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Pursuing Love

Built Together in Christ

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“In whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit.“ (Ephesians 2:21–22).”

To love another person we must let them into our lives. We cannot love on our own agenda: we can only love by embracing the agenda of the other. This is why the gospel consistently requires us to lay down our lives. This is why walking “worthy of calling with which we are called“ (Ephesians 4:2) involves lowliness, gentleness, longsuffering, and bearing with one another in love.” And of course we have the great model for our walk at Calvary, the demonstration of heavenly submission magnificently expounded for us by Paul in Philippians 2 : 6-10.

However we understand or experience it, an essential principle of Christian life is that “the love of God is poured out into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who is given to us.” (Rom 5:5) But what we don’t talk or read about very much is how Christ’s love for us is demonstrated by the very fact that He laid down His life in order to let us in. If He let us into His life, how much do we let each other into ours?

We are being built together in Him in order for him to dwell in us. What an incredible reciprocation. We love Him because He first loved us. And if He is building us together for the honour and privilege of being in Him we also need to love one another first, letting each other into our own lives with no personal agenda or demand. Our flesh cannot achieve this, because the ultimate goal of the flesh is always self preservation. But when His love for us is expressed through us, and as we allow others into our lives as He has allowed us into His, we can truly “walk worthy of calling with which we are called.“

When we have learnt this, much more will follow; because the dwelling place for His Spirit that He is building in us will have grown.

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.

Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

Rooted and grounded in love

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The great grey shrike on Cannock Chase

“That you, being rooted and grounded in love, may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” (Eph 3: 17-18)

Love is the ground where the word of God takes root.  It’s the foundation where the house is built. It brings stability and strength. Love characterises the “good and noble heart” of Luke 8:15 that keeps the word of the kingdom and bears fruit with patience. The Greek word translated as “Noble” is Agathos. It’s the same word used in Mark 10:18, when Jesus says only God is good. Similarly, the Strong’s definition of Kalos (“good”) relates to every manner of perfection; flawlessness, in a word. A good and noble heart Is one that is flawless and perfect, not one that is corrupted by sin.

By contrast, Jeremiah 17 :9 tells us “the heart of man is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” The Hebrew word “anas,” translated as “desperately wicked,“ has the sense of weakness and frailty associated with an incurable illness. If ever there was a word to describe our sinful nature, this is it. It is definitely not good ground, and never will be. The only “good and noble” heart that Scripture shows us is the heart of God Himself. And the wonderful thing is, that when we are born again of the Father and He has given us a new heart, this is the very “heart of flesh” that we receive. It seems to me that the seed of the word of God can only be sown in the heart of flesh that we receive by the Spirit at the new birth. This is the ground of love with the word takes root and bears fruit.

This is not just theology and spiritual ideas: it works. When we choose to build on the ground of love we experience God‘s blessing. “Give, and it shall be given to you“ does not just refer to money or resources: when we choose to give love to others, God gives back to us, even in the small things. In fact, He often teaches us through the small things so we can apply his teaching to the bigger ones. If you know me, or have read some of my other articles, (eg “Between the Chapel and the Damned”) you will know that I am a bird watcher. A hobbyist bird photographer, to be precise. The picture above is of a distant great grey strike. They are very rare winter visitors to the UK, and there has been one this Winter on Cannock Chase, just a few miles from my house. There are apps that pinpoint the location of these rarities, so people in the birding community know roughly where they are. Yesterday morning I went out to try and find the great grey shrike. I only had a couple of hours, because I needed to meet with Anne by 10.30 so we could be on the same page about what to say at the retirement party that was being given in our honour (we have just retired from our business) at 12.00 o’clock. In other words, I had a relational commitment, a commitment to prioritize love.

I spent about an hour walking around and waiting in the area where the shrike had last been seen, but to no avail. My time was running out, and I was going to check one more likely place, but then I felt quite strongly that the Lord said: “No. It’s time you headed back now.“ On this occasion I did what I was told (on many occasions I don’t!) and started back down the path towards the car park. After a couple of hundred yards I turned the corner, and there was a little group of birders with their  cameras and telescopes all pointing in one direction. Yes: it was the great grey shrike. It was a good distance away, but happily I was able to see it and take some pictures. Five minutes after I arrived it flew off. If I had gone to check that other area before turning back, I would have missed it. God wants to bless us, even in our hobbies.

