Category Archives: Living by Faith

Living by Faith is not just the calling of a few “full time” Christians who depend on God for their income: it is the substance of things hoped for, and without it one cannot please God. Only by faith do we have access into the grace in which we stand. And “just in case any should boast,” faith is itself a gift from God.

Knowing God, Living by Faith, The word of God

Who are you?

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The Caterpillar and Alice looked at each other for some time in silence: at last the Caterpillar took the hookah out of its mouth, and addressed her in a languid, sleepy voice.
“Who are you?” said the Caterpillar.
This was not an encouraging opening for a conversation. Alice replied, rather shyly, “I—I hardly know, sir, just at present—at least I know who I was when I got up this morning, but I think I must have been changed several times since then.”
“What do you mean by that?” said the Caterpillar sternly. “Explain yourself!”
“I can’t explain myself, I’m afraid, sir,” said Alice, “because I’m not myself, you see.” (Alice in Wonderland, chapter 5)

“You are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of  God through Christ.” (Galatians 4:17)

I wonder how many people I’ve been today? Alice’s conversation with the caterpillar is justly famous because it addresses the perennial issue of identity. The image of the blue caterpillar blowing smoke-rings from his hookah was a popular one in the hippie culture of the 1970s (and later) when so many young people set out on a journey to “find themselves,” whether through drugs, sex, Eastern mysticism or whatever route seemed to present itself. Many found Jesus in the Jesus Movement, many got irretrievably lost, and many more, like me, never completely lost sight of mainstream society and found our place there before wandering too far. However we got here and wherever we may have looked in the past, those of us who are now in Christ have one identity: we are all “sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus.” (Gal 3:26) This is the reality of who we are in the Spirit. Each one of us has it engraved into our seat in heavenly places. As we live out our lives on earth, however, who we are can be as baseless and unpredictable as the caterpillar’s smoke rings. At different points in the day we may be tantrumming toddlers, moody teenagers, or grumpy old men (or women). Maybe that only applies to me, of course… But to walk in the spiritual authority that is our inheritance we need to be the people who carry that authority, the children of the Most HighGod: more heavenly seat; less smoke rings.

This is what Paul says to the Galatians:
“For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.” (Gal 3: 26-29)

Heirs according to the Promise. These are such big ideas, and they are so often repeated, that it’s easy to read them without their meaning penetrating our hearts. What do we inherit? What was promised, and how does that impact our perception of what it means to be “sons of God?”

What God covenanted to Abraham was land, many descendants, and great blessing. (See Genesis 12) These are the three pillars of the earthly covenant between God and the nation that came from Abraham – the people of Israel – which He later ratified through the Law. The covenant told the people who they were:

“ You are a holy people to the LORD your God; the LORD your God has chosen you to be a people for Himself, a special treasure above all the peoples on the face of the earth,” and it told them who He was: “He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;” (Deuteronomy 7: 6,9)

On one hand their worship and their adherence to the Law constantly reminded the people of Israel of their identity and their destiny as a people chosen and set apart by God; and on the other hand their continued failure to keep this covenant as they mingled with the people of the surrounding nations and adopted their ways ultimately stripped them of their identity and lost them their inheritance.

The New Covenant
But God never lost sight of having a covenant people of His own, and when Jesus came He “obtained a more excellent ministry, inasmuch as He is also Mediator of a better covenant, which was established on better promises.” (Heb 8:6) In

Jeremiah tells us how the new covenant would be better than the old:

“Behold, the days are coming, says the LORD, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah— not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to lead them out of the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them, says the LORD But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says the LORD: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ for they all shall know Me, from the least of them to the greatest of them, says the LORD. For I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin I will remember no more.” (Jer 31 31-34)

The old covenant depended on human ability and willingness to keep the Law, and was broken because of human frailness. It revealed the inevitability of sin, the holiness of God, and above all our need for His grace – the grace that He would show by sending Jesus. The new covenant doesn’t depend on our fickle hearts and selfish ways, but on God’s faithfulness and mercy, forgiving our iniquity and forgetting our sins:

“For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins. (Matt 26:28)

The Hebrew men had the sign of the old covenant cut into their flesh, and the law was written on tablets of stone. It reminded them of who they were. The new covenant was cut into the flesh of the Son of God on our behalf, and His law is written on our hearts. As much as circumcision reminded (and still reminds) the Jew of his identity every day, the new covenant cut into Christ’s flesh, and the covenant celebration of bread and wine which we take to identify with His sacrifice, reminds us who we are. And because it does not depend on our righteousness, but His; and not on our faithfulness, but His, we know that this precious identity is secure. He will not fail to keep His covenant.

The Household of God
In Christ, we are Abraham’s seed, and so the terms of the original covenant still apply; but now “The Promise of the Father” (Luke 24:49) comes to us directly by the Holy Spirit, and the pillars of the covenant are heavenly rather than earthly: our “land” is the Kingdom of God; the many descendants that we are among is the expanding church of Christ, and the blessing on our lives is the very presence and the provision of our God who “shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 4:19) A verse that has impacted me personally just lately is Ephesians 2:19, where Paul tells us that we “are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God.” Not only are we citizens of the Kingdom of God, and therefore have access to all the benefits of that citizenship; but we are members of God’s household. It’s not possible to be any closer to someone than to be part of their household.

