Category Archives: Christian Life

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

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

Walking as Children of Light: Discovering God’s Will

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“Walk as Children of light, finding out what is acceptable to the Lord.” (Ephesians 5:10)

I spent my working life in the world of education and dyslexia, and went to countless conferences where the title revolved round the notion of “putting theory into practice.“ Whether it is learning how to drive and doing our theory test first, or learning how to teach children with learning difficulties, our model is that: first we learn the principles, then we have an examination to get our qualification, then we apply them.

Not so the biblical model of Christian discipleship. We don’t need to get a qualification, because Jesus got it for us at the cross:  we start with the practice straight away, and as we go, we discover the enduring reality of the principles that God has given us.

Paul wrote letters to 6 different churches. They all had specific issues that he wanted to cover, but behind his instruction there was only one body of truth, and one passion for all of the churches (2 Cor 11:28), which was that they grow to maturity in Christ. So sometimes we find him saying the same thing to different churches but using different words. Our English translations of his words can sometimes obscure the meaning rather than clarify it. For example, Ephesians 5:10 in the translation I use (NKJV) says that we “find out” what is acceptable to the Lord by walking as Children of light, whereas in his letter to the Romans he tells him that they will “prove” God’s will if they renew their minds. The word translated as both “find out” and “prove” is Dokimazo, which means to test, to prove, to examine, to scrutinise to see if something is genuine. Here are both passages:

 “For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Walk as children of light (for the fruit of the Spirit  is in all goodness, righteousness, and truth)  finding out what is acceptable to the Lord. (Ephesians 5: 8-10)

“And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.” (Romans 12:2)

Because of how we tend to read the Bible, we will probably approach these scriptures independently and come to different conclusions about what they mean. But actually, they mean the same thing. We Dokimazo the Will of God by walking as Children of light, and we Dokimazo the good and perfect Will of God by renewing our minds,. How do we renew our minds? Not by studying for the qualification, but by walking as children of light, step by step.

Paul instructs the Ephesians as well as the Romans on the theme of renewing the mind, in chapter 4 21-24:

“…  the truth is in Jesus: that you put off, concerning your former conduct, the old man which grows corrupt according to the deceitful lusts, and be renewed in the spirit of your mind, and that you put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.”

He explains here that we are “renewed in the spirit of our minds“ when we put on the new man, which he also tells us was “created according to God in all true righteousness and holiness.” The new man seeks the Kingdom and not the self, and so thinks differently. The use of the word “spirit” here refers to the motivating power; what drives our thinking. He expresses the idea in Romans 8:5: “Those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit.” Being renewed in the spirit of our minds is what we do whenever we fix our eyes on Jesus. When we walk as children of light and find out what is acceptable to the Lord, we can’t produce anything except the fruit of the Spirit, which Paul says is in “all goodness, righteousness, and truth.” If we are children of light we are born of the light, what is in us is light, we walk in the light, what we emanate is light, and also that light can bring revelation, because “whatever makes manifest is light.” (Eph 5:13) Light, as the parenthesis in verse 9 explains, is “all goodness, righteousness and truth.” These are the elements of our new nature, which as we have already seen was “created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:24) Light is what comes out of us; it’s the fruit that we bear. We are all familiar with the different attributes of the fruit of the spirit that are listed in detail in Galatians 5:22-23: the verse in Ephesians summarises them well.

Aaron’s Rod
Numbers 17 gives us the story of Aaron’s rod, which budded, blossomed and fruited overnight to confirm Aaron’s appointment as high priest. We are a royal priesthood ourselves (1 Pe 2:9); “Kings and priests unto God” (Rev 1:6), so what applies to Aaron applies to us. So I think that the biblical model for the fruit of the Spirit is actually the supernatural fruiting of Aaron’s rod, rather than the natural development of earthly fruit that matures over time, which is how we tend to see it. If the Spirit is not confined to time, nor is His fruit; and to claim that self-control, for example, is taking its time to develop in my character is like anchoring the work of the Holy Spirit, who makes all things new, to the old man of flesh in the body of sin and death. If I am struggling with self-control it is because I am not seeking the Kingdom of God and I haven’t put on the new man in that situation. The same applies to love, peace, joy and the rest of the Galatians 5 list. To think otherwise seems like natural thinking; a good excuse for bad behaviour.

So we learn from Ephesians 5:9 that we manifest the fruit of the spirit by taking steps as Children of light, and in doing so we discover God‘s will for us. Our new nature is complete from the start: we “put it on“ just like we put on our clothes in the morning. It doesn’t develop gradually, any more than we start the day just wearing one sock and walking around naked until we’re ready to put on another one. Our new nature is “God‘s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, that we should walk in them.“ (Ephesians 2:10) It is raised with Christ and seated in heavenly places, Aaron’s rod waiting to blossom, ready for us to put on at every moment of the day, every day. Walking in the spirit isn’t just about encountering God in supernatural manifestations and impossible adventures of Faith, although it can be both of those; it is about choosing the new creation’s priestly garments in our daily life and our dealings with other people instead of the old man’s rags of selfishness and sin. Paul sums up the immediacy of this fruitfulness in Ephesians 5:14

“Therefore He says:

“Awake, you who sleep,
Arise from the dead,
And Christ will give you light.”

