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Poured out at Pentecost and poured out today: the essential fuel for the victorious Christian life.

Knowing God, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

Bread from Heaven: 3

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Living by Faith

Bread from Heaven

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Be prepared; hold on., Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

Vigilance in the Face of Spiritual Threats

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Your enemy is prowling … Photo by Michael Parsons.

A matter of life and death
This picture is of an oyster catcher chasing away a crow. Crows predate the eggs and chicks of birds, so for the oyster catcher this skirmish is serious: it’s a matter of life and death. Ground nesting birds like oyster catchers are particularly vulnerable to predation: I read an account recently of a goshawk taking the nearly full grown chick of another oyster catcher at one of my local sites. On that occasion the parent bird didn’t manage to chase away the predator. In the natural world the battle between predator and prey is always a matter of life and death: there is no in between layer. How different it is for us. We have so many layers of protection, whether it is our insurance policies, our security cameras, our fancy doorbells that tell us who’s outside, health, police and emergency services – the list goes on. Rarely is a potential threat immediately threatening. Or is it?


The Unseen World
While on holiday recently, I went snorkelling. Above the water, nothing of the undersea world was visible. However the hotel had made snorkelling equipment freely available to residents, and as soon as I put on my mask and flippers I saw a different reality: the reef below me was alive with a myriad of darting fish and other colourful creatures, waving weeds, canyons, mountains, sand, stones, and seashells. The small fishes were flashing away because they were constantly wary of potential threats. In some of the crevices lurked sea urchins of different sizes; their poisonous spines waiting for an unsuspecting touch from any passing creature, or indeed from my flailing hands. When I took off the snorkelling equipment and went back to my sun lounger, I was struck not only by the natural beauty that I had just witnessed, but also of the reality of an unseen world below the water’s surface that is both beautiful and dangerous, and how we live much of the time on the surface of life, completely blind to the present reality and imminent dangers of the unseen world of the spiritual dimension.


The Prowling Predator
 Yet, like the oystercatcher, we have a predator. As Peter writes, “your enemy, the devil, prowls around like a roaring lion seeking whom he made devour.“ (1 Peter 5:8) Paul writes  that we “wrestle… with the spiritual hosts of wickedness in heavenly places.” (Eph 6:12) Jesus tells us that “The thief does not come except to steal, and to kill, and to destroy.” (John 10:10) Because of the prowling predator, Peter warns us to “be sober, be vigilant.“ In other words, we are to keep our heads clear and our eyes open, because we don’t know where the next attack is coming from. The word Peter uses here for being vigilant is gregoreo, and it is particularly significant for Peter. It was He who was sleeping, along with James and John, in the garden of Gethsemane when they were there with Jesus just before his betrayal. Jesus said to him: “What, could you not gregoreo with me just for one hour? Gregoreo and pray, less you enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.“ (Matthew 26: 40–41). We all know how the flesh failed Peter when Jesus was on trial, so his exhortation to vigilance was written with feeling. But by the time Peter was writing his letters, he also knew that God has made spiritual mask and flippers – the gifts of the Holy Spirit – freely available to the church to help us keep our eyes open underwater.

For want of a nail…
What we need to remember is that the devil plays the long game. There is a proverb, often attributed to Benjamin Franklin, that goes: “For want of a nail the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe the horse was lost, for want of a horse that rider was lost for want of a rider the battle was lost, for want of a battle the kingdom was lost, and all for the want of a horseshoe nail.” As a rule, the spiritual hosts of wickedness are not waiting round the corner with an axe to take us out at one fell swoop: they are more likely to tempt our flesh into negligence of a horseshoe nail so that we fall all by ourselves while they are busy tempting others. How often we say, “Oh that won’t matter…“ And then we find out further down the road that it really did matter, a lot.  The little thought that we were ignoring was actually the Holy Spirit showing us where the enemy had loosened a nail.


Ultimately, we know that the kingdom is the Lord’s, and that no amount of lost nails will compromise the final outcome of the victory that He has already won on the cross. But if we will keep our eyes open to the unseen spiritual realm we can avoid the lurking sea urchins that would take us out of the battle, temporarily or permanently, even though the final outcome will not be affected.

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.)

Be prepared; hold on., Prophesy and the prophetic

The Waters are Rising (2)

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I believe that the recent floods in Valencia, Spain, are prophetic of what the Lord will be sending onto the world. I believe He’s saying this:

“My flood waters are rising. They will be coming down from my mountain, pouring across the Earth, and sweeping systems and structures before them. They will sweep away religion like a straw house. They will be flowing around the hills and the mountain sides, through the valleys and through the towns, so do not try and climb the mountains that face you, or walk over the hills. Do not seek me in the solitude of the valley or the throng of the people. Yes, I am there, and you will find me while you have to be there, but do not go there to seek me. For it is time to wait and to listen for the rushing waters. When they come they may look dangerous and alarming, but trust me to let them carry you to new places. The waters will lift you and they will carry you. You will not sink, but if you try to swim you will only splash fruitlessly and swallow water, and you will not propel yourself anywhere; for the river is too powerful for you. It will take you to where I intend to put you, and not to where you have decided to go. You will see the flotsam of the world being carried along with you, but do not hang onto it. I will carry you like I carried the ark in the days of Noah, and you will come to rest on a high mountain where you will know My presence and my provision. It is this mountain that will be your place of safety in the flood. And when the waters have subsided, you will go down into the debris and the ruin that has been left, and you will bring my salvation to the world.”

