Tag Archives: draw near to God

Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

The Passion of Agape: Love and Fire in Revival

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“Oh God of burning, cleansing flame,
Send the fire!
Your blood-bought gift today we claim,
Send the fire today!”
(William Booth)

Before Jesus saved me back in 1984, I was a New Ager. An old friend who knew me then – in fact he was one of the people who were praying for us at the time – has just sent me the following email: “Thought this might grab you.  Two New Agers moved to Stroud because they thought that’s where they’d find the answers.  Eventually, they turned up at John Street Baptist Church saying, “The New Age hasn’t worked.  What have you got to offer?” They became Christians and brought lots of friends along so that the New Age enquirers started to outnumber the members…”

God is clearly starting to move. People are hungry. But unless we are hungry for God ourselves we cannot expect to share our bread with others. The following is an extract from Wheat in The Winepress: I wrote this passage in 2017, but I’ve been feeling for the last couple of days that it’s appropriate to release it again now.

Our element
The zeal of the Lord of Hosts, the fire of the Holy Spirit which Jesus sends onto the world, and the perfect love, the agape, that casts out fear are all bound together: zeal expresses agape, agape sends zeal. Together they express the passion of the heart of God that yearns for the restoration of His Kingdom and the marriage of the Lamb. This is the Love that Jesus tells us to abide in. Like water to fish, as I’ve already said, the “sea of pure divine love” that they experienced at Azuza Street is actually the element in which we are called to live. It is no coincidence that the greatest miracles happened there when the fire was visibly present.

It is often said that in the developed, “free” world we don’t see the miracles of healing that seem to be much more the norm in third world countries and the persecuted Church. I, for one – and I think I speak for many here – have always explained this by saying “we think we don’t need faith: we have medicine!”   But as we know, Paul tells us that what counts – the only thing that counts – is “faith working through love” (Gal 5:6). Even if I have the faith that moves mountains, without love I am nothing (1 Cor 13:2). I don’t think it’s the faith that sets these churches apart, so much as the love through which it is working. They “love each other fervently, with a pure heart.” They need each other, are committed to each other, and are contemporary expressions of the Church of Acts 4. They are one as the Father and the Son are one. Their unity commands the blessing. Because they are obedient to the command to “love one another” they receive what they ask from the Father. They are swimming in that sea of perfect Love; they are abiding in Christ, immersed in the river of Ezekiel 47; they are in their element. Am I? Are you? Or are we fish out of water, flapping about on the deck, gasping for Life in the Spirit, knowing that there should be more but somehow unable to reach for it? 

The longing of the Bride and the Groom
Wherever it is that we see the fire burning today, or if we look into history and see where it has been, we find the same initial spark: Christians who are hungry for more of God. Not just a little bit more – “If I clear the cluttered desk of my life – actually no, just my church meeting as long as You don’t stay too long – a bit, I can fit a bit more of you on this corner, God” – but really MORE; the more that will take us from our dimension into His. “Lord, I’m sweeping everything off my desk. Will You come and fill it? Nothing else will do!”

The cry of the heart, a two-word prayer, that went out from Toronto in 1994 and still goes out today was “More, Lord!” Another two-word prayer that I remember singing as a worship song in a UK Catch the Fire meeting in 1995 was “Yes, Lord!”. If we want More, first we really need to be hungry: it’s “the effective fervent prayer of a righteous man (that) avails much” (James 5:16); and second: God wants our total Yes.

The story of Gideon shows us how we can respond when God’s fire begins to take hold. If we want to see in the Word how the fire starts we need to look elsewhere: not to a New Testament treatise on the Holy Spirit, or to an Old Testament prophesy of Holy outpouring, but to the love poem on the longing of the bride and the groom for one another. As the unfolding of the intimacy between the Shulamite and The Beloved draws to a close, the bride says, in words that encapsulate the essence of the zeal of the Lord:

 “Set me as a seal upon your heart,
As a seal upon your arm;
For love is as strong as death,
Jealousy as cruel as the grave; 
Its flames are flames of fire,
A most vehement flame” (Song, 8:6)

The jealous, passionate love of the Father and the Son, burning in the fire of the Holy Spirit: for the bride of the Bible, nothing else will do. Before the Beloved comes to her, He asks for one thing:

“You who dwell in the gardens,
The companions listen for your voice –
Let me hear it!” (Song 8: 13)

And the bride responds, to end the poem:
“Make haste, my beloved,
And be like a gazelle
Or a young stag
On the mountains of spices.” (Song 8: 14)

Not even Jesus could tell us when He is going to return, but we know two things. One is a collection of signs of the end of the age that He gives us in Matthew 24 – signs which many would say are being fulfilled in our day. The other thing that we know is that He will come in response to hearing our voice. “Let me hear you call me!” says Jesus, the Beloved. ‘Let me hear you say the words “Make Haste, my Beloved!” I want you to be hungry for Me!’ At the very end of the Bible we hear the echo of the Shulamite’s response: “And the Spirit and the Bride say, ‘Come!’” And we hear the Beloved say: “Let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely.” (Rev 22:17)