We will obviously fail, a lot, and mess up our new clothes; but when we do we repent, we receive forgiveness, we get up, and we start walking again. Because of God’s amazing grace, our new creation is as spotless again as it was the day it was born, and we will have been renewing our minds, putting on the new man, walking in the spirit, and bearing the fruit of righteousness at every step. “If we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7)  I don’t think the process of sanctification is about letting this fruit grow in us over time, because according to Ephesians 4:24 it’s all there from the start: I think it’s all about learning to walk for longer in the Light without falling over, as Jesus “sanctifies and cleanses us with the washing of water by the word.”  (Eoh 5:26) And as we walk into those works prepared beforehand we experience the divine appointments, supernatural moments and miraculous provision that we long for.

We often quote Jeremiah 29:11, that tells us that God knows the plans that he has for us. If we want to know what those plans are, we make up our minds to keep walking as children of light, and we will step into them.

Knowing God, Walking in the Spirit

The Diffuser

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A poem by Konna Thompson

Father,
You are the diffuser
that I don’t need to switch on
all I need to do
is ask
and receive your aromatherapy

which is not simply a pleasant scent
that merely calms my nervous system
but saturates my soul
your spirit is gentle
yet is a highly concentrated
fragrance of love

please don’t refrain
from pouring your purest oil
on my head
please don’t let my hands
become too soft
please make my feet walk worthy
of the calling I receive

I receive your b r e a t h
of life
I want to inhale your aroma
and for my bloodstream
to be infused by you
every cell carrying your DNA
so that I can leave a scent of Jesus
wherever I go

Anoint me

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God

The Call of the Dove

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“Your gentleness has made me great.“ (Psalm 18:35)

The aspiration to greatness is probably hidden somewhere (and at times not so hidden) in every unredeemed heart, whereas personal greatness is no longer an attribute that a Christian disciple would want to appear in his spiritual CV. However, seated as we are in Christ with the unlimited power of His Spirit in our hearts, we are all have that greatness, however weak and foolish our actions in the flesh may be. His gentleness has made us great. But if I am great because of His gentleness, it is also true that I am only great in His gentleness, because gentleness is in His very character, as He describes it himself: “take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart, my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”  (Matt 11:29) Gentleness is a characteristic of the fruit of the Spirit that Jesus is looking for in the life of every believer.

Ephesians 2:10 tells me that I was “created in Christ of Jesus for Works prepared beforehand , that I may walk in them,” so if I am not walking in His gentleness, I am not walking in Him, and I’m not fulfilling my destiny in the works that He has prepared for me to walk in. And if I am not walking in His works, I must be walking in my own, and therefore I am walking after the flesh and not after the Spirit.

Gentleness is not weakness, it is enabling power. Gentleness does not push; it leads, because it knows where to go. Gentleness does not argue, but speaks the truth in love or does not speak at all. It does not react to situations and people out of fear, but out of knowledge of the truth. There is no uncertainty in gentleness: Jesus knew where he had come from where he was going, and so do we. We have come from above and will be returning there.

Gentleness is like the wavelets in a sheltered, cove: buoyant and supportive, never overwhelming and never crashing on the beach, yet moving with all the power of the tide.  Those wavelets are seasoned with salt: it’s the salt that is supportive, and so should it be with our speech. (Col 4:6) Gentleness is the dove who baptised Jesus in the power of the Holy Spirit, and characterises the advance of the kingdom of God. Gentleness is the dove who brought the olive branch to Noah, and is a species of bird that can be seen and whose call can be recognised everywhere in the world. 

Whatever may flood our circumstances and our emotions, it is gentleness who brings the promise of landfall in the kingdom of God. It is always at hand. Let us always be ready to hear and respond to the call of the dove.

(A note on the image: I took the picture of the dove in the Middle East. Traditionally we portray the biblical dove as white, but it’s quite likely to have looked more like this one.)

Christian Life

The Walk of Faith

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We are facing a rapidly changing world this year, and we have to make a choice: do we walk by faith, or do we walk by sight? The story of Abraham gives us the big picture, like an epic film, of the “friend of God” who  “believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness” (Romans 4:3), but against that backdrop there a chapter in the story that gives us some particularly helpful detail about what it means to follow in Abraham’s footsteps. It is the section in the narrative that covers the parting of the ways between Abraham and Lot after he had left Egypt, and we find it in Genesis 13. Here is the full chapter, from the NIV, and a few thoughts on the main elements as I see them:

“ So Abram went up from Egypt to the Negev, with his wife and everything he had, and Lot went with him. 2 Abram had become very wealthy in livestock and in silver and gold.