Paul wrote “When the fullness of the time had come, God sent forth His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, that we might receive the adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent forth the Spirit of His Son into your hearts, crying out, “Abba, Father!” Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of  God through Christ. (Galatians 4:4-7). However it is that we experience the indwelling Holy Spirit, whether we are praying in tongues, sensing Him illuminate a Bible verse (as He did for me with Ephesians 2:19), receiving or giving a prophetic word, being awestruck by His timing,  getting a “nudge” that you know is His prompting, or simply being overwhelmed by His love, it’s a reminder of our sonship; it’s Christ in us affirming our relationship with His, and our, Heavenly Father. This is our promised inheritance. The seats in heavenly places that are ours have been reserved for members of His household. The enemy will do all he can to get us out of our seats by telling us that we don’t fit, that we have been excluded or passed over, that we need to do more to earn our place, that we aren’t “spiritual” enough or don’t qualify for some other reason, or simply that someone doesn’t like us – any of these, and many more, can cause us to lose that sense of sonship and the authority that it carries. They are all lies: the blood of the new covenant and the Holy Spirit within us say that we are members of the household of God, and we belong. And because we belong, we are seated in a place of authority.

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

Seated in Heavenly Places

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“But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace you have been saved), and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.” (Ephesians 2: 4-7)

It’s easy enough to read these words and tell ourselves that we believe them, but speaking personally, I wonder how much I really understand what it is to be seated in heavenly places when I don’t even know what they look like? Paul had been there (see 2 Cor 12: 2-4), and I have friends who have had visions of them, but so far that hasn’t been part of my walk with Jesus. But Jesus said to Thomas: “Because you have seen me, you have believed. Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed,” so that tells me that those of us (i.e. most of the Body of Christ) who haven’t had any visionary experience of heavenly places, can be blessed in our lack of experience just as we are blessed with eternal life by believing in the Saviour that we haven’t seen. So my question is this: if I am blessed for believing what I haven’t seen, how do I live out of that blessing? Among other things, being seated in heavenly places is our position of spiritual authority, and that is my focus here, because the devil will do all he can to get us out of our seats in the spirit and running around, weakened, in the flesh. Here are three keys that may help us to stay in our seats. I plan to post some more in future articles.

Remain in the atmosphere of worship.
If we know one thing about heaven it is that it rings with worship. When John first looked through the door into heaven and beheld “a throne set in heaven, and One sat on the throne,” (Rev 4:2) the scene before him is ablaze with the beauty of the Lord and resounds with unending worship:

“The four living creatures, each having six wings, were full of eyes around and within. And they do not rest day or night, saying:
“Holy, holy, holy,
Lord God Almighty,
Who was and is and is to come!” (Rev 4:8)

Heavenly places echo with constant worship, so we too must keep our hearts tuned to this atmosphere. As we know, God is looking for true worshippers: “The hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.“(John 4:23) However this isn’t easy, as we know. But I think Paul gives us some help here:  his exhortation to the Thessalonians to “give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus.” (1 Thess 5:18) is a reminder to remain thankful for the wonder of our salvation and the abundance of God’s mercy in lifting us into those heavenly places, whatever may be happening around us. Whatever we are doing, we can always seek God’s face in the midst of it: “When You said, “Seek My face,” My heart said to You, “Your face, LORD, I will seek.” (Psalm 27:8) If we seek His presence we will find it (Matthew 7:7), and when we do, our hearts will be stirred to worship, on earth as it is in heaven. It was “because of His great love with which He loved us” that God “made us alive together with Christ,” so that He could have us in His presence and we could share the wonders of heaven with Him. We have been lifted there because God wants us with him. I have a precious pair of pictures of my son-in-law with my 4-year old grandson. In the first picture, he is standing behind his son, with his arms outstretched, but the little boy is looking in the other direction and is unaware of what is about to happen. In the next picture, he has been scooped up, and his happy face is close to the smiling countenance of his loving dad. The God of the Universe, in all His glory and majesty, has scooped us up because He wanted us close to Him. If we can keep our hearts aligned with this truth I think the rest will follow; and spiritual authority, alongside the capacity to love, will become a reality in our lives. (Eph. 2:4-5) God doesn’t need our thanks: giving thanks in all circumstances is for our benefit, not His.

Maintain holiness and consecration.
Heaven is a holy place. Jesus has qualified us to be there, but He wants us to take what we have been given in heaven and bring it to earth. As well as keeping our flame of worship alive, we need to keep our mind renewed and empty of carnality and selfish ambition. Talking of those “by nature children of wrath,” Paul writes “among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, … just as the others.” (Ephesians 2:3) How much of our thought life and activity revolves round gratifying the flesh? In Christ we “walk after the spirit and not after the flesh,” but it’s also true that “the flesh lusts against the Spirit, and the Spirit against the flesh; and these are contrary to one another.”(Gal 5:17) Suffice to say that there is a battle going on, and we can’t expect to be spiritual without being vigilant.

