Category Archives: Discipleship and witness

The world will know that we are Jesus’s disciples by our love; but Jesus didn’t tell us that this is how we make disciples. The New Testament model for making disciples is to glorify the Father by doing His works in the name of the Son, by the power of the Holy Spirit. We are called to show the world the Triune God in action.

Discipleship and witness, Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

Choose Life: Love One Another.

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Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you yourself desire, I will do it for you.” (1 Sam 20:4)

The love between Jonathan and David is well known; indeed it is the most elevated example of an actual friendship that we are given in the Old Testament, if not in the whole of the Bible – excluding, of course, the friendship that Jesus offers to all who follow Him. I Sam 18:3 tells us that “Jonathan and David made a covenant, because he loved him as his own soul.” (NKJV) Other versions translate this as “he loved him as himself.” This takes us immediately to the model of love that Jesus teaches when He introduces the parable of the good Samaritan:  “‘You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength, and with all your mind,’ and your neighbour as yourself.” If we need to see an example of how Jesus wants us to love one another, we look at how Jonathan loved David.

We could study in depth what details that we are given about their relationship and find spiritual meaning in all of them; but what speaks loudest to me is who – or what – David and Jonathan actually represent in the Bible narrative. Jonathan is Saul’s son, and Saul represents the dynasty of the flesh. However David, as we know, is a man ‘after God’s own heart;’ he is a prophetic type and the human ancestor of Jesus, and he represents the dynasty of the Spirit. The anger that Jonathan’s covenant of loyalty to David provokes in Saul is the anger of the devil himself who knows that it is Christ’s rule, and not his own, that will ultimately be established on the Earth:

“Do I not know that you have chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame and to the shame of your mother’s nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse lives on the earth, you shall not be established, nor your kingdom.” (1 Sam 20: 30-31)

In “choosing the son of Jesse,” the son of Saul chose the dynasty of the Spirit over the dynasty of the flesh. Prophetically, Jonathan died to self and turned to Jesus. When we love, we make the same choice for God. In the immortal words of Deuteronomy 30:19-20, we “…choose life, that you and your descendants may live, that you may love the LORD your God, that you may obey His voice, and that you may cling to Him, for He is your life and the length of your days.” To love others is ultimately to love God, and there is only one way to do that, which is the way that Jesus tells us to love him. It’s quite simple. He says: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” (John 14:15)

A husband can long for his wife; he can miss her when they are apart; he can love to be around her; he can admire her beauty and her qualities and can enjoy her conversation. He can miss her, desire her, and seek her presence: but unless he does the things that she likes and avoids what she doesn’t like he is not actually loving her. It’s the same with the Lord: we can long for His presence and spend time with Him; we can enjoy His conversation and immerse ourselves in His word, but we aren’t loving Him if we ignore the things that He asks of us and grieve His Spirit by doing what He doesn’t like.

Jonathan said to David, “Whatever you yourself desire, I will do it for you.” In the same way, therefore, we look to Jesus as we make our choices throughout the day and say to Him “Whatever you yourself desire, I will do it for you.”  Colossians 3: 17 tells us: “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father, through him,” This doesn’t mean we tag “in Jesus’ name” onto everything we do and say: it presupposes that we can’t actually do anything in the name of the Lord unless we know that it’s what He desires. We can’t separate loving God from loving our brother, which is what the apostle John makes clear in his first epistle: “He who loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no cause for stumbling in him.” (1 John 2:10)

To love our brothers and sisters, we need to abide in the light, and we achieve that by doing what He says. As we do, the Kingdom of the Son of Jesse is established on the Earth.

Discipleship and witness, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

He Will direct Your Paths

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If we have been following Jesus for any length of time we will know Proverbs 3: 5-6, probably by heart – and if we don’t, it’s one to learn! “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, And lean not on your own understanding; In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths.” The word translated as “acknowledge” actually means much more that just a nodding reference – it means to know intimately. What this scripture actually tells us is to know the presence of God in all that we do. Here’s a story of how God delights to surprise us at times with the truth of these words.

