Category Archives: Be prepared; hold on.

As we approach the last days, sound doctrine will be diluted in many churches to appease the spirits of liberalism as large in the world, and persecution of those believers who hold on to the fullness of the gospel message will intensify. We need to “build ourselves up in our most holy faith” so that we can be prepared for whatever the enemy might throw at us, and be ready at the last, a spotless bride, to receive our Lord into the Kingdom of our God and His Christ.

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

digging ditches

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Just over three years ago (on May 1 2017) the Lord spoke to us powerfully one Sunday about “digging ditches.” I reflected on it and wrote a piece that I think went into Wildwood Today (or Wildwood Yesterday…) I think it is very relevant for now, and the Holy Spirit wants to remind us of what He said. So here is what I wrote at the time:

Digging Ditches

On Sunday three words brought under the prompting of the Holy Spirit converged into one message. Jake brought a prophetic word, Marion brought a message from a conference she had attended on Friday, and I shared a scripture that I had read earlier that morning. When this happens God really wants to get our attention: we need to take hold of what He is saying and ask Him where we need to apply it to our lives. To do anything less is disobedience.

Jake brought a passionate word from Jesus, on the subject of sacrifice. The Lord was saying to us (I paraphrase, but hopefully this was the essence of the message): “I sacrificed everything for you. I suffered and died on the cross so that you could experience a personal relationship with me. But what do you sacrifice? What will you sacrifice so that you can live in my presence?”

Marion had been impacted at the Revival fires Conference with an exhortation from Lilian De Fin (Smith Wigglesworth’s great granddaughter) to “Dig ditches”. We need to dig ditches in our valleys if we want the water of revival to flow in. (Read the story in 2 Kings 3)

The scripture I had been reading before the service was from  Heb 6:11-15: “And we desire that each one of you show the same diligence to the full assurance of hope until the end, that you do not become sluggish, but imitate those who through faith and patience inherit the promises. For when God made a promise to Abraham, because He could swear by no one greater, He swore by Himself, saying, “Surely blessing I will bless you, and multiplying I will multiply you.” And so, after he had patiently endured, he obtained the promise.”

So this is how I think we can join up the dots: Jesus is longing for us to experience a lifesyle of living in His presence, but is saying we need to consider our willingness to sacrifice. Are we being diligent, pursuing His promises through faith and patience, or are we being “sluggish”? Linda had a word at School of Prophesy earlier this year: “Eagerly desire the higher gifts. Eagerly desire. Eagerly desire!” Are we prepared to dig ditches, or are we sitting back and waiting for the water to flow down our valleys? God promises multiplication; He promises that the water will come, but it’s conditional on our willingness to sacrifice. The problem with digging ditches is that we probably like our valleys the way they are! So what areas is the Holy Spirit asking us to put the spade into and dig out? Do we eagerly desire the spiritual gift of a word of healing in a busy supermarket, or is the valley of our self-consciousness too precious to excavate? There is no doubt that sacrificial giving is part of the road to Park Life. “Give, and it will be given to you: good measure, pressed down, shaken together, and running over will be put into your bosom” (Luke 6: 38).  Are we really willing to dig into the comfortable valley of our financial security to inherit this promise “through faith and patience?”, or do we leave that bit of it to someone else? We all have our valleys that the Holy Spirit is longing to fill with the presence of God, to bring the multiplication He promises. Our part is to get before the Lord and say, “Lord, actually this is Your valley, not mine. Where shall I start digging?”

It is a dangerous prayer, and you can be certain He will answer it. Sometimes you know already what He will point to, sometimes it will be a surprise; but one thing we can be sure of: the result will always be a blessing. “We are God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works that He has prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them (Eph 2:10). He calls us to walk with Him, in His presence. As we do, we walk into what He has prepared beforehand. Who does the works that we walk in, in His presence? He does. Without Him, we can do nothing; but for Him, nothing is impossible.

Sacrifice. Dig ditches. Be diligent. Be blessed.