About six months ago I sensed that The Lord also gave me a word on rising waters. At the time I was on a birdwatching visit to a place where the high tide floods a saltmarsh. I sensed then that the flood was coming over the low marshy places, but that “that a time will come and is coming shortly when the flood will speed up.” I think we are now in that time of increased momentum. Time is short: we need to let the waters take us to safety – even if it seems to be the most dangerous thing to do.

(Footnote: Spain is a stronghold for religion and religious spirits, so the floods also demonstrate what will happen to religion when the waters rise.)

Christian Life, Prayer and Spiritual Warfare, Pursuing Love, Walking in the Spirit

Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven

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“Assuredly, I say to you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven. Again I say  to you that if two of you agree on earth concerning anything that they ask, it will be done for them by My Father in heaven. For if two or three are gathered together in my name I am there in the midst of them.“ (Matthew 18 : 18 – 20)

Symphony
To agree is to be an accord, in harmony. The Greek word is where our “symphony“ comes from: sum (together) and phoneo (to sound), so to sound together. This is more than just intellectual assent: it is hearts in harmony. We regularly quote verse 20 at our gatherings as evidence that Jesus is “in our midst,” particularly if only “two or three” have turned up at the prayer meeting; but I think we also have to remember the significance what it is to be in His name. The Greek word onoma means a lot more than what is written on our birth certificates. Strong’s defines it like this: “the name is used for everything which the name covers, everything the thought or feeling of which is aroused in the mind by mentioning, hearing, remembering, the name, i.e. for one’s rank, authority, interests, pleasure, command, excellences, deeds etc.” It doesn’t mean we’re in His name because we’re Christians or church members: to be in His name because is to be sharing in His identity. We are part of who He is. He is love and truth and grace. If, on earth, we are not gathered together in love and truth and grace we are not in His name.

I can’t say I really understand the dynamics of just how Jesus is more in the midst of us  when we are gathered in love and truth in this way, because Jesus is in each of us anyway. Maybe our unity in some way allows the Holy Spirit to transcend the limitations of our flesh so that He really does become “the fourth man in the fire“ (as in the story of Shadrach, Mishach and Abednigo): however it happens there has to be some connection between this Scripture and the words of Ps 133 that declare “the unity commands the blessing.“ But I also think these are the conditions for verse 18. I can’t imagine that anything happens in heaven without the Father’s authority. Anything that is bound or loosed in heaven has to be so because the Father decreed it. As well as the physical and metaphorical sense, the Greek words for binding and loosing can also be much more generic such as preventing and allowing, obliging or releasing. The Son and the Father are one so when we are in agreement on earth, in love and in truth, Jesus is agreeing with us too; and if Jesus agrees with us, then so does the Father. John 17:21 is fulfilled: “that they all may be one, as You, Father, are in Me, and I in You; that they also may be one in Us, that the world may believe that You sent Me.” And then whatever we ask on earth, whether it’s binding or loosing, is authorised in heaven, it shall be so, and the Father is glorified. (See John 14:13)

Unanswered prayer
I think one of the answers to the thorny question of unanswered prayer may be found here. We may be praying God will and God’s provision, and quite probably quoting God’s word;  but if we are not at the level of unity needed to be genuinely in His name we cannot really expect Jesus to be “in the midst” in the way that He expresses it here. We may well quote the Truth from Scripture, but Truth needs to be spoken in Love. Prayer is always about God’s will being done on earth as it is in heaven, and thus extending His Kingdom among and through us. We all know what Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount: “But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.” (Matt 6:33). God is Love, and “Love is the Fulfillment of the Law” (Romans 13:10), so both God’s Kingdom and His righteousness are expressions of His love. I think God’s kingdom must be real among us before it can be extended through us.  It cannot be without significance (nothing in Scripture is!) that these verses are sandwiched in the middle of Jesus teaching, then answering Peter, on the subject of forgiveness. If we really want to be in agreement when we pray, with all that this means, I think it’s important that we examine our hearts towards each other and ask God to reveal any areas of criticism or unforgiveness that we may be harbouring, before we say “amen.” If there isn’t genuine unity, we can’t expect the blessing.

The Courts of Heaven
The other aspect of binding and loosing is the one most commonly used among charismatics (I use the term loosely: I’m sure I mean Pentecostals as well, and I have a suspicion that Jesus doesn’t use either of them…), and refers to “binding” spiritual forces of evil, and “loosing” people from their bonds. Jesus healed a woman whom He said Satan had bound for 18 years, (Luke 13:16) Her healing is often used as a template for spiritual warfare, but if the truth were told how often do we see a change in someone’s condition when we make these decrees?