I am fascinated by wild birds, and my main leisure interest is to spend time watching and photographing them – as those who know me will testify. Sometimes God speaks to me through them as well – see “Dabbling Ducks and Goosanders,” for example. Yesterday was Sunday. My morning routine is to start the day with about an hour reading the word, praying and listening to the Holy Spirit – in other words, having a “quiet time.” But yesterday I woke at about 6.30, saw the sun shining outside, and thought: ”I’m going birding this morning!” I felt a release to go; I didn’t feel that I “should” be having my quiet time or even checking in with the Lord in case He had anything for me to bring to the church meeting. So I made a cup of coffee, and I did in fact read a few verses while I was drinking it, including 1 Cor 8:6 “yet for us there is one God, the Father, of whom are all things, and we for Him; and one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things, and through whom we live.” That’s nice, I thought: I’m going birding through Jesus.

So at around 7.00 am I set off for Norton Bog, one of my favourite birding spots, about 25 mins drive away. I was listening to some worship on the way, and one of the songs referenced Acts 17:28 “In whom we live and move and have our being.” Hello, I thought – there could be a bit of a theme coming through here… Then as I was thinking about where to go in the location I was heading for, I felt the Lord say, quite clearly, “I’ve got something for you this morning.”

I parked the car and set off down the path I had selected, with my camera and binoculars slung round my neck. It’s a wooded area, and I quite often see jays around there, but I’ve never managed to take a decent picture of one – they always fly off into the trees before I can get them in focus. “I wonder what He’s got for me?” I thought.  I had it in my mind that I might see some warblers who should have arrived on our shores to breed by now, but I just mentioned to the Lord that If I could get a decent shot of a jay I would go home happy.

There are various trails at Norton bog – woods, heathland, and waterside. In opting for the woods, I wasn’t going to go on the waterside trail as well – it was in the totally opposite direction; but as I was walking I changed my mind, and when I came to a fork in the path I took the one that would double back to the lake. On the way I saw a small bird at the top of a tree whose call I didn’t recognise. My big zoom lens did a good job and I looked at the images on the screen of my camera. A marsh tit! Not a common little bird, and in serious decline, like many others. I’ve been wanting to see one this year. Was this what God had for me? I looked carefully again at all the pictures, and then I saw a tell-tale splash of white on the back of its neck. This wasn’t a marsh tit at all, but a coal tit: much more common. A nice picture of a sweet little bird, but nothing special; not what I felt God had for me. I carried on towards the lake.

I wasn’t far along the lakeside path when I saw it: a splash of white rump flitting among some trees fifty-odd yards away that said “Jay.” As usual though, before I had got it in shot, the bird had flown onto another branch. I backtracked a few paces to get a better picture, clear of some of the woodland obstructions that were in my line of sight, and then the jay did what jays, in my experience at least, never do: it flew onto a fence post in the open and just sat there, posing for me. And not only did I get a beautiful picture of a perching jay, but when it did fly off I already had it in focus, and I got another beautiful picture, this time of a flying jay. This definitely was the treat that God had prepared for me. What a loving Father.

However this isn’t just a testimony of the goodness of God, although it certainly is one, and shows just how much God loves to bless His kids with little treats: there are a few lessons we can draw from it, not least the one that I have already mentioned.

Don’t stop at the coal tit.
God has great things planned for us. There are promises in His Word, and there are promises given to the church and to you as an individual where He has said, in so many words, “I’ve got something for you.” There are many prophesies current at the moment in which the Holy Spirit is talking about a great revival to come. One I saw recently said: “Don’t try and surf the ripple: wait for the wave to come,” the message being that if you surf the small wave you will finish up on the beach and won’t be ready to ride the big wave that follows it. Let’s not be content with one or two people getting saved and joining the church, the occasional healing or other testimony of the grace of God. While we must not “despise the day of small things,” our Father has great things in store, and He wants us to press in to them.

Be open to a change of direction
I had planned just to stay in the woods, but I turned back to go to the lake because I felt a little nudge from the Holy Spirit telling me to do so. I knew He had “got something for me,” so my spiritual antennae were up and open to His guidance. But the fact is that He has always “got something for us:” sometimes He will prompt us to follow an unexpected course that we hadn’t planned for. There will be “a voice behind us saying “this is the way, walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21), but our ears need to hear the whisper of the Spirit behind the clamour of our flesh, and when we hear the voice we need to do what it says.