Christian Life, Holiness: You shall be perfect

Transporting the Tabernacle

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Not a tame Lion

In Numbers 3-4 we read of the specific tasks allotted to the Levites. Unless our Bible study resources take us to the books of the Law, we (or is it just me??) tend to pass over these sections of Scripture in favour of the sweeping narratives of Samuel and Kings, the beauty and the raw emotion of the Psalms, the wonders of the prophets and of course the Grace-filled New Testament. But if we want to encounter the holiness of our God we will find Him above the place of atonement in the tabernacle of Moses. We too easily humanise our Heavenly Father. Yes, He is Abba. Yes, He welcomes us into His arms. Yes, He sings a song of love over us. But His accessibility by the blood of Jesus and His presence among us does not dilute the awesomness of His majesty. As C.S. Lewis famously said in the Chronicles of Narnia, He is not a tame lion. While we inhabit our tents of flesh we cannot see Him as he is (1 John 3:2), but this does not diminish who He is among us. Because Grace had not been given (one could say that Moses was the exception) the Levites only had a detailed set of regulations to keep them safe from destruction as they carried out their duties. The power that emanates from His being and permeated through all the sacred objects is like the electricity coursing through overhead power cables: touch it and you die. Such was – such is – the power that if any of the Kohathites, whose job was to transport the ark on their shoulders, even looked at a part of the load that was not their designated area, they would be destroyed. When God was allocating the tasks He gave specific instruction to Moses regarding the Kohathites “that they may live and not die when they approach the most holy things.”

The pure perfection of creative love that made and powers the Universe is not cuddly daddy. This is the power that raised Jesus from the dead. This is the cable that is coiled inside our spirits. Because we have the insulation of the blood of Jesus we can grasp the power line, but because we can grasp it without being destroyed does not diminish it at all: it just gives us an understanding of the power the blood of Christ.

Gifted for Service

We are called into the Kingdom, and gifted for our service to the King, for the same purpose that our Old Testament counterparts were appointed to, which is to is to take the land. Romans 11:29 tells us that “the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable.” This was written about the salvation of the nation of Israel, but it applies to each one of us in the church today.

The Kohathites, and the other two Levite families, the sons of Gershon and Merari, were given their tasks for a specific purpose: the Tabernacle where God dwelt among His people had to be transported into the promised land, where He planned for His holy presence to drive out the occupying  idolatrous Canaanites.  In the Old Testament, as in the New, the servants of God were appointed tasks so that the works of the evil one could be destroyed and the Kingdom of God established in the Land. As we move forward in the giftings and ministries that we feel God has called us into let us be aware of the holiness of the tabernacle that we are carrying.

A Caleb Spirit

“But there are giants!” whimpered all the leaders except Joshua and Caleb. And indeed there were. But it seemed like those giants knew more about the power and presence of God than the Israelites He was dwelling among: “They have heard that You, LORD, are among these people; that You, LORD, are seen face to face and Your cloud stands above them, and You go before them in a pillar of cloud by day and in a pillar of fire by night.” (Num 14:14) We know the story. Caleb and Joshua knew their God: “Only do not rebel against the LORD, nor fear the people of the land, for they are our bread; their protection has departed from them, and the LORD is with us. Do not fear them.” (Num 14:9). Sadly, their compatriots didn’t. Caleb, we are told, “had a different spirit”. Joshua had an insatiable hunger for the presence of God, which we read about in Exodus 33v11: “So the LORD spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.” When God speaks of Caleb and Joshua the phrase He uses is that they “wholly followed the Lord.” They were yoked to Him.

For us to take the Land that God has led us to, wherever and whatever it is, two things are needed. We need that Caleb spirit, that knows that whatever the difference in strength and power may be between ourselves and the giants we face, that pales into insignificance when compared to the difference between those giants and the God who is with us. And we need to realise that it is not us who take the land, but God, by the supernatural power of His Holy Spirit. There will be giants, and giants can only be defeated supernaturally. If we, the church, will transport the holy presence of God into enemy-occupied territory, the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. God will clear the ground before us and we will sow seeds that bear fruit. What a high calling! And what satisfaction, what rest for the soul, to know that I am carrying my bit of the Ark on my shoulders.

Be prepared; hold on., Christian Life

face time

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“Seek the LORD and His strength;
Seek His face evermore!” (Psalm 105:4)

We can have zoom meetings with each other; but God wants face time.

When Jesus was on His way to the house of Jairus to heal his daughter, someone in the crowd reached out and touched Him. We know the story. Jesus was on the way to an Important Meeting, but He stopped. “Who touched me?” He said (read the story in Luke 8 43-48). When Peter pointed out that they were surrounded by a crowd of people pushing and shoving, Jesus explained that He knew someone had reached out and touched him intentionally: “Somebody touched Me, for I perceived power going out from Me.”

