Category Archives: Christian Life

Seeking God’s presence and walking in His ways as a Spirit-filled believer.

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

The Stage is Set

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I was looking at an image of a stage with the curtains drawn across and the spotlight shining on the curtains. Then I felt the Lord say this:

The Lord has set the stage and is assembling His cast. Our lines are written in Heaven, according to Ephesians 2:10. He says to us now: “Learn your parts. For your parts are not playacting, they are the eternal reality of my Spirit. What is on the stage will not pass away; it is not just there for a season; it is built for eternity.“

An actor who comes out of role on stage is said to “corpse.“ The Lord says to us: “Your role is the reality. The spirit is your reality. Walk in the spirit, and do not corpse by walking after the flesh. The world thinks it is here to stay, and it is always fighting to stay; but the truth is the opposite: you are here to stay, and the world and all that is in it is passing away. Soon I will be drawing back the curtains to reveal what is on the stage that I have set, and my church will act the parts that I have prepared for them. But the spotlight will not be on you; it will be on Me. The Acts of the Apostles was just a prelude to what I have prepared for these times. Listen for my cues; wait for my cues; always move on cue and do not corpse. The world will begin to see who you are and who I am in your midst. The first act is coming; there will be many more acts after this, until the time comes for the final bow. So I say to you again: learn your parts, do not corpse, listen for my cues. And do not fear, for I am renewing faith among my people. You will enjoy the thrill of being in my theatre.”

Christian Life, Holiness: You shall be perfect, Living by Faith

Away in a Manger

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“O faithless and perverse generation, how long shall I be with you?” (Luke 9: 41)

If you have been fortunate enough to have done some international travel, you will probably have experienced a bit of culture shock when moving between different cultural norms. Attitudes to considerations such as punctuality, work ethic, loyalty, hospitality, debt and much more can vary between nations, and can be quite difficult to adjust to while we are away from home. But while the tinsel of “civilized behaviour” can be draped across – or pulled off – any number of different practices depending on where they are performed, the common strands of acceptability are still enough to enable, say, an American Indian, an English nobleman, and an Maori tribesman to recognise and accept each other as members of the Human family. Moving between them might be a bit awkward at times, but the obstacles aren’t insurmountable. However there are two societies where the gulf between the cultures  is so enormous that the consequence is all-out war, and that is the culture of Heaven and the culture of the world.

Jesus said: “You are from beneath; I am from above. You are of this world; I am not of this world.” (John 8:23). He refers a few times to “this generation,” notably in Matthew 24:34, when He is talking about the events of the last days: “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” The word used in Greek is just ‘what it says on the tin’ – a line of descent from common ancestry. There are differing interpretations of the text, but  I think that the “generation” that Jesus refers to is, quite simply, the generation of Adam that is born of the flesh. It is the generation that will finally pass away when He ”makes all things new.” Until then, there are two generations in the world: the generation of the first Adam, born from below; and the generation of the second Adam, born (again) from above, born of the Spirit, alive in Christ. Faith is from Above. It can only be received and exercised in the Spirit, which is why the generation of the first Adam is faithless. The Greek word diastrepho, translated as “perverse,” means diverted from the right path and specifically opposing the saving plan and purposes of God. The flesh has been perverse since the first Adam perverted it in the garden of Eden.

God said “Let there be…” and there was. The universe was created by the Word of God (Hebrews 11:3), and that word became flesh in the Incarnation. The Son of Man Himself is the perfect and complete expression of faith. The faith by which Love of God brings creation and its redemption into existence is the very atmosphere of Heaven. Jesus left that atmosphere behind to dwell among us, in a culture that was totally and fundamentally in opposition to everything that He was. When we consider the lowly conditions of the Lord’s birth we traditionally see a great disparity between the surroundings that one would expect for the baby King of Kings and the environment of the stable. But the distance between these two extremes is just a pinprick when compared with the great gulf that exists between the world “below” and the world “above.” It wouldn’t be surprising if there were times when all He wanted was to go back home.

What about us? We are born from Above; we are no longer “of the world” any more than He is (John 17:16). In Christ, we have “places to walk” among those who stand in the courts of Heaven, (Zech 3:7) where we are also seated. (Eph 2:6) As descendants of the second Adam, we are also “conformed to His image” (Romans 8:29) and therefore restored to the image of God as we were originally created. Spiritual things can only be spiritually discerned, yet we so often fall into the snare of trying to understand our spiritual heritage through the clouded eyes of the flesh, and grapple with the impossibility of trying to reconcile our self-image as creatures of this earth (below) with the idea of our inheritance in Heavenly places (above). But as I wrote in my last article (we shall be like Him), not only will we be like Him when He returns, but we already are like Him in the Spirit.