It’s not just the Bride who calls out; it’s the Spirit and the Bride. Just as Jesus completed the work that the Father gave Him to do at the cross, the Holy Spirit will one day complete the work that He has been given to do on the earth: the preparation of the Bride for the marriage of the Lamb, and the handing over of the kingdoms of the world to the kingdom of our God and His Christ. And as individuals and churches, we are ready when we hear Him ask us to call out to Him. We are ready when we acknowledge that we are thirsty. We are ready when we desire to freely take the water of life. According to the Song of Songs, this will be when we say “More Lord, Yes Lord, nothing but the most vehement flame will satisfy!” 

The Fullness of God
One final thing we can be sure of is this: when holy fire does bring revival to our street, it won’t be anything like what we expect. However in the parable of the ten virgins (Matt 25: 1-13) Jesus does make it clear what we have to do: we need to be ready for Him with our lamps trimmed and full of oil. This isn’t just about trimming wicks: it’s about the whole lamp. The Strong’s definition of the Greek word for “trimmed”, kosmeō (from which comes our word “cosmetic”) means to arrange, decorate, adorn, or put in order. In the book of Revelation the seven lampstands represent the seven churches that the risen Lord is walking among (Rev 1:20). Jesus wants our churches to be brimming with the oil of the Holy Spirit, and beautified with all the fruit of lives laid down, hungry for Him.

The last words of Christ’s prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane were this: “I have declared to them Your name, and will declare it, that the love with which you loved Me may be in them, and I in them” (John 17:26). The Greek word onoma, name, means more than just the epithet by which a person is called – it refers to everything associated with the name, including character, rank, and all attributes. Jesus is saying that He has revealed the fullness of the Father to His disciples: as He said, “If you’ve seen me, you’ve seen the Father.” And He says He will reveal the fullness of the Father in the future: “I will declare it.” How? By the Holy Spirit, whom He will send to bring the same revelation that the twelve had when they were with Him. Why? So that His agape may be in us. The agape of God being poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us is the fulfilment of John 17:26. Jesus tells us that it is by our love that the world will know we are His disciples. I don’t think that this is about the world looking at us and just seeing how much we love each other, or even looking at our humanitarian efforts and seeing how much we love the world. It means that when we truly walk in His agape WE WILL DO THE WORKS THAT HE DID, and revival will follow. This was Heidi Baker’s experience in Mozambique, and surely this is true discipleship.

Paul prayed (Eph 3 14-21) that we would be filled with all of God – the “fullness” of God, meaning that no aspect of the Divine nature (see 2 Peter 3-4) would be missing from our lives. This fullness comes from yielding our vain understanding to the truth that the Agape of Christ goes beyond anything we can humanly grasp; that it surpasses or goes beyond anything that we can call knowledge. Paul begins by praying that, with all the riches of His Glory at His disposal, God would give us the supernatural ability, the dynamis power, to enable the faith to rise in our hearts that Christ will make His home there as He promises (John 14:23). Paul uses the word katoikeō, meaning to dwell, inhabit, be always present. This prayer, for them and for us, is that the indwelling Christ would become a present, manifest reality in our lives so that agape can become the foundation for all we are and all we do; that Jesus would hold our gaze with that most vehement flame, reaching out through us with supernatural gifts to the people we are with, lifting our hearts into heavenly glory as we worship, and opening the storehouses of Heaven to all our needs as we bring His fire to the earth.

We are rooted and grounded in agape when the manifest presence of God is a reality in our lives and we walk in intimacy with Him, and this can only happen when we fully die to ourselves and yield our hearts to the mighty power of the Holy Spirit. Without dynamis there is no Gideon’s army and there is no agape; and without agape there will always be wheat in the winepress.

A picture has been with me as I have been thinking about this over the last few days, and it’s that of a bonfire that has burnt down from its original intensity and where the burning sticks have been scattered on the ground, charred black in places, still glowing red in places with a few small flames licking around them. I believe this is a picture both of the Church – where the sticks are individual congregations – and of churches, where the sticks are individual believers. For centuries the devil has been poking and scattering, isolating people, isolating congregations, always working to destroy unity and weaken the Church. I believe that God is gathering those burning pieces of wood together. He is leaning over them, His heart bursting with love, the marriage of the Lamb bright in His vision, blowing, blowing, blowing. As He rearranges those embers and burning brands new relationships will be formed and old structures broken. To be an army of Gideons in these last days we need to let Him gather us where the flames are and let His agape fill our lives: then we can set our world on fire.

(Adapted from “Wheat in the Winepress,” MD Publishing 2018)

Christian Life, Walking in the Spirit

Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength

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Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the LORD,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.

He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.

Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall,

But those who wait on the LORD
Shall renew their strength;
They shall mount up with wings like eagles,
They shall run and not be weary,
They shall walk and not faint.

(Isaiah 40: 28-31)

I have always seen “waiting on the Lord” in the context of extended time frames: waiting for the Holy Spirit to show up in a worship service; waiting for an answer to prayer; waiting days or weeks for a word from God before making a decision. In addition, I have never thought deeply about running and not growing weary, or walking and not growing faint, although in my advancing years I certainly look longingly at those verses and hope they will apply to my physical state. Mounting on wings like eagles has been a  metaphor for growth, increase, victory, in fact any undefined superior state that can be attained under God’s blessing: the verse has never had a very practical application for me, just a rather undefined sense of promise that I can’t say I have often known to materialise outside of some worship services where “rising up” to a higher level of worship in the Spirit has been the goal. I have never applied the scripture to short term, immediate contexts.

Until today. When I was a child, my mother used to say to me “Bobby, you’re always rushing.“ (A word to the wise: if you know me, please do not call me Bobby!) It’s a character trait I’ve battled with (or maybe so much not battled as be driven by…) all my life. I’m a “fast adopter“ when it comes to decision-making; I tend to try to do things quickly so I can finish them rather than aim for thoroughness ; I seem to miss significant details on the few occasions when I’m trying to think things through, and – probably most importantly – I tend to say the first thing that comes into my head in conversation without really checking if it’s coming from a positive or a negative place. This is at age 74, after more than 40 years of being a Christian, when I really should know better. Not much about me seems to have slowed down except my body.

But this morning I saw these verses differently. It was in an all too familiar context, where I had gone into something without giving it sufficient forethought, when I realised that “waiting on the Lord“ can also mean waiting for as short a time as a few seconds for my flesh to die and “the wisdom from above” to rule my thinking before responding to words or circumstances. And then I saw the rest of the scripture. Mounting on Eagles wings takes me into the heavenly places where my new man is seated in Christ, where I can draw on all I have been given in the Spirit. When I do this, I renew my strength in the Lord. I can “walk worthy of my calling” (Eph 4:1) and “not grow weary of doing good.“ (Galatians 6:9). I can “run with perseverance to race marked out for us,“ not growing faint, but “fixing my eyes on Jesus the author and finisher of my faith.“ (Hebrews 12:1–2)

When we “mount up with wings like eagles” we take our place in the Spirit, in the Lord who “neither faints nor is weary.” We don’t grow faint or weary because He doesn’t, and we are in Him. Out of His unsearchable understanding comes the wisdom we need, “the wisdom from above,” which is “ first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without partiality and without hypocrisy. (James 3:17). In our weakness we are strong. (2 Cor 12:10)

Verse 30 says this:
“Even the youths shall faint and be weary,
And the young men shall utterly fall…”

I have always seen this verse as a dramatic contrast with the favourable consequences of waiting on the lord in the rather woolly sense that I have always understood it, but now I understand it more as a contrast between walking ( or running) after the flesh, which always leads to failure, and walking in the Spirit. “Waiting on the Lord” becomes taking the time to step  into the Spirit  – or as Graham Cooke calls it, to “step back into the Lord” – to receive all that there is for our situation from where we are seated in Christ in heavenly places. Yes, we need to wait for Him in our meetings if we want to see the power of God move and His Presence fall. Yes, we need to wait in faith for Him to answer our prayers. But, and just as importantly, we need to wait for Him in the dynamic of our daily walk with God if we want to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh.

In the light of this, the urgency of psalm 27:14 takes on a new meaning:

“Wait on the LORD;
Be of good courage,
And He shall strengthen your heart;
Wait, I say, on the LORD!”

Let’s do it. It appears to be a recommended route to victory in Christ.

Knowing God, Walking in the Spirit

The Diffuser

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A poem by Konna Thompson

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

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

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

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

Anoint me

Discipleship and witness, Knowing God

The Call of the Dove

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The word of God, Walking in the Spirit

Walking in Newness of Life

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The God  who is Love created man in His image, so we were made in the image of Love. Satan marred that image with sin, so the foundation of God’s design for society was ruined, and love was replaced by the Law. God’s perfection and beauty could be found in His Law (See all of Psalm 119), but for men, even the priesthood and the Levites, the dedicated servants of God, it was impossible for that Godliness to be reflected in their behaviour. As we learn from Romans 7, “The Law is holy, and the commandment holy and just and good … but sin, that it might appear sin, was producing death in me through what is good.” (Romans 7:12) Instead of living in the freedom and safety of Love – the fulfilment of the Law – human beings outside of Christ are now only free and safe to the extent that sinful behaviour is held in check by law. The law is like the sign that says “don’t step on the grass:” Since by its nature sin always looks for ways to bypass the law and step on the grass, law is always multiplying to keep pace with sin.