3 From the Negev he went from place to place until he came to Bethel, to the place between Bethel and Ai where his tent had been earlier 4 and where he had first built an altar. There Abram called on the name of the Lord.

5 Now Lot, who was moving about with Abram, also had flocks and herds and tents. 6 But the land could not support them while they stayed together, for their possessions were so great that they were not able to stay together. 7 And quarreling arose between Abram’s herders and Lot’s. The Canaanites and Perizzites were also living in the land at that time.

8 So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

10 Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) 11 So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: 12 Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom. 13 Now the people of Sodom were wicked and were sinning greatly against the Lord.

14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring[a] forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted. 17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

18 So Abram went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he pitched his tents. There he built an altar to the Lord.”

Abraham had been in Egypt. The Egypt of Abraham’s time was a great kingdom, far more extensive than the Egypt of today, and its riches had to be a huge draw – just like today’s big cities – for anyone wandering in the desert. God had just told Abraham at the beginning of his journey to “go to a land that I will show you,” and who knows: maybe he thought, again like so many today, that his promised land in the time of famine lay within Egypt’s land of plenty. But whatever it was that drew him to Egypt and could have ended the marriage that was to produce the seed of his legacy, he returned to the place of his first altar to the Lord and “called on the name of the Lord.” He returned to the place of worship. There he made a pivotal choice:

 “Let’s not have any quarrelling between you and me, or between your herders and mine, for we are close relatives. 9 Is not the whole land before you? Let’s part company. If you go to the left, I’ll go to the right; if you go to the right, I’ll go to the left.”

Abraham didn’t choose to stay within the borders of Canaan; he chose to stay in the place of peace. And in addition, he didn’t claim seniority as he would have been entitled to, but he gave the choice of territory to his nephew. At the very beginning of the Bible’s primary illustration of faith in action, the main protagonist anticipated the teachings of Christ and lay down his life for his friend. “You choose,” he said.

So “Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered… (and) chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east.”

The key words here are “Lot looked around and saw” and “chose for himself.” Lot walked by sight and acted out of self-interest to choose the land that was most appealing to his flesh. Not only was it “like the garden of the Lord,” it was “like the land of Egypt,” where he had just been. Abraham had left his past behind when he journeyed from Haran, and turned his back on the flesh when he watched Lot depart for the cities that were soon to come under God’s judgement. With his spirit set free Abraham faces the future, and it is only now that God begins to spell out the details of His astounding promise:

“14 The Lord said to Abram after Lot had parted from him, “Look around from where you are, to the north and south, to the east and west. 15 All the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring[a] forever. 16 I will make your offspring like the dust of the earth, so that if anyone could count the dust, then your offspring could be counted.”

When we stand in the place of worship, when we “seek peace and pursue it,” when we act in love, when we part company with the flesh, and when we are free of our past, God will speak His into our lives the promises that will shape our destiny. But with the promise also comes an instruction:

“17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.”

It wasn’t enough for Abraham to stay by the altar and thank God for His kind words: He had to physically walk through the extent of the land he had been given. How do we walk through the length and breadth of our own promised lands? Generally, it is by prayer. There are times when it is appropriate to physically “prayer walk” through territories that we believe God has promised us, but for these “prayer walks” to be fruitful they need to be as the Spirit has guided. And spiritual territories can definitely have geographical boundaries: before I came to Christ I published a local New Age magazine in the area of Stroud, UK. On the cover of the magazine was a map of the area I wanted to cover. Unknown to me, that map coincided exactly with the “territory” of a church in Stroud. They came across my magazine, and began to pray for me – which I only discovered when I met a member of that church years later. Within a year I had met Jesus.  Stroud Christian Fellowship actively walked through the length and breadth of their land, they found me on the way, and some of the fruit of their prayers is the fact that you are reading this some 40 years later.

Paul wrote: “For we through the Spirit eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness by faith” (Gal 5:5) Abraham’s faith was “accredited to him as righteousness.” He “waited for the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God.” (Heb 11:10) God will judge Sodom and Gomorrah today just as He did in the time of Abraham, and I personally believe that some of the natural disasters that we are seeing in increasing frequency today are the “beginning of signs” of that judgement. Are we walking by the Spirit in the land of the promises that God has given to us in our place of peace, love and worship, or are our eyes and our flesh drawn to the provision of Egypt that looks promising and safe, but will not last?

Lot finished his journey in a cave; Abraham’s journey continues in us today. As He did through Moses, the Holy Spirit says to us in 2025: “I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life” (Deut. 30:19)

Be prepared; hold on., Knowing God, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Pure Joy

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A few weeks ago a visiting speaker came to our church. Before she started speaking, she said that the Holy Spirit had highlighted a certain gentleman in the second row, three seats along … It was me. She brought a very encouraging word, with enough detail about myself (she had never seen me before) to confirm its accuracy, but the thrust of it was that ‘a door would be opening to me that would draw me closer to Him.’