So why focus particularly on “selfish ambition?” Because Satan’s selfish ambition brought about his downfall and consequently introduced sin into the world, by tempting man with the thought that he, too, could “be like God, knowing good from evil.” (Genesis 3:5) Satan’s selfish ambition became Man’s: it is at the very root  of all sin. James writes: “Where jealousy and selfish ambition exists, there will be disorder and every vile practice,” (James 3:16) and Paul teaches us to ”Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves.” (Phil 2:3)

King Jesus, the Lord of Lords, was “meek and humble of heart.” Philippians 2:3 tells us that our pathway to this humility is not to try to fight a battle against conceit in our heads, but quite simply to make a practice of putting the interests of others before our own. When we are unselfishly loving others we are pulling up roots of sin in our own hearts. Holiness and consecration are a consequence of a decision to love instead of being the lofty goal of a priestly lifestyle, and love begins with humility. Peter writes, “Love covers a multitude of sin.” (1 Pe 4:8) Not only does our loving forgiveness of others cover the sin in their lives, just as Christ’s forgiveness covers ours, but it also covers “a multitude of sin” in our own hearts so that we can indeed “be holy, just as I am holy.” (1 Pe 1:16)

It’s notable that Paul partners “selfish ambition” with “vain conceit.” They have the same root of pride: both exalt self. Conceit tells me that I am better than others, and ambition makes a career path out of that belief. Since it was selfish ambition that caused Satan to be cast out of heaven, we can’t sit in heavenly places with any in our hearts.

Stay free of condemnation.
We are blameless before Him; His adopted sons. We know the scripture, of course: “there is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit.” But knowing the words doesn’t always mean we know the truth in our hearts, and many of us can be all too ready to listen to the enemy when he whispers condemnation over us, because it’s an area where he has often started building strongholds during childhood. A “naughty” child becoming a rebellious teenager who comes to faith in their early 20’s can carry a lot of baggage into the Kingdom, and it’s not always easy to leave at the cross – until we grasp the dimensions of Christ’s sacrifice measured against our condemnation. Paul writes:

“Who can lay a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is he who condemns? It is Christ who died, and furthermore is also risen, who is even at the right hand of God, Who also makes intercession for us.” (Romans 8:33–34).

If we measure a pebble against Mount Everest, even that is not enough to even begin measuring the value of God’s gift to us against the weight – or lack of it – of condemnation that the enemy would try and lay on our shoulders. What is the devil’s pebble against us when we have a mountain of freedom in Christ? Who can lay a charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Hebrews 12:2 says “Jesus endured the cross, despising the shame, for the joy set before Him.” If our Jesus despised Calvary’s mountain of shame, who are we to catch and carry the pebbles that the devil tosses in our direction? “He who believes in Him will not be put to shame.” (Romans 10:11, 1 Pe 2:6)

Condemnation that hurts us is only part of the picture, however, because “out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks.” (Luke 6:45) If we feel condemned in ourselves, we will be prone to condemning others. If we can truly walk in the freedom that Christ has given us in this area, we will be less likely to be judgemental of others; less likely to be open to the enemy using us to put other people to shame. Even when we work at not allowing the critical words to be formed on our lips, what is in our hearts will always leak out. If there is no shame in our own hearts, there will be none to spill over others.

I want to look at one more aspect of this topic before we leave it. Paul writes “I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God to salvation to everyone who believes.” (Romans 1:16) If we are vulnerable to condemnation and the shame that it brings, it will affect our witness: if we are ashamed of ourselves, we will also be ashamed of the gospel. If we are confident in who we are in Christ, we will be more likely to be confident in sharing what He has done for us. I think this makes it one of Satan’s favoured weapons against God’s people: if there is one thing he must want more than just about anything else, it is to close down our effectiveness in sharing the victory of Calvary. We need to keep in mind the words of Jesus to the woman caught in adultery: “Woman, where are those accusers of yours?  Has no one condemned you?” She said, “No one, Lord.” And Jesus said to her, “Neither do I condemn you; go and sin no more.” (John 8:10-11) There is no condemnation in Christ Jesus; there is no condemnation in heavenly places.

Where we are seated in the Spirit is our place of authority. The devil works hard at trying to make us get up out of our seats: we mustn’t let him.

Next: our sonship, not our business card.

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

Pressing on – or being pressed?

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“Now when evening came, His disciples went down to the sea, got into the boat, and went over the sea toward Capernaum. And it was already dark, and Jesus had not come to them.” (John 6: 16-17)

Getting on with the Mission
I love this story: I don’t think there are many cameos in the Bible that point the contrast between the life of the spirit and the life of the flesh as well as this one. While Jesus was up on the mountain, the disciples headed for the boat. There are “big picture” examples of the flesh taking matters into its own hands and the consequences that are brought about – Saul’s hasty sacrifice when Samuel was delayed, narrated in 1 Samuel 13, comes to mind – but the disciples in their boat seems to speak particularly eloquently into our lives as disciples today. Unlike Saul, they were they were not disobeying any of God’s commands (1 Samuel 13:13): there is no record of Jesus telling them to wait until He came back. They were just getting on with their mission as well as they could.

Feeling Compelled
The main parallel with the story of Saul’s sacrifice is that, like him, they would have “felt compelled.” (1 Sam 13:12) Saul had picked a fight with the Philistines and now they were gathered against him in their numbers; and the people, trembling, were hiding in caves and pits and “were scattered from him.” (vs 6-8) The disciples knew they had to go to Capernaum and “it was already dark.” Although they didn’t know where Jesus was, there were plenty of people around with boats, so they probably assumed that He had either gone on ahead or would soon follow in someone else’s boat. He would either be at the house in Capernaum waiting for them, or would turn up a bit later, but wherever He was it was time to get moving. It’s also quite possible that they were exhausted and wanted to get away from the demands of the crowd. So the situation was compelling, and all very human. And all very plausible: have you never lost contact with someone in a group and thought: “Well, we’re headed for the same place. We’re bound to catch up with them there.” I certainly have.