In Zechariah 3:7, the Lord says to Joshua

‘If you will walk in My ways,
And if you will keep My command,
Then you shall also judge My house,
And likewise have charge of My courts;
I will give you places to walk
Among these who stand here.”

In Christ, we too walk in those places of spiritual authority. It was when Jesus gives Peter the keys to the Kingdom of Heaven (Matt 16:19) that He first made the promise that is repeated, word for word in Matt 18:18: “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed  in heaven.” Those keys are symbols of authority. I think we often have the mindset that our “binding and loosing” on earth are words of authority that release actions in heavenly places, but if that is true what is going on in heaven isn’t happening on the earth, at least in most cases that I have seen. But what if we turn it round and say that whatever is bound or loosed in heaven is bound and loosed on earth? In other words, we can only bind/loose on earth what has already been bound/loosed in heaven? That actually makes a lot more sense to me, and it means that we have to know what is bound and loosed in heaven before we can see it happen on earth. Jesus only did what He saw the Father doing, so He loosed the woman that Satan had bound for 18 years because He saw the Father do it in Heaven.

Kingdom Authority
Joshua was a prophetic type of Jesus. Jesus did on Earth what He saw the Father doing in heaven, because he was walking there.  I think that the occasions when we see binding and loosing actually happen are when we’ve seen it or heard it in the place where we too have walked “among those who stand” in the courts of heaven and have seen what the Father is doing. The earthly realm has been given over through sin to the control of the evil one, but we are no longer under that control; we are above it, and we are taking it back for the King. If we want to at least have the opportunity to see what the Father is doing, we need to “Set (our) mind on things above, not on things on the earth.” (Col 3:2)  Jesus tells us (Matt 28:18) that  “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me.”  In Christ, we are in the place of all authority.  To bind and to loose is to express that authority on earth as it is in heaven, whether it is over demons, sickness, finance, or any other circumstance, great or small. We will see it happen more often when we keep His command (Love one another) and walk in His ways, with our minds set on the places that He has given us to walk among those who stand in the courts of heaven.

Holiness: You shall be perfect, Knowing God, Walking in the Spirit

Power Stations

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Christmas is always a very busy time in the church calendar, and January is usually when church leaders look back over those Christmas activities and evaluate them. Or at least, one would hope that is the case. But what do we evaluate our activities (Christmas and otherwise) against? In the business world, we look for a return on investment, and in our Father’s business it is no different. Jesus talks about it in the parable of the talents: the master expected a return on His investment. Jesus invested everything in us when He went to the cross, and the Father who sent him is looking for fruit that endures (John 15:16) as His return. Jesus fell to the ground and died to seed a vine that would bear fruit. It follows that whatever activities we do in the name of Jesus (and Colossians 3:17 exhorts us to do everything in His name) should be directed toward His purpose, which is to bear fruit; to give our Master a return on His investment; to see the Kingdom of God extended on Earth.

As far as I can see, the Bible only defines Christ’s purpose in three ways. Jesus himself talked consistently of two of them, which was to reveal the Father and His Kingdom, and John adds a third strand, which was to destroy the works of the evil one (1 John 3:8). These are most famously and succinctly summed up in the best known of all quotes from the New Testament, John 3:16: God sent His only begotten son into the world, that (i.e. with the purpose of) we should not perish (the work of the evil one) but have everlasting life (in the Kingdom Of God). Jesus also defines everlasting life as knowing the Father (John 17:3). John 3:16 really is the church’s mission statement.

So we have a clear lens through which to view the activities in which we invest time, manpower and money. To what extent are they in keeping with Jesus’s mission statement for His church? Are they, directly or indirectly, manifesting the Father? Are they preaching the Kingdom, taking it by force (Matthew 11:12) and destroying the works of the evil one in doing so? Are they equipping others for this work (Eph 4:12)? If they are, then we’re on mission; if not, we need to focus on what is, “redeeming the time, because the days are evil.” (Ephesians 5:16)

As we well know, the only way we can do the work of the Kingdom is in the power of the Holy Spirit. Jesus came to give life and that in abundance (John 10 :10) – everlasting Life. Being vessels for abundant life is always the goal of our mission. We are called to be power stations, individually, and as churches, generating that abundant life, bringing the everlasting energia of the Kingdom of God into this world; bringing Heaven to Earth. Our Father, the vine dresser, is looking for fruit that endures on His vine; He prunes the dead wood, and throws it in the fire. Jesus baptises with the Holy Spirit, and with fire (Matt 3:11). Jesus said “I’ve come to set the Earth on fire; how I wish it were already kindled!“ (Luke 12:49). We can only guess at what Jesus was thinking here, but I believe He was looking beyond the cross to the day of Pentecost, when the tongues of fire came and set the kindling wood of His first church alight. Fire burns the fruitless branches of the vine, and it also brings holiness. In a power station, it is the source of the energy. We can’t have the power without the fire. We can achieve nothing for the Kingdom of God, unless it is by the power of the Holy Spirit, and along with the power of the Holy Spirit comes the fire that sooner or later burns up whatever is not of Him.

So let us always that check that the branches in our part of the vine are bearing the fruit of abundant life, and allow the pruning and the fire if they are barren.