, our emotions, our reactions. It’s where the rivers of living water flow from when we are moving in the Spirit. It’s where His law is written. I have to give Him my new heart on a daily, moment by moment, basis. If He has got my heart, I am able to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ, so I won’t dwell on negatives. If He has got my heart, the fruit of the Spirit will show in my life because it won’t be controlled by the flesh and by my circumstances. And if He got my heart, I think I’ll be able to loosen my grip on the things that I hold tight, so at least I’ll be able to put them down sometimes when He asks me to, without feeling that I will have to lose them forever.

I think that this is what Paul means when he implores the Romans to “present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service.” (Romans 12:1) And how can we then “be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God?” (Romans 12:2) By quickly giving Him our hearts when they are beset by negatives and lusts, and receiving what is on His heart instead – that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.

So what can you give Him? Give Him your heart. You don’t need to be a spiritual giant.

Walking in the Spirit

Word and Spirit

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“They willingly received Him into the boat, and immediately the boat was at the land where they were going” (John 6:21)

We know the story: the disciples were battling the storm, Jesus came walking over the water towards them, then as soon as He was in the boat with them they had reached their destination. I’ve always seen this as a wonderful demonstration of Jesus’s divinity, but I believe there is a further application for us, because what was true for the disciples on Lake Galilee can be true for us as well. When Jesus is in the boat with us, we are immediately at the land where we are going. We know where we are going: heaven. I can see two ways of looking at this. The first one is the “now and not yet” aspect of the Kingdom of God: the fullness of the Kingdom will be seen on earth when Jesus returns in His glory, yet the Kingdom of God is among us now (Luke 17:21), wherever the rule and reign of the King is manifested today. The second perspective is this: when we are in the presence of Jesus, we are there; we have reached our heavenly destination. It’s easy to bandy around phrases like “in the spirit,“ and “by faith,” but the inescapable reality is that when we are in the presence of Jesus we really are “at the land where we are going,” the promised land of the Kingdom of God, and all the provision and power of that Kingdom are there for us. In a message he preached nearly 100 years ago (in 1927) Smith Wigglesworth said this:

“I must recognise the difference between my own spirit and the Holy Spirit. My own spirit can do certain things on natural lines, can even weep and pray and worship, but it is all on a human plane, and we must not depend on our human thoughts and activities or on our own personality. If the baptism means anything to you, it should bring you to the death of the ordinary, where you are no longer putting faith in your own understanding; but, conscious of your own poverty, you are ever yielded to the spirit. Then it is that your body becomes filled with heaven on earth.“ (From “Smith Wigglesworth: the Complete Collection of His Life and Teachings” compiled by Roberts Liardon)

Jesus in the boat
I think the big question for Bible-believing Christians who are rowing through a storm is often this: “Lord, why aren’t I seeing your promises (for healing, provision, the miraculous, for ourselves or for others) fulfilled? Maybe the answer is that he’s not really in the boat. We know the promises of the land; we look to them and declare them, but we ignore the fact that the best way to receive their fulfillment is to have Jesus in the boat with us. Yes, He is with us all the time, just as we are seated in heavenly places all the time, but I don’t mean those statements of faith; I mean the experienced reality of His presence, when we know our body has become “filled with heaven on earth,” that only comes with a commitment to Psalm 27:8:

When You said, “Seek My face,”
My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.”

Unlike anything the world has known
I believe that we are on the brink of the move of God prophesied by Smith Wigglesworth in 1947: “A revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years.” When this wave hits, it will be a tsunami, unlike anything the world has known, and it will be characterised by the word and the spirit coming together. “When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world has ever seen.”.

The word brings His promises; the spirit brings His presence. I think “the word and the spirit coming together” that Wigglesworth prophesies refers to more than churches who accept the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit and who preach, and teach, the word of God – although this is an important and essential part of the picture. I think this might also apply to us as individual believers. If we prioritize seeking His presence and willingly receiving him into the boat (spirit) when we pray His promises (word), I think we might find ourselves at the land where we are going.

