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.

Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic

The mantle of Elisha

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“Then it happened, as they continued on and talked, that suddenly a chariot of fire appeared with horses of fire, and separated the two of them; and Elijah went up by a whirlwind into heaven. And Elisha saw it, and he cried out, “My father, my father, the chariot of Israel and its horsemen!” So he saw him no more. And he took hold of his own clothes and tore them into two pieces. He also took up the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and went back and stood by the bank of the Jordan. Then he took the mantle of Elijah that had fallen from him, and struck the water, and said, “Where is the LORD God of Elijah?” And when he also had struck the water, it was divided this way and that; and Elisha crossed over. Now when the sons of the prophets who were from Jericho saw him, they said, “The spirit of Elijah rests on Elisha.” And they came to meet him, and bowed to the ground before him. Then they said to him, “Look now, there are fifty strong men with your servants. Please let them go and search for your master, lest perhaps the Spirit of the LORD has taken him up and cast him upon some mountain or into some valley.” And he said, “You shall not send anyone.”” (2 Kings 2: 11-16)

Elisha was possibly the most complete type of Christ in the Old Testament. His name is a clue: it means “God is salvation.” Among other things, he broke a curse (Jericho 2 Kings 2),
He raised the dead (2 Kings 4: 19-37),
He spoke with authority and healed at a distance (Naaman, 2 Kings 5),
He taught love for enemies – (the Syrian raiders 2 Kings 6 22-2),
He multiplied food (The jars of oil , and also bread, both in 2 Kings 4),
Even His death brought new life (A dead man was raised to life when he touched Elisha’s bones (2 Kings 13:21).

The Bible is full of transitions: Egypt to Promised land, Judges to Kings, Saul to David, Kingdom to Exile, Exile to Restoration, The Law to Grace, Crucifixion to Resurrection, Flesh to Spirit – Jesus brings Life; life is dynamic, and dynamism means change. We go through many and various transitions in our own lives, until we all come to the final one where we move from the dimension of corruption to the dimension of immortality. We pass through some by choice and some by accident, but the changes to our body as life takes its course in us are inexorable. And so it is, I believe, with the Body of Christ.

The church is in transition. The spirit of Elijah now rests on Elisha. Christians the world over have been taking an unprecedented opportunity to spend more time with the Lord, not letting go of His presence, and following Him to a place separated (by the Jordan) from the commerce of the world (Jericho). Now that season is drawing to a close, and the time is coming for us to bring Jesus and His salvation back to Jericho. But we cannot go back over the Jordan unless we pick up the mantle and strike the water, in faith that the God of Elijah will part them for us. And to wear that new mantle, we need to take off our existing clothes and tear them in two. What we have been in the past will not serve us for the future.

What matters now as we stand before Jericho is that we don’t follow the inclination of the “sons of the prophets” and go up into the mountains to look for Elijah. If we look for our old ways and expect to carry on just as we were we will find that the power and authority – the Spirit of Elijah – has gone; we’ll be stuck on the other side of the Jordan and will have no impact on Jericho. I believe that this transition is as inevitable as the physical changes that take place in the human body on its journey through life. Either we move into Jericho wearing the mantle of the God of Salvation and cloaked in His miracle power, or we waste our time in the mountains looking for what is no longer there.

Elijah (“Jehovah is God”) has a strong association with fire: not only the fire of God that consumed the sacrifice on the mountain and demonstrated that Jehovah, not Baal, was God (1 Kings 18:38); but also the fire that fell twice on the captains and cohort of fifty men that Ahaziah sent to arrest him (2 Kings 1:10). Elijah comes before Elisha. The fire of God comes before the salvation of God. Jesus said “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished.” (Matt 17:11-12) As John the Baptist came and prepared the way for the earthly ministry of Jesus, so the fire of God will prepare the way for the Body of Christ to minister again in all the restored fullness of His authority and power.

In the book of Acts it wasn’t just the leading apostles who saw the power of God confirm the preaching of the Word.  “Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose over Stephen travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus, and Antioch, preaching the word to no one but the Jews only. But some of them were men from Cyprus and Cyrene, who, when they had come to Antioch, spoke to the Hellenists, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a great number believed and turned to the Lord.” (Act 11: 19-21) Some of us have felt the fire already, and if we haven’t, we soon will. Because now is time for the whole of the Body of Christ, not just the leaders but also the “men from Cyprus and Cyrene,” to pick up the mantle of Elisha, cross the Jordan, and bring salvation to Jericho.

Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

It is finished

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When the Lord Jesus surrendered his life as an atoning sacrifice for the sin of the world, He cried out “It is finished.” He came to do the work that the Father sent Him to complete, and He completed it. Every bit of it. Not a sin, a sickness or a broken heart was left out. He accomplished it all; there are no doubts in any Christian theologian’s mind concerning the completion of the work of calvary.

As I wrote in “The Cup and the Baptism”, (and if you’re reading this I’m sure you know it anyway) John’s gospel records that He commissioned His disciples with the words: “As the Father sent me, I also send you… Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20:22). The Father sent Jesus to do a complete work, and He accomplished it, by the power of the Holy Spirit by whom He was conceived, who came upon him, and in whom He was immersed or “baptized.”

When we were born again, we were “created in Christ Jesus for works prepared beforehand, that we might walk in them.” (Eph 2:10) We believe that the Word of God is truth, so how does scripture compare the ministry of the Church, sent by the Son, with the ministry of Jesus, sent by the Father?

Jesus was “from above” (John 3:31). The Christian who is born again, “of water and the Spirit” (John 3:5) and as such is a “new creation” (2 Cor 5:15), is also born “from above.”

Jesus was the Son of God.  Romans 8:14 tells us: “as many as are led by the Spirit of God, they are the sons of God.” We are also joint heirs with Christ: remembering again the Cup and the Baptism, Romans 8: 17 goes on to say:  “Now if we are children, then we are heirs–heirs of God and co-heirs with Christ, if indeed we share in his sufferings in order that we may also share in his glory.” Romans 8:29 tells us that He was “The firstborn of many brethren.”  If we are sons of God, every resource that the Father made available to Jesus is available to us, His co-heirs; and the fulfilment of every promise is Yes and Amen to us, through Him.

Jesus was filled with the Holy Spirit. Luke 4:1 tells us “Then Jesus, being filled with the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit into the wilderness.” Because Jesus was conceived of the Holy Spirit as the only begotten Son of God, I have tended to think that Jesus was equipped for ministry through His unique divine nature, and that He did “the works” of God because He also was God. But that isn’t what the bible actually tells us. Luke says that He returned from the wilderness “in the power of the Holy Spirit” (Luke 4:14); Acts 10:38 (also written by Luke, of course) tells us “how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power, who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.” So we must be clear that the anointing of the Holy Spirit that was poured out ON Jesus and that completely filled Him (baptized Him) is distinct from the divine nature that He was born with. All this is to show that the Christian who is baptised in the Holy Spirit and prioritizes being filled with the Spirit (and dead to the flesh) and led by the Spirit on a daily basis has the same anointing as Jesus. The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the dead lives in us “and gives life to our mortal bodies.” (Romans 8:11)

“All authority in heaven and on earth” had been given to Jesus (Matt 28:18). God has raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in heavenly places. As His co-heirs, we share His authority when we minister in His name. Whatever we bind and loose on Earth has been bound and loosed in Heaven. (Matt 18:18) The Christian has the authority of the name of Jesus.

So the Church consists of sons (Daughters being included in all the rights of “sonship”) of God, who are born from above, filled with and led by the same Spirit that equipped Jesus for the “works of God” that He did, sent into the world to do the same works that He did and greater, with all the authority that is vested in the name that is ours by adoption. The work of Calvary was finished; complete. Jesus went to “prepare a place for us” in His Father’s house (John 14:2). That, too, is complete. We’ve already got a room in Heaven full of everything we need for our work on Earth. Finally, 2 Tim 3 16-17 says this: “All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work,” and the writer to the Hebrews prays that “the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead” will “make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. (Hebrews 13:20-21).

Jesus completed the great work of Calvary so that we can be completely full of the Spirit in order to complete “every good work” that is given us to do. Nothing is left out: not at Calvary; not in the baptism of the Holy Spirit that Jesus has passed on to us; and not in our own spiritual growth, because we are “confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in (us) will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.” (Phi 1:6). The apostle John gives us the final piece of the jigsaw: “As He was, so are we in this world.” (1 John 4:17)

Today is Pentecost Sunday. Every day can be a Pentecost for us, as we come empty of self and ask the Holy Spirit to come and fill us with God. He is not interested in dusting the surface of our lives with a powdery whiteness that will last for a few hours and fall away: He wants us to know the reality of His life in us so that we really are “able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— (that we) know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that (we) may be filled with all the fullness of God.” This, and nothing less, is the complete fruit of the complete work of Calvary.