Lost Authority
So it’s easy to be critical of the disciples for setting off without the Lord, but actually what they did was very natural, and it’s the naturalness of their action that makes it such a valuable lesson for us. And although they were not disobedient to God in the way that Saul was, there is a similarity in the consequence: they both resulted in a loss of authority. Saul lost his authority to rule Israel (1 Sam 13:14), and the disciples lost their authority to rule their circumstances. Sudden squalls were common on Lake Galilee, so whether or not this particular one was whipped up specially by the enemy to destroy them, or whether it was a natural occurrence, the disciples knew the risk they were taking and were confident that their skills and experience as fishermen would take them safely to Capernaum. It’s when we assume we are in control that the opposite is often the case.

Recognising the Difference
After three or four miles with the waves buffeting their boat and “a great wind blowing” (v.18), that confidence was probably ebbing away, and they were still only a little over halfway to their destination (Bethsaida to Capernaum was about six miles). Just as the disciples will have agreed with the Lord that they would go over to Capernaum, we too can have objectives that we have prayed over and been in agreement with the Holy Spirit about, but we can still set off without Him in the boat. We can employ all the natural resources we have at our disposal to act on a word, but we can leave out the presence of God and be following our own agenda. Smith Wigglesworth said this: “I must recognise the difference between my own spirit and the Holy Spirit. My own spirit can do certain things on natural lines, can even weep and pray and worship, but it is all on a human plane, and we must not depend on our human thoughts and activities or on our own personality. If the baptism (in the Spirit – my parenthesis) means anything to you, it should bring you to the death of the ordinary, where you are no longer putting faith in your own understanding; but, conscious of your own poverty, you are ever yielded to the spirit. Then it is that your body becomes filled with heaven on earth.“ (For transcripts of Wigglesworth’s sermons and other material relating to his life and ministry, see http://www.smithwigglesworth.com)

The Valley and the Mountain
How much of our worship and our mission, are “on natural lines,” rowing stalwartly towards God’s objectives without His presence in the boat? We pray for the wind and waves to abate but to no avail, because, whatever our gifting or our position in the church, we have no spiritual authority in our own strength. And when we are drenched, exhausted and storm-tossed, the enemy whispers into our hearts: “What do you think you are doing in this boat anyway? You’re never going to get to your Capernaum: you might as well give up now…” Yes, we are able to silence that voice and we row on through the storm, pressing on towards the goal as we shout Philippians 3:14 into the wind. We stay afloat but Capernaum doesn’t seem to get any nearer. But the “goal” that Paul is referring to is “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” Lake Galilee is at the bottom of a valley, 200 ft below sea level. The mountains that surround it rise to 2000 ft. And here, for me, is one of the central points of this story: While Jesus was up on the mountain, the disciples were down in the valley.

The Upward Call
What are our goals, as individuals and as churches? Where is our Capernaum? I think in many cases we can get into the boat and start rowing, but never actually get there, and the dream of seeing the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven becomes seeing the Kingdom of God in heaven when our ship has finally sunk on earth. But although it’s true that the Old Testament heroes of faith “did not receive the promise,” (Hebrews 11:39), the next verse starts with the words “God, having provided something better for us…” God has provided something better for us than rowing through the storm until our ship has sunk. God has given us His son, He has given us the Holy Spirit, and He has given us a choice: do we stay lower than sea level and do what circumstances and our natural thinking dictate, hoping we’ll meet God when we’ve arrived; or do we go up the mountain to seek His face first (Psalm 27:8), and not move until we know He’s coming with us?

The way Up is Down
We need to remind ourselves that we can no more climb the mountain through our own strength and abilities than we can row to our destination. In his sermon “Keeping the vision,” Smith Wigglesworth says this: “There are two sides to this Baptism: the first is, that you possess the Spirit; the second is that the Spirit possesses you. This is my message at this time – being possessed by the Baptizer, and not merely possessing the Baptizer… I believe that God’s ministers are to be flames of fire; nothing less than flames; nothing less than mighty instruments with burning messages, with a heart full of love, with such a depth of consecration that God has taken full charge of the body and it exists only that it may manifest the glory of God.” Later in the same message he says: “It seems to me that the way to get up is to get down.” In his book “Pride versus Humility,” Derek Prince says the same thing: “The way up is down; the way down is up. If we want to go up, we must start by going down.” The only thing we can be certain of is that we don’t know where Jesus is going at all, unless we are with Him: He might not even be to Capernaum; and if He is, the chances are that it won’t be when we think, because His thoughts are not our thoughts. If we want His plans, we need to be dead to our own. Our abilities, our understanding of what God has done in the past, our ideas of what His next move is going to be: these all need to be at the bottom of the lake before we start out, because we don’t actually ask Him to come with us: we go with Him. We’ll find Him up the mountain.

If we want to press on, we need to respond to the upward call of God, and start by going down.

Living by Faith

Bread from Heaven (4): God’s Economy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knowing God, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Bread from Heaven: 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith, Pursuing Love

Bread from Heaven: 2

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Make the people sit down
In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says that what matters most of all is “faith working through love.” So here we are on the mountainside. We have kept in step with the Spirit; we have lifted our eyes with love, we are aware of how God has led us to and provided for this moment, and so we believe that Jesus wants to meet the need that is now before us. Even though He knows what He is going to do, we don’t. What next?