Recently I saw a village primary school with a tree in the grounds. It was the beginning of the school day. Children were climbing the tree and swinging on the branches. There was no visible supervision, although various parents were around, dropping their children off. It was a happy, joyful scene. I thought: “Goodness, this is wonderful. Children climbing the tree, doing what God designed them to do, with no health and safety police wagging their fingers? I must take a photo!” Then a second thought came hard on its heels. “No, you can’t take a picture. The safeguarding police say No.”

In the world, the law of sin and death proliferates, both in fact driven by fear: fear of death (in this case, health and safety) and fear of sin (safeguarding.) But in the Kingdom of God there is a different order, because peace has come to Earth:

“For He himself is our Peace, who has made both one, having broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in his flesh the enmity, that is the law of Commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that he might reconcile them both to himself in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity.”  (Ephesians 2:14–16).

On one level, Paul is writing in this scripture about the enmity between “those who are near and those who are afar off,“ (Eph 2:17) that is the Jews and the Gentiles. The Jews are “near“ because they were chosen by God to manifest Him to the world through their obedience to his law; the Gentiles are “far off“ because they are lost in carnality and enslaved to the world’s thinking. But there is a deeper level, another war, a level of reality in the spirit that is represented by the two people groups. The enmity between Jew and Gentile represents the war between flesh and spirit that Paul refers to in the epistles to the Galatians and the Romans:

“The flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh, and these are contrary to one another, so that you do not do the things that you wish.“ (Galatians 5:17) 

When Paul writes to the Romans he says: “I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.” (Romans 7:22), and in verse 23 he calls it “the law of my mind:” “But,” he says, “I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members.” (Romans 7:23) The “war” between the law of God and the law of sin that Paul describes here is the same as the battle between flesh and Spirit that he writes about to the Galatians. His terminology has evolved (His epistle to the Galatians was the first one written) but the conflict is the same – whether it’s called flesh against Spirit; the law of sin against the law of God, Gentile against Jew.

We (or at least I) tend to polarise our thinking, with the result that our drive is to be “more spiritual” at the expense of the flesh which, as we know, has to die. But the key is not to strive to crucify the flesh, but to recognise that Jesus Himself is our peace because, as Ephesians 2:14 makes clear, “He has broken down the middle wall of separation.” He has put to death the enmity by creating in himself “one new man from the two.” When we step back into Jesus, the Word made flesh, we step into the peace that He has created, where the flesh is no longer captive to sin but merges with the spirit in one new creation, and we are no longer striving against the law of God, but seeking to fulfil it in faith and love.

I was in the Spirit one day; it was sunny outside, and the thought came to me: “I fancy going birdwatching this morning, instead of sitting here having a quiet time.” I said: “Lord, I fancy going birding now. What should I do” He said, “Do what you like.” So I thought about that, and decided that what I liked doing just then, rather than going out looking for birds to photograph, was sitting with Jesus and studying is word with Him. So that’s what I did, and in the few minutes that followed received a revelation that I will share in another post. And I learnt an important truth: whatever we do when we walk in newness of live is going to be in His will.

Paul first explores the idea of the wall of separation in the letter to the Galatians, when he says “In Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avail anything, but a new creation.” (Gal 6:15). We often say/hear/read statements like this; “I keep putting my flesh on the altar, but it keeps climbing off again!” I wonder if this is because we haven’t grasped the reality of who we are as new creations in Christ, where flesh and Spirit have become one in Him? In His Kingdom, religion and carnality are both equally irrelevant, as they play no part in the new creation. If we overlay Galatians 6: 15 with Galatians 5:6, which is “in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avail anything, but faith working through love,” we find an equation that states “a new creation is faith working through love.”

If this is true, and scripture confirms it is – because “without faith it is impossible to please God,” and “unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” – our actions must always be not only carried out in a spirit of love, but in a place of faith, if we are to be walking “in newness of life”, living as new creations. Does this mean our actions “avail nothing” in the Kingdom of God unless we are in some way walking on the water and trusting God for the miraculous? I don’t think so. Since “faith comes from hearing,” I think we are walking in faith whenever we hear God directing our steps and do – or don’t do – whatever it is He says. We are in faith whenever we allow Him to guide us with His eye (Psalm 32:8). Our faith is in the person of Jesus: not just because the righteousness of God that is ours by faith is going to clothe us in white and give us a place at the wedding banquet, but because in Him, clothed in Him, we live our lives as new creations in a world that is passing away, “in the midst of a crooked and perverse generation.” (Phil 2:15) And when, by faith, we are in Christ, then our deeds will be directed by love, because God is Love.