There is… one Lord Jesus Christ, through whom are all things.
As one for whom the morning “quiet time” is as regular and as certain a start to my day as the breakfast that follows it, I am the last person to diminish its importance. But let’s not put God in a box – or an armchair. He does not need us to be sitting with our Bibles open and worship music on to be getting our attention: what He needs is for our hearts to be open to His love. Routine is the friend of religion, not of faith. He wants us to sit with our Bibles open because we are hungry for His word, not because it’s what we do at 7.30 every morning. He wants us to be with Him where He is (John 17:24), and it may not be in our 7.30 a.m. armchair. In Him we live and move and have our being, and all things are through Him. When we are truly walking in the Spirit our quiet time will last all day long, and we will walk into all the things that He has got for us.

What has God got for you?
Christian Life, Discipleship and witness, Prophesy and the prophetic, Walking in the Spirit

Make Right Angles (Prophesy)

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MAKE RIGHT ANGLES

“Mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed.” (Ps 85:10)

I saw a parallelogram, leaning over so it was nearly flat. Two corners had very obtuse angles, and the opposite two had very acute angles. I felt the Lord say this:

“My house is leaning over. It is leaning over because the corners are weak. The corners are where Word and Spirit join. In some places the rigor of My word is lacking, and although those places are open to My Spirit, they are also open to that which is not of My Spirit, and so they are weakened. Other places at the opposite corners have no openness to My Spirit, so they are narrow and sharp and do not display my glory or release my power.”

The right angle is neither obtuse nor acute, but is made at the cross, “Where mercy and truth have met together, righteousness and peace have kissed.” (Ps 85:10)

See me upright on the cross with my arms outstretched to you. This is the right angle. Now stand on all I have said, stretch your arms out to one another, and be open to all that I can do. Stand straight, be open. Make right angles. With these I build My Church.”

Discipleship and witness, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Whatever you Bind on Earth… (Teaching)

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“Whatever you bind on Earth will be bound in Heaven” (Matt 18:18)

The Greek tense here is actually a future perfect: “It will have been bound in heaven.” In other words we can only “bind and loose” on Earth that which has already been bound or loosed in heaven. When Peter, and through Peter the church, was given the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven, these were the terms under which those keys were passed on. Keys are a symbol of authority: with the authority that Jesus has given us in His name, we can unlock Heaven on Earth.

When Jesus taught us to pray, we learnt to pray for God’s will to be done one Earth as it is in Heaven. In other words, for that which is bound or loosed in Heaven to be bound or loosed on Earth. King of Kings and Lord of Lords, Jesus was also the firstborn of all the New Creation. Not only are we His disciples, called to do what He did; but we have His DNA and we have His Spirit within us. He has set the precedent and laid down the pattern for everything he has called His followers to carry on doing in His name. He held those keys Himself before He passed on a set to the Church, and we see that His ministry operated on the same principles that He gave to Peter.

Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing. (John 5:19) He didn’t bind or loose anything on Earth that He didn’t see the Father bind or loose in Heaven. Although a few people have been given some partial revelation, none of us really know the dynamics of the relationship between Heaven and Earth; the realm of the Spirit and the realm of the flesh. But we do know one thing, because it is in Scripture: what is here below is a “shadow” of the greater reality above. The original glory of Creation, when it was good, and God walked with King Adam in the garden, was lost at the fall. Sin moved in, Heaven moved out, and reality became a shadow. But when God’s will is done on Earth as it is in Heaven, the doors of Heaven are unlocked on Earth and the shadow takes on something of the substance of its true spiritual nature.

So how do we disciples follow the pattern we were given in order to “bind and loose” on Earth in the name of Jesus? The keys we have been given are the keys of heavenly authority: what we don’t do is see “binding” just as something we might carry out on demonic “strongmen” (Matt 12:29) or principalities (Ps 149:8) and try to use the term as a verbal weapon of spiritual warfare. We do see the power of demons bound in the gospels, and we see people loosed from their grip; but the words describe the results of effective deliverance ministry; they don’t bring it about. I think we make a lot of noise and fire a lot of blanks when we try and “bind” demons, and unless we have seen it done in Heaven first we are surely wasting our time.

Every good and perfect gift comes down from the Father of Lights. This is the key to how we exercise our heavenly authority on Earth: we simply release what we have seen the Father doing. And here again we have to model our ministry on the ministry of the Master. If we want to see what the Father is doing, we need to spend time with Him. We need to ascend into heavenly places in worship and prayer in order to take hold of what the Father has given us for the situations we are bringing to Him. We need to be hungry for the gifts of the Holy Spirit, because it is by these gifts that we receive revelation. Revelation might be the end of the Bible, but it is the beginning of effective ministry. Whether we are dealing with demons, sickness, relationship issues, material provision, or anything else where we are calling on the Lord, it is only by revelation that we can see what the Father is doing in Heaven, and so it’s only by revelation that we can unlock His Kingdom purposes on Earth.

Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness, Walking in the Spirit

“The Priests Stood in their Places” (Teaching)

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This teaching follows on from “the cygnet and the eggshell.” You also may want to read 2 Chron 35 vs 1-19.

If the command has gone out for us, the priests of God, to “stand in our places” ready to minister at the altar, what does this mean for us? We serve the Lord, and we serve those who are in the Temple. Here are a couple of thoughts on the second of those two: our ministry to others.

Remain in peace

2 Peter 3:14 exhorts us to “be diligent to be found by Him in peace,” and in 1 Pe 3:11 the apostle quotes Psalm 34:14 – “Depart from evil and do good; Seek peace and pursue it.” Impetuous Peter was probably one of the last of the 12 that we associate with a peaceful demeanour, but in his position as one of the leaders of the new church of His Lord he is emphatic about the need to minister out of a place of peace. When we stand at the altar of Calvary and look on the perfect sacrifice that tore open the veil of separation between God and man, when we hear the words “it is finished,” we can be assured of His presence and His power touching whatever we do. That place of peace is the place of faith. The children of Israel did not enter the “rest of God” because of their unbelief (Heb 3:19). If our souls are not at rest we too are in unbelief, and since “Whatever is not of faith is sin” (Rom 14:23), anything we do or say when we are away from the peace of God is likely to be corrupted by sin. Isaiah 26: 3 says “Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on thee.” The way to peace is to keep our minds centred on Jesus; to stay in touch with the altar. If we move away from the altar we lose our peace; if we have lost our peace it’s because we have moved away from the altar.

Remain in the Spirit

For most of us this doesn’t mean we cut ourselves off from the people that God has put us with to spend all our time in prayer, worship, and studying the Bible, although there can be seasons when this is exactly what we do, and for some it is the calling on their lives. But whatever our commitments and our calling, we are citizens of Heaven, and our spirits are seated with Christ in Heavenly places. To stay in the Spirit is to remember who we are and where we are from, and to be aware that whatever we are doing, whoever we are with, that is the reality of our condition. Like Jacob’s ladder, our spirits connect Heaven and Earth. If we pray “Thy Kingdom come” we need to remember that this can happen through us at any time, in any situation. “Pray without ceasing” (1 Thess 5:17) means to keep Jesus on the line – like a permanent phone call – all the time. We won’t be speaking to Him all the time, and nor will He be speaking to us all the time, but He is there, on the line. And if we know He is there, it means we can expect the supernatural to break into our lives and the lives of the people around us at any moment.

Be providers

“Then Josiah gave the lay people lambs and young goats from the flock, all for Passover offerings for all who were present, to the number of thirty thousand, as well as three thousand cattle; these were from the king’s possessions. And his leaders gave willingly to the people, to the priests, and to the Levites. Hilkiah, Zechariah, and Jehiel, rulers of the house of God, gave to the priests for the Passover offerings two thousand six hundred from the flock, and three hundred cattle.” (2 Chron 35:7-8)

When Josiah instituted his great Passover after he had restored Temple worship in Jerusalem, people flocked to the feast from all over Judah and from the remnant of Israel who had remained after the exile of the Northern Kingdom. The people came to the Temple, but they came empty-handed. Following the lead of the King himself, the leaders provided generously and willingly for those who had nothing, so that all could join in the feast. In the Passover that is to come, when the only safe place in the world is under the blood of the Lamb, many will flock, empty-handed, into the church. We serve at the altar of Jehovah Jireh, and our King has already set us His example of giving as well as giving us some very clear principals in His teachings. When we give to meet the needs of others, the Lord will provide or us.

Be pray-ers

I’ve already mentioned the need to “keep Jesus on the line” as an understanding of how we can “pray without ceasing.” The more we can do this, the more our daily life merges with our prayer life. But in this context, let us remember to keep interceding for the needs of others. The most important thing to remember is that prayer in the flesh is as unproductive as anything else we do in the flesh. We are told to ”pray in the Spirit,” and we are told that the Holy Spirit help us to pray because we don’t know how to pray ourselves. If we pray as God leads, we are engaging with Him in what He is doing. If we pray where our emotions – or someone else’s emotions – lead, we can expect to be disappointed. James 5:15 tells us that “The prayer of faith will save the sick person, and the Lord will restore him to health; if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven.” (ASV) We also know that “faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the Word of God.” (Rom 10:17) So before we pray, we need to be hearing from God, by the Holy Spirit, who to pray for and how to pray. There is a chasm of difference between human sympathy and God’s compassion, and it’s His compassion that brings Heaven to Earth, not our sympathy. We need to know from Jesus what, and who, is on His heart for us to pray for. But If we have Him on the line, He will prompt us.

