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, Walking in the Spirit

Seated in Heavenly Places

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“In that day the LORD will defend the inhabitants of Jerusalem; the one who is feeble among them in that day shall be like David, and the house of David shall be like God, like the Angel of the LORD before them.” (Zechariah 12:8)

“His divine power has given to us all things that pertain to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him who called us by glory and virtue, by which we have been given exceedingly great and precious promises, that we may be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.” (2 Pe 1:3-4)

Who do you see in the mirror?


When speaking of the Word of God, the apostle James wrote: “For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. (James 1: 23-23) The question is, what kind of people are we, who have been born from above to “conform to the image of Christ” (Romans 8:29) Who do we see when we look in the mirror of the Word? We are the spiritual house of David that Jesus is building by the Holy Spirit (1 Pe 2:5). The prophet Zechariah doesn’t mince his words: he says that we will be “like God.” Peter says that through God’s “great and precious promises” we are “partakers of the divine nature.” Yet you don’t have to spend more than a few seconds with me to know that I am clearly not like God at all. What’s gone wrong?

Nothing, because you are seeing my flesh and not my spirit. I have already looked at our spiritual identities in “We shall be like Him,” and it seems to me that the evidence of Scripture is this: in the heavenly places where we are seated, we are like Him already, because we are already seated in the atmosphere of His glory, where nothing can dwell that is less than perfect.

Here are a few details of who we are in Christ that Scripture has sketched in for us:

“Those whom he justified he also glorified.”  (Romans 8 28-29)
“And the glory which You gave Me I have given them” (John 17:22)

We have come to “To the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect.” (Heb 12:23)

We are “crowned with glory and honour.” (Psalm 8:5)

We have places to walk in the courts of Heaven (Zech 3:7)

We can be “joyful in glory” and have the honour of “executing God’s written judgement” on the Nations (Psalm 149: 5-9).

We “Worship God in the Beauty of holiness” (Psalm 96:9)

All of these descriptions of the Saints – and there are plenty more – can only relate to our walk in the Spirit: since the flesh wars against the spirit nothing of our carnal nature can have any part in them. From the moment we are born again to the time when we join the Lord in Heaven we mature as Christians, “grow(ing) up  in all things into Him who is the head—Christ—” (Eph 5:15) as the Holy Spirit bears the fruit of Christ in our lives. But the question I am aiming at is this: is a baby Christian on Earth also a baby Christian in Heaven?

I think the answer has to be “No.” There is no passage of time in Heaven, where a year is as a thousand days, where the God who created time has reigned since before time began and where we are seated as His children together with His Son. If there is no duration in Heaven, there can also be no maturation: what we are in the Spirit is what we were created to be, as are the angels, the seraphim, the 24 elders and all the other members of the Heavenly host. I think we “grow up in all things into Him who is the head” (Eph 4:15) as, step by step, faith to faith, and obedient moment by obedient moment, we put to death our carnal natures and allow our spirits and not our flesh to do the walking.

Paul exhorts the Philippians to “Do all things without complaining and disputing, that you may become blameless and harmless, children of God without fault in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, holding fast the word of life.” (Phil 2: 14-16)

The “crooked and perverse generation” is the generation of the First Adam (See “away in a manger” for more on this). As we let the dead shell of that same carnal nature fall away, the light of Christ’s Spirit that is one with ours shines more and more strongly and brings His light into the darkness, while His Word executes His will on Earth. The process of maturing as Christians is becoming on Earth who we already are in Heaven, and in doing so becoming the answers to the Lord’s prayer: “Thy will be done, on Earth as it is in Heaven.” The correct translation of the Greek tenses in Matthew 18:18 is this: “Truly I say to you, whatever you shall bind on earth shall have been bound in heaven, and whatever you shall loose on the earth shall have been loosed in heaven.” Everything was finished at Calvary: as we grow in the Spirit we are always reaching into Heavenly places for a completed work.