How often have you had your head full of a big project (or maybe not such a big one…); someone has wanted your attention, and you haven’t had time to stop for them because of what you were on your way to do? Jesus had a crowd following Him and was on His way to perform a miracle for one of the leaders of the synagogue.  If Jesus had been like you and me and listened to His flesh He might have thought something like this: “This could be a strategic moment in My ministry! This Jairus guy is one of the leaders of the Jews! This could be a big chance to win them over!” But instead He stopped, and was drawn by Love to the person who had reached for Him and received some of the Life that He carried.

God want us to seek Him and His strength. There was no conversation between Jesus and the woman until after she had received her healing: she just sought Him in faith, connected, and received. If we spend time seeking His face and connecting with Him, power will go out from Him into us. If we seek His face we will receive His strength, we will be filled with His Spirit and His fire will come and purify our hearts. I believe that God is preparing the Church for a new outpouring of His Spirit, when we are fully loving the Lord with all our hearts, all our souls and all our minds (Matt 22 37); when there is no room in our thinking or our emotions (soul) for anything that is not Him. Just as the woman’s faith had made her “whole” – Greek sozo, which is also the word used for salvation – I believe that it is God’s desire for our faith to make us whole – wholly in love with Him – as well.

If we commit ourselves to seeking His face “while He may be found” – for some of us, this is an opportunity that lockdown has uniquely provided – I believe He will do this in us, and our often carnal thinking will be replaced by His heavenly perspectives:

“Seek the LORD while He may be found,
Call upon Him while He is near.
Let the wicked forsake his way,
And the unrighteous man his thoughts;
Let him return to the LORD,
And He will have mercy on him;
And to our God,
For He will abundantly pardon.
“For My thoughts are not your thoughts,
Nor are your ways My ways,” says the LORD.
“For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are My ways higher than your ways,
And My thoughts than your thoughts.” (Isaiah 55: 6-9)

We may read this as an unattainable impossibility, and so it is – for the flesh. But when Jesus comes for His bride, He will want her to be on the same wavelength as He is: wouldn’t you? So for our Groom, this means us, the bride, thinking heavenly thoughts, not earthly ones. All Spirit; no flesh. New thinking and new ways. As perfect as He is. We may not be there yet, or anywhere near, but now is the time to make that the desire of our hearts, to believe that it is possible, and to keep face-timing the Lord until it is fulfilled (Matt 7: 7-8). And then the power that has gone into us will flow out of us as well, bringing healing and salvation to whoever stops us on the way to our meeting.

Christian Life, Holiness: You shall be perfect

Holiness: you shall be perfect

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You shall go to the ball…

If you are married, it is very likely that you and your spouse became man and wife because you loved one another. If your marriage is successful, one of the reasons is probably the fact that you were attracted to the qualities you saw in your spouse. You loved – and hopefully still love! – your spouse because of who they are, and because you love the qualities and the attributes that characterise them. We worship God, and tell Him we love Him. It’s reasonable to say that God’s standout attribute is His holiness. So do we love holiness?

If we put a poster on the wall saying “Be holy, for I am holy,” our response to it at any given time would be a good litmus test of whether we are walking in the flesh or in the Spirit. The flesh is corrupt so it will always want to avoid even the thought of holiness, so in the flesh we would most likely just want to take it off the wall and put a photo frame there instead. If we want to run from the poster there is no point praying about anything, because we won’t be praying in the Spirit and our prayers will have no Life – unless of course we are praying about not wanting to run from the poster. However in the Spirit we will see those words and be drawn to Jesus, and coming from our heart will be a cry that He will continue to work in our lives to remove anything that stops the light of His holiness shining in our lives. That would be a good time to pray.