This is our inheritance. Within the context of our individual callings, all of the anointing that was on Jesus is there for us to take hold of by faith. The complete package is ours; not just a little taste. Let us be bold enough to step out from under the influence and the unbelief of any teaching that has come to us, from within or outside of our churches, that would diminish this; and let us have the faith to see ourselves as trained-up disciples who can continue with and multiply the work of the Master until He comes back and says, once more, “It is finished.”

Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

the cup and the baptism

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“Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with? They said to Him, “We are able.” So He said to them, “You will indeed drink My cup, and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with;  but to sit on My right hand and on My left is not Mine to give, but it is for those for whom it is prepared by My Father.” (Matt 20: 22-23)

Whenever I have read these words, spoken to James and John when they asked to sit next to Jesus in Heaven, I have taken the baptism and the cup that Jesus refers to as being the same thing: the suffering that will soon overwhelm all His human senses. We know that this is definitely true of the “cup”, because He asks the Father to take it away if it were at all possible; but Jesus was always economical with His words and I don’t think He is repeating Himself here. Also, He refers to the cup as still being in the future, whereas the baptism is a present reality: it is “the baptism that I am baptized with.”

James was martyred, and tradition has it that John was as well, after his exile on Patmos; so they both drank His cup. In a wider sense we all do when we put our flesh to death with Jesus on the cross. But the only baptism that Jesus was already “baptized with” before He was crucified but which still awaited the disciples at a future time is the baptism in the Holy Spirit. When Jesus promises the Holy Spirit He tells the disciples “you know Him, for He dwells with you and will be in you.” (John 14:17). The Holy Spirit is with them while they are with Jesus, because Jesus is immersed in Him; and He will be in them from Pentecost onward.

So there are definitely two sides to the coin of discipleship: the cup and the baptism. For fruitful discipleship, which Jesus Himself tells us is true discipleship, we need them both: indeed we cannot have one without the other. If we follow the thread of what Jesus taught His disciples at their last meeting together, documented in John 12-16, we see the progression from the seed falling to the ground and dying in order to multiply, through the need to remain submitted to the word of God and to love one another (neither of which are possible if the flesh is not dead), to the provision of the Holy Spirit who will bring the multiplication of God-Life into the submitted heart where Jesus reigns.

Paul expressed his greatest desire like this: “that I may know Him and the power of His resurrection, and the fellowship of His sufferings, being conformed to His death” (Phil 3:10). The baptism and the cup. The cup and the baptism. These are the great truths of discipleship. Luke 6:40 tells us this: “A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone who is perfectly trained will be like his teacher.” At the end of the disciples’ training John gives us his account of the disciples’ commissioning: “As the Father has sent Me, I also send you. And when He had said this, He breathed on them, and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit.” (John 20: 21-22) The mighty rushing wind that came from heaven not long later came first from within Jesus, from the “baptism that He was baptized with.” Jesus sends us as He was sent, with the cup and the baptism. We can become as dead to self as He was, we can be as filled with the Spirit as He was, and that is why we can do the works that He did. This is what the Word of God tells us. Satan will do everything he can to diminish and dilute this truth. He works tirelessly to convince us that we are only insignificant shadows of the great apostles who walked with Jesus two thousand years ago. But the Word of God tells us that our discipleship can be as fruitful as that of Peter, James and John, because we have the same Spirit and the same Word, and we are following the same master. So are we dead to self, and is there no room for anything in our lives except what the Holy Spirit brings us? We know these things: blessed are we if we do them.