One of the leaders at a recent Alpha that we ran at our church bought a little toy bus for a child who loved busses, and left it on the table at the Alpha meeting. A young man on the course noticed the bus, and asked about it. “There’s a kid I often see at work who has got a thing about busses. I saw this and bought it for him.” The young man was so touched that someone would go out of their way to buy a toy bus for a child that he had no real relationship with, just because “the kid loves busses,” that he realised in that moment that the love of Jesus was actually a reality that directed people’s lives, and gave his life to Christ. Buying the bus didn’t require miraculous provision; it just required responding to a prompting from the Lord and doing a small act of kindness. Faith working through love, at the heart of the new creation, availing much for the Kingdom of God.

The scriptures give us many analogies for living out our lives as new creations, as children of the Kingdom and not of the world. Paul likes the image of putting on clothes: “clothe yourselves with the Lord Jesus Christ, and do not think about how to gratify the desires of the flesh.” (Romans 13:14), or “put on the new man which was created according to God, in true righteousness and holiness.” (Eph 4:24) We “put on the armour of God,” and we “put on” Christ’s own character (Col 3:12-17). But to put on clothes we need to go to the wardrobe, and this wardrobe only exists in one place, and that is heaven. We may call it spiritual realms, or heavenly places, or, as both Jesus and Paul do, just “above;” but it’s the place where Christ is seated. “Seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” (Col 3:1-2) And just like the atmosphere of places on earth are unmistakeable and tell us clearly where we are – be it beach, forest, desert, mountain or city – heaven too has its own atmosphere. It’s the atmosphere of rest.

Rest (katapausis) is a state of the environment. When the Father finished the work of creation He rested. “Rest“ refers to the state of Tranquility, literally a “calming of the winds.” It is the atmosphere of heaven, the atmosphere of the Spirit. God instituted the Sabbath day for men to keep holy, so that His creation could share something of the atmosphere of rest in which He dwells. Peace (eirēnē), however, is a state of the soul. It’s an experience. Jesus gives us His peace. He’s the prince of peace, He made peace when He broke the wall of division between Jew and Gentile, and all they represent, at the cross. Peace is what we experience when we are at rest, when the winds have stopped.

The Prince of Peace is also Lord of the Sabbath. Jesus is lord of our circumstances and Lord of our souls. The writer to the Hebrews exhorts us to “diligently enter into that rest,” (Hebrews 4:11), and affirms that “we who have believed“ have done so (Hebrews 4:3); while Peter, quoting the psalmist, exhorts us to “seek peace and pursue it.” The peace that Jesus gives us, “not as the world gives,“ is our experience of the spiritual atmosphere of heaven.

And here’s the thing: we cannot put on Christ unless we go to the wardrobe, the place of God’s rest, and if we’re not experiencing peace we haven’t entered it, and so we’re in the wrong place. We will either be operating out of our carnality or out of the religion that tries to control it (and religion has many spiritual disguises), but we won’t be where the wall of division has been broken down. To “seek peace and pursue it” is more than just trying to calm down, and more even than trying to seek the face of Jesus: it is to ensure that we are walking in newness of life, because nothing else avails anything for the Kingdom of God.

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

The Big Reshuffle

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Prophesy from Andrew Baker for 2025

There is coming a big reshuffle, a time, a season, in fact a year, to put things in place for this new season. There will be a very big, noisy rattling, like going over rapids, a time such has not seen been seen before. There will be an upheaval of nations all over the world. There will be a repositioning and a realigning in the practical, financial and even the spiritual area, affecting your position and call, and all aspects, in fact, of ministry. There will be a recalibration, a shifting, so that God’s people, and many others in the secular world, are ready for 2026 onwards.

2025 is the year of holding tight to God as He moves things about. Huge changes are coming; new things and developments appearing; fresh ways of looking at things and new ways to accomplish them.

His people will be required to have a deeper walk of faith, walking right in the centre of corruption at many levels, yet holding the light of the Lord to show the way. God will position His people, and those secular people whom He will use, to bring light, hope, provision and direction during an upheaval that’s coming next in the world and in the church.

Do not panic, be calm. Get the lifeboats ready and practise your drills. This is a different year, 2025, not the same as any other you have experienced. Lay down the thinking that says that things can only be done the way they have always been done. Be free and flexible to operate in new ways, methods and plans. He can see ahead, now He wants you to understand the reality and get ready now! Change is here. You have not been this way before.

God’s ministers will loose, release and relinquish many things and people, even projects. You will collect many new ones but also there will be many challenges but also answers from heaven that you have not seen before, in your lifetime.

It’s a time to step up to the plate and do things you felt unable to do before. Get yourself ready in mind and in faith. Great is your God in the midst of you. He will enable you, bless you, anoint you, fill you and give you all you need in every way. His people will become the head and not the tail. Eventually, His leaders will help people into safety, like an ark, from drowning.