As I have quoted in that article, John writes: “we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2). The apostle goes on to say this, in verse three: “And everyone who has this hope in Him purifies himself, just as He is pure.” (1 John 3:3). I strongly believe that Jesus is calling His bride today to purify herself. Do we settle for the norms of the “faithless and perverse generation” that we live among? Or are we straining our spiritual lungs to breathe in the pure atmosphere of faith, in which the Word of God can bring about the purposes of Heaven? Do we seek the Kingdom of God above all else? Are our lives an incarnation of Love? Do we hunger for the bread of Heaven? Do we thirst for the living water of the Holy Spirit and cry out with the sons of Korah:

“As the deer pants for the water brooks,
So pants my soul for You, O God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?  (Psalm 42:1-2)

I wonder how many times Jesus prayed these verses Himself when He was alone on the mountain with His Father.

We are no longer of “this generation” because we have been born from Above, but we dwell among those who are, with the King’s work to do, for as long as the King wants to keep us on Earth. So as long as we remain here, let’s remember who we are and where we come from; because until we leave this tent for our permanent residence we too are away in a manger.

Christian Life, Discipleship and witness, Holiness: You shall be perfect

Walking in the Light (2)

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“If we walk in the light as He is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7.)

I’ve come back to this verse because I’ve often often pondered it: it seems back to front, as I would have expected walking in the light and having fellowship with one another (ie true relationship in integrity and genuine  love) to be a consequence of being cleansed of all sin by the blood of Jesus, and not for it to be the other way round. But John puts the cleansing of sin as a consequence of walking in the light. I understand it like this:

Jesus said “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (John 8:12) Walking in the light is quite simply following Jesus. We go where the light goes. The entrance of His word brings light, (Psalm 119:130) so when we let His word enter our lives and do what His word says we are in the light. And since He is both light and love, we have to be walking in Love if we are walking in the light. Consequently we will have fellowship with one another. That seems straightforward enough. Not easy, but straightforward!

Walking in the light is a discipleship decision. If we are surrounded by the darkness of the world we simply mustn’t take our eyes off the light of Heaven. Just as there is no darkness in Jesus, there is no light in the World that isn’t from Him. If we are not following the way He shows us we are going to stumble, but (as I wrote in the earlier post) if we are walking in the light, we will discern the darkness in us whenever the flesh rises up, and we will bring it to the cross for cleansing. Because the flesh does rise up, and therefore we need to die to it, and we can’t die to the flesh if we’re not walking in the light. That’s why it’s a “living sacrifice” that we have to bring to the cross daily, as Paul urges in Romans 12:1. Because the flesh is alive, we have to keep sacrificing it. Jesus is fully in the light because He is the Light, whereas we walk in the light with him but bring the darkness of our flesh along with us.

Some Bible teachers will say that walking in the Light is to do what Jesus would do and manifest the fruit of the Spirit in our daily lives, and they point to the Sermon on the Mount as our set of guiding principles. And yes, the Sermon on the Mount is the manifesto of the Kingdom of God; it gives us the bullet points of the Spirit filled life, and if we let those principles guide us we will be blessed. And yes, to walk in the Light is to manifest the character of Jesus: kindness for cruelty, mercy for revenge, purity for pollution, generosity for meanness etcetera.  However we cannot do this on our own (well, I certainly can’t anyway); we cannot be living examples of the Sermon on the Mount unless we’re conscious of the Holy Spirit illuminating the scene that is before us. 

Temptation comes, in whatever area of personal weakness it is that the “prowling lion” (1 Pe 5:8) has spotted, and our flesh wants to yield to it because it is only by the light of the Holy Spirit that we discern it as sin, or as Jesus puts it Himself (John 16:8) it’s only the Holy Spirit that can bring conviction. If I feel slighted by someone, for example, I will fall into the sin of a negative reaction unless I see a beam of truth from the Holy Spirit showing up that reaction for the darkness that it actually expresses.  Once I see my piqued emotions as wounded pride I can make a decision take it to the cross for cleansing by the blood of Jesus, and I can keep my heart pure instead of giving sin a voice. It’s simple discipleship; it’s 1 John 1:7.