Living by Faith

abiding in the vine

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“If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for you. By this My Father is glorified, that you bear much fruit; so you will be My disciples.” (John 15: 7-8)

The first condition of fruitfulness as that we, as seeds, have to die to self – really, not just theoretically – in order for the abundant life of Christ in us to multiply to fruitfulness. The second condition is spelled out for us here. Fruitfulness – the manifestation of Jesus’s abundant life in us – is a direct result of us remaining ‘in the Vine,’ because when we stay in the vine, the life of the Vine flows through us and produces the fruit of – guess what – the vine. Jesus’s words “are Spirit and they are life” (John 6: 63). His words are none other than the life that flows through the vine. So when the word of God is central to our lives, the life of the Vine is flowing through us and we are “abiding” in the vine. That’s straightforward enough.

Now here comes the trickier bit. What this doesn’t mean is how much of the Bible we know. The life of the Vine doesn’t flow through our Bible scholarship. If flows through how much we do of what we know. Fortunately, while God does indeed give the Spirit without limit, He doesn’t give us lessons without limit. Jesus is the best of all teachers, and never tries to teach us more than we are capable of learning. And if we have learning difficulties (!) He will keep working with us until we are able to move on. Even if it takes 60 years…

What I believe is this: each of us has a different level of familiarity with the Bible – the Logos, the entirety of the revealed Word of God. And we may have very little difficulty in walking in many of the truths it contains. But for each of us, the Holy Spirit takes specific “rhema” words out of that logos and speaks them into our lives. To me He might be saying: “Bob, right now you really need to know what it means to die to your carnal nature.” To you He will be saying what you need to know right now. I think it’s these rhema words that we have to pay particular attention to (without disregarding the rest), because it is primarily through these that He leads us along the paths of discipleship. Just to make sure that we don’t miss the point, He tells us in verse ten “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love, just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love.”

It really isn’t complicated. The life of Christ in us flows through His Word, and His word remains in us when we act on what we know He has said. This – not the songs we sing – is how we show Him our love. If we disregard what we know He has said to us we are not loving Him and we are exiting the vine. We can’t expect His abundant Life to bring its multiplication if we are outside the Vine, so we need to get back in again as quickly as possible. Fortunately the Door is always open.

If we exit the Vine by disregarding His Word to us, we remain it by acknowledging Him in all things. He is the Sovereign Lord. All things were made by Him and are His. How many times have we heard Proverbs 3:6: “In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He shall direct your paths?” The word translated as “acknowledge” is the word yada, which means to know, including to know intimately. We need to know Him in everything. Paul puts it like this: “And whatever you do, do it heartily, as to the Lord and not to men,  knowing that from the Lord you will receive the reward of the inheritance; for you serve the Lord Christ.” (Col 3: 23-24)

But those shelves that I’ve just put up in the garden shed – surely it doesn’t matter to the Lord if I’ve just thrown them up quickly, so I could get the job done and move on to something I enjoy more than DIY (like writing this, for example)? Yes it matters. All is all; whatever is whatever. Just as dead is dead. And here’s the thing: now that I have learnt this, I will be jumping out of the Vine if I disregard it. Jesus wants us to be faithful in the little things, so that He can trust us with the big “Abundant Life” stuff. Because if we do stay in the Vine, we can ask for anything that the Life flowing through it can bring, and it will be given to us.

There’s a further dimension to this. The more we acknowledge His sovereignty in all things, the more we will be led to praise Him. The more we praise Him, the higher He is lifted in our lives, and the more we desire to be drawn into His presence. The more time we spend in His presence, the more the Life and Spirit of His word will be imparted to us, the more we will know of the life of the Vine, and the more we will see its fruit manifested in our lives. The New Living Translation renders verse eight like this: “When you produce much fruit, you are My true disciples. This brings great glory to my Father.”

We are called to multiplication. It’s what life does: cells multiply. We are called to bear the fruit of Abundant Life, for this is a sign of our discipleship, and it is what brings glory to the God who has made us His own.

A final point. Discipleship is every day, for our whole lives. Every day we “offer our bodies as a living sacrifice.” We learn to die in one thing, then in another. Then another. We remain in the vine as much in putting up shelves as in raising the dead; but we’ll never be raising the dead if our flesh is alive and we aren’t serving the Lord while we’re putting up the shelves. Remaining in the Vine is a double-decker bus journey, not a plane flight. It’s noisy and smelly and there are lots of stops. But the destination board on the front of the bus says “Kingdom of God,” and once we’ve boarded all we have to do is go upstairs and take our seat in Christ. The driver will make sure we reach the destination. What we must do is stay on board.

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

The vision of a theatre

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andrew Baker