This is the season, enter it with joy and faith. There will be new adventures, and 100% commitment and submission will be required of God’s children and servants. Now the miracles, rescues, upbuilding of new, of good things, and the falling of old things. This is your day coming now. 2025 is your Esther season, Esther chapter 4 verse 14. This is your time, your moment, your season, your era. Don’t miss this! Rise up and be the ones who would take hold of the season with great courage. Be like Jesus, who for the joy set before Him in eternity, endured the cross as well as brought changes to the world. It is not a time to think of self, but to expand the kingdom of God. Be God’s people of this final season! Be those who will give, release, loose, relinquish, and yet pick up, run with and enjoy it, gathering, on the way forwards, an abundance of all that is needed and many new believers, too. It’s time to disciple the new and the younger; teaching with your experience, showing them how to walk in faith and in power. It’s time to see the last revival and the resources to do the job.

This is a time of fire and faith, not fear. It is a time for victory, not running from the enemy, for believing, rising up and seeing the kingdom increase in depth, height, wisdom, numbers, and, in particular, commitment to Jesus.

There will be an upheaval of nations, world finances, climate issues, lawlessness, power struggles and all that goes with this. You have authority and peace in Me. Take up your positions, allow the preparations to take place step by step, during the coming year, as you hear and obey. These changes and directions are not just to carry you through future issues coming on the earth and in the church, but are to give you the foreknowledge, the ability and the enabling to help so many more. The Lord is saying that we must now take time aside and meditate on these things.

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

Pure Joy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Knowing God

The Good Shepherd and the lost sheep

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

The waters are rising

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Every year there is a wildlife spectacle on the Dee estuary (in NW England), when the high Spring tide floods the saltmarsh and sometimes comes right up to the sea wall. Hundreds of small animals are driven inshore; the roosting and feeding birds fly up and wheel around – and the gulls and birds of prey gather for the feast, Birdwatchers came from all around to watch the spectacle. I was there on the day of the highest tide of the year – over ten metres – standing on the rocks of all that remains of an old ruined quay, and as the waters ran in across the marsh and past where I was standing I sensed the Lord speaking through it:

“The waters are rising. The waters are rising and covering the low ground. Those who dwell in the marshes will rise up and panic, running from the racing tide or wheeling around and crying: “Where is my resting place? Where is my supply?” But I say I’m flooding the marshes. Even now you are seeing My waters rise, and have seen the floods begin, but I say that a time will come and is coming shortly when the flood will speed up. There will be times of suddenly, when the waters break through in different places one after the other, and men will run between them with their sandbags to try to plug the breeches, but the waters will continue to rise and the streams run together until they change the landscape completely. This will happen quickly. Nothing will stand before My Waters. So I say to you now, come onto higher ground, find your resting place on My rock. Come now, while you can. I will feed you and keep you safe, I will give you all that you need as you watch in amazement what I the Lord am doing. And when the floods recede you’ll see a different landscape, and you will walk with Me in the places where I will take you.”

Hebrews 6: 16-18 says that we “have fled for refuge to lay hold of the Hope set before us. This Hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and stead fast, and which enters the presence behind the veil.”

The only safe place where we can flee for refuge is in the Presence of God. While the world flees from the waters, we must flee to the One who holds them in His hand. He will “show us the path of life, and in His presence is fullness of Joy.” Psalm 16:11. The call to “come up higher” has been echoing round the Church increasingly in the last few years, whether this has been in prophetic words given at large and small assemblies, released in prophetic forums or written in books. It tends to be an exhortation that some run to, thirsty for more of the Holy Spirit, and which others leave for those that do the running. The “higher ground” is seen as that place of more intense spiritual experience; of deeper love and more profound worship in the presence of God, where we may well walk in greater spiritual authority and more effective ministry but which is not so relevant to our day to day lives. And indeed Jesus does want us there because He loves us and wants to surround us with His love. But this is only part of the story: He is calling us to higher ground because it is the place of safety, the place where we will receive His directions and practical provision, as well as the anointing for ministry to those who are struggling in the flood and are reaching out to be pulled onto the rock themselves. It is an urgent call as well as an exhortation, and those who ignore it risk being among those caught in the flood. Jer 12:5 (which I’ve referred to elsewhere on these pages) becomes increasingly relevant with each passing day:

“If in the land of peace, in which you trusted, they wearied you, then how will you do in the floodplain of the Jordan?”

So what’s stopping you? The waters ae rising. Come up higher!

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

In the coming storm: hold on, rejoice, and follow!

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The message for 2024 from Andrew Baker, who heads up the Eagles prophetic ministry.

I, Andrew, was asking the Lord for a word from His heart for the coming year. Sometimes I receive a “Thus says the Lord” word, but this time I was clearly led to some scriptures, already in a set order. Here is what the Lord showed me.

Philippians 3:13-14 is a well-known passage; “…one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind and reaching towards those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.”

Most prophets are warning us of the change of season and that this new time will bring many things on the earth that we have not seen or experienced before. Indeed, we do not need to be a prophet, or even a believer, to see that these things are already coming upon us. I have no intention of listing such things here, as that is not what the Lord seems to be centring on today. We are aware of the present issues on the earth but many more that we have not thought of will touch the nations in the coming days. These will include certain nations taking a deliberate path in order to bankrupt the West.