My choice is always simple: as I’ve said it might not be easy, but it’s simple. Do I charge ahead in the darkness, driven by my emotions and circumstance; or do I pause at every step, check that I am following the light, and respond according to His direction? Do I follow Jesus, or do I go my own way? If I want to walk in the light as He is in the Light I have to make a decision to dwell in His presence all the time. It isn’t being guided by a set of principles; it’s making a daily decision for step-by-step discipleship. There is no other way, no other truth, no other life.

“Plant the good seeds of righteousness and you will harvest a crop of my love. Plough up the hard ground of your hearts, for now is the time to seek the Lord, that he may come and shower righteousness upon you.” (Hosea 10:12 NLT)

Be prepared; hold on., Discipleship and witness, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Are You a Believer?

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“I also asked about the ten horns on the fourth beast’s head and the little horn that came up afterward and destroyed three of the other horns. This horn had seemed greater than the others, and it had human eyes and a mouth that was boasting arrogantly. As I watched, this horn was waging war against God’s holy people and was defeating them, until the Ancient One—the Most High—came and judged in favor of his holy people. Then the time arrived for the holy people to take over the kingdom.” (Daniel 7: 20-22 NLT)

Are you a believer? Do you believe that the Lord made the Heavens and the Earth? Do you believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God who died for your sins, was resurrected on the third day, is seated at the right hand of God and will return one day, possibly quite soon, to judge both the living and the dead? Do you believe that Man was created in the image of God and did not evolve from lizards? Do you believe that unborn children should not be murdered? That you and I were designed to have a lifelong relationship with a member of the opposite sex? And do you support a political party that, in the main at least, upholds these values?

If you do, you are in good company: you are in “the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven.” (Heb 12:23) We belong, not because we know better, but because we believe.

But when you speak of these things that you believe, are you mocked and vilified? Are you made to feel at times that you are simple-minded, ignorant and foolish when you even think them; that it really is time that you woke (pun intended) up to reality? If this is you, remember that “we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age,  against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12) The voice that seeks to make you feel ashamed of what you believe is not the voice of the secular media, it’s not even the voice of the editor of that left-wing journal that claims to speak for freedom; it comes straight from the mouth of the prince of the power of the air whose servants they are, who “boasts arrogantly” against the Most High God and wages war against His people. The more arrogant the voice, the closer it comes to judgement.

And if you are a brother of sister in the USA right now, be encouraged, Child of God, for the Most High will, in His time, judge in favour of His holy people.

“See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him.” (1 John 3:1)

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

If Anyone loves me, He Will Keep My Word.

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A thousand thoughts and desires flood the mind daily, yet there is only one body of thought that can give meaning and wholeness to our lives, and that is “The wisdom that descends from above (James 3:17). A thousand words can pass our lips, yet the only ones that Jesus calls us to live by are “every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.” Both Moses and Joshua urged the people of Israel to “meditate day and night” on the Law of God in order to walk in His blessing, but their subsequent apostasy suggests that this didn’t happen. The truth for Christians today is this: Jesus is the Word made flesh; we are flesh re-made by the word. As James put it (James 1: 18): “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of truth, that we might be a kind of first fruits of His creatures.”

The flesh of Jesus was perfect as it was the human incarnation of The Word; God expressing Himself perfectly in human form. The flesh of Man is, of course, imperfect, as we are born into the corruption of sin; and it is only the word of God that can work His perfection in our lives as He speaks into our spirits and “writes His Law on our hearts.”  As Paul writes to the Corinthians, Jesus writes our lives as His own epistle: “Clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.” (2 Cor 3:3)

Jesus calls us to be “yoked” to Him. (Matt 11:29) If we want to understand how it’s possible to be yoked to the living Christ, I think it’s helpful to think of the material of His yoke as His word. We can’t accept His yoke unless we have died to self and picked up our cross – but if we are to follow Him closely we need to know where He is walking. And if our lives are to be His epistle, then the substance of who we are and the motivation for what we do must be found in the words that He has spoken. We cannot be like Him or do the things that He did unless the core and very makeup of our lives are the things that He says. Whatever our flesh says, whatever the enemy might whisper, our response must be: “Lord, what do You say?”

We have, in the Bible, a wonderful library of what God has already said. Whatever revelation we have by the Holy Spirit in these days will be grounded in something on the shelves of that Library. When Jesus gathered His disciples for the last time before He ascended into Heaven, they might reasonably have expected to be given a wonderful new revelation to propel them forward into the next phase of their lives. But instead He points back to the words He had already spoken during His time with them, and further back, to the Old Testament:

“Then He said to them, “These are the words which I spoke to you while I was still with you, that all things must be fulfilled which were written in the Law of Moses and the Prophets and the Psalms concerning Me. And He opened their understanding, that they might comprehend the Scriptures.” (Luke 24: 44-45).