“Then afterward they prepared portions for themselves and for the priests, because the priests, the sons of Aaron, were busy in offering burnt offerings and fat until night; therefore the Levites prepared portions for themselves and for the priests, the sons of Aaron… There had been no Passover kept in Israel like that since the days of Samuel the prophet; and none of the kings of Israel had kept such a Passover as Josiah kept, with the priests and the Levites, all Judah and Israel who were present, and the inhabitants of Jerusalem.” (2 Chron 35: 14, 18)

We need to get ready, because we are going to be busy.

Discipleship and witness, Holiness: You shall be perfect

The Cygnet and the Broken Egg (A prophesy)

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I was talking recently to someone who has been prominent in leading worship since the early days of charismatic renewal. He was telling me about a time when he watched a cygnet breaking out of and egg. I felt at the time that the Lord was saying “this is prophetic.” The next day I found myself reading the account of Josiah’s temple reforms in 2 Chronicles 34-35.  I believe the Holy Spirit has given me the following, that connects the two.

The Cygnet has broken out of the eggshell. At the moment she is small and vulnerable, but she will grow, for this is the beginning, the birth, of the one that will become the White Swan, the spotless bride of Christ. As the world systems are breaking she Is emerging from all that has kept her concealed: secularism, tradition, and religion. But now the egg has broken and its supply is exhausted, and she will feed on the Lord: Jehovah Jireh will be her source. She is not yet recognisable as the one that she will become, but as she grows she will take on more and more of the characteristics of the beautiful White Swan.

It is the sound of worship that has broken her shell, and it is the sound of worship that is the atmosphere in which she will grow and mature. As King Josiah restored the true temple worship in his day, so the Lord is restoring true worship in His temple now, free of all that has contained it. And as Josiah’s restoration of true worship was followed by the greatest Passover that had ever been known in Jerusalem in all the days of the kings, so the greatest Passover ever known among men will follow this time of restoration as the young Swan emerges. For it will be a true Passover: while those in the temple rejoice and celebrate under the covering of the blood of the lamb, those outside will know only the devastation of the broken shell left by the collapse of world systems. They will run around, picking up pieces of broken eggshell, saying “Is this what we cling to? Or is that piece over there what we cling to?“ while those in the temple celebrate in the presence of the One that they cling to, Jesus, the rock that is higher than them all. And just as the priests in the time of Josiah took their places at the altar where they were busy until night, meeting the needs of the many people bringing their sacrifice; so it is time for the priests of the Lord today to take up their positions, ready for the many that will come to the temple from miles around.

And so the Cygnet will grow in the house of worship until the white swan, the bride, is revealed.

“So the service was prepared, and the priests stood in their places, and the Levites in their divisions, according to the king’s command.”  (2 Chron 35:10)

Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Buckle up the Belt of Truth

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When God spoke through his prophets to his old covenant people he repeated the same message many times and in many different ways: “Return to me or face the consequences!”

The same God speaks through his prophets today. He continues to say the same thing to different people in different ways. His heart of love for His people has not changed: He continues to say “Return to me!“  And the call hasn’t changed: He said to the first Adam “where are you?“ and today, although the context may be different, He still says to us, the brothers and sisters of the second Adam: “Where are you?“

He still is longing to walk with us in the garden of His promises, and many in His church are still nowhere to be seen. He has a plan and a purpose, and He will see that plan and  purpose fulfilled: His desire is that walk with him, close to him, yoked to him, so He can best fulfil that plan in all our lives.

The message that He is giving to many of his prophets today is clear: the vision is “written on tablets so that he may run who reads it!” (Hab 2:2) There is a great shaking coming on the world; and there will be much upheaval; but in and through this we will find safety under the shadow of his wings; we will be a light in the darkness as we walk in his light, and as His light arises on us so many will come out of the darkness to seek Him. There have been pictures of earthquakes, of storms, of avalanches; there have been words of the lion roaring, of light shining, of a strong tower standing, but the message is fundamentally Isaiah 60: 2-3, and ultimately the deepest symbolism of the Book of Revelation:

For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,
And deep darkness the people;
But the LORD will arise over you,
The Gentiles shall come to your light,
And kings to the brightness of your rising.
And His glory will be seen upon you.