The word from Jeremiah about the heart of man goes on to say: “I, the Lord, search the heart, I test the mind, even to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his doings.“ (Jer. 17:10) He blessed me by allowing me to see that bird, of which there are at the time of writing only three records currently in the UK. But, and more importantly, it blessed Him that I listened to what He said and did what I was told, and put my love for other people before my personal interests.

The point is this. I know full well that my natural heart, my heart of stone, would have gone to check that other place before heading home. I would have said to myself, “It will only take five minutes, and that won’t make any difference to the circumstances of the rest of the day.” And indeed it wouldn’t have: when I got home events had actually been delayed by half an hour or so, so I would have had plenty of time. But my new heart, my heart of flesh, was open to hear the word to prioritise Love, and because I was able to respond to it I walked into the blessing that God had planned. “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be given unto you.”  (Matt 6:33)

Even, in this case, a great grey shrike.

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

Ears to Hear

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

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

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

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

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

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

Prophesy and the prophetic, The word of God, Walking in the Spirit

The desert and the camel

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A couple of months ago the Lord gave me the following word, but I think now is the time to release it:

“I am the God of the universe. I put the stars in the sky. I put every vein on every leaf on every tree. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without my knowing. When those kairos moments, those “god- incidences,” happen in your life where you see my hand at work, arranging and organising your situations, it is because I have knitted the universe together to meet you in that moment and to open up my path for you.

You look ahead and you see an expense of barren desert. A rocky plane, stretching into the distance, with no path turning to the right or to the left. You say “I do not know which way to go. In every direction it looks the same, and the distance seems so great wherever I look.”

But I say I am calling you to walk by faith and not by sight. You cannot see a path because if I were to reveal it, you would be walking by sight and not by Faith. But I will guide you with my eye, even though your eye cannot see where to go. And you will hear a voice behind you, saying: “this is the way, walk in it,“ and you will step forward, one step at a time on my word. Because my word in you is living and active, and as you step on my word I will create that path for your feet and I will build structures that you can’t see through the active power of my word, even the structures of my kingdom. Will you trust me to knit the universe together anew at every step of obedience that you take? Will you trust my word, by which the worlds were made? Will you walk with me? Will you trust the power of my Spirit in your life?”

At around the same time the Lord also showed me a camel. It was, again, in the desert. Someone was trying to lead it with a rope, but it was resisting. I think the Lord was – is – saying that the camel knows that it’s got everything it needs to cross the desert: water stored in its hump; big flat feet to help it to walk across the soft sand without its feet sinking in, but we can be like camels who don’t know what they are carrying in their humps, and are resisting the person who is trying to lead them out across the desert. He says: “You have everything you need. You have my Spirit, and you have my word. I am holding the rope and I know the way you should go. You won’t wander off and get lost, so trust me and come with me across the desert. You may think it’s forbidding and barren, but it is also beautiful, and I will show you things, hidden things, that you have never seen before, because you have never been this way until now. Come, because now is the time.”

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic, Pursuing Love

The Season of the Lowly

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There is a word that the Holy Spirit is bringing to the church in this season, and which many prophetic ministers are catching and releasing in different ways, and which can be summarised like this: ”I am bringing revival in unprecedented ways to show my glory and my power in these last days before the King returns. And it will be now as it was at the beginning of the gospel: I will choose and use the unknowns, the unqualified, and the unrecognised; the fisherman, the labourers and the tax collectors, because they are the ones who will show for my glory and not desire to keep it for themselves. I will demolish ministry platforms and pull down the strongholds of pride and selfish ambition that have divided my church; the church, the Father and the Son will be one in the Spirit, and the glory of the Lord will cover the Earth as the waters cover the sea.”

We have heard this word in many ways, and we acknowledge its truth. But I believe the Holy Spirit is grieved by those who would build a platform for themselves to pronounce it against others; who lift themselves up in order to declare that this is the season of the lowly.

The book of Obadiah is a prophecy against the Edomites, the house of Esau, whom God judges for their arrogance and “violence against your brother Jacob.“

The prophet writes:

“The pride of your heart has deceived you,
You who dwell in the clefts of the rock,
Whose habitation is high;
You who say in your heart,
‘Who will bring me down to the ground?’