More than anything, we need the Holy Spirit to open our understanding to the Scriptures. As Jesus spoke with His disciples shortly before going to the cross, he makes this wonderful promise:  “If anyone loves Me, he will keep My word; and My Father will love him, and We will come to him and make Our home with him,” and in the next breath he assures them that they aren’t going to forget what he has said, because “the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name, He will teach you all things, and bring to your remembrance all things that I said to you.” (John 14: 24, 26.) The primary work of the Holy Spirit is to bring the word of God alive in our hearts, to make us His epistle, as we have already noted.

Finally, there is more to walking in obedience to the Word of God that the matter of being “yoked” to Jesus, essential though that is. Psalm 119 is a treasure trove of truths about God’s word. Just to pick two jewels: It is settled in Heaven (verse 89). Even perfection has its limits, but God’s commands have none (verse 96).  Even a cursory reading of just a few verses make one truth absolutely clear: God’s word is the perfect expression of heavenly perfection and power. Nothing on Earth can even begin to approach it in beauty, truth and majesty.  It is imbued with the very atmosphere of Heaven; and that is why the Word can only be brought to life by the Emissary of Heaven who dwells within us: the Holy Spirit. But once the Holy Spirit has brought God’s word to life in our hearts, there is one thing that does connect this capsule of Heaven to the mortal realm of Earth, and that is our obedience. Our obedience grounds God’s word on Earth. When we do what Jesus says, the creative power of the Word is released into the world.

To love Jesus is to keep His word. If we do that, He and the Father will come and make their home in us. It is our obedience to the Word of God that brings Heaven down to Earth.

Discipleship and witness, Holiness: You shall be perfect, Walking in the Spirit

The Order of Melchizedek

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“This is the law of the temple: The whole area surrounding the mountaintop is most holy. Behold, this is the law of the Temple (Ezekiel 43:12)

If I were to give superhero epithets to Bible characters, I would call Peter “Pentecost Man,” because I think his apostolic ministry is defined by the power of Pentecost. Although the writer to the Hebrews introduces us to the concept of Jesus being a “priest forever under the order of Melchizedek” (Heb 7:17), it is Peter, “Pentecost Man,” who has the most to say to us about our priestly ministry as disciples of Christ. If Jesus, our great High Priest, is a “priest forever under the order of Melchizedek,” then our priestly ministry is under the same order, because as disciples we follow after the pattern of the Master.

We are probably familiar with the main principles of our order. Melchizedek was at once “priest of the most high God, and King Salem” (Heb 7:1): a priest-king, a role that did not exist in the ordinances of Old Covenant Israel where the priesthood was strictly separated from rulership. Jesus, of course, is at once the High Priest whose sacrifice satisfied once and for all every requirement of the Law, and He is King of Kings, seated on high over the entire universe. Jesus “The ruler over the kings of the earth… has made us kings  and priests to His God and Father” (Rev. 1: 5-6), so we too are, as 1 Peter 2:9 confirms, “a royal priesthood, a holy nation.” But over and above the ministry of Melchizedek was his immortality. Hebrews 7:3 tells us that he was “without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but made like the Son of God.”

Like Jesus, Melchizedek was incorruptible. We too, have been “born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, through the living and abiding word of God.” (1 Pe 1:23). “Of His own will He brought us forth by the word of Truth, that we might be a kind of firstfruiits of His creatures.” (James 1:18) We  have an “inheritance incorruptible and undefiled and that does not fade away.” (1 Pe 1:4). We, too, are incorruptible. We have been chosen to bear incorruptible fruit – “fruit that endures.” (John 15:16) Born of incorruptible seed, sown and brought forth by God; destined for an incorruptible eternity, and chosen to bear incorruptible fruit: what is the condition of the fruit tree?

Pentecost Man said this: “as He who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, because it is written, “Be holy, for I am holy.” (1 Pe 1: 15-16). We are priests of the order of Melchizedek. Our priestly service is to minister to the Lord in the Temple, and to minister to the people from out of our time in the temple, revealing Jesus to those who don’t know Him. “And they shall teach my people the difference between the holy and the common, and cause them to discern between the unclean and the clean. (Ezekiel 44:23) We cannot teach “the difference between the holy and the common” unless we live by it ourselves. The law that governs the Temple in which we serve is holiness.