Nevertheless there is a new emphasis now, a new note that hasn’t been heard before. In summary, what I feel the Spirit is saying to the Church is this:

“Buckle up for a bumpy ride, because this really is about to happen soon. Buckle up the belt of Truth, because this is what will keep you safe. But pay attention, because it will be the new thing I am doing, and not the old thing that you have been doing. Listen to me and learn from me and you will tread the high places of the Earth in my presence. But if you refuse to listen you will seek me but you will not find me; you will see my light shining over the mountains but you will continue to stumble through the undergrowth of the valley that I want to lead you out of; and your heart will be in danger of growing bitter and critical towards those who are experiencing my glory.”

Our response.

Prophesy requires a response. When Agabus prophesied a famine, “ the disciples, each according to his ability, determined to send relief to the brethren dwelling in Judea” (See Acts 11: 28-30) So how do we do to prepare for what is coming? Here are a few suggestions.

Intimacy with the Holy Spirit.
Jesus tells us that His sheep hear His voice – but it’s only through the Holy Spirit that He speaks, whether this is directly into our hearts or via the Bible, so unless we are familiar with that voice we will not recognise it when it comes, and we will miss His directions. This doesn’t just mean spending a fixed period of time every day praying and reading the Bible; it means staying close to Him all day so that we can hear his whisper as we walk, that “voice behind us, saying this is the way, walk in it.” (Isaiah 30:21)

Openness to change.
God is doing “a new thing.” This doesn’t mean that it’s not in the Bible, because it is. It will either be prophesy that is now coming to fulfilment, or aspects of new testament church life and ministry that God is only now restoring to the church. We need to make sure that our openness to what God is doing today is is only shaped by what He did when He first established the church 2,000 years ago. and just not by what we, our fathers, or our Bible teachers saw God doing yesterday.

Practical love
Are we free and generous in our giving? As the financial systems of the world become more shaky, the best place to invest our money is in the Bank of Heaven, where “moth and rust do not corrupt, and thieves do not break in and steal.” (Matt 6:19) As we shovel out, God shovels in – and His shovel is bigger than ours.

Holiness
Friendship with the world is enmity with God (James 4:4). Jesus is coming for a bride without spot or blemish. God judged idolatry and compromise among His Old Covenant people and He has not changed today. We all need to ask the Holy Spirit if we have any idols ourselves, and what we need to do for our “houses” to be an acceptable dwelling place for Him. We must recognise that Peter meant what he said when he wrote “Just as He who called you is holy, so be holy in all you do, for it is written: ‘Be holy, because I am holy.’”

None of these – or other principals of discipleship – are new ideas. I think that the “new thing” that God is doing today is to allow unprecedented erosion of the sandy foundations that the world’s civilisation is built upon, so that what is build on the Rock of Jesus Christ is the safe haven that can be seen by all, more clearly than ever before. His call to us today is to make sure we are in it and are not wandering around outside.

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Entering the Land (2): Greater is He that is in you…(Teaching)

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“So it was, when all the kings of the Amorites who were on the west side of the Jordan, and all the kings of the Canaanites who were by the sea, heard that the LORD had dried up the waters of the Jordan from before the children of Israel until we  had crossed over, that their heart melted; and there was no spirit in them any longer because of the children of Israel.” (Joshua 5:1)

The new generation of the children of Israel had been circumcised and were gathered between the Jordan and Jericho. As I wrote in the previous article we, the Church of Jesus Christ and the brothers of the second Adam, are the new generation who will enter the Land of Promise: the old generation, the children of the first Adam, cannot enter. And we live in a time when many prophetic voices are declaring that the Divine Nature will be manifested more powerfully than ever before when a new outpouring of the Holy Spirit equips us to live more fully in the good of the “great and precious promises” that we find in the Word (See 2 Peter1:4). So we too find ourselves between the Jordan and Jericho: we’re born again of the Spirit – we’re over the Jordan – and we know that there is a great advance ahead of us. But first we need to get past Jericho. What can we learn?