Don’t we love it when someone brings an encouraging prophesy, underlined by another gift of the Spirit, the word of Knowledge, that speaks into our spiritual life and affirms us in our walk with God? I did not know what door she was referring to, but open doors often speak of opportunities. More time with Him and therefore less time at work? Ministry opportunities? I didn’t know and didn’t try and guess, but I certainly left church feeling good and played the recording of her word to me a few times over.

A couple of weeks after that we were praying for each other at School of Prophesy. One of the guys said that he could see our business going down a waterfall. There would be churning in the pool at the bottom; we would come out afterwards, but the watercourse would be different. That too was accurate: two days later our expected sales for this time of year plummeted, and there is definitely churning going on as I write. I have had to hold on  to the Lord as the water takes us on its course.

Then a few days ago the penny dropped: this was that. The open door that would draw me closer to Jesus is the waterfall that is rocking our business. When God speaks to us of blessing – and to be drawn closer to Him has to be a promise of blessing, because “at His right hand are pleasures for evermore” (Psalm 16:11) – our flesh tends to interpret that, in some way, in terms of advancement and comfort. (Well, mine does anyway…) But God has a different angle:

“Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds,  because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.” (James 1: 2-4)

When the Holy Spirit spoke to me of that door that was going to open, did it ever occur to me that it was going to be an opportunity for my faith to be tested in order to produce perseverance? I think not. Did I imagine a trial, or a mountain top experience? Certainly the latter.  But God’s ways are not our ways. How different are the values of His Kingdom to those things our soulish minds hold dear. We value our comfort and advancement, our security and the approval of our peers; God values that we “act justly, … love faithfulness, and … walk humbly with your God.” (Micah 6:8) The Narrow Way has a totally different trajectory to the way of the world. God’s priority for us is that we walk with Him, and that we “Seek first the Kingdom of God.” And it is only by faith that we can take any steps with Him at all, so if trials are the best way to strengthen our faith and bring us into that place of blessing which is increased closeness to Him, there is a good chance that trials are what we are going to get.

My business is a tiny little pool: the world itself is going through a state of churning, and none of us know what the watercourse will look like when it comes out the other side. But one thing is true: we all need to let Jesus draw us closer to Him, because there is no other place that is more secure. One of the worship songs that came out of the charismatic movements starts “This is my desire, to worship you…” We love to lift our hearts and voices, and probably our hands, and tell the Lord how much we want to come close to Him. The Son shares our desire, and expresses it to the Father just before going to the cross: “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.” (John17:24) We lift our voices to draw near to God; Jesus lifted His body onto the cross to have us close to Him. His Spirit in us will always be working towards that goal, because that is His desire. This was the joy set before Him.

Probably the best-known “resurrection psalm” is Psalm 16, where, by the Spirit,  Jesus expresses that joy through the words of David:

I have set the LORD always before me;
Because He is at my right hand I shall not be moved.

Therefore my heart is glad, and my glory rejoices;
My flesh also will rest in hope.

For You will not leave my soul in Sheol,
Nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption.

You will show me the path of life;
In Your presence is fullness of joy;
At Your right hand are pleasures forevermore. (Psalm 16: 8-11)

Jesus faced the greatest trial of all for the joy of seeing our faith bring us into the glory of unity with Him and the Father for ever. So when we are facing trials, let’s remember to “consider it pure joy” as Jesus did: our faith is being tested, to enable us to persevere in the things that really matter.

Knowing God

The Good Shepherd and the lost sheep

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Jesus said: “for the son of man has come to save that which was lost.“ (Matthew 18:11), and continued with the parable of the lost sheep (verse 12). So when we read about the lost sheep , we tend to focus on the sheep and the miracle of salvation – the rejoicing in heaven – when one is returned to the fold. Another translation actually puts it: “to find lost people and to save them.”

As true as this is, I think there is a bigger picture as well. The Greek word translated as “lost” means much more than just wondered off track; it means killed, ruined, destroyed. Matthew quotes Jesus as saying this in the context of children being corrupted, but when Jesus talks about coming to save the lost  in Luke’s Gospel He is referring to Zacchaeus the tax collector, who clearly was not a little child. Jesus’s statement is far more powerful and explosive than we tend to make it. I don’t think He is only talking about people who are lost to their Father’s love, but He is talking about the creation that the Father lost when Adam handed it over to Satan in the garden of Eden. He is talking about the heart of the Shepherd, not just the condition of the sheep. John 3:16, “For God so loved the world that He sent His only son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but receive everlasting life,” is about lost people, but verse 17 is about the lost world: “For God did not send his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world might him through him might be saved.“