Walking in the Spirit

The Supply of the Spirit (and the great grey shrike)

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“Now to him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the Power that works in Us, to him be glory in the church to or generations, forever and ever, amen.” (Ephesians 3: 20–21)

I just love it when God completely blows my mind with something that reminds me of this verse, the “exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think“ aspect of who He is. I went on a birding trip last week and had an experience that gave me a memorable picture of the difference that can exist between our expectations and God‘s supply.

The bird in the picture is a great grey shrike. They are rare winter visitors to the UK: there have only been about 60 individuals in the whole country over this Winter, mainly in the south and the east. Twitchers will travel halfway across the country to see one if it is reported on a birding blog. So last year I got very excited when one decided to stay for a few weeks on the edge of the woods about 4 miles from my house. I did get to see it, perching in a distant tree, and treasured the photograph below that I got – as you can see, it was hardly one you would put in a frame and hang on the wall. (The bird is about a quarter of the way down, slightly left of centre.)


When these birds find an area that they like they tend to stay there until they leave for their breeding grounds, so when one was reported in Lincolnshire (a county in England on the east coast, if you aren’t in the UK) last week, I made sure that the site was my first stop on a trip to that area that I was planning. My expectation was framed by my previous experience, so when we reached the spot where this bird had made its temporary home, I was expecting to scan the distant trees with my binoculars to get a sight of it.

There was another birder there when my friend and I arrived. “There it is! Just there, on top of the hedge!” he said. I started scanning the distant hedge with my binoculars. “No,” he said, “THERE!” And there, no more than 20 metres away (as opposed to the 200 or so that I was expecting), set a beautiful great grey shrike, posing for my camera. But that is not all: these birds have a habit of hovering like kestrels when they are hunting for prey. This little bird did not disappoint: it repeatedly flew down from its perch and hovered a few feet from the ground, looking for insects and worms in the mud. It was one of the most precious birding moments that I have ever experienced.


So why am I writing about it? I’ll put the answer as a question. What are your expectations of an encounter with God? Is it like the first time I saw a shrike, a distant grey spot on a treetop a couple of hundred yards away or more? What is your idea of “the presence of God?” Is it the cosy feeling of gathering with other believers and a good band, singing a few worship songs together; or could it be that God has more for you, a lot more, an intensity of love and peace that causes you to fall to your knees because standing has become impossible, where the shrike is hovering in front of your face and not perching in the dim distance?

Of course it is good to gather and worship, and it is true that the spirit of God is present among us when we do, because if we are believers He is within us all. But let us not be sold short into believing that this is all we can expect, because “God is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think, according to the Power that works in us.”

Paul wrote this to the Philippians:

What then? Only that in every way, whether in pretense or in truth, Christ is preached; and in this I rejoice, yes, and will rejoice. For I know that this will turn out for my deliverance through your prayer and the supply of the Spirit of Jesus Christ, according to my earnest expectation and hope that in nothing I shall be ashamed, but with all boldness, as always, so now also Christ will be magnified in my body, whether by life or by death. (Philippians 1: 18-20)

Paul’s “Ernest expectation and Hope“ was for an abundant “supply of the spirit,” a deluge, not a trickle. What about us? Surely God, who “gives the Spirit without measure,” wants the supply of the spirit in our lives to lead us to a place of submission that is real because we know that we have met with Jesus and have experienced something of His love and power? Yes, our experience must be rooted in the truth of God‘s word, but I don’t think God has given us the supply of His Spirit for us to only experience Him through the printed page. And yes, when two or three are gathered in His name He is there in the midst of us, but that is the beginning of the journey and a statement of faith; it’s not our destination. We don’t rise on eagle’s wings just by believing that we are eagles, but we need to wait for the wind to lift us, because that is how eagles soar. It’s “those who wait on the Lord” who renew their strength. The wind might not come for hours or even days, but we strengthen our faith through exercising it in the wait. The words of Christ are words are words of life, and He wants us to feel that life “according to the Power that works within us” as well as knowing the words that release it.