Pauls prayer for the Ephesians was

“that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give to you the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him, the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints, and what is the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe, according to the working of His mighty power which He worked in Christ when He raised Him from the dead and seated Him at His right hand in the heavenly places…” (Eph 1:17-20)

It is often said that Jesus is the “bridge” from earth to Heaven. The bridge from Heaven to Earth is the Holy Spirit: the baptism in the Holy Spirit gives us all we need of Heaven’s equipping for our earthly works – “the exceeding greatness of His power toward us who believe.” The more that we can see in the mirror of God’s word who we really are, the more the eyes of our understanding will be enlightened, and the greater will be the works (John 14:12) that we will do.

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

Away in a Manger

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We Shall Be Like Him

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“Beloved, now we are children of God; and it has not yet been revealed what we shall be, but we know that when He is revealed, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.” (1 John 3:2) 

“I turned to see the voice that spoke with me. And having turned I saw seven golden lampstands,… and in the midst of the seven lampstands One like the Son of Man, clothed with a garment down to the feet and girded about the chest with a golden band… And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead. But He laid His right hand on me, saying to me, “Do not be afraid; I am the First and the Last. “I am He who lives, and was dead, and behold, I am alive forevermore. Amen. And I have the keys of Hades and of Death.” (Rev 1: 12, 13, 17, 18)

John, the author of the Book of Revelation, was the “disciple that Jesus loved.” He was the one who rested his head on the chest of Jesus at the last supper; he walked with Him for three years; he saw Him on the cross, he saw Him after the resurrection, he saw Him ascend to Heaven and he even saw Him transfigured on the mountain. What John saw on those occasions was the Son of Man in a form that his eyes could behold and his brain could – at least to a degree at the transfiguration – comprehend. And then John saw Him again, on the Isle of Patmos. He saw the same Jesus, but with His glory undimmed, and he fell at His feet “as one dead.” Whether or not he recognised the Jesus that he had seen on the Earth is not clear, but what is clear is that he responds to Him on an entirely different level.

I think it’s clear that John saw the glorified Jesus “as He is” while he was in the Spirit on Patmos. When Jesus went from Earth to Heaven he went in his earthly form; but when He comes from Heaven to Earth we can expect Him to be much as He appeared to John on Patmos: “One like the Son of Man.” John’s vision gives us an image of the Risen Lord in His heavenly glory, and his epistle tells us that when He returns we will be like Him too. So we read these verses, and look forward in our minds to the time in the future when they are fulfilled. Maybe we dwell for a few moments on the thought that one day ‘we will be like Jesus,’ then move on in our devotions or whatever we are doing. But do we ever think of ourselves as being like Him now?

Yet we, His brothers and sisters, are seated with Him in heavenly places. What are we wearing as spiritual beings in the courts of Heaven? Jeans and jumpers? Or maybe we too have shining robes and sashes of gold round our chests. Do we have bad hair and tired eyes? Or do we too have hair as white as wool and eyes as flames of fire? John says clearly that “we will be like Him” when Jesus returns, and Paul uses similar language when he looks forward to that long-awaited time: “The creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed.” (Romans 8:19)  What seems inescapable to me is that what we will be on Earth then – when “this corruptible must put on incorruption, and this mortal must put on immortality-” (1 Cor 15:53) is what our immortal spirits are in heavenly places now. Like actors on a stage waiting for the curtain to be pulled back, the children of God – you and I – who will be “revealed” when Jesus returns are already seated in heavenly places today, waiting for the time to come when we will reign with Him on Earth. (Rev 5:10)

If we are praying in the Spirit, worshipping in the Spirit, and walking in the Spirit, we need to see ourselves in the Spirit as well. We talk and teach about knowing “who we are in Christ,” and being clothed in “robes of righteousness,” so when we see our spirit selves in the heavenly mirror of the Word of God, what is the image that we behold? Our spiritual DNA is the same as the Christ who revealed Himself to John. He is our brother. We have the same Father. Is it too fanciful to believe that in Heavenly places, where our immortal spirits, “the spirits of the righteous made perfect” (Heb 12:23) by His blood, are seated with Him, serving as kings and priests to our God (Rev 1:6) we may have similar eyes as well?

We have His name. We have His Spirit. We have His word. It’s time we looked at Jesus as He is now and recognised ourselves in Him, because I think that many of us would fall on our faces, just as John did before our older brother, if we saw with the eyes of the flesh who we really are in the Spirit. But once we had told ourselves not to be afraid because we too were dead – we died with Christ – and now  we are alive for evermore, we would be much less troubled by the temptations and trials of this passing mortal realm, and our faith would be on another level.