Jesus left his Father’s side and the sheep fold of heaven, that through Him the ruined creation might be saved. Talking figuratively of Elijah, He says (Matt 17:11) that the Holy Spirit “will restore all things.” When Peter preached the gospel after healing the lame man at the Gate Beautiful, he said that heaven must receive Jesus “until the time times of restoration of all things, which God has spoken of by His holy prophets since the world began.” We can pick apart the phrase “restoration of all things“ to make it fit our theology until every Greek cypher is dust in our hands, but surely the restoration of all things means the restoration of all things. All things. Jesus came from heaven to gather the lost sheep into His arms to bring it back to the Father’s fold. Having completed the work of salvation at the cross, He and the Father sent the Holy Spirit to make it fit for heaven again. When Jesus comes for His bride all of creation will be restored: “For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. … because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” (Romans 8:19,21)

Sometimes we have to remind ourselves that God’s Geography isn’t the same as ours. The Kingdom of Heaven isn’t a place that we travel to; it’s a dimension that our spirits move in. Jesus told us where it is in Luke 17:21 “Nor will people say, ‘Look, here it is,’ or ‘There it is.’ For you see, the kingdom of God is in your midst.” When the miraculous happens in our lives the Kingdom of God crosses dimensions and comes to us, restoring another ruined corner of creation to God’s perfection. Jesus said, “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy. I have come that they may have life, and that they may have it more abundantly.” The Holy Spirit is longing to restore every ruined area of our lives: it’s what He has come here for. Habakkuk gave us these wonderful verses at the end of his prophesy:

“Though the fig tree may not blossom,
Nor fruit be on the vines;
Though the labour of the olive may fail,
And the fields yield no food;
Though the flock may be cut off from the fold,
And there be no herd in the stalls— Yet I will rejoice in the LORD,
I will joy in the God of my salvation.

The LORD God is my strength;
He will make my feet like deer’s feet,
And He will make me walk on my high hills.” (Habakkuk 3: 17-19)

We may have been a Christian for many years and still find ourselves wandering in the midst of the devil’s ruin. Our spirits can feel a long way from the fold where they belong. When that happens we need to take our eyes off the barren fields and the empty stalls and focus them on the Good Shepherd and the abundant life of His Kingdom. Then He will come, gather us bleating in His arms, and make us ‘walk on our high hills’ again.

Christian Life, Knowing God, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Between the Chapel and the Damned

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The Parable of the pectoral sandpiper

The Chappel Hide
The pectoral sandpiper (shown above) – or “Pec” as it is known in the birding community – is a wader that is scarce in the UK. (Waders are long legged, long billed birds that feed mostly around water margins.)   One had turned up in our local bird reserve, so  I decided one night I would go there before work if I got up early enough. Pecs are usually “passage migrants” – they stop by somewhere for a few days before moving on to their breeding or wintering grounds somewhere hundreds of miles away- so when there is one around, most birders make an effort to go and see it if they know where it is. According to the bird club blog, this one seemed to favour one particular part of the reserve, conveniently just in front of one of the hides. All the hides have names – this one is called the Chappel Hide.  I woke at 5 am and said: “No that’s too early. Lord, if I’m going birding, please wake me at 6 o’clock.” ( Nothing like spiritualising one’s hobby) But God seemed clearly happy with my hobby on this occasion, because I woke at 6 am exactly, practically to the second. What I didn’t realise at the time was that what He got me up for was rather more important than the bird…

I set off after coffee and a quiet time and got to the reserve at about 7.30. There are two very experienced and dedicated birders, Steve and Mark, who are often on the dam wall at one end of the reservoir at that time of day, scanning the whole reserve with their telescopes. The Hide is towards the other end. I felt quite strongly that when I got there, I had to go straight to the hide, and that I would see the pec if I did. However when I got to the end of the path and reached the edge of the water where the path forked I saw my two friends on the dam wall, and instead of turning left to go to the hide, I turned right to go and talk to them. I thought that they would probably know where it was, so it was worth checking with them first. But when I got there, Steve said, “it’s at the Chappel Hide!“ I knew what he was talking about of course. I stayed and chatted for a couple of minutes then set off for the Chappel Hide. However, when I got there, the pec was nowhere to be seen. I waited half an hour for it to show again but to no avail. Then the door to the hide opened and Steve walked in. “Have you seen it? he said.
“No.”
“It was just there,” he said, pointing to a very open spot just in front of the hide, where it would have made a perfect photograph. He scanned the whole area expertly with his binoculars and said, “No it must be skulking in the undergrowth again. But when you came up onto the dam it was there in front of the hide. I could see it with my telescope!”

