Tag Archives: The word of God

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

The Crumbs Under the Table

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Even the dogs have the crumbs that fall from the masters table…

“Then Jesus left Galilee and went North to the region of Tyre and Sidon. A Gentile woman who lived there came to him, pleading, “Have mercy on me, O Lord, Son of David! For my daughter is possessed by a demon that torments her severely.” But Jesus gave her no reply, not even a word. Then his disciples urged him to send her away. “Tell her to go away,” they said. “She is bothering us with all her begging.” Then Jesus said to the woman, “I was sent only to help God’s lost sheep—the people of Israel.” But she came and worshipped him, pleading again, “Lord, help me!” Jesus responded, “It isn’t right to take food from the children and throw it to the dogs.” She replied, “That’s true, Lord, but even dogs are allowed to eat the scraps that fall beneath their masters’ table.” “Dear woman,” Jesus said to her, “your faith is great. Your request is granted.” And her daughter was instantly healed.” (Matthew 15: 21-27)

Like all the stories in the gospels, there are many lessons we can learn from this account. I just want to look at a couple that apply specifically to prophesy.

Firstly, it’s always good to be asking God for what can one take from prophecies that are given to other people. I  apply this in my walk of wanting to hear from God, not turning off or thinking either: “that’s nice for them,” or “why doesn’t God ever have a word for me,” but asking the Lord if there are any crumbs for me under the table.

This can also  be  applied this to messages  brought at meetings: if we ask the lord what He wants to say to us, there may well be something which might not be the speaker’s main point, or even something he is speaking about, but which is prompted by part of the message.

The second is the woman’s persistence. I believe we have to be persistent in our desire to hear from God. He wants to know that we are serious. We look at persistence again in the next article in this series.

From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and the violent take it by force.  (Matthew 11v12)

Again, this scripture is open to a number of interpretations, but one is that the “forceful” the push into the kingdom of Heaven to take hold of it in their lives. I believe is not only about those newly brought to the kingdom of God, but also those fervently and earnestly seeking to take hold of spiritual gifts:

“For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.” (Ephesians   2 v10)

We are saved by grace not by works, so this is not in any way suggesting that salvation is something that we earn; but  I believe it is to do with pressing into our gifts ( both spiritual and natural).  We must remember that we have an enemy who is trying to halt our growth and maturity in the Lord, so we must soberly keep in mind our weaknesses and keep our armour on.

God has great works planned for us to do, with Him and not for Him, where we will need  to use our giftings to complete them and bring glory to God. If we work with Him, He will continually give us the strength and abilities that we need; but if we try and work for Him we will generally be doing it in our own strength and determination, often trying to earn favour with  the Lord, forgetting that we were saved by grace and that these works were already planned for us to accomplish with Him before the beginning of time.

“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal,  but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead,I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me.” (Philippians 3: 12-13)

Again here we see the picture of something that not given to us when we become a Christian but for which we must contend spiritually as we take the Kingdom by force. He has already planned what gifts and assignments He has for us that will bring Him glory, but as the apostle Paul puts it we are to press in to them. So in all this there is a battle, and battles are not won by  being passive  or hesitant, or by just waiting around for the victory to happen. We need to press in or take by force everything that God has for us and that has been prophesied over us, no matter what  the cost. As we battle to grow further into our Kingdom calling God will start to give us a hunger for more.

To conclude this section on “picking up all the crumbs under the table,” on a practical point, I find that speaking in tongues is a key to hearing more from God :

“For one who speaks in a tongue does not speak to men but to God; for no one understands, but in his spirit he speaks mysteries.” (1 Corinthians 14: 2)

I believe these mysteries that we speak in our heavenly language actually impart the mysteries of Heaven to our spirits. Any crumb from Heaven is a whole loaf of bread here on Earth.

Christian Life, Prophesy and the prophetic, Walking in the Spirit

Two Wheels: Word and Spirit

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Two Wheels

Many people are aware of the prophesy attributed to Smith Wigglesworth, from 1947:

“During the next few decades there will be two distinct moves of the Holy Spirit across the church in Great Britain. The first move will affect every church that is open to receive it, and will be characterised by a restoration of the baptism and gifts of the Holy Spirit.
“The second move of the Holy Spirit will result in people leaving historic churches and planting new churches.“In the duration of each of these moves, the people who are involved will say, ‘This is a great revival.’ But the Lord says, ‘No, neither is this the great revival but both are steps towards it.’
“When the new church phase is on the wane, there will be evidence in the churches of something that has not been seen before: a coming together of those with an emphasis