“Awake, awake!
Put on your strength, O Zion;
Put on your beautiful garments,
O Jerusalem, the holy city! (Isaiah 52:1)

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

If Anyone loves me, He Will Keep My Word.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Christian Life, Living by Faith

By Faith

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(School of Prophesy 14 Nov 2020)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith

The Refit: Part two

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“By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.” (Hebrews 11:3)

We all know this verse – or if we don’t, it’s about time we did. What we may not be fully aware of is the full meaning of the Greek word katartizo which is translated in the above version (NKJ) as “framed”, and (weakly, I would say) as “formed” in the NIV. Here is the Strong’s definition:

“katartízō, kat-ar-tid’-zo; to complete thoroughly, i.e. repair (literally or figuratively) or adjust:—fit, frame, mend, (make) perfect(-ly join together), prepare, restore.”

This word katartizo  sits squarely on the picture of the Church’s mission plane undergoing a refit, which was one of the prophetic words brought to Wildwood and, I believe, to the wider church, on 8th Novenber. The word talks of God working on us by His creative power, so I want to unpack something of what I see in how we can respond to it. And before going any further I want to emphasise what a strong sense of His love and grace in the sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit it carries: He is going to repair, mend, and restore, both individual people and ministries. There will be adjustments to make and new parts to fit, so that we can be perfectly prepared and thoroughly complete for the mission ahead.

So I believe that God is going to refit the Church by the same process as He made the worlds, because that is what He works with. But if this is the case, Hebrews 11:3 teaches that we have to understand His workings by faith, not by human reason. Many years ago I was flying to Bolivia and was sitting in the transit lounge at Caracas (Venezuala) airport where our plane stopped to refuel. But while it was there on the tarmac just outside the transit lounge window, something else was going on. I looked on, horrified, as a mechanic with a toolbox stood at the bottom of a pair of steps, while another mechanic standing on the wing reached into one of the engines with something, shook his head, passed it down to his assistant and took something else to try.  Fortunately whatever it was must have worked, but I was very glad when that plane landed. But I don’t think God is planning a tinkering job just to get the plane over the next leg of the journey, and we cannot use the toolbox of our human reasoning on what we see in order to understand what He is going to do, because “katartizo” creates  by His Word out of things which are not visible.

We often use the word “grasp” when we talk of understanding. God has put His law into our hearts and written it on our minds: this is part of His new covenant with us. So although we cannot rationally understand the infinite dimensions of His provision, we can reach into the Spirit that He has given us and “grasp” them. I believe that this is what Jesus teaches when He talks about faith like a mustard seed in Matthew 17:20, and the faith that moves mountains in Mark 11:23. I believe that we can only do this by prayer and by revelation. So what “seeds” do we need to grasp by faith so that we can be ready for the refit? Here are four that are at the top of my list, which I offer in full knowledge of the fact that there are many, many others.

Who He is in us.
He is King of Kings and Lord of Lords; the universe was created by Him, through Him, and for Him; He is sovereign over all, and He dwells within us by His Spirit. If we worship Him in Spirit and in Truth, we acknowledge His total lordship over our lives. These are the worshippers that the Father is seeking. If we aren’t sensitive to His Spirit when we worship, we aren’t worshipping Him in spirit. If we aren’t in submission to His lordship, we aren’t worshipping Him in truth.

What He has done for us
“For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.”(Heb 10:14). Although our sanctification is an ongoing process, Jesus has made us “perfect forever” in the sight of God by His sacrifice at the Cross, “Therefore … we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus.” (Heb 10: 19) So although we may not think we are “good enough” or “mature enough” to be of any use in the purposes of God, we have all been “made perfect” before the Father and can therefore all draw near, whoever we are, to receive from His hand whatever He has for us and for those to whom He sends us.