The devil has worked hard over the centuries at belittling the notion of holiness. Phrases like “holy huddle,” “holier than thou,” etc besmirch the word with negative connotations, and the popular idea of the “holy man” living a life of asceticism halfway up a mountain somewhere can make the state of holiness seem somehow inaccessible. But if that which has been brought forth from incorruptible seed is to bear incorruptible fruit it has to remain true to its incorruptible nature: in other words it has to be holy. To be holy as He who called us is holy isn’t just an exhortation to sort out our wayward behaviour; it is a reminder of our true nature as new creations that carry the DNA of the incorruptible seed from which we have been “brought forth.”

If we wonder what this holiness looks like, we need search no further than the template Jesus gave us in His teachings, especially in the Sermon on the Mount. We are no longer of the world, but as those of incorruptible stock living in it we have to guard against the corruption of the world affecting us. Therefore we forgive so that we are not corrupted by hatred and bitterness. We remain meek so that we are not corrupted by pride. We are merciful so that we are not corrupted by vengeance. We love so that we are not corrupted by hatred. We give so that we are not corrupted by covetousness. We trust God so that we are not corrupted by fear and anxiety. We “abstain from fleshly lusts that war against the soul” (I Peter 2:11). To keep strong in all of these and many other principles of everyday holiness we sustain ourselves on the “living bread”, the Word of God, and not the “bread which perishes” that the world would give us. And like Peter, we have to be “Pentecost people,” because without the power of the indwelling Holy Spirit none of this is possible.

We don’t know what is ahead, but we do know that the Church is moving into a new season. For many of us, the time of lockdown has been like a time of consecration; of preparation before entering the Land where the goodness of God will be poured out in an unprecedented move of the Holy Spirit. But first comes Jericho, where the commander of the Lord’s army says to us:  “Take off your sandals, for the place where you are standing is holy ground.” (Joshua 5:15)

I believe we stand on the brink of a deeper fulfilment of our role as priests of the order of Melchizedek. It’s time to take seriously the law of the Temple.

Discipleship and witness, Holiness: You shall be perfect

Lambs and Wolves

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In 1978 a book appeared called “The Upside Down Kingdom”, by Donald Kraybill. I’ll say now that I haven’t read it, but I heard of it years ago and the title has stuck with me ever since, because it seems so true of the King who wins by apparently losing and leads by serving. The Kingdom of God certainly turns the world’s wisdom upside down, and it has continued to turn the world upside down for the last 2,000 years. I used to be reminded of it often as I had a plain leather Bible cover with no marking to show the front of the back, and it seemed that every time I opened my Bible I opened it upside down. Maybe I needed a lot of reminding.

Going as lambs into the wolf-pack to take their territory is definitely an upside-down idea. However it’s no more upside down than the Israelite “grasshoppers” going into Canaan to defeat the giants, because it’s not the lambs who overcome the wolves any more than it was the puny Israelites who overcame the giants: in both cases, the battle is the Lord’s. And if the battle is to be His, because “flesh and blood cannot inherit the Kingdom of God,” (1 Cor 15:50) it is imperative that we do not attempt to fight the battle any other way: it is only as lambs that we will see the wolves defeated.

The key to our protection is of course the fact that God does not ask His lambs to go out alone. He is with us, and He is the only protection we need. Our first stop for a “protection” scripture has to be Psalm 91, and indeed we need to look no further if we want to discover exactly how the Shepherd has established protection for His lambs. The psalm is full of wonderful promises for protection, but they are summed up well in verses 9-10:

“Because you have made the LORD, who is my refuge,
Even the Most High, your dwelling place, No evil shall befall you,
Nor shall any plague come near your dwelling;”

No evil. No plague. Thank you Lord; I’ll take that, particularly now! However there is a condition; a “because.” The condition is that we make the Most High our “dwelling place.” Our dwelling place is where we live; it’s our habitation, our home. It’s the place where we dwell intimately with our spouse and family. It’s the word used most frequently in the OT for the Lord’s “holy habitation,” whether on Earth, in His sanctuary, or in Heaven where He has His eternal home. The opening verse of the psalm says: “He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty.” These verses don’t mean that when we are threatened we run to him from wherever we have gone and remind Him of His promise by quoting verses of scripture in His face: they mean that if we dwell with Him and He is our home, we dwell under His protection, we abide in His shadow.

As parents we might play shadow games with our children: we walk around outside in the sunshine, and they have to stay in our shadow as we move. To stay in our shadow, they will have to stay close. To stay in God’s shadow, His Word says that we must dwell with Him. We stay close. We don’t go running to Him from the other end of the garden when next door’s big dog suddenly barks close by.