Though you ascend as high as the eagle,
And though you set your nest among the stars,
From there I will bring you down,” says the LORD” (Obadiah 1: 4-5)

Galatians 6:5 says “each one should carry his own load.“ In other words each one of us is responsible for his own faults and shortcomings . Revival has to begin in our own hearts. Peter writes “for the time is come the judgement must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what will be the end of them that have been not the gospel of God?“ (1 Peter 4:17).

I believe the Holy Spirit is saying, “Do not judge your brother as Esau did, for the pride of your heart has deceived you, and I will bring you down from the place where you exalt yourself.”

If we want to be part of the wave of God’s mercy that is going to flood this earth, let us beware of judging those who we think might be standing in its way, because in doing so we come under the judgement of the One who is “meek and humble of heart” whom we claim to be exalting.

“The house of Jacob shall be a fire,
And the house of Joseph a flame;
But the house of Esau shall be stubble;
They shall kindle them and devour them,
And no survivor shall remain of the house of Esau,”
For the LORD has spoken.” (Obadiah 1:18)

Living by Faith, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, The word of God, Walking in the Spirit

The God of David’s deliverance.

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One of David’s great psalms of faith is Psalm 18, which he wrote, according to 2 Sam 22: 1, “on the day that the Lord delivered him from his enemies and Saul.” Many of the truths expressed both in Psalm 18 and in the book of Psalms as a whole – not to mention the rest of the Bible – are encapsulated in the section from verses 28-34. I wrote last week about the walk of faith. If we can allow the Holy Spirit to write the following promises on our hearts, as He did for David, I believe our walk will be strengthened. Here is the whole passage, followed by a few thoughts on each verse.

For You will light my lamp;
The LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

For by You I can run against a troop,
By my God I can leap over a wall.

As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the LORD is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

For who is God, except the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God?

It is God who arms me with strength,
And makes my way perfect.

He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places. (Psalm 18: 28-34)

He teaches my hands to make war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

(Psalm 18: 28-34)

For You will light my lamp;
The LORD my God will enlighten my darkness.

This is a promise. Sometimes we find darkness has descended on us like a cloud. It seems like the Lord is enthroned in another universe – if He even exists at all – and all we have is the experience of our flesh and our immediate circumstances. But the Lord promises that He will light our lamp. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. If we can keep this word in our hearts, believe it, speak it out, and ask the Lord to manifest its reality, it will strike the match that lights the lamp.

In addition, He promises to give us direction when we are lost or confused. His word is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path: he will show us not only where to put our feet next, but – although sometimes we have to wait for this – He will shine a light on the direction of our path ahead.

And finally, this is a promise of revelation. We can, and do, read the word diligently; we can quote promises of healing and provision, or whatever else we need, but our lamp can remain unlit. If the Word of God is the  sword of the Spirit, we need the Spirit to wield it; it’s not enough to quote it mechanically. And if it is a lamp unto our feet we need the Spirit to light it: a memory verse that is not breathed into us by the One who wrote it is not likely to guide our feet anywhere. We need the Word, and we need the Spirit. This applies as much to our personal devotions as it does to our church services.

For by You I can run against a troop,
By my God I can leap over a wall

Jeremiah 12:5 says “If you have run with the footmen, and they have wearied you, Then how can you contend with horses?”  As deep darkness spreads across the nations (Isaiah 60:2) we will need to be moving in the opposite direction to the troop of the world. Temptation, persecution, hardship, financial pressure are all “horses” that we could face. But God promises that He will be with us in our trials, and if we do not allow ourselves to be swept along by “the troop” but trust in His faithfulness and the power of His Spirit, we will see the glory of the Lord appear over us as He promises in Isaiah 60:2.

We can apply the second part of this verse to many metaphorical “walls,” but one wall that the enemy is always trying to fortify is that of division within the body of Christ. Jesus wants us united so that the blessing can be commanded (Psalm 133); Satan will do all he can to prevent this from happening. The flesh will always seek to protect its own interests, so it is only by the Spirit, in the love of Christ, that we can be one with our brothers and sisters in Christ and attain to “the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.” (Eph 4:3)

As for God, His way is perfect;
The word of the LORD is proven;
He is a shield to all who trust in Him.