Jesus says, “Make the people sit down.” Some miracles require preparation, and that preparation has to be in obedience to what the Lord has asked us to do. The disciples could not see with their natural eyes what might happen next, but they got their instructions and complied with them. Like the unprofitable servant (Luke 17:10), they simply did what they were told to do. And more than that, they had to do so with authority. 12 men had to exercise crowd control on 5000, many of whom had their families with them, and all of whom were ravenous and will have wanted to be first in the queue for whatever goodies Jesus was going do dish out. We have probably read and heard the story many times, but if you imagine the scene and do the maths it’s not hard to see that the first miracle was actually getting that crowd ready to receive the food in the first place. When I was a teacher I found it hard enough to control a group of thirty, so I needed to exercise authority – and that was when I knew what it was I was going to deliver.

The disciples could organise the crowd because the Lord had clearly given them the mandate to do so, and they put their trust in His authority without question. I wonder what they thought He was going to do? Elijah and Elisha both worked miracles of multiplication, but the nearest thing to supernatural provision of food at this level that they would all have known of was the manna in the wilderness. It was a story that they would have heard many times, and it was deeply embedded in their culture. Maybe when they heard it they wondered what it was like, and now they were thinking, “Wow, we’re going to see manna! Awesome!” How often we have one expectation, and God does something completely different, often meeting our need at a deeper level. But one thing we do know, is that God is “able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” (Eph. 3:20) We can be expecting manna when God has multiplication in mind.

Authority follows the Anointing
So when God gives us an instruction, we don’t know what we are being prepared for: all we know is what we have heard and the One who is doing the preparing. But because we have had the instruction, we have the authority to carry it out. I have a friend, Andrew, who tells the story of a meeting when he stepped up to preach at a conference towards the end of the worship time, and the Holy Spirit said to him “The anointing isn’t on you; it’s on the lady who is ministering with the flags.” He knew the Lord’s voice well enough and had the humility to obey, laying down his message and releasing the flag ministry to become the focus of that part of the conference. Authority followed the anointing.

In how many churches, every Sunday, is manna on the programme when God has multiplication planned? Our meeting this week will be basically the same format as last week. And the week before, and next week. We know what to expect, and we know what we will do: it’s time to gather the manna.  We prepare our sermon or our worship set and it’s what we do. If we are Pentecostals or charismatics we probably ask God to anoint it, but what we are much less likely to do is to ask Him to replace or change it if He wants to. If it’s a smaller group we might be more likely to be flexible, but a hungry crowd at a conference, waiting to be fed? Will we put down the important message we have spent a week preparing and praying over, and move aside for the flags? Andrew did just that, the power of God fell, His manifest presence came into the room, and lives were changed. Andrew didn’t know what was going to happen: he just “made the people sit down.” If we will hear God’s word in faith and act in authority, He will provide more than we can ever ask or imagine. All we have to do is lay down our lives.

Manna, or Mission?
We have sometimes hosted gap year students from Germany who have come to spend the year as interns working with the children and young people in our church. We have kept in touch with most of them, and recently one of them, David, invited us over to his wedding. We accepted the invitation, and decided to visit two of the others while we were in Germany. We weren’t driving and it meant quite complicated travel arrangements, but we knew they would like to see us, and we wanted to see them. (We were actually hoping to arrange a visit to a fourth family, but the travel arrangements just didn’t work in the time we had available. There was no grass in that place…) One of our friends referred to our trip as a “mission.” That’s a bit high-sounding, I thought – we are just going to a wedding and visiting a couple of other young friends and their families. But God had plans that we knew nothing of, because we walk in works prepared beforehand. (Eph 2:10)

What God had prepared for the young man we visited first of all was to organise an outreach in his town three days after we arrived, which gave us time to prepare and pray with him and spend time with his family. We went into the town with the outreach team, met some of his friends in his church, identified a spiritual stronghold over the town and pulled it down in prayer.  Next we moved on for David’s wedding. We had two days there, but couldn’t stay at the venue on the night of the reception because it was fully booked, and we were going to have to stay in another hotel a few miles away. But God! The owner/manager of the venue gave a free room, already paid for by guests who had not shown up, and even arranged to collect our luggage from the other hotel, where we had already taken it that afternoon. This enabled us to have a precious time of prayer with David and his new wife the following morning as well as some good conversations with his unsaved aunt and uncle, which wouldn’t have happened if we hadn’t been able to stay there on the second night.

After the wedding we went to see our third and most recent gap-year student, to find that her father, an elder in their village Lutheran church, was considering leaving it because, as he put it, ‘the pastor just gave history lessons and didn’t preach Jesus.’ We prayed with the family and were able to encourage them, and we had a lovely day together on a Rhine cruise, which further cemented our friendship. The mission didn’t end there, because we called in to see our daughter on the way home back in the UK, and our visit coincided with a visit from one of her friends who had been planning to go to her house for months, who had been wanting to meet us, and who, again, was in need of prayer.

No-one got dramatically healed, no-one got saved – although someone did on the outreach – but love took us to Germany, we did what we were told, there was “much grass in that place” (including a free hotel room), and Jesus did some building in His church from plans that we knew nothing of. A bit like the disciples, who were probably just expecting some time out with Jesus in the hills and found themselves managing a large-scale outreach, we just thought we were going on a trip to celebrate David’s wedding and visit two other families; but it turned out that God had planned the three sets of circumstances to coincide in different parts of Southern Germany for us to walk in a mission that He had prepared beforehand. Potentially, every day can be a mission where loaves and fishes are ready to be multiplied. So are we in the promised land yet? Because when we arrive, the manna stops.

Knowing God, Living by Faith

The name of the Lord is a strong tower.