Jesus will have it no other way. Our protection is nothing other than His presence. Moses said to the Lord “Unless you go with us, I’m not going anywhere!” Jesus turns this round, and says: “Unless you go with me, you’re not going anywhere!” This isn’t just for our benefit, because our souls are fragile; it’s for the purpose of the Kingdom, in our lives and in the lives of those to whom we are sent, because it’s as we abide in His presence that we are also able to walk in His ways, “not returning evil for evil or reviling for reviling, but on the contrary blessing, knowing that you were called to this, that you may inherit a blessing.“  (1 Pe 3:9) This is the way of the Lamb. It’s the way to bring His peace and righteousness into our world.

We know the Lord speaks to us through His word, and we know that there is power and authority in the word of God to perform His will. But He is drawing us closer into His presence in these days, and those verses from one of everyone’s favourite psalms are only part of the picture. Yes, they declare the Truth, and as it’s the Word of God this truth is “living and Active, sharper than any two-edged sword.” (Heb 4:12) However they also point us to a higher truth: just as God is with us, He desires passionately for us to be with Him, so that we can know the truth of the words He has given us in the fullest possible way.

A final thought. His prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane was the final verbalisation of all the passion that Jesus carried in His heart. This is one of the things He prayed for you and me: “Father, I desire that they also whom You gave Me may be with Me where I am, that they may behold My glory which You have given Me; for You loved Me before the foundation of the world.” (John 17:24) If we stay close to the Lamb, not only does he protect us from the wolves, but we get to behold His glory. What more could we ask?

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

Dabbling Ducks and Goosanders

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Goosanders: sawbilled fisher ducks, swimming in the deeper water.

In a pond near where I live there are two types of waterfowl: there are dabbling ducks, and there are goosanders. The dabbling ducks (mallards and a couple of domesticated spieces) on this pond are so called because they feed on or near the surface of the water, mostly on aquatic vegetation, small molluscs etc. And of course on whatever is thrown in for them by people who go along, usually with children, to “feed the ducks.” We commonly see these ducks “dabbling” as they upend in the water to feed.  Goosanders are altogether different. Although still a type of duck, they belong to a group called “sawbills,” that have thinner beaks with serrated edges for catching and gripping fish. And not just tiddlers – a goosander will grapple with a trout or perch, or even a salmon, nearly as big as the bird itself.

Jesus has sent us, His disciples, out to “catch fish” – to be fishers of men, like Peter. We don’t need to be reminded of the story of Peter’s life, and the transformation that he underwent at Pentecost. We probably know his story best of all, because he tended to go for the “epic fail” rather than just the ordinary fail; but none of the disciples actually caught on to any of the Kingdom truths that Jesus was feeding them until the Holy Spirit brought all His words to life at Pentecost. For three years they had been dabbling ducks that understood nothing of catching fish. But when the Holy Spirit fell they were transformed into sawbilled goosanders, and they began fishing for men.

In a pond like this one, a significant portion of the dabblers’ diet is what is fed to them by local humans. You will probably see them congregating on one side of the pond, in the shallow water where they can get to the aquatic vegetation and where the food is thrown in. But here is the point: dabbling ducks do not grow into goosanders. It doesn’t matter how much, or how well, you feed them; to become goosanders equipped to catch fish they have to be transformed into sawbills, and only an encounter with the Holy Spirit can bring that about. Without people having that encounter you just have a pond full of dabblers. Jesus loves them of course, and loves to feed them, as we all do; but what He longs for even more is to see them continue their journey in the Spirit just as Peter and the rest of His original flock of dabblers did.

For some churches, it is a central platform of their ministry to create a current in the water that will lead all the dabblers out of the shallows and into the deeper waters where they can be transformed by the Holy Spirit. For others, the sawbills are there because they happened to fly in, or because they wandered over to the deep water on their own individual journey round the pond. For others still there might be large (or small) flocks of dabblers quacking and splashing, or maybe just sitting on the bank waiting for the food to arrive, but not a sawbill to be found. It is only one part of the church’s mission to put out good food that will attract the ducks. The other part is to lead every dabbler into the present power of the Holy Spirit, so that they become the sawbills that Jesus has called them to be.

I believe this is one of the Lord’s main priorities as He works on the overhaul of His church.