What He has given us
As well as opening the way to the Father and giving us eternal life, giving us all the promises and principles of His Word, redeeming us from the curse if sin and death and pouring our His love and mercy into our hearts, God has given us precious and powerful gifts. Father, Son and Holy Spirit have all gifted the church and each of us as individuals in different ways. Father “has dealt to each one a measure of faith,” and we find His giftings in Romans 12: 3-8. The Son gave the five ministry gifts to the Church, and we find them in Ephesians 4: 11-12. The Holy Spirit distributes a variety of gifts “to each one as He wills” – 1 Cor 12 and 14. It is the combination of all of these gifts from the Godhead that enables the plane to fly properly as we follow the instructions that He has given us in the  flight manual – the Bible. I believe that they all need to be functioning fully if we are to be prepared for the next mission, and that God is going to focussing on all of them as part of the overhaul that He seems to be planning.

What He will do for us
He will do whatever we ask – as long as we abide in Him and His word abides in us. Greater works than Jesus did, because He has gone to the Father and left the power of resurrection life with His body, the Church. He will give us the power and authority to heal the sick, cast out demons, and raise the dead in His name. He will provide for all our need according to His riches in Glory by Christ Jesus. He will be our strength and our shield in the battles that we are going to face. He will always be with us. Whatever we give He will give to us, but according to His dimensions – pressed down and running over it will be poured into our laps. He will give us our daily bread, forgive our sins, and deliver us from evil, and His Kingdom will come, on Earth as it is in Heaven.

This list is just a faint, watery thumbnail sketch of a handful of glimpses of the mighty Lord who loves us and lives in us and whom we serve. But if we can reach out with our faith and grasp even these principles I think we can be in a place where He is able to shine the beam of His light into the machinery of the aeroplane and begin the work of the refit. And if we want to have some idea of what might come out of the hangar when God has finished the refit, and just how far beyond ‘anything we could ask or imagine’ it is likely to be, have a look at Andrew Baker’s prophesy of The Amazing Plane.

I love the sound of the word Katartizo. It’s like something out of a superhero comic book when the hero saves the day.

Ka-boom! Katartizo!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., Living by Faith

Anything You Ask: Resurrection Life

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“Lord,” I said. “I need a word from you!”

It was the evening before School of Prophesy and I felt I had nothing to bring to the group. In fact I had been feeling barren all week, so I wasn’t just asking Him for a word for School of Prophesy, it was for me as well. “John 11:22” came into my head, clear and specific. It was Martha talking to Jesus after Lazarus had been dead for four days. The verse God gave me was this:

“But even now I know that whatever You ask of God, God will give You.”

Jesus says practically the same words to us in John 14: 13. We know them well: “And whatever you ask in My name, that I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son.” John will have heard what Martha said to Jesus: he recorded it. So her words won’t have been lost on him when he heard Jesus say to the disciples who were with him, and us of course, that He would give us whatever we ask in His name, just as the Father gave Him whatever he asked. Through the Son, Abba Father is open-handed to all his children, because “both He who sanctifies and those who are being sanctified are all of one, for which reason He is not ashamed to call them brethren.” (Hebrews 2:11) Whether it is Jesus, the firstborn, who is asking, or any of His brothers and sisters, the Father will give us all whatever we ask, because He is our heavenly Father who loves us, and because by giving to us because Jesus is our brother, He is demonstrating to the principalities and powers in heavenly places that His Son is the Messiah, and that “there is no other name under Heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12)

No born again believer will deny the doctrinal truth of what I have written above. But straight away we hit a problem: our experience does not reflect the doctrine. We ask God for things, and He doesn’t give them. James addresses this when he writes: “You ask and do not receive, because you ask amiss, that you may spend it on your pleasures.” (James 4:3) Yet when we are praying for someone else and God doesn’t seem to be paying attention, are we asking for ourselves? We know that we aren’t. So the issue is never resolved, and disappointment creeps in to weaken our faith. Yet Jesus promised to give us whatever we ask in His name, and we know that He doesn’t just speak the truth; He is the Truth. So how do we understand a truth that doesn’t always ring true?