Confluence of circumstance
When I had decided to go and talk to Steve and Mark where the path branched, it was about equidistant between the dam and the hide. If I had turned left, as I felt the Holy Spirit, who got me up at 6 o’clock practically to the second to go there, had told me, I would’ve seen my bird. But instead, I had decided to go and listen to man, as if their advice would be better than the Lord’s. Chappel? Chapel? Is that a coincidence? And what about the Dam wall? I was between the chapel and the damned, and I chose the damned. And when you start thinking about how God organized that confluence of circumstance the mind slowly explodes…

Driving home I was kicking myself for my stupidity. But the Lord made it clear that He knew what I was going to do, and that it was an important lesson for me that He wanted me to learn. It might only have been about a bird that I didn’t photograph or even see on that particular occasion, but the principal was one that had to be applied in much more important situations. It can be drawn from a number of scriptures, such as

The wisdom of this world is foolishness to God (1 Cor 3:19)
Blessed is the man who has not walked in the counsel of the ungodly (Psalm 1:1)
There is therefore now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the Spirit (Rom 8:1)
We ought to obey God rather than men. (Acts 5:29)
There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death. (Prov 14:12)

There is one more, too, because this isn’t quite the whole story. Isaiah 30:21 says “Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” The path that I took was path B (below). But there was another path, path A, which is the one that I had intended to take and which I had seen myself taking as I drove to the reserve. If you are going along with my “leading of the Spirit” assumption, this is the one that I felt God was showing me. Path A was the way I should have been walking in. When I decided to take B instead – “just to see if Steve and Mark are on the dam” – I had actually already decided to go and talk to them if they were there. When I took that path I was already  in “the way that leads to death.” But what do we all pray? “Lead us not into temptation…” If I had gone the way I had been shown at the beginning, when I “heard the voce behind me,” I would not have been led into temptation…

The Valley of Decision
Is this all ridiculously over-cooked? Well, maybe; but it worked for me. Because when I got to work the same day (I am CEO of an educational supplies business when I am not writing or birding) there was a very important financial decision to be made. All “human” thinking pointed strongly in one direction, but we (myself, my wife Anne, and two other Christians in senior management) chose to seek God instead of doing what circumstances seemed to dictate. Anne had already felt that the Lord had told her not to “go down to Egypt,” which represented the obvious choice in the particular circumstance where we found ourselves, but if it hadn’t been for the pectoral sandpiper I would have been inclined to override her. Then as we prayed, we received a very clear course of action that no-one had seen before, which has turned out to be the wise choice, for a number of reasons. God is faithful, and His sheep hear His voice. But we have to be prepared to go to the chapel…

There will be more decisions for us all to make: as darkness covers the Earth and world systems tremble and collapse we will need increasingly to follow the paths that God shows us, and not the ways “that seem right to a man.” We need to be yoked to Jesus, because in that day there will be “multitudes in the valley of decision;” and if we can listen to that voice behind us – and obey it –   we will be following the right paths ourselves, and many will follow us to the chapel instead of going to the damned.

(The photo is the only other pectoral sandpiper I have seen. I took the picture in 2021, at Titchwell Marsh, in Norfolk UK.)

Christian Life, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven

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“Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say  to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For if two or three are gathered together in my name I am there in the midst of them.“ (Matthew 18 : 18 – 20)

Symphony
To agree is to be an accord, in harmony. The Greek word is where our “symphony“ comes from: sum (together) and phoneo (to sound), so to sound together. This is more than just intellectual assent: it is hearts in harmony. We regularly quote verse 20 at our gatherings as evidence that Jesus is “in our midst,” particularly if only “two or three” have turned up at the prayer meeting; but I think we also have to remember the significance what it is to be in His name. The Greek word onoma means a lot more than what is written on our birth certificates. Strong’s defines it like this: “the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.” It doesn’t mean we’re in His name because we’re Christians or church members: to be in His name because is to be sharing in His identity. We are part of who He is. He is love and truth and grace. If, on earth, we are not gathered together in love and truth and grace we are not in His name.

I can’t say I really understand the dynamics of just how Jesus is more in the midst of us  when we are gathered in love and truth in this way, because Jesus is in each of us anyway. Maybe our unity in some way allows the Holy Spirit to transcend the limitations of our flesh so that He really does become “the fourth man in the fire“ (as in the story of Shadrach, Mishach and Abednigo): however it happens there has to be some connection between this Scripture and the words of Ps 133 that declare “the unity commands the blessing.“ But I also think these are the conditions for verse 18. I can’t imagine that anything happens in heaven without the Father’s authority. Anything that is bound or loosed in heaven has to be so because the Father decreed it. As well as the physical and metaphorical sense, the Greek words for binding and loosing can also be much more generic such as preventing and allowing, obliging or releasing. The Son and the Father are one so when we are in agreement on earth, in love and in truth, Jesus is agreeing with us too; and if Jesus agrees with us, then so does the Father. John 17:21 is fulfilled: “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” And then whatever we ask on earth, whether it’s binding or loosing, is authorised in heaven, it shall be so, and the Father is glorified. (See John 14:13)