Christian Life, Living by Faith

By Faith

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(School of Prophesy 14 Nov 2020)

“Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” (Hebrews 11:1)

I enjoy cooking and do a lot of it. Some of my meals are experiments; some are “regulars.” Cooked breakfast based around bacon, eggs, mushrooms and tomatoes on Saturday morning is a “regular:” before I break the first egg I know what the complete meal will look like on the table and taste like when we eat it. I have faith for it. The word “substance,” in Hebrews 11: 1 is hypostasis, which literally means something that is “set under;” firm foundation that has actual substance. Elegchos, “evidence,” is just that: it’s proof of reality. That egg isn’t broken in a vague hope that somehow it will become scrambled and the rest of the  breakfast will also appear from an unexpected source: I have a track record of making  lot of breakfasts successfully. My faith in what is not yet seen has a substantial foundation and strong evidence to support it.

For a faith-filled walk with Jesus the same principles apply: the difference is that we put our trust in His “track record,” and not our own. We know that Hebrews 11:6 tells us “without faith it is impossible to please (God): for he that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he is a rewarder of them that diligently seek Him,” but to see answers to our prayers, and, more importantly, to grow in our faith, I believe we have to be more focussed and specific in how we exercise it.

I think a key verse is John 15:16: “You did not choose Me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit, and that your fruit should remain, that whatever you ask the Father in My name He may give you.”  We tend to connect “bearing fruit” with becoming more Christlike as we increasingly manifest the Galatians 5 fruit of the Spirit. However Jesus, whose likeness we seek, directly links fruitfulness with answered prayer. Whatever we ask in the name of Jesus the Father will give us, and that fruit will remain.

Anne and I own a small business. If I say to one employee: “John, go and ask Phil to fetch me a large box from the warehouse, please,” John will be passing an instruction on to Phil in my name. If John then just gives Phil a generic request to get me a container, and Phil comes back with a glass measuring jug, for example, did John pass on the request in my name? No. The measuring jug won’t do the job that I needed the box for. Jesus knows what He needs to build His Kingdom much better than we do, which is why Paul says in Romans 8:26 that we don’t know what to pray for. If we want our prayers to be answered we need to know what to ask for, and we have to hear this from Jesus by the Holy Spirit, because it’s in His name that we are asking.

Faith is like a muscle: it grows from exercise. The more we pray according to the Holy Spirit’s instructions, the more we will see our prayers answered; and the more we see answers to prayer, the more we will seek God for what to ask for. And so we begin to develop our own personal track record, not of what we’ve done, but of what we’ve seen Jesus do; and our faith grows until we start to see those “greater things” happening through our prayers that Jesus has promised us. No more should our faith be like a grappling hook on the end of a long rope that we sling in God’s direction, in the hope that we can hang onto something substantial: the evidence and the substance of the outcome that we are praying for, in the name of Jesus and according to His instructions, can be seen in the history of answered prayers that we already have accumulated.

Psalm 2: 8 says “Ask Me, and I will give the nations as Your inheritance.” God told Heidi Baker to ask Him for a nation, and she asked Him for Mozambique. He gave it to her: multiple thousands have been saved and healed in that country, and others around it, since then, and Iris Ministries was born. Heidi Baker had already exercised her faith muscle enough for the Lord to know that He could trust her with that prayer. She was a long way past “breakfast.” She has borne fruit a hundredfold, and many times a hundredfold, and has been living in a season of “greater things” for many years. So yes, God will indeed give us “anything we ask:” He said so, therefore it must be true. There is no limit to His ability and desire to give to His children. But we have to ask according to our faith. When the two blind men approached Jesus after He had raised Jairus’s daughter and asked for healing, He said to them:   “Do you believe that I am able to do this?” They said to Him, “Yes, Lord.” (Matt. 9:28). So “Then He touched their eyes, saying, “According to your faith let it be to you.” Like those blind men, we have to see by faith what God is going to do.

Where are we in our faith journey? Are we on the road to the “greater things,” or are we still standing in the same place with our grappling hook, and just hoping God will reach out and grab it when it’s thrown? The disciples asked Jesus to teach us how to pray, and in the Lord’s Prayer He gave us a series of chapter headings on the different areas that we should cover. (For more on this topic, see “Praying with Jesus, by Paul Yonggi Cho; written in 1988, but just as fresh today.) If we are still just praying the chapter headings, we haven’t learnt anything. If we are praying for “all the sick in our town,” or even in our church, we haven’t learnt anything. It’s not what Jesus wants us to do. He wants us to pray for other people out of our relationship with Him, asking the Father for what the Holy Spirit reveals to us as His will.