When Jesus asked for the stone to be rolled away, Martha said:  “Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.” (John 11:39) Whether we are looking at personal situations or at a global crisis, we can find ourselves in circumstances that stink. But I believe that the Lord is emphasing today that He is with us outside that tomb. Just as He promised Martha that her brother would rise again, He says to us that however hopelessly entombed and stinking our situation might be, He will bring resurrection life. He says to us, as He said to Martha: “Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?” (John 11: 40)

I don’t think that Jesus is just talking here about having faith for the specific circumstance – our “specific Lazarus.” I think a key to understanding this passage is in verses 25-27: “Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me, though he may die, he shall live. And whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die. Do you believe this?” Her answer was to say: “Yes, Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” Once she had declared the truth of His identity, the Lord never asked her whether or not she believed that Lazarus would be raised. If our hearts are full of faith in who Jesus IS, we will have no problem believing what He can DO. He is the Resurrection and the Life, and He stands with us, actually alive in the very heart of our being, outside that tomb. He will give us whatever we ask, and the answer will come in resurrection life.

How then do we keep our faith in who He is strong, until we see Him bring the answer to our prayer? We felt the Holy Spirit reminded us of three things in School of Prophesy this morning. Elaine saw in her spirit something like a heavy line drawn underneath a bank of rain-filled clouds. The rain of blessing that was in the clouds and that should have been falling was being held back. We need to discern if there is opposition to us receiving the answer to our prayers, and pray until that opposition is broken. We have the authority to bind and loose, so we might need to bind the power of the opposition and loose what is held for us in heaven so that we can receive it on earth.

Eva shared that a strategy for her to stay strong in her faith is to ask the Lord to give His peace in the area where she is awaiting her answer. Isaiah 26:3 tells us “You will keep him in perfect peace, Whose mind is stayed on You, Because he trusts in You.” Our peace comes from our trust in Jesus, and we can trust Him because we know who He is. If we find our trust is wavering and our peace is broken we need to spend some time “staying our minds on Him,” dwelling on exactly who it is that lives within us, and say with Martha: “Lord, I believe that You are the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” In that place of peace patience is born. And it is “through faith with patience” that we inherit the promises. (Hebrews 6:12)

Finally, we were reminded of the importance of praise. We don’t have to look far in scripture to find an exhortation to praise God in all our circumstances, because He is always worthy of our praise. Again, when we praise Him, we remind ourselves of who it is who is standing with us outside that tomb. Hebrews 2: 12 quotes Psalm 22:22, saying: “I will declare Your name to My brethren; In the midst of the assembly I will praise You.” When the Holy Spirit within us lifts our hearts in praise to God it is Jesus Himself praising the Father, and revealing Him to us. And not only does it do our own spirits good to praise the Lord, but the enemy hates it, as Psalm 149 vs 5-9 makes clear:

“Let the saints be joyful in glory;
Let them sing aloud on their beds.
 Let the high praises of God be in their mouth,
And a two-edged sword in their hand,
To execute vengeance on the nations,
And punishments on the peoples;
To bind their kings with chains,
And their nobles with fetters of iron;
To execute on them the written judgment—
This honour have all His saints.”

So when the situation stinks, we need to focus on who Jesus is rather than what we want Him to do. We need to stay in His peace and praise the glory of His name, and if, as we do that, any demonic powers standing in our way haven’t already fled in the face of our resistance ( James 4:7), we need to do battle with them until they have.

I believe that the Lord wants us, His Church, to expand our vision of resurrection life so that we can live in it more fully. If we think about wheels and moving vehicles our imagination will be based on what we see on the road, what we work with, what’s on our drive or what we would like to see on our drive. But it will all be rooted in our experience. We catch a glimpse of God’s version of wheels and moving vehicles in Ezekiel 1 16-21. Here is just one detail: “As for their rims, they were so high they were awesome; and their rims were full of eyes, all around the four of them…” Because Jesus has gone to the Father, we will do greater works than He did, provided that we believe in Him: “Most assuredly, I say to you, he who believes in Me, the works that I do he will do also; and greater works than these he will do, because I go to My Father.” (John 14:12) Jesus doesn’t elaborate on how much “greater” these works will be, but Andrew Baker catches a glimpse of it in the “Amazing Plane” vision that God gave him recently. It’s worth reading Andrew’s prophesy again and revisiting Ezekiel 1, and asking the Lord to expand our vision of what we can expect from Him.

I am not writing this out of my own imagination or knowledge. The same afternoon as our John 11:22 meeting, Muyiwa (one of our group if you aren’t at Wildwood Church) received a message from an aunt in Nigeria. It started: MATTHEW 7:7 “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the  door will be opened to you.” God confirmed His word from thousands of miles away. Another one of our group, Linda, needed a riser recliner chair for her disabled father-in-law. Not an everyday requirement. We are clearing my late mother-in-law’s house on Wednesday, where there are two. God is speaking to us, and He wants us to walk in the truth of what He is saying. Nothing is impossible for our God. The wheels on His vehicle are awesome.