Unanswered prayer
I think one of the answers to the thorny question of unanswered prayer may be found here. We may be praying God will and God’s provision, and quite probably quoting God’s word;  but if we are not at the level of unity needed to be genuinely in His name we cannot really expect Jesus to be “in the midst” in the way that He expresses it here. We may well quote the Truth from Scripture, but Truth needs to be spoken in Love. Prayer is always about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, and thus extending His Kingdom among and through us. We all know what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt 6:33). God is Love, and “Love is the Fulfillment of the Law” (Romans 13:10), so both God’s Kingdom and His righteousness are expressions of His love. I think God’s kingdom must be real among us before it can be extended through us.  It cannot be without significance (nothing in Scripture is!) that these verses are sandwiched in the middle of Jesus teaching, then answering Peter, on the subject of forgiveness. If we really want to be in agreement when we pray, with all that this means, I think it’s important that we examine our hearts towards each other and ask God to reveal any areas of criticism or unforgiveness that we may be harbouring, before we say “amen.” If there isn’t genuine unity, we can’t expect the blessing.

The Courts of Heaven
The other aspect of binding and loosing is the one most commonly used among charismatics (I use the term loosely: I’m sure I mean Pentecostals as well, and I have a suspicion that Jesus doesn’t use either of them…), and refers to “binding” spiritual forces of evil, and “loosing” people from their bonds. Jesus healed a woman whom He said Satan had bound for 18 years, (Luke 13:16) Her healing is often used as a template for spiritual warfare, but if the truth were told how often do we see a change in someone’s condition when we make these decrees?

In Zechariah 3:7, the Lord says to Joshua

‘If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.”

In Christ, we too walk in those places of spiritual authority. It was when Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 16:19) that He first made the promise that is repeated, word for word in Matt 18:18: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed  in heaven.” Those keys are symbols of authority. I think we often have the mindset that our “binding and loosing” on earth are words of authority that release actions in heavenly places, but if that is true what is going on in heaven isn’t happening on the earth, at least in most cases that I have seen. But what if we turn it round and say that whatever is bound or loosed in heaven is bound and loosed on earth? In other words, we can only bind/loose on earth what has already been bound/loosed in heaven? That actually makes a lot more sense to me, and it means that we have to know what is bound and loosed in heaven before we can see it happen on earth. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, so He loosed the woman that Satan had bound for 18 years because He saw the Father do it in Heaven.

Kingdom Authority
Joshua was a prophetic type of Jesus. Jesus did on Earth what He saw the Father doing in heaven, because he was walking there.  I think that the occasions when we see binding and loosing actually happen are when we’ve seen it or heard it in the place where we too have walked “among those who stand” in the courts of heaven and have seen what the Father is doing. The earthly realm has been given over through sin to the control of the evil one, but we are no longer under that control; we are above it, and we are taking it back for the King. If we want to at least have the opportunity to see what the Father is doing, we need to “Set (our) mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col 3:2)  Jesus tells us (Matt 28:18) that  “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”  In Christ, we are in the place of all authority.  To bind and to loose is to express that authority on earth as it is in heaven, whether it is over demons, sickness, finance, or any other circumstance, great or small. We will see it happen more often when we keep His command (Love one another) and walk in His ways, with our minds set on the places that He has given us to walk among those who stand in the courts of heaven.

Knowing God, Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

Yes and No: Life and death in the power of the tongue.

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Jesus said: “By your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” (Matt 12:27), and Proverbs 18:21 reminds us that “Life and death are in power of the tongue.” Every  time we open our mouths we release life or we release death.  Paul wrote the following to the Corinthians:

“The things I plan, do I plan according to the flesh, that with me there should be yes, yes, and no, no? As God is faithful, our word to you was not yes and no. For the son of God, Jesus Christ – who was preached among you by me Sylvanus and Timothy- was not yes and no, but in him was yes . For all the promises of God in him are yes, and in him amen, to the glory of God through us.“ (2 Cor 1: 17-20)

In Christ there is only Yes
“In Him was yes.” There are no negatives in Jesus. He only spoke words of Life. There are negatives in the flesh – “yes, yes, and no, no” – but in Christ there is only “Yes.” In the realm of the Spirit, where all the promises of God are ours and where we are called to live, there is only Yes and Amen, and for every yes and amen God receives the glory. Whatever context Paul was referring to here when he talks about his plans, the statement he makes is absolute and so I think we can rightly apply it to our own lives. In Christ there is only Yes. Does this mean that we say yes to every request or agree with every suggestion made by others? Of course not. But it does mean at the least that we remain affirming of the people whose requests or suggestions we refuse; at the most it means that what looks like a “no” to our flesh is actually a massive “yes” in the Spirit; and always it presents an opportunity to release something of the promises of God into the circumstances where we find ourselves.