God is moving His people who will, by faith, believe Him, into a completely different scene. It will be like the old circular stage at big West End Theatres in London. There was one scene showing (on the front of the circular stage, facing the audience at that time) and then, the button was pushed and the whole stage revolved 180 degrees and what was hidden behind the curtains (another scene, standing on the back half of the circular stage), suddenly arrived for the audience to see. It was a new scene completely, with new props, new view and new furniture and equipment on it. The only thing that would remain the same was the cast, of course, they simply moved from one scene to the next. So it will be in this new year and the season we are now moving into. The stage of the whole world is revolving, and we are starting to see what the new one will look like (from human perspective, not so very good). However, the Lord is not only saying that the world will change but that our world, as believers, will change just as much. The Lord says get ready to move into a scene and set that you have never seen or walked on before. Everything will be different except for the cast.

Hold On

As believers, I see that Lord telling us to hold onto, inside, the solid things of Jesus and the word; these things will be so, so important to us in this new world. However, all other things around you will change and you will need this new equipment, positioning and all that makes up this new scene, in order to function and have victory for souls and resources in this world that is changing for the worse in these latter days.

The Lord is saying to us all today that He foretold many of these things about a changing world in His Word, centuries, even millennia ago. Such is His ability to see ahead because He does not live in time but rather created it, and is before, during and after time; using it and yet outside and master of it. The Lord wants to remind us that when He walked the earth, He spoke clearly of these difficult times that would come in the last days. There is no doubt that the nations of the earth will be in the centre of all kinds of troubles, and we are seeing the beginnings of that right now.  However, as His message today adds in Philippians chapter four, these matters should not concern us or cause us fear. These things are coming on the earth but believers are taught and shown how to walk through these days in joy and victory, being led by the Spirit and seeing God’s hand upon those who will listen and walk in the way He leads.

Rejoice in the Lord

Philippians 4:4-9 says: “Rejoice in the Lord always”. Let’s take a moment with this. In the middle of even his own catastrophe Paul says rejoice, laugh and have lots of heavenly joy! This is a message, at the time, from a man who was in the deep dungeon with the rats, probably chained to the floor! I mention this because we may say that this message of joy cannot be shared with someone in a war zone, or someone who has just lost a loved one, someone in deep debt or who is suffering a terminal illness. I believe we would be wrong. I believe that we can heed the words and exhortation of Paul because he was in such dire straits himself at the time and had been many times before. Paul was experienced in listening to the Lord and following His divine advice, which is often so much different from human counsel. Yes, this is a word for us all for the coming year, as the world sinks to lower levels of evil but the Lord wants to carry His people through, round, over and past it all.

Remember Nehemiah 8:10, “the joy of the Lord is your strength”, and Jesus who prayed that we would have His joy fulfilled in ourselves (John 17:13), that our joy may be full (John 16:24) and that His joy may remain in us (John 15:11). Yes, this Jesus was described in Luke 10:21 as having outbursts of joy too: “In that hour Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said…”. Jesus knew what was ahead of Him but He concentrated on things above and the joy that was set before Him. Throughout these coming days, joy will be such a weapon and such a defence shield, along with our faith, that we had better start operating in this wonderful gift right now.

Many have been the days when the Lord just made me smile and then laugh and then continue to be filled with joy. It usually happens when I am becoming too serious. Today, sit quietly in the middle of the storm and allow the Lord to cause you to laugh, as He does. He is God, He can do or change anything. His thoughts are way above ours; His ability makes men’s wars and ‘threats’ look like a young child having a tantrum. God is on the throne. Paul knew this in this passage from Philippians, and we need to remind ourselves of just who the Lord is now.

Psalm 2 is relevant in this context. Verses 1-2 and 4 say this : “Why do the nations rage, and the people plot a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord and against His anointed…He who sits in the heavens shall laugh; the Lord shall hold them in derision.”The Lord saw their hearts and ways back then, and He still sees now. Men’s hearts have not changed and neither has the devil’s desires and lies. Jesus has had the victory, and so all this stuff may appear terrifying to mere humans, but when viewed from the Lord’s balcony, it is futile, even to the destroying of the entire planet as we know it, because the Lord simply can makes us another when necessary!! We need to see things through His eternal eyes, not through our temporary ones.

We need to learn to relax in Him, trust His guidance and follow His leadings. Whilst we do this, we need to laugh a lot and give out a message of faith and hope that the Lord will always be on hand to bless, help and support those who are His and to help them rescue others from the stormy seas and bring them to eternal safety too.

Be Anxious for Nothing

Back to our passage. Verse 6 tells us: “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” After telling us to meditate on good things (instead of the troubles) we can settle our concerns and receive the peace of God in our anxious hearts. In another passage the Lord talks about things coming on the earth that will cause men’s hearts to fail with fear (Luke 21:25-26). This message in these verses is not for the believer! It is about those who do not know God! For us believers, when the fire gets hotter, the divine help, closeness, covering and grace get stronger.