In the Sermon on the Mount Jesus sets us a goal which is more or less interchangeable with Holiness, when he says “Therefore you shall be perfect, just as your Father in heaven is perfect.” (Matt 5:48) Seated in heavenly places, as we are, it is true that our spirits are “the righteousness of God in Christ,” and when the Father sees us in His Son all He sees is perfection, and the Beauty of Holiness. But earlier in the same chapter (verse 16), Jesus exhorts us to “Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.” Our mission on Earth is to live our lives in such a way that the world also sees what God sees. Paul uses the same Greek word for perfect – telios – when he writes to the Ephesians that the purpose of ministry is “the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a perfect man, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.” (Ep 4: 12-13)

As we have already explored, the words of Life that Jesus is sowing, the seeds of the Kingdom of God, would not be activated until the Holy Spirit came and watered them in. So we too need to hear them in the Spirit: perfection, just like holiness, comes by faith and by intimacy with Jesus – “the knowledge of the Son of God.” The pursuit of perfection is for the Church on earth: now, so that the light of Christ in us is not clouded by the flesh but shines strongly into the darkness that covers the nations; and ultimately so that when the groom returns He finds His bride pure, spotless, and “without blemish.” In these last seconds, (see “three seconds to midnight”) the Holy Spirit is reminding the Church that Jesus meant what He said in the sermon on the mount. And if we listen with the hearing of faith, we hear the promise as well as the instruction: “You shall be perfect, just as your Father in Heaven in perfect.”

Cinderella church, you shall go to the ball. But in our story, the ball starts at midnight…

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic

The vision of a theatre

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This is a prophesy that Andrew Baker received a few years ago and that the Holy Spirit quickened again to him just recently. As Andrew says at the end: “Many have prophesied it, but now it is upon us. This is truly the season of moving out of the old and into the new.”

Andrew writes:
Several times, over the years, I have received a vision of a theatre. I sense that this vision was prophetic of the time we are now living in, especially from now until, and including, Pentecost. It was of the interior of a theatre with the curtains down, waiting for the show to begin. All was in place behind the curtain ready for the proceedings, but people were still taking their places in the auditorium which was filled with those called to play a part in the new: those who would go on with God. They were being positioned by God to receive revelation of the matter and their part in it. Here is a part of the descriptive text from that vision:

“The whole theatre set appeared as filled with God’s glory, and for those who took the trouble to watch and attend to what God was showing and doing, the greatest blessing came. (This didn’t indicate that everyone should completely cease from every work that they were involved in, but rather that they should pay attention). As the curtain would lift there would come a day when suddenly the fullness of the glory of God would shine over all who were in the auditorium.

There were some empty seats where the people who were called to attend, but chose not to, should have sat. Instead, these people insisted on continuing ‘good’ or ‘religious’ activities which were part of their old calling. Other seats were empty where people had arrived as called but had got impatient with the waiting time and had left.

This covering of the glory would be like Pentecost. The fire of God would rage and burn up all the old. I saw charlatans appearing in this fire as hollow creatures. Many in the auditorium had already shed the old or were in the process of laying it down, this was burned up by God’s fire and then they received this powerful covering of the Glory on them, thus taking them into a new dimension of anointing and enabling for service.

Revelation is now coming of the new and it becomes clearer and clearer as the days go by. Jesus would again become the focus of leaders and of the church, and revelation of new callings would come. Understanding of God’s vision would come to leaders and called ones, because this glory would enable them to make a fresh start at a higher level in the Spirit.

When this mighty coming, infilling, impartation, envisioning and anointing of God’s glory had penetrated and permeated all who were seated in the auditorium (and this was over a period of time), the doors of the theatre were opened and the leaders and saints were let loose on the earth, filled with such glory and enabling that they could handle their part in the latter day harvest. The equipping was all in ‘the glory’ and not in systems. This equipping was stirred up, received and understood in full by those who took the time to answer God’s call to the theatre and pay attention to this matter. Out of the glory came salvation and healing. It did not come from man’s systems and ideas from the soul, nor out of old callings from God, but out of the glory and anointing which God poured on those who took the trouble to discern these matters and who took their place in the auditorium. These sat and watched as the revelation of God’s new moves came into view on the stage. These were touched by the glory, understood the new direction and walked in it.

Many have prophesied it, but now it is upon us. This is truly the season of moving out of the old and into the new. Many are now being unearthed from their old situations and find themselves ‘in transition’ as their journey begins towards the new.”

On reflection, we see in this prophetic vision something of God’s ‘glory fire’ which will fall upon believers to empower them and we also see the future ‘destructive fire’ that will fall upon that and those that reject the Lord. The present season is to prepare us for the entirely new territory that we are now entering into. It is step one.

I do realise that everything prophesied about end times will not necessarily happen in the next few weeks, but I do believe that this is a very significant time on God’s calendar.

Andrew Baker