Like everything else in our journey, our prayers must spring out of our relationship with Jesus. If Jill’s life is in a mess and our hearts goes out to her, it’s not enough to say, “Lord, Jill’s life is in a mess. Please sort her out!” That’s just a grappling hook with nowhere to land. The test is simple: where is the faith that is the evidence and the substance of the answer? It’s not there. But if we ask the Holy Spirit for revelation, and we get a sense of a particular problem in Jill’s life that the Lord wants to address, then we can have faith for a clear outcome that becomes the substance of our prayers. Our prayers will flow from our relationship with Jesus, not our relationship with Jill. This is one of the reasons why the Holy Spirit gives words of Knowledge: if we know that God is going to open deaf ears in a meeting, because He has told us, we can step out and break the eggs, knowing that He is going to make the omelette.

As we move forward into the uncharted waters of today’s world, believing that God has got a great move of the Holy Spirit planned and knowing that the enemy will do everything he can to get in the way, it is of paramount importance that we grow in faith and keep moving along the path to those “greater things” of John 14:12. Like a parent on a busy sidewalk holding a child’s hand as they hurry to catch a train, Jesus is saying to us “Stay close!” The time is advancing quickly, but in His presence there is always provision and protection. If we ensure that our prayers always come from that proximity to Him we will bear fruit to His glory and our faith will grow. But if, in the full knowledge of Romans 8:26 we continue to pray without knowing what to pray for, we will be standing still while Jesus leads those who are staying close towards the station. And when that revival train pulls into the platform and the doors open for a few minutes, we won’t be getting on board.

If this article has helped you, please forward it to somebody else. We don’t want people missing the train.

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

God’s “New Normal:” The Floodplain of the Jordan.

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“If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you,
Then how can you contend with horses?
And if in the land of peace,
In which you trusted, they wearied you,
Then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?” (Jer 12:5)

In 1987 Rick Joyner received the visions from which he wrote “The Harvest”, which was a revelation of an end-time revival of epic proportions – the same outpouring, probably, that was seen in the twentieth century by Smith Wigglesworth and others – in a context of equally epic unrest and socio-political breakdown. When he wrote it he said he wondered if he would even see it in his lifetime; now things are accelerating so quickly in the spiritual realm, while at the same time fault lines are opening up on the Earth- not least in the USA- that he is wondering if they will happen before the year is out.

Whatever credence one gives to the various voices that can be heard on the current prophetic stage, there is no doubt that the battle in Heaven is intensifying as every day brings us closer to the final one. Is the Tribulation just round the corner? No one knows. A recent prophecy from Wendy Alec says that it isn’t yet, but we are experiencing the beginning of the tremblings. Where does The Harvest fit in on this time scale? Do we even need to know? There will be a great harvest; there will be tribulation: how they fit together is God’s business. What we need to know is this: Jesus is calling His church into a place of intimacy where we can hear His voice more clearly, both to advance his purposes and to receive His provision and protection in the specific circumstances that lie ahead.

He is leading the church up a new path, like a mountain track. The old routines no longer apply; he is doing something new and we need to be able to adapt to it. Opposition to God’s purposes will be stronger: whereas we are used to running against men, we will be running against horses. The time of “The Land of Peace” is over, with its easy routines of meetings and ministry times: we are heading into the floodplains of the Jordan where the tide of revival will be sweeping souls into the Kingdom from every direction and in many unlikely contexts.

If we are open to the Holy Spirit we can expect, even now, to find that He is leading us into new things in our lives. Not just Zoom instead of meetings, not just online shopping instead of the supermarket, but new experiences in our walk with God and in our relationships that bring us closer to him. A phrase that has come out of the coronavirus culture is the “New Normal.” God is leading us into a new normal as well, where the culture and the power of the Kingdom of Heaven will prevail. The changes that some of us are experiencing are the beginnings of that shift, the fingerprints of His hand on our lives.

God’s new normal will be a different dimension, a time of the “Greater things;” of Resurrection life. He wants to use us in miraculous ways to demonstrate the kingdom of God to others, and he wants us to have faith for his miraculous ways to bring his kingdom provision to us. This is the environment of the mountain path. And along with intimacy, power, and faith, comes holiness. None of this can be achieved without a fresh anointing from the Holy Spirit.

There is a challenge here for leaders. Just as Ezekiel had his responsibilities as a prophet clearly spelt out (Ezekiel three), our responsibility as leaders is to ensure that everyone in the church is hearing what God is saying. Not everybody will respond, and those who don’t will miss God’s best. But if the cloud is going up the mountain, then everyone has to know. And the challenge for leaders is this: we cannot show people how to follow the cloud unless we are doing it ourselves.