God says: “I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with my eye.“ (Psalm 32:8) As I have written elsewhere, if someone is going to guide us with their eye we need to be looking at them in order to see what they are looking at. In general terms His way will always be the way of Love, and because love fulfils the whole of the law it will always be perfect, but in the specific context of our own daily need for direction, His way will always be our perfect option when we follow his guidance. Man’s wisdom at best is relative and incomplete, whereas God’s word contains no impurities: the Hebrew word translated as “proven” has the connotation of smolten metal that has had all the dross removed. So His proven word can always be relied upon to give us perfect direction: our part is to trust Him. It is not the words themselves that are our shield, like some sort of spell or mantra; it is the God who speaks them. When we look to Him and trust Him to be our shield, it is not so difficult to follow in the direction that He gives us.

For who is God, except the LORD?
And who is a rock, except our God?

There is one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, world without end. Salvation, deliverance, Life itself, an only be found in Him. Is God the rock on which we build our lives, or is it our career, our family, our wealth, our status, our marriage, our ministry? This verse needs very little comment, except the concluding words of the first epistle of John: “Little children, keep yourselves from idols.” (1 John 5:21) An idol is anything that takes the place of God in our hearts. Only He can have the place of lordship.

It is God who arms me with strength,
And makes my way perfect.

The word translated here as “arms” actually means “clothes,” or “girds,” as in being girded with armour. The verse actually speaks of the strength provided by the armour of God. Another meaning of the word translated here as “perfect” is “complete.” When we have put on the Ephesians 6 armour of God we are complete in Christ. Putting on the armour is the same as putting on Christ.  Psalm 93:1 says, “The Lord is clothed, He has girded Himself with strength.”  The armour that He is wearing is the strength that He arms us with. “Putting on the armour” isn’t a ritual to go through in our morning devotions: what we need to do regularly is to check that we have never taken any of it off. When we are “armed with” faith, salvation, righteousness, truth, and peace, wielding the Word of God, our way is perfect and we stand clothed in Christ. If any of them are missing we are less than complete.

He makes my feet like the feet of deer,
And sets me on my high places.

Have you ever seen a deer slip on a mountain path? Exactly: they don’t.  Ephesians 2: 6 tells us that we are seated with Christ in heavenly places; and Zechariah 3:9 tells us that, in Christ, we will  have “places to walk among those who stand here” (in the courts of Heaven). We are called to walk after the Spirit and not after the flesh (Romans 8:4), and to walk after the Spirit is to walk in the high places where God has set us. He wants us to be sure-footed, not taking a couple of spiritual steps then falling into carnality. He gives us those deer’s feet, and He lifts us to our high places: the truth of these words only manifest in our lives when we are yielded to His Spirit. And it is “my high places” where He sets me; not someone else’s. Each of us has a place of authority, the place of our call, where His anointing will flow. If you don’t know yet what your “high places” are, ask the Lord to show you.

He teaches my hands to make war,
So that my arms can bend a bow of bronze.

Finally, we are called to battle, whether we want to recognise it or not. A bow of bronze would have been a formidable weapon in David’s time, but you couldn’t use one effectively without training. And this isn’t all theory and interesting ideas: after we had studied this passage in School of Prophesy recently, Anne and I went for a walk on Cannock Chase (an area of wooded heathland near our home). While we were there we saw a small group of people – four or five – join hands round a tree and appear to pray, but they looked, and felt in our spirits, shifty and dark. If they were praying, they were not praying to Jesus. When they had gone, we went to the tree to investigate, and found a couple of memorials there to people who, presumably, had died. We prayed, for light to come into the darkness there, and for curses to be broken. God was teaching our hands to make war.

He will lead us into victory, and His glory will rise over His church as the times get darker; but we will need to fight for it.