First of all, we need to remember that “greater is he that is in us than he who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4) The darkness is scared of the light, because it knows the light is stronger. The devil knows that he is no match for the spiritual weapons of our warfare, which are “mighty for pulling down strongholds (2 Cor 10:5),” because of course he knows what they are. The question is, do we? I think one of the devil’s main strategies in our warfare is to make sure we don’t. Jesus cast demons out ‘with a word’ because they knew who Him. The demons that overpowered the sons of Sceva knew Jesus, and they knew who Paul was, but they obviously couldn’t see anything of Jesus in the sons of Sceva. Their words alone were not enough.

Over the years I have done my share of “spiritual warfare.” I think I’ve won a few battles, but I have also lost many; and I have come to the conclusion from reflecting on my own experience and applying what I understand from Scripture, that we spend a lot of time firing blanks when we think we are shooting down the enemy.  We can talk, pray and declare all night, but Paul says that we are to “stand” when we have “done all.” When we “stand” in prayer against the forces of darkness, have we “done all?” Are we actually wearing the armour of God, walking in faith, righteousness and truth, spreading the gospel and speaking God’s word, or have we just rushed into prayer mode while the armour of our spiritual selves is still shut away in a locker in our heavenly home? James says we need to be “doers of the word, not hearers only” (James 1:22). The two house builders of Jesus’s sand and rock parable have both heard His word, but only one of them keeps it.

The enemy knew who Paul was because he clearly didn’t just teach the church about the armour of God; he wore it himself, all the time. To put on the armour of God, stand in it, and to “do all” is to put on Christ and walk in the Spirit. The enemy looked at Paul, and doubtless at Peter and the other apostles after Pentecost, saw Jesus, and had to succumb to the victory of the cross. Paul didn’t give us a check-list for a quiet time procedure in Ephesians 6, he gave us a picture of what the weapons of our warfare look like when we let our spirits do the walking in our lives. If we are walking in the light before confronting the enemy, he will see us coming before we reach him: he will recognise Jesus in our faith (the shield), our righteousness (the breastplate), our thinking (the helmet), our words (the sword), and our footsteps (the shoes). He will still put up a fight, but will be defeated in the end. But if he doesn’t see them he won’t know who we are, and no amount of “praying against” him will make any difference: we will just be firing blanks.

We must remember that the same spiritual powers of darkness that were over  the “Kings of the Canaanites” are at work in today’s world. If they had had shut up Jericho for fear of the people of God, what weapons of warfare are they scared of finding in our possession today? The answer can be summed up in a single word: Christlikeness. The more time we spend with Jesus, the more like him we become, and the more likely we are to pull down the strongholds that stand between us and the promised land.

Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness

Where shall I send them? (A prophesy)

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“The LORD has founded Zion,
And the poor of His people shall take refuge in it.” (Isaiah 14:32)

Many of us have heard and spoken words prophesying the coming revival. In an intercession time recently we were praying for all those who would come to the Lord during this revival, and suddenly I saw His eyes, full of compassion and concern, and He was asking: “Where shall I send them? You say, ‘Here am I, send me,’ but will you also say ‘Here am I, send them to me’?”

Because they will come from the highways and hedges. There will be the poor, the needy, the illiterate, the refugee. This revival will not be like any other. There is a storm coming that will start to blow away some of the structures supporting this world: when have started to collapse many will come to the church for support. They will be drawn out of the darkness into the Light. Can we hold them up? Will the one who has two coats share with the one who has none, and the one who has food do the same (Luke 3:11)?

Just as we might prepare for extra family members to come into our house at Christmas, I feel the Lord is asking the church to prepare His house for the many extra family members that are going to arrive. Are their rooms ready? Do we have enough of the right food, and the people to serve them? The Lord is looking even now at all the people He is calling, and His eyes are looking into all our churches. He is asking: “Where shall I send them? Can I send them to you?”

Discipleship and witness, Holiness: You shall be perfect, Living by Faith, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Entering the Land (teaching)

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(Adapted from my new book, “Two Seconds to Midnight,” scheduled for publication in the Spring.)

Many of us believe that a season of harvest is coming soon, and that it will be greater than anything that the church has yet experienced; that we are about to enter a “promised land” of revival. We read about God’s people entering the Promised Land in the book of Joshua, and the principles that we see there speak to us today. If we pick up the story at the beginning of Joshua 5, we can find four main points: the men were circumcised; they celebrated Passover; they ate unleavened bread; Joshua worshipped the Lord and took his instructions from Him.