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“The name of the Lord is a strong tower; the righteous run into it and are safe.” (Proverbs 18:10)

I am not someone who likes to do “actions“ with songs in church, and this proverb is the chorus of a song (“Blessed be the name of the Lord“ by Clinton Utterbach) that is often used (in the UK at least) to get a congregation – particularly children – engaged in praise. Personally, I like to think about the words as I’m singing them, and I can’t do that if I’m running on the spot and waving my arms about, but I guess that’s just me. And there’s actually some great stuff to think about here.

The lyrics of the chorus are slightly different from the proverb. The lyrics are “the righteous run into it and they are saved,“ but the proverb tells us that the righteous run into it and are safe. It’s the word “safe” that struck me when I looked it up. It doesn’t just mean in a place of safety, nor is it specifically just “rescued.” The Hebrew word śāḡaḇ means “too high for capture.” The place of safety isn’t created by the walls, but by the elevation. The person who runs into this strong tower is lifted to a place that is inaccessible to the enemy. And if we know Ephesians 2:6 we know that the place where we have been raised up to is together with Christ in heavenly places. When we are raised up in the spirit, we are inaccessible to the enemy.

I have also just been reading the prayer of Jabez, which is in 1 Chronicles 4:10. He prayed “Oh that you would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that your hand would be with me, and that you would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!“ When we pray the Lord‘s prayer, we also ask Him to deliver us from evil. I don’t know about you, but I’ve always thought of this in terms of keeping me safe so that evil things don’t happen to me. Jabez isn’t praying selfishly here: he turns it round to say “keep me safe from evil so that I don’t bring it upon anybody else.” If we bring this reflection to our safety in the name of the Lord, we get an added dimension to the proverb: when we run to the place of safety, the people around us are also protected from any pain that the enemy would seek to cause through us.

So how do we run into the name of the Lord? As I have said elsewhere, (and not just me of course!) to be “in the name” of Jesus isn’t just about a position of faith, but it’s about where we are putting our feet in actuality. The name of the Lord isn’t just what we call him, but it’s who He is, and to be in His name we have to be true to Him. If we have spent the day following our own selfish desires we can hardly expect to pray “in the name of Jesus” at the end of it, because we haven’t been in His strong tower; we have walked after the flesh and not after the spirit, by sight and not by faith. It’s the righteous who run into the strong tower: righteousness is only ours by faith, and “all that is not of faith is sin.” (Romans 14:23).

So when we are walking by faith we are lifted into the heavenly tower of the name of Jesus, out of reach of the enemy who has no access to our spirits, and a blessing, not a danger, to those around us.  Where are you today? Are you up in His strong tower? If not, start running, before anybody gets hurt.

Living by Faith

Bread from Heaven

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After these things Jesus went over the Sea of Galilee, which is the Sea of Tiberias. Then a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased. And Jesus went up on the mountain, and there He sat with His disciples. Now the Passover, a feast of the Jews, was near. Then Jesus lifted up His eyes, and seeing a great multitude coming toward Him, He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do. (John 6: 1-6)

Jesus lifted up His eyes
When Jesus saw the crowds coming towards them and asked Philip “Where shall we buy bread, these might eat?” (John 6:5), He knew not only the eternal words that the Holy Spirit had spoken through Isaiah hundreds of years previously, but He also know what He was going to say to the Jews the following day, and, more significantly, what He wanted His church to learn from it from that time until His return.

John introduces the narrative by presenting Jesus on a mountain with His disciples. This must be every believer’s favourite place: a mountaintop experience with the Lord, in the company of a few close friends. When we are in that place, we want it to go on for ever. Eventually it will, but John also tells us that “a great multitude followed Him, because they saw His signs which He performed on those who were diseased.” (John 6:2) If we are spending time with Jesus on Earth, the crowds are never going to be far behind.

It’s all about the harvest
When He met the Samaritan woman, Jesus said to His disciples: “Behold, I say to you, lift up your eyes and look at the fields, for they are already white for harvest!” (John 4:36). Now John echoes this exhortation in his account of the fourth sign, reminding us that it is not just about the significance of the Lord’s supernatural power to multiply bread, or even about His compassion for the hungry: it’s all about the harvest. Jesus lifted up his eyes. So one challenge to us as we consider this sign is this: how much time do we spend with our eyes on the ground instead of lifting them up to the harvest?

If you are the same as me, you probably equate ‘lifting your eyes’ with Psalm 121 – lifting our eyes to the hills, and seeing that our help comes the Lord “who made heaven and earth.” Although Jesus clearly does get help from heaven here- a lot of help – He is not looking away from His circumstances and comforting Himself, as we do, with eyes of faith: He is looking at the circumstances with eyes of love so that He can comfort the people He can see. If I was on a mountain and saw a hungry crowd below me, I would either want to go further up the mountain, or round to the other side, and down. Quickly. But He is not thinking about how the circumstances affect Him; He is only thinking of how He can affect the circumstances. This is a standout Kairos moment of His ministry, and He knew what He would do.

Facing the hungry crowd
As for us, there are times when we are on that mountain and there is a “hungry crowd” coming towards us. It might only be one person, but we know what it will mean: they will make demands. Certainly our time and energy, quite probably our money and/or resources, possibly our emotions, but one thing we know is true: they are hungry, and we’ve only got a few loaves and fishes. But the other thing that is true is that we are there with Jesus. We know that He only did what the Father told Him to do and didn’t always minister to everyone He met, and it might be that the He tells us not to get involved and to get down off the mountain. But assuming He doesn’t, how do we face the “hungry crowd” with the crumbs that we have to offer?