The answers to our prayers are being stored up, and when they come they will come in resurrection life. I believe the time is coming soon that the church is being preparing for now, when He will do “exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us.” We will “run against horses.” (Jer 12:5). Our enemies will “come out against you one way and flee before you seven ways.” (Deut 28:7). Our calling until that time is to ask the Father, in the name of Jesus, to bring resurrection Life into those stinking situations that currently appear to be entombed in a cave, to thank Him for the answers that are on their way, and to wait in faith, peace, patience and praise until we see them arrive. Because we believe that Jesus, who lives in us by His Spirit and who stands with us outside the tomb, is “the Christ, the Son of God, who is to come into the world.” We need who He is to come into our thinking.

Living by Faith, Prophesy and the prophetic

The Amazing Plane

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A prophesy given to Andrew Baker, of Make Way Ministries
19 September 2020

My wife Carole sang the most beautiful song this morning in the Spirit. I came and sat quietly in the presence and the Holy Spirit gave me an amazing vision.

I was taken to an airfield, quite a large airfield, but clearly a military one, and I saw rows of jets, all the usual type of aircraft that are used in a war, lots of these that have been used for many years. Helicopters, large bombers, jets; all the usual conventional kind of aircraft. Many of the pilots were standing on the steps by their planes.

Suddenly a big hangar door opened on the right hand side of my picture and out was pulled the most amazing new aircraft I’ve ever seen. Its nose was down at the front, pointed down, stubby, not like the Concorde. It was long, like a passenger plane with windows and yet somehow it could be concertinaed into a small plane. The wings were very long and wide and yet somehow they too could be concertinaed into a small unit. It was a multi-purpose plane. One minute it looked like a fighter; there were guns all over it of the most amazing kind. I have never seen anything like it as a jet plane; yet, another minute it was a harmless looking humongous size passenger plane, obviously had bombing facilities there were right out of sight.

This was a plane that I think the world would call a ‘new generation’ of plane. This was just so amazing that all the pilots stood on their steps by their little jets and by their bombers with her mouths open, looking in amazement to see what this was. The public came against the fence around the outside of the airfield and they were all looking aghast! Everyone in the tower, yes, everyone was amazed. What is this amazing looking plane? It was a completely new weapon.

The Lord said to me that this represents you, it represents every individual in the body of Christ, those who will listen. It represents every group who will listen, every church, every business, every organisation or Association who will listen to what I’m saying in these days. It’s been like Jonah in the whale’s belly: the church, you, everyone who is listening and who is flexible and willing to do things My way, is in this situation. You have been like Jesus in the tomb, all waiting to come forth. When Jesus came forth, it was with a new authority and power even greater than anything He’d used on the earth! He was raised to the fullness of life as king of kings and Lord of lords with all authority and power in heaven and on earth.

It’s the same with Christians today who are listening to God. We’ve been in the hangar, out of sight, being prepared. Most of the conventional methods of preaching the gospel in the western world are no longer really working. Christians are trying to use the existing methods from the last season to deal with situations that are going on at the beginning of this new season, and, yes, of course, they are still useful but there is no longer the level of power needed.

These are the days when the devil is throwing everything at this world to try to stop Jesus returning. The power of darkness is trying to completely shroud the sun. The power of darkness is appearing and we think of it as Covid, as plastic pollution, as climate change, as financial collapse, as terrorism, as hackers, of wars, of floods, of fires, to mention but a few of the plagues on the earth at this time. The world is falling apart but these issues that we see now are just like pimples on the skin; we have not yet seen the skin break and the puss ooze out from under it yet. The devil is fighting his final battle to try and stop Jesus returning. We are living in those days. So, Christ has to raise up his church, just as he said he would, that will show and manifest who He really is to the powers and principalities of darkness – Ephesians 3:10, “…that now the manifold wisdom of God may be made known by the church to the principalities and powers in the heavenly places.”