Circumcision
When they had all crossed the Jordan and set up camp at Gilgal, the Lord commanded Joshua to make flint knives and circumcise all the men of Israel: all those old enough to bear arms had died in the wilderness, and the new generation had not been circumcised with the sign of their covenant relationship with God. When this had been accomplished, God said to the Israelites through Moses: “This day I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.” (Jos 5:9) The reproach of Egypt was the yoke of slavery that they had been under: now, through this act of consecration to the Lord, this yoke was broken.

Under the new covenant, we, the Church, are that new generation, born not of the flesh and the will of man, but of the Spirit of God (John 1:13). Each one of us is a new creation. There is a Land of Promise waiting which the “faithless and perverse generation” of the flesh cannot enter. but there will be another Jericho facing us as we come up against the godless systems of the world.

Paul reminds us (Romans 2: 29) that  “he is a Jew who is one inwardly; and circumcision is that of the heart, in the Spirit, not in the letter.” To face the end-time Jericho we will need hearts that are totally open and yielded to the Lord. It’s easy to gloss over the use of the word “heart” in this sort of context. But if, in biblical terminology, the heart is the seat of the emotions, this is exactly what must be yielded to the Lord. It is so often our unyielded emotions that cause damage and disunity, and consequently defeat; whereas it is the unity that commands the blessing, as we well know. Only with “circumcised hearts” can we be free of all that ties us into the old, binding us to the yoke of slavery to sin, and be free to take the yoke of Jesus and rise up in the spirit.

Passover
The second heading is Passover. There is only one way to be yoked to Jesus Christ, and that is under the power of His blood. I believe that the Church needs a restored understanding of the power of the blood, and especially of the truth that “the life is in the blood.” Whenever we take communion as Jesus commanded us to do “in remembrance of Him,” we reaffirm not only the covering of the blood and all that it means in terms of forgiveness of sin and shelter from its consequences, but we affirm also the life of the Spirit that courses through it in our renewed hearts.
After Passover comes Pentecost. Our preparation for an end-time outpouring has to be a season of Passover. Many Christians the world over have felt that coronavirus lockdown has been, and still is, a taste of that season, shut off from the world and reaching out for the protection of the blood of the Lamb. We know that many Christians, sadly, have not survived the virus; but we also know that there are many testimonies of genuine divine healing that were granted through the power of the Blood.

Unleavened bread
The deeper significance of unleavened bread has always been a bit of a mystery to me. I’ve always felt that there is more to it than it being a reminder of leaving Egypt without having time for the bread to rise. Jesus talked about the “leaven of the pharisees,” for example, when He was warning the disciples to keep away from their deceptive doctrines; and it is a positive symbol in the parable of the leaven, which is probably (I haven’t done a word-count) the shortest parable in the New Testament. So what might be the symbolism in its Old Testament usage?

Just the other day the Holy Spirit gave me my personal revelation. This may not be the same for you, and I’m not saying it is what He has breathed into the scriptural significance of unleavened bread for everyone to receive, but the following is what He gave me. A negative reaction to something was rising up in my soul. The Lord said to me: “That thing rising up in you is leaven. Get rid of it.” Having “circumcised our hearts” we need to keep them soft.  Paul writes: “For we, though many, are one bread and one body; for we all partake of that one bread.” (1 Cor 10:17). To move forward into our Promised Land we need to deal with any leaven in our souls that causes us to rise up emotionally and undo the work of the cross in our lives. The children of Israel “ate of the produce of the land on the day after the Passover, unleavened bread and parched grain, on the very same day.”  The grain of our land consists of the seeds of truth sown into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, and these are what we must feed on as we advance. We cannot arise in the spirit if we let negative emotions rise up in our souls: the best way to keep unleavened our corner of  the “one bread” that we are part of, is to make sure that we are feeding on the truth.

Worship in Holiness
And so, with hearts soft and sensitive to God, covered in and fully grasping the power of the blood of Jesus, and feeding on the living truth of His Word instead of the leaven of our emotions as our spirits are filled with His, we come into the Holy Ground where the Commander of the Lord’s Army is standing, and we worship Him. In this place, we can say, like Joshua, “What does my Lord say to His servant?” (Jos 5:14). And His commands to us will be of the same order as His words to Joshua: first, respond to His Holiness (Take off your shoes), and only then move in to defeat the enemy.