So how do I move from the flesh, with its yes yes and no no, to the spirit of Jesus Christ and the life affirming faithfulness of God that is always Yes?

The answer begins with a question. When we read the account of the woman with the issue of blood in Luke (Luke 8: 43-48) we see Jesus on a mission, pressed by the thronging crowds, to raise to life the dead daughter of one of the local rulers of the synagogue. Here indeed was one of the “lost sheep of the house of Israel“ coming to worship him in faith. Surely nothing could be more important than to demonstrate the sovereignty of the Son of Man to one of the religious hierarchy? But a woman in need touched his cloak, He put aside his urgent agenda, and He stopped to asked the question “Who touched me?”

We know what follows. Power had gone out of him. The Holy Spirit was responding to the woman’s need as she came to him in  faith.

The dynamic of the miraculous
This was the moment of choice. The disciples saw only the agenda of the flesh, which was to say no in response to the pressing crowds; but the Spirit had a different agenda, which was to respond with a life affirming Yes to the sick woman’s need. Jesus ignored the pressing of the flesh and the negativity of His disciples to stop and see where the Holy Spirit was flowing.

We see the same contrast at work when Jesus fed the multitudes. Faced with His compassion for the 4,000, the disciples only saw the impossibility of feeding them:  “Where could we get enough bread in the wilderness to fill such a great multitude?” (Matt 15:33), whereas Jesus saw the limitless resources of Heaven and “commanded the crowds to sit down.” The flesh said No, the Spirit said Yes. The blind, the deaf, the lame, the demon-possessed – yes, yes, yes, yes.

This dynamic of the miraculous is available to us in the details of our everyday lives, where we can choose to release life or death into every situation that we face. We may not be ministering healing on every street corner and in every conversation, but if we pay attention to the exhortation of James to be “quick to hear, slow to speak,” (James 1:19) we never know when those opportunities might arise, our eyes can be open to avenues that only the Holy Spirit can reveal, and even our objections and refusals can be clothed in Grace.

To walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh we need to silence the “No!” that rises up when the negative voices are clamouring in our ears and circumstances are pushing us along their road, and we must be open to the touch of need and  ready to stop to ask the question that will connect us to where Jesus is saying yes.

(See also “Pursuing Love” for more around the story of the woman with the issue of blood).

Be prepared; hold on., Christian Life, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Count to ten and wait on the Lord

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Wait on the Lord I say! (Psalm 27:14)

We often read and hear testimonies about how someone (quite often a parent praying for their children) trusts in God’s faithfulness to answer their prayers for many years before they see that answer manifest. A well-documented example is Saint Augustine, whose mother prayed for his salvation from his infancy, and yet who seemed to wander further and further off the narrow way in a dissolute lifestyle until his dramatic conversion at 31 years old.

One of the unchangeable attributes of God is His faithfulness. In the midst of his darkness Jeremiah testifies of it in Lamentations 3:22-26:

“Through the LORD’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not

They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.

“The LORD is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

The LORD is good to those who wait for Him,
To the soul who seeks Him.

It is good that one should hope and wait quietly
For the salvation of the LORD.”

 We know that God’s word will not return to Him void (Isaiah 55:11), and many of us have held onto that truth in the middle of an empty place for many years before God has filled it with what He has promised – often in a completely unexpected way. We know that “those who wait on the Lord will renew their strength…” (Isaiah 40:31) and again many of us have personal or apocryphal stories of how God’s power and provision have carried them on an impossible journey as He has answered their prayers.

But I have been thinking about waiting for much short periods of time, and in a different context. The theme I’ve come to a few times on these pages is the need to tame the tongue. I probably keep returning to it because I keep finding that I still don’t succeed in that area! But there is a very simple strategy we can use to tame our wild tongues. What’s more we have probably all seen, read, heard and even spoken of it ourselves more than once. Quite simply, it’s “count to 10 (or three or five).”

Waiting a few seconds before we open our mouths in an emotionally charged conversation is in itself good advice,  and you can find it on Wikipedia and wherever else you might look for worldly wisdom. But Christians just have to add two words – “and pray“ – to take it to another level, where we have a practical and powerful example of waiting on the Lord. Because along with the advice comes the promise, as Jeremiah says in the verses quoted above: “The LORD is good to those who wait for Him.”

The Holy Spirit doesn’t need Long if we open the door to him: He will immediately start to bring peace, transforming negatives into positives, curse into blessing. He will always be good. “Cypress trees will grow where now there are briers; myrtle trees will come up in place of thorns.” (Isaiah 55:13

Paul exhorts us to take every thought captive, (2 Cor 10:5) but  if our thoughts are running away down negative tracks, we can’t take them captive unless we stop.  When we do, that simple act of stopping and waiting on the Lord is enough to let the Kingdom Of God take seed in even the most rancid situation.

Try it. Stop, count, pray. Wait on the Lord, I say!