“He said to Philip, “Where shall we buy bread, that these may eat?” But this He said to test him, for He Himself knew what He would do.”

I don’t think that He was testing Philip on his knowledge of Isaiah 55. Jesus wanted to know if Philip was starting to see with the eyes of the Spirit, or if he was still limited to the material world. At this stage, it looks like his score was zero (which is encouraging for us, as the same Philip completely by-passed all the confines of the material world in the power of the Holy Spirit when he preached the gospel to the Ethiopian Eunuch!). I think Jesus is regularly testing our faith. Since He said “Will the Son of Man find faith on earth when He comes?” (Luke 18:8), it makes sense that He will be putting us in situations where He can see where we are on the faith-o-meter. He wants all our readings to increase.

There was much grass in that place.
God knows what our faith is ready for, and He also knows whether or not this is a Kairos moment for us, where He has got everything lined up for us to operate in the power of the Spirit. Wisdom says “ponder the path of your feet.” (Prov 4:26) The hungry crowd is approaching. Where has the “path of our feet” led us? Are we on a rocky slope, or is there “much grass?” People will be filled if they are in a place where they can be sufficiently at peace to receive from the Lord. If they are struggling just to keep on their feet and stay upright, it is less likely that we are going to reach into their situation, and that God hasn’t planned for us to try: if that moment hasn’t yet arrived we are just going to be emptied ourselves, and no-one is going to get any bread.

Verse 10 tells us that “There was much grass in that place.” For the miracle to take place the crowd needed somewhere to sit down and rest so that they could receive and partake of what Jesus was going to give them. Jesus hadn’t yet drawn on His heavenly resources, but the natural setting was in place – indeed it had been developing ever since that grassy plateau on the mountain had been created through Him and for Him (Colossians 1:16) at the beginning of time. Part of the convergence of that moment was that the hungry crowd should be there with Jesus just where there was provision for them to stop and sit down: not on a rocky slope or a narrow path, but on a flat area where “there was much grass.” If God can provide that visible abundance in the earthly realm just at the right time, how much more are heavenly resources available?

The Kingdom of Abundance
Paul writes to the Ephesians: “Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen. (Eph 3:20) Jesus is Lord over a kingdom of abundance. “God does not give the Spirit by measure,” (John 3:34) because there is no limitation in the Kingdom of God. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that the earthly tabernacle and its rituals were a “copy and a shadow of heavenly things.” (Heb 8:5). There are clues in Scripture that this applies to the rest of the earthly creation as well, and that the temporal is a shadow of the eternal. The earthly Jesus is the Son of Man who goes to the cross, and we get a glimpse of the heavenly Jesus when He appears on the Mount of Transfiguraton. We have the Jerusalem of Israel, and the “New Jerusalem coming down out of heaven;” (Revelation 21:2) and we have John’s revelation that “it does not yet appear what we shall be.” (1 John 3:2).

The disciples could only see five loaves and two fishes, but Jesus could see the bread of heaven. When we pray for the Kingdom of God to come “on earth as it is in heaven,” we are praying for limitless heaven to come to limited earth. So when we lift our eyes and sense that Jesus is showing us a need that He wants to meet, and we know that there is “much grass in that place,” we can look with the eyes of faith and see that the single packed lunch which is the most our brains can grasp will convert to 5,000 by the power that works within us. At least.

Christian Life, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Four rules for walking in the works God has prepared for us.

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Ephesians 2:10 says that we are “God’s workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for Works prepared beforehand, we might walk in them.“ God’s word doesn’t say that we should do the works or complete them or carry them out, or any such similar term: he says that we should walk in them. So what does that mean? How do we walk in what God is prepared?

God has given us parameters for walking. We are to walk by faith and not by sight, we are to walk in Love, and we are to walk in the Spirit. There are other specifics too, like walking in newness of life,  walking circumspectly, and more; but these three enough to go on with. If we are to be walking in God‘s works – His works and not our own – we need to pay attention to them.

Rule One: “Walk by faith and not by sight.” ( 2 Cor:7)
To walk in God‘s works, we need to walk by faith. Among all the other things that can be said about what it is to walk by faith, one top level definitive is that it is contrary to walking by sight. We know this because scripture says so. A first requirement for any of God‘s works is that we cannot see everything that we need in order to carry it out, but that we trust God to provide it. If He has prepared the works beforehand, He has also prepared the resources. We cannot see them because we’re walking by faith, but we trust him to provide. We don’t wait to see his provision before we take a step: we start walking beforehand, knowing that He is El Shaddai, and will provide. Rule one stands alongside rule two:

Rule Two: “So likewise you, when you have done all those things which you are commanded, say, ‘We are unprofitable servants. We have done what was our duty to do.’ “ (Luke 17:10)

When the disciples asked Jesus to increase their faith, he gave them the model of the unprofitable Servant. The walk of faith has to be a walk of obedience: we do what we are told to do, no more, no less. So what has He told us to do? I think  there are two levels of command. There are scriptural commands which are for everyone, and there are specific directives which are unique to each of us. Jesus told us to love God with all our being, and to love our neighbour as ourselves. His “new commandment” was that we love one another. Without love, we are nothing (1 Cor 13:2), and as the whole of 1 Corinthians 13 makes clear, our works are worthless.