We should know and understand what is happening around us, yes, don’t put your head in the sand, but the issue for us is to keep our eyes and meditation on the things of the Lord and our ears open to His direction. I am not saying that there are not among us some who are called to understand the things happening on the earth; neither am I saying that we should all stop doing everything and just sit around; I am certainly not saying that you should not continue with your call, mission, business, ministry and life’s work, but I am saying that our apostle Paul knew plenty of troubles but kept His eyes and ears on the things above. He knew which was temporary and which was eternal. He knew which would get him through the mess and what thoughts would bring confusion and possibly even his downfall. Eyes and ears on the Lord, follow His leadings very sensitively, and as you think upon the Lord and who He is, be filled with joy, laughter and faith that will lift you above the mess and help you through to the other side, along with enabling you to be a useful person to God to help others though too.

So let us see that this kind of joy will remove our anxiety. Be at peace and know that He is here in our midst, living inside of us and prepared to walk together with us and bring to the table all His abilities and attributes. This way we shall find personal victory, success in prayer for others and a way to complete the call and mission on our lives. We will also find the enabling us to steer clear of many problems before even reaching them on our walk and knowing His heart of love to melt us and help us in our own lives and relationships, too.

Luke tells us over and over again in chapter 12: “do not worry”, “do not have an anxious mind”, “do not fear”. He is not telling us to do something we cannot do. He knows that the Holy Spirit within will help us and settle our hearts when we keep our eyes on him. Isaiah 25:3 says: “You will keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts you.” I know that I may have sent articles with some of these verses in before, but I have learned that the Lord wants us to constantly remind ourselves of truth. That is one reason why he asked us to break bread and take wine regularly, too.

So, as we rejoice, relax in Him, put our thoughts and eyes on Him, so His peace will flood in and bring us to the place where all things begin to disappear in the face of His glory and grace. Do you think you can’t do this? Well, read verse 13: “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Enough said!

Raise up the Josephs

The final verse the Lord was pointing out to me was Philippians 4:19: “And my God shall supply all your need according to His riches in glory by Christ Jesus.” Whilst dark days may be ahead for the world, and much lack and many shortages may be their lot, yet the Lord will not only help and bless His people but will take care of every need we have if we follow His ways and directions.

Many of you have heard the testimony of Carole and me – of God’s provision over the years. We must all now learn to walk with the Lord by faith in His ability to make a way and to provide in famine. Even if the fields are dust and there is no rain, the Lord can still cause 100 fold to come forth as we follow His instructions. We look not just for our own provision, but we need to be helping raise up the Josephs that we are being called to help bring onto the world stage at all levels. It is Joseph time now. This will be the year to begin the season of the impossible being possible, of miracles of provision of all types and of gathering the harvest of souls and resources that we, as Eagles, have played our part of prophesying for the last 14 years or so.

It is now time to look forwards and not back to the ways things were accomplished before. Keep the Lord, His word, prayer, praise and worship and His ways central to our lives as we learn a better way to live by faith in Him and walking in the God dimension. Don’t be anxious but rejoice in the Lord always and know that God will fill you with peace even with war around you and will provide for you, as you are led by His Spirit. Forward into 2024 with these things in mind Eagles.

Come out from the Hidden Place

Over many years we have all been learning to have faith in God at a higher level. Now the Lord is telling us that we must start to teach and move in this way on a wider way and to a wider audience. It is time to start coming out from the hidden place we had previously been told by the Lord to operate and spend much of our time in, and to help bring the word of the Lord to all who will listen, as the winds of change blow over this world. We need to show people that God is real and that He is the One to trust.

I believe that the Lord will entrust us all with helping many people into the ark of provision that He is building in these days and, as a result, will see many new converts won. This is the season for the world to see the Lord bring wave after wave of His love over the people. As the devil tries to resist the last days plans of the Lord, we need to be a part of the army of believers who will usher in the harvest, be supportive of His ancient people and prepare the way for the return of the Lord. Father envisages nations being turned around. Jesus is preparing His return. The Holy Spirit knows all the plans of man and devils for the coming days yet is 10 steps ahead. Eagles, many are the plans of men, but the purposes of God will prevail!

With calmness and the stillness of His presence inside us, and the fire of His power surging through us at the same time, it is now time to follow His leading like never before. This is not a year for our own plans, but a time to be led to cooperate with the plans of the Lord. This will be a year and season of the miraculous. Have a wonderful New Year, Eagles, as we play our part in drawing in the harvest of souls and resources for the Kingdom of God. May you have great joy and blessings as we all seek, together and as individuals, to be a blessing to Him and those He puts across our paths. Amen!

Love, power and blessings to you all in Christ Jesus,

Andrew and Carole Baker