This is the war, these are the days we are living in, but God’s people are being filled with power and rebuilt into a new form, as it were, for this battle. We will see God’s people getting stronger, God’s people going uphill as the world is going downhill. Favour and even provision will be upon the people of God who will listen, take heed and follow the leading of the Holy Spirit into this new season.

There needs to be a new level for the Christian today to impact what is going on in the world. The same Holy Spirit, the same Christ, just manifesting in a fresh way. Now Christ Jesus will come through His church in a power and authority not seen before in the earth, not even seen by religious leaders who will all stand aghast looking at this move of God. It will bring revival and reformation, restoration and renewal. It will bring change. It will bring light in the darkness and it will prepare the way.

The people of God will move in power and provision. They’ll find themselves in positions like Joseph, like Daniel. They’ll find themselves in all kinds of authority around the earth and people will look to them in order to see how to get out of the position that the world is in. They will bring people to the hope of life. This new move will be brought by Jesus Christ Himself through His church in these last days.

It will be because of His power, the power of the Holy Spirit, the power of angels, that these things will come to pass: “‘Not by might, nor by power (man’s power) but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.” (Zech 4:6).

The plane is ready to be brought out onto the runway now. So, now you know why you’ve been hidden, why as a leader you were asking ‘what do I do?’ ‘I can’t quite see, I can’t quite understand’. Of course, you wouldn’t understand. If you were told to be expecting to host and teach a group of people, to get ready for them, and last year and the year before you had 30 people for each event you held, then you would expect 30 people again, perhaps plus a few more. In the new season, maybe 1000 people suddenly arrive!!

If you were used to dealing with small devils and now a principality comes against you, you would not have been prepared unless the Lord had pulled you aside and rebuilt a completely new you in the Spirit! If you have always been used in a particular way in the kingdom, it may well surprise you that God may want to use you in a completely different way!

So it will be on the face of the earth that that which we are being prepared for right now is ‘out of this world’ and is, indeed from ‘out of this world’. It’s beyond our thinking, beyond our understanding. This is the new plane that now will emerge from the hanger… and then, after this last warfare, Jesus returns. Amen  

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

The Ride up the Mountain

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The Lord has taken his people off the road and He is leading us up a mountain track on mountain bikes. He says: “This is a new way that you haven’t been along before. You’re no longer in your vehicles, driving along the road that you are used to. This is my way. I am your guide and only I can lead you. I am drawing you closer to me as you move up the mountain track. You feel exposed and vulnerable on your bikes, because I am calling you in these days to be close to me and to rely on me. You do not have a vehicle to rely on, you cannot just follow the voices and the direction of others, because I am teaching you to rely on hearing my voice and seeing my direction for yourself. And I am saying to you keep moving, keep turning the pedals, because as you do your bicycle will stay upright, even though you can’t see round the next bend in the track. There will be times when your paths cross the paths of others who are also on their bikes on their own paths up the Mountain. You will stop and share refreshments with them, you will encourage each other and share stories about your journey, then you will go your separate ways and move on, always with me and always up the mountain.

There will be times when you will come to settlements hidden in little folds of the mountain, little groups of lights clustered together. You will get off your bike in these places and rest a while, and while you are resting I will overhaul your bike, oiling the chain, pumping up the tyres, tightening nuts and replacing broken spokes, and then you will get on again to continue your journey, always with me and always up the mountain. You are not in a vehicle loaded with equipment to carry out work, because you’re not working; you’re concentrating on riding your bike with me. For it is I the Lord who do the work in you and through you. And you will not always even see what I am doing. You will say “Nothing is happening! I am just on my bike all alone on this mountain!” But do not fear and do not be discouraged, because I am always with you and I am always working. You just have to keep moving forward towards the top, enjoying my presence and the beauty of my creation.

All the time you keep moving, you are being strengthened for what lies ahead and purified by the mountain air. And as you move towards the top, you will also be drawing closer to each other as your paths converge. Then the time will come when you reach the summit and you find yourselves all gathered together in one place. For this is My Mountain, My Holy Mountain. And your purpose in climbing it until you are all gathered together at the summit is to receive me and welcome me when I return for you, my bride, prepared and purified through your journey, spotless and without blemish.

And I will be returning for you just in the same way as I left this earth, at the top of the mountain.