Christian Life

The Walk of Faith

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., 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., Walking in the Spirit

The Pool of Bethesda

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Take up your bed and walk! From a painting by Karl Bloch (1834-1890)

A awake sleeper, and rise from death, and Christ will shine on you.“ (Ephesians 5:14)

“After this there was a feast of the Jews, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. Now there is in Jerusalem by the Sheep Gate a pool, which is called in Hebrew, Bethesda,  having five porches. In these lay a great multitude of sick people, blind, lame, paralyzed, waiting for the moving of the water. For an angel went down at a certain time into the pool and stirred up the water; then whoever stepped in first, after the stirring of the water, was made well of whatever disease he had. Now a certain man was there who had an infirmity thirty-eight years. When Jesus saw him lying there, and knew that he already had been in that condition a long time, He said to him, “Do you want to be made well?” The sick man answered Him, “Sir, I have no man to put me into the pool when the water is stirred up; but while I am coming, another steps down before me.” Jesus said to him, “Rise, take up your bed and walk.” (John 5: 1-8)

I woke up this morning and got out of bed, and what did I do next? I started walking. it’s the first thing we do when we get out of bed: if we are able to walk, we walk somewhere. it might not be long before we sit down again, but we have walked. When we are born again the first thing we do it to start walking. Our spiritual being that has just risen from death needs to put its feet somewhere.

The word Jesus uses for the man who was lying by the Pool of Bethesda is the same as that used in Ephesians 5:1 – its primary meaning is to rise from the sleep of death. When someone has been born again – risen from spiritual death – we encourage them to join a church. As a rule, it is “our” church that they join: they may have come along to a service as visitors, or they may have responded to a gospel outreach that our church has put on; but most of us would agree that this is secondary to their need to become part of a local expression of the body of Christ where they can be fed, nurtured and supported in their new walk with Jesus. When they get out of bed, the first spiritual steps of their new life will usually be on the “floor” of a church.

The House of Mercy.
So what is the meaning of Bethesda, where the sick were gathered in their multitudes? It’s an Aramaic word meaning “house of mercy.” The Strong’s citation also gives “flowing water.” Whether we take the meanings individually or in combination, it’s hard to see that they point anywhere other than to the church, where the water of the Holy Spirit flows in the house of God’s mercy.

The pool is by the sheep gate. We, the body of Christ, are “the sheep of His pasture.” The sheep gate was the entrance through which the sheep will lead into the temple where they would be sacrificed. When Jesus said “I am the gate (also translated door) all the sheep“ (John 10:) He was pointing to his own sacrifice, through which we have access to the temple. The Sheep Gate is a picture of the blood of Jesus, the only means of our salvation.

Sick, lame, paralysed and blind
In many of the gospel accounts, the sick and the demon-possessed are grouped together in the record of those whom Jesus healed or who came to him for healing (eg Mark 1:32, Matt 4:24, and Matt 8:16). However there is no mention of demon- possessed people here, which again suggests a connection between Bethesda and the Church. Christians can be oppressed by the devil, but I think most readers of this article would subscribe to the belief that a born-again spirit cannot be possessed. As in the Church, it would appear that no-one at the Pool of Bethesda was demon-possessed. What is true, however, is that many were sick, lame, paralysed or blind. Alongside those of us who need healing of “whatever disease they have,” there are many who are blind, lame, or paralyzed. They – or we – can’t see, can’t walk, or can’t move.

The Porches
God said to Jeremiah (and I’ve quoted it before on these pages): “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)

The porches were a covered colonnade, where people sheltered from the elements. We come to salvation through the Sheep Gate, and in the porches we find shelter, rest for our souls. We are sheltered from God‘s judgement on sin; we are under the shadow of His wings. From our place of shelter, or to quote Jeremiah, our “land of peace,” we can see the pool and enjoy the power of the Holy Spirit. Sometimes the waters are stirred, we see people step in, and we see their lives transformed. But it’s not our turn, not today. Nevertheless it’s great to have the pool…

Days of turmoil are on us. The waters are rising, and the hoofbeats of horses are in the wind. Those who can’t walk, can’t move and can’t see in the spiritual realm will find it difficult to survive in this season, let alone live a victorious life. But Jesus is walking by the Pool with healing in His wings, strengthening us and and encouraging us to take up our beds and walk.

Some of us have been there a long time, waiting for someone to help us in. While we are strongly exhorted in the Bible to love one another, bless one another, and pray for one another, we still need to “work out our own salvation with fear and trembling.“ (Phil 2:12) To live in the good of our salvation, we need to rely on the Lord ourselves and not depend on the ministry of others. It is the Holy Spirit himself who is the Helper, not the pastor, the prophet, or a small group leader. We must have our own encounter  with Jesus, even if we are lying down in the shelter of Bethesda and watching the waters move.