I think we find another “level 1” directive in Micah 6:8, where we find these famous words:  “And what does the Lord require of you But to do justly, To love mercy, And to walk humbly with your God?” If we are walking humbly before our God we are more likely to hear the specific directives at level two – whether we are Heidi Baker being told to go to Mozambique, or A N Other being told to give $100 into a specific ministry, or to pray for someone’s healing in the street. If we are looking for power encounters and adventures of faith without paying attention to level one, the chances are that we will be operating out of personal ambition and spiritual pride and not humility and love, and it’s unlikely that the Lord is going to give us any of the John 14:12 “greater things“  to do. But when our hearts are set on obeying the Lord at level one, “you will hear a voice behind you saying this is the way; walk in it” (Isaiah 30:21), and that word will be confirmed in such a way that we will not doubt the instruction. This leads us to rule three:

Rule Three: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.”  (John 13:34-35)

Rule three is to walk in love. Not only is nothing we do of any value if we don’t walk in love, but Jesus tells us that we will glorify Him if we do – because all will know that we are His disciples. The love Jesus is talking about is His sacrificial “agape” love. Somebody I know well in our church has been given a vision for a project in Liberia, where there is 85% unemployment. This project, when completed, will provide income and employment and bring a little bit of God‘s kingdom to earth. Her dream is to do something that will lift a community out of poverty, and she thinks about it night and day. She said once that she wasn’t sure if it was from the Lord. I said I’m sure it is. Why? Because, apart from other confirmations she has received, she gets absolutely nothing out of it for herself, yet is prepared to invest a significant amount of time and money into the work. It is an expression of agape love with no self interest. Where does God’s Love point us? Because that is where His works will be prepared.

Rule four: “Pray always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit“ (Eph 6:18)
Faith and agape  Love are only ours by the Spirit: “The flesh profits nothing.” (John 6:63)  Faith is “the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast,” (Eph 2:9) and God’s love is “poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.“ (Romans 5:5) Faith and Love are two of the only three things that “remain“ when all else has passed away (1 Corinthians 13:13) Spiritual projects are carried forward by spiritual prayer. Paul asks the Ephesians to be “praying always with all prayer and supplication in the Spirit, being watchful to this end with all perseverance and supplication for all the saints— Paul’s work as a messenger of Christ was sustained by the prayers of the body of Christ. If Paul needed prayer support to walk in the walks prepared for him, then so do we, and we need to be upholding others with our own prayers.

So to fulfil the purposes that we were created for in Christ Jesus, we receive our instructions from the Lord, and we trust Him to provide us with what we need to carry them out. We are 100% motivated by the blessing that we are expecting others to receive from the work, and we ensure that every step is covered and guided by Spirit-led prayer. If we take our steps according to these principles, I think we will see the works that God has prepared starting to take shape in front of us as we walk.

Living by Faith, The word of God, Walking in the Spirit

Ears to Hear

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Paul wrote to the Galatians: “Foolish Galatians, who has bewitched you? He who supplies the Spirit and works miracles among you, does He do so by the works of the law, or by the hearing of faith?”  (Gal 3:1)

When we read this our initial, instinctive, impression of the Galatian church is probably something like “Bad Galatians! Paul is telling you off!” But actually if we look at our own church and compare the active presence of God at work among us, “supplying the Spirit and working miracles,” how do we compare with Galatia, where the text suggests that the miraculous is the norm? And alongside that expectation of seeing the miraculous power of God at work through the “supply” of the Spirit is also the assumption that the believers there are exercising the “hearing of faith” as a norm. Again, is this true of us today?

Paul is addressing a serious issue in the letter to the Galatians, specifically the heresy creeping into the church at Galatia that believers needed to be circumcised and to put themselves under Jewish law to attain salvation, but the context – the “lump” where the enemy is trying to insert his false “leaven” (Gal 5:9)- is that of a church of Spirit-filled believers who had “begun in the Spirit” (Gal 3:3), who hear God and walk by faith, and who experience the presence of God among them in power. The Galatians were a new church, and this level of life in Christ was where Paul feared they would fall away from. Many of us are in churches that have been in existence for decades, or even centuries, and we still haven’t attained to it. Maybe the same leaven is at work today.

Jesus talks about having “ears to hear.” Isaiah says: “Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,… The eyes of those who see will not be dim, And the ears of those who hear will listen.” (Isaiah 32: 1,3) We  can hear the Word with our eardrums and process it with our natural brains, but it doesn’t mean that we are hearing with our spiritual ears, and if we don’t have those “ears to hear,” we won’t be listening. It’s when the King reigns in righteousness in our lives that our hearing ears start to listen. We don’t just listen to Him when we want a miracle; we listen to him all the time and let his word direct our steps. We listen because He is the King.

Maybe this is why we so often don’t often see the miraculous: Maybe we don’t walk in it when we don’t need it. But when we walk in obedience and seek His direction in our lives at every step, we walk in the dimension of the miraculous, so we can expect the miraculous to be part of the landscape. Just as in the natural world we can turn a corner and see a flower by the path or a bird on the branch, so we can expect to see a gift of the Holy Spirit in front of us whenever He has chosen to put it there. As the prophet wrote, “The eyes of those who see will not be dim.”

Paul said he was “exceedingly zealous for the traditions of my fathers.“ (Gal 1:14) As God is preparing the Church for the upheavals of the last days and ultimately the return of the Bridegroom for His bride, we need to be vigilant that we too aren’t in thrall to the traditions of our own “fathers,” slavishly ‘doing church’ the way we always have done or the way it’s done in our particular denomination of network, rather than doing today what He wants today, which may be different from what He wanted yesterday, or last week, or last year. If this is the case we may not be walking in obedience to the King, and it could be that we are being even more foolish than the Galatians.