God honoured Paul’s expectation with such abundance that he personally started at least 14 churches probably 20, possibly more (see www.churchplanting.com) as well as fostering the growth of many of them, including the “hub“ church at Ephesus, through his letters and direct apostolic influence. You and I may not be Paul, but we have the same spirit who dwells within us, and it’s the spirit who raised Jesus from the dead. If we want to see Him really work among us, we need to raise our expectations, lift our wings and face into the wind – remembering that “the wind blows where it wills,” and not according to our plans.

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God

Bread from Heaven (5): The Food that endures to Eternal Life

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“Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” (John 6:27)

We have seen how Jesus used the sign of the loaves and fishes to model a fundamental principle of His economy, which is, as the couriers sang way back in 1978 (thanks, for the link, CA!) that “God cannot put His riches into hands already full.” In addition, this sign demonstrates the management structure of the Kingdom of God: through Jesus, the bread of Heaven is passed on to the disciples for distribution. “Freely you have received, freely give,” He said when He commissioned the disciples to “Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out demons.” (Matt 10:8). We receive in order to give.

Sent to multiply
I think we can sometimes come to Jesus in gratitude and love for making a way at the cross for us to approach the Father, but then run there to soak up Father’s love and forgiveness without looking back to Jesus to ask Him what He wants us to do with it. But Jesus stands between us and the Father not just to represent us to Him, but to represent Him to us. “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you,” He says in John 20:21, and when He is referring to Himself as the Bread of Life, He says: “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” (John 6:57) As His life on earth was the Father’s life, so our life on earth is His life in us. And life, in the natural order of God’s creation, has one purpose and one only, which is to bear fruit and multiply. Everything that grows exists to reproduce itself. Just as the first natural man and woman were told to “go forth and multiply,” (Genesis 1:28) the same mandate rests on spiritual man:

“I am the true vine, and My Father is the vinedresser. “Every branch in Me that does not bear fruit He takes away; and every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit. You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me. I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in Me, and I in him, bears much fruit; for without Me you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in Me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered; and they gather them and throw them into the fire, and they are burned.” (John 15: 1-6)

We have one purpose in Christ, and that is to bear fruit. We have the life of Christ in us so that we can impart it to others. It may be through salvation, through healing, prophesy or other spiritual gifts, it may be through material or financial blessing, it may be through all of these and more (1 Corinthians 12:11), but however the Spirit of God wants to use us, we live to give. Just as Jesus gave the loaves and fishes to His disciples to give to others, so we come to Him for “the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you” in order to share it with others. And in doing so, we find life for ourselves.

Feeding on Jesus
Central to this passage is the idea of “feeding on Jesus.” What it means to eat His flesh and drink His blood is so crucial to the Christian faith that the Church split over its meaning in the 16th century, with the Council of Trent in 1551 solidifying the dogma of transubstantiation and declaring that the elements of the Eucharist became the actual body and blood of Jesus. As a Protestant, I don’t hold to this doctrine, so this leaves me free to ask the question: what did Jesus really mean?

I think we can find strong clues in this passage, and if we examine them in the light of a few other sayings in John’s gospel I believe we can move towards an understanding of what Jesus may be saying to His Church. The starting place is the relationship between Jesus the Son and God the Father. Looking at verse 57 again, He says; “As the living Father sent Me, and I live because of the Father, so he who feeds on Me will live because of Me.” What does it mean to “live because of the Father?” One answer is of course that this is true in a very real way: the Son of Man was actually begotten of the Father. God sent Him from Heaven by creating a natural body for Him on earth. As Hebrews 10:5 says, “when He came into the world, He said: “Sacrifice and offering You did not desire, But a body You have prepared for Me.” However, although this is true, I don’t think it’s what Jesus meant by living because of the Father. If He says that we will live if we feed on Him, just as He lives because of the Father, I think we have to look and see if He too lives by “feeding on the Father.” If He does, it will complete the equation which He uses more than once, that says “as it is between my Father and Me, so it is between me and you.” (e.g. John 20:21 above, also John 5:21, and John 15: 9-12.)

Living in the Vine
And He does. The loaves and the fishes are not the first time Jesus refers to food as being more than a meal for the stomach. After the meeting with the Samaritan woman, He says to His disciples: “I have food to eat of which you do not know… My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me, and to finish His work.” (John 4: 32-34) He says again in John 6:38 “I came down from Heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of the one who sent me.” Jesus feeds on the Father by doing His will. In fact He did nothing else: “Most assuredly, I say to you, the Son can do nothing of Himself, but what He sees the Father do; for whatever He does, the Son also does in like manner.” (John 5:19) Because this was completely true, He could say to Philip: “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” (John 14:9) Jesus feeds on the Father by doing His will all the time, so He only lives because of the Father. Nothing in His life is directed by anything other than the Father’s will. And so it is true for us: if we feed on Him by doing His will, we will live because of Him. In doing so we abide in Him ((John 15: 1-6  above) We live because of what the eucharist remembers (Luke 22:19) but we don’t live because we eat it. Only He has the words of life (John 6:68) but we don’t live because we devour them: we live because we do what He says. As Jesus did nothing without the Father, we can do nothing without Him (that equation again). And when we do what He says we remain in the vine, the life of the vine within us multiplies, our prayers are answered (John 15:10 “You will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you”)  and we “bear much fruit.”

Servants of Christ
Jesus pointed to this with the parable of the unprofitable servant (Luke 17: 7-10) when the disciples asked Him to increase their faith: “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.” There are many references to our status as servants of Christ, such as Ephesians 6:5, 1 Cor 7:22, and 1 Peter 2:16. I think Col 3:23-24 is particularly rich in meaning, (I have written about it recently in “Heart and Soul, Doing Everything for the Lord”): “Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” Ephesians 2:10, which I’m sure I quote more than any other verse in the Bible, tells us that “We are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (NIV) As it was with Jesus, our food is to do the will of the One who sent us, and to complete His work.

So we come back to our opening reference, “Do not labour for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to everlasting life, which the Son of Man will give you, because God the Father has set His seal on Him.” (John 6:27) A transaction took place at the cross: we exchanged our lives for the life of Christ, which we received by the grace of God alone. But this is only His part of the transaction: our side is the manner of our response. We respond in love and worship, of course; but Jesus makes it clear that love is more than a feeling, and worship is more than singing: “He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.“ (John 14:21)

God’s Seal
Jesus puts the food that endures to eternal life into our hands when we respond to His grace with our faithful obedience. He tells us that He can give us this bread because the Father has set His seal on Him. As we have seen, He gives it to us so that we in turn can give it to the world. Again we see here the “as with me, so with you” equation, because God’s seal on Jesus came in the form of a dove when the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the Jordan, and we too have received the same seal through Him: “In Him you also trusted, after you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation; in whom also, having believed, you were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of His glory”. (Eph 1: 13-14) It is by the Spirit that we receive the life of Christ, and it is by the Spirit that we impart it. Peter wrote: “As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. If anyone speaks, let him speak as the oracles of God. If anyone ministers, let him do it as with the ability which God supplies, that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belong the glory and the dominion forever and ever. Amen.” (1 Peter 4:10-11) God’s seal on us isn’t just a promise of our future inheritance: it is the mark of our authority and empowering to do the works that Jesus did, and greater. (John 14:12)

So we give out our bread with the ability that God supplies, handfuls feeding thousands. Those who operate in prophetic or healing ministry know what this looks like. A line of people, maybe two or three deep, maybe even more, depending on the size of the meeting, have all responded to an altar call and have come forward for ministry. Like the disciples standing there with a handful of crumbs you see the hopeful faces, all looking to the Lord to receive something from Him through you. Maybe you have a few crumbs of a word; maybe nothing at all. But you know Jesus is there, like that day on the hillside, so you look to Him, empty-handed, because that is all you can do. Then as each person comes forward for prayer, He puts fresh bread into your hand, and you see God’s abundance flow in the power of the Holy Spirit.

I’ll finish with a story of how this worked out in a taxi recently, and it is particularly relevant here because it features the dove. A good way of keeping the mindset of serving Christ is to quite simply ask Him this: “Lord, have you got any jobs for me today?” Anne (my wife) prayed this while she was in a taxi not long ago, and felt that she was being asked to share her faith with the asian taxi driver. Wondering how to start the conversation, they drove past a church and she commented on the architecture. That proved to be the opening that the Lord had provided, and soon the conversation turned to spiritual matters. The driver said that he had given his life to Jesus as a young man many years ago, had been prayed for to be filled with the Holy Spirit, and had a real experience of the presence of God. He went home and told his parents, and they said: “Did you see the Dove?” to which he answered “No.” They said “It’s all rubbish then. You were just imagining it. If you didn’t see the Dove, it wasn’t the Holy Spirit.” Disheartened, He believed them, and went back to his old life without giving Jesus any further thought. But God had a work prepared beforehand for Anne, and He wasn’t letting the taxi driver go. She explained that the Dove had been specifically for Jesus, and that his experience of the Holy Spirit was real. She prayed for him in the taxi, and the Holy Spirit came on him again. When she got out of the taxi, the driver jumped out as well, ran round to her, and gave her what she says was the biggest bear hug she had ever received in her life.

“Lord, I’m your servant. Have you got any bread for me today?”

Living by Faith

Bread from Heaven (4): God’s Economy

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“He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted.”

It’s a much taught-on topic, but we cannot move on from the sign of the Bread of Life without considering the fact that the miracle happened in the hands of the disciples, not just through the hands of Jesus. For those who walk by faith Jesus is waiting with provision for the needs of the multitude, saying: “Take this, and give it out in my power.”

Riches in Glory
Imagine what it felt like for the disciples to have a small chunk of bread and a little bit of fish in their hands, to break pieces off, and see it just reappear in their hands, like water coming out of a tap. I wonder what it looked like? What it felt like? An unending flow of provision from Heaven pouring onto Earth by the Spirit to meet every need, in abundance. 2 Cor 9:8 comes to mind: “And God is able to make all grace abound toward you, that you, always having all sufficiency in all things, may have an abundance for every good work.” Count the “abundance” words in this verse: all grace, abound, always, all sufficiency, all things, abundance, every good work. Seven times in one sentence, the Holy Spirit spells out just how sufficient are the riches in glory according to which our God will supply all our needs. (Phil 4:19)

So why can it so often feel that we are behind the door when the abundance is handed out? We can bring any number of spiritual “reasons” to why our need can seem to remain no matter how much we tell God that we are believing for His sufficiency, but I think we can find a key in James 4:3. “When you ask, you do not receive, because you ask with wrong motives, that you may spend what you get on your pleasures.” James is not one to pull any punches. Does he mean that God is a Killjoy and doesn’t want us to have any pleasure? If God made all things for His pleasure (Rev 4:11), then surely we get to share in some of it? ! Tim 6:17 tells us that God “gives us richly all things to enjoy,” so it is certainly in His will that we have pleasure in our lives.

Pleasures and Priorities
The whole of 1 Timothy 6:17 says this: “Command those who are rich in this present age not to be haughty, nor to trust in uncertain riches but in the living God, who gives us richly all things to enjoy.” It’s not that God doesn’t want us to have “things to enjoy;” but in this verse we see that He wants to have the pleasure of giving them to us Himself, rather than see us try to by-pass His will for our lives and help ourselves to the things that we want. It’s a matter of trusting Him to Know what’s best for us, rather than asking for our inheritance like the prodigal son and spending it on carnal foolishness.

But it’s also a matter of priorities. It’s when we seek first the Kingdom of God that “all these things” are given to us. It’s when we give, that “pressed down, shaken together, running over, shall men pour into your lap.” (Luke 6:38) God’s economy is the reverse of the world’s. When we live as servants of Christ (which we are: 1 Cor 4:1, Col 3:24) our responsibility is first to Jesus: what does He want us to do with what He has given us? Like the unprofitable servants in the parable (Luke 17:10) our job is to do what we are told, and it’s the Lord’s job to reward us. He puts the loaves and fishes into our hands for us to distribute.

When I’ve read this story in the past I’ve tended to focus on the multiplication aspect: the boy’s lunch becoming food for the crowd, and all that we can learn from that. The teaching that I have listened to or read has tended to have the same emphasis, and the twelve baskets left over have been a bit of an aside. I’ve come across references to them being symbolic of the twelve tribes, and I’ve seen the instruction to “Gather up the fragments that remain, so that nothing is lost,” (v. 12) as referring to the theme expressed in v 37, where Jesus talks about gathering “all that the Father gives me.” But what I haven’t seen so often (if at all?) is that this is quite simply a demonstration of God’s economy in practice.

The Kingdom Equation
I see it like this: Jesus gives a visible handful of resources to His disciples, with the instruction to distribute what they are holding to the needs He has shown them. What they see in their hands is ludicrously insufficient, but what they need to believe and see in the Spirit is Philippians 4:19 and 2 Cor 9:8. When they obey and step out into the crowd, Jesus fulfils His part of the Kingdom equation, which, broadly expressed, is “His abundance always equals our need.” So far so familiar. But once the ministry is over, there are twelve baskets of fragments that weren’t needed by the crowd to gather up. And they may well have a symbolic and spiritual significance: as with all of the Word, there are many layers to every detail. But I think there is a more concrete and immediate application to this part of the story: twelve baskets, twelve disciples. One basket each. They began with crumbs, which, like the widow of Zarephath, (1 Kings 17:12) they shared out; and they ended up with plenty, pressed down, running over, poured into their laps.

We know God’s promises are true, but I think there is more to receiving God’s abundant supply than just knowing the words and declaring them. Jesus Himself tells us why: “Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.” (Luke 11: 28 NIV) In these days of crumbling world systems and collapsing international order we are increasingly going to find ourselves in the place where Jesus is our only source of supply. And this isn’t just so that we can keep what He gives us for ourselves: it’s so that we can feed the hungry crowd with it first.

Christian Life, Pursuing Love

Heart and Soul: Doing Everything for the Lord

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“Whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men, knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance, for you serve the Lord Christ.” (Colossians 3: 23-24)

What  does Paul mean when he instructs us to do things “heartily?” I like the NKJV, but in this instance the translation doesn’t do justice to the depths of the Greek meaning. We think of heartily as being “full on,” sincerely, genuinely, warmly, enthusiastically, vigorously; sometimes completely or thoroughly. However the Greek word used here is the noun Psyche, usually translated as “soul,” and it’s used in the genitive case which indicates possession ( a random fact I remember from doing Latin at school 60 years ago!), so it means “of the soul,“ or “Belonging to the soul.“

Peter writes: “Now that you have purified yourselves by obeying the truth so that you have sincere love for each other, love one another deeply, from the heart.” (1 Peter 1: 22 NIV) Paul’s words in Colossians 3:23 are an instruction that calls for obedience. To obey the instruction to do everything “heartily“ means that we apply our whole purified heart to whatever we are doing. The heart of a born again child of God is the new heart that our Heavenly Father has given us, the heart of flesh on which He has written His law (Jeremiah 31:33). Peter doesn’t separate “obeying the truth“ (and coming to faith in Jesus) from “sincere Love of each other. ” In other words, the very purpose of the new birth which, by the grace of God, is what purifies our souls, is to direct our new hearts towards loving one another deeply, “from the heart.”

This brings us back to the original verse from Colossians, in which we are instructed to do everything “heartily.” We are to put “heart and soul” – new heart; purified soul – into everything we do, and we do this “because we serve the Lord Christ.” Jesus told us to “love one another as I have loved you.“ We serve the Lord by loving one another: what Paul says to us through his letter to the Colossians is, quite simply, to do everything from a heart of love, because in doing so we are serving the King of Love every minute of the day, and are therefore fulfilling the purpose for which He created us anew.

“Let everything you do be done in Love” (1 Corinthians 16:14), “whatever you do, whether in word or in deed, do it all in the name of the Lord Jesus” (Colossians 3:17) and Colossians 3:23 above are all the same command. Paul reminds us more than once “to put off” the old ways of the flesh that we were born into, and to “put on” the new ways of the Spirit. If you are of a similar vintage to me, you will probably remember the old Steppenwolf song, “born to be wild.“ Indeed we were. But we were born again to love.

And here’s a practical tip to help you check how you are serving the Lord: put a reminder on your phone to come up at any time of the day, asking: “Am I doing what I am doing now heartily?” I wonder what my week’s score will be out of seven …

Knowing God

The Wings of the Morning

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The Clouds
The Lord said: “Look at the clouds. They are full of water, and they are being blown along by my wind, sometimes gently, sometimes fast. But they are moving, they are always moving, just like I am always working, and they change shape as they go. The wind blows where it wishes, and you do not know where it comes from or where it is going. I want you to be like these clouds, lifted high into heavenly places, blown along by my spirit, ready to go where I am blowing, ready to change as you feel my breath, carrying nothing except the water of my spirit which I will cause you to release onto the dry earth where and when I say. Do you see clouds rolling along the ground? No. And so you must let go all that will hold you down, every weight, and let me lift you into the place where you will be blown in the direction that I choose to be moulded by my spirit, releasing what I give you upon the Earth.”

The Air Balloon.
“Lord,“ I said, “My hand reaches down and grips the roots in the soil. Will I be able to let go of the worldly and carnal things that sometimes it seems that I hold so tight? Can I be lifted as you say, or will I stay here below, gripping onto the things of the world?

“Yes,“ He said. “You won’t be able to help it. You are attached, because I have attached you, to my air balloon. And as I rise up into high places, I will take you with me, and you simply won’t be able to hold on because the pull of my presence will be so much stronger than the pull of the ground.”

The Beauty of the Lord
“Consider the beauty of the natural world. From the light reflected in the small liquid Diamond of a teardrop to the grandeur of the mountains, the freshness of a leaf in spring, the rumble of a distant waterfall, the leap of a gazelle, the wings of a seagull. Were not all these things made through me? All that you can see, hear, and feel was made through me. So in me is all the splendour and variety of the natural world, for it has all come out of me. Can I not draw you unto me?”

Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
It is high, I cannot obtain it.

Where can I go from your Spirit,
or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there,
If I make my bed in hell, behold, you are there.

If I take the wings of the morning,
Or dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea,

Even there your hand will lead me,
And your right hand shall hold me.

(Psalm 139: 6-10)

Knowing God, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Bread from Heaven: 3

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And Jesus took the loaves, and when He had given thanks He distributed them to the disciples, and the disciples to those sitting down; and likewise of the fish, as much as they wanted. (John 6:11)

He knew what He would do
In our attempts to bring up our children to say “please,” the parents among us might well have said at times: “And what’s the magic word?” However in the Kingdom it’s not please, it’s thank you. Jesus didn’t ask the Father to multiply the loaves and fishes; he thanked Him for them. This miracle, along with its “twin“ where the 4000 are fed in the accounts of Matthew and Mark, is one of only three occasions in the New Testament where Jesus gives thanks to the Father. The Greek word used for giving thanks is eucharisteo, and Jesus uses it when He feeds the multitude, when He thanks His Father for always hearing His prayers at the raising of Lazarus, and at the last supper, when He gave thanks for the bread and wine.

Eucharisteo: We use the same Greek word ourselves when we remember the cross at the Eucharist, and for me, this is the key to understanding much of the significance of this miracle. Andrew looked at the loaves and fishes with eyes of flesh and asked: “What is this among so many?”, but Jesus looked with the eyes of the spirit and saw the riches in glory that would meet the need of the multitude above all that the disciples could ask or imagine. He could see the limitless creative powers of heaven, and He knew that “all that the father has is mine,” (John 16:15) so it is no surprise that John’s account of the miracle tells us that “He himself knew what He would do.” (John 6:6)

In everything give thanks
In his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorts us to “be anxious for nothing, but in everything, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, make your requests known to God.“ (Philippians 4:6) We know that Jesus had direct access to the Father’s provision because of who He was, and there are no barriers to our faith in that regard. But it is much harder to believe that we have the same access to that provision, because we know who we are as well. We can, and do, believe that Christ dwells in our hearts through faith, that in Him we are seated in heavenly places, and that all things are possible through Him; but we also know that we have only experienced the boy’s family picnic when faced with a multitude, and not the feast.

When Jesus gave thanks at the feeding of the 5000, I don’t think He was thanking His Father for the loaves and fishes in His hand, but for the provision that was in heaven. Demonstrating what He told His disciples in Mark 11:24, He believed He had received it, gave thanks for it, and it was done for Him. His Father passed the food to Jesus, and He passed it to the disciples to give out.

God wants us to give thanks in everything. Whether we are faced with abundance or lack, and whether or not we are petitioning heaven for something, we are to be thankful at all times. Paul expresses this sentiment in his letter to the Romans:

“… He who eats, eats to the Lord, for he gives God thanks; and He who does not eat, to the Lord he does not eat, and gives God thanks. For none of us lives to himself, and none of us die himself. So if we live, we live to the Lord; and if we die, we die to the Lord. Therefore, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s.” (Romans 14:6–8).

Our Inheritance
As I have mentioned, the only occasion outside of feeding the multitudes and giving thanks for the bread and the wine at the last supper, was when Jesus thanked the Father for hearing Him at the raising of Lazarus. His Eucharist there was more about His relationship with the Father than what He was about to do. Our constant thanksgiving to God is not for what we do or don’t eat – or do, or receive -, but it’s for a relationship with Him which we can indeed be thankful for in all things. We can be thankful to Jesus every moment of the day for the fact that we are His, and what we have is His. But more than that, amazingly, what He has is also ours:

“And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham‘s seed, and heirs according to the promise.”(Galatians 3:19)

“And because you are sons God has sent forth the spirit of His son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!“ Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son than an heir of God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:6–7)

We are heirs of God through Christ. We have an inheritance to be forever thankful for. Just as everything that the Father has belongs to Jesus, everything that Jesus has is ours in Him. Of course this does not mean that my neighbour’s house, or wife, or goods belong to me because they are His: the key phrase is “in Him.” “In Jesus name” is not just a phrase that turns a request into a prayer, but it’s the declaration that what we are asking for in prayer is something that we are requesting on His behalf because He has told us that He wants us to have it, whether it’s to accomplish His Kingdom purposes through us or for us. Whatever we are doing, we have an inheritance to be thankful for, and which is at our disposal all the time we are walking alongside Him. What is His is ours. If I am sitting at the dinner table with my wife and I ask her to pass the salt, she is not going to question my action: the salt on the table is a shared possession. Of course she is going to let me have it.

Paul makes this clear in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“Therefore let no one boast in men. For all things are yours. Whether Paul or Apollos or Cephas, or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things to come – all are yours. And you are Christ’s, and Christ is God’s.” (1 Corinthians 3:21-23)

Just as Jesus is the transition from earth to heaven for our spirits, He is also the transition for us from heaven to earth for our inheritance. So whatever the loaves and fishes or the starving crowd may represent, what do we have available to meet the need? Jesus can make our lack into His abundance if we remember to thank Him for our inheritance. Pass the salt, please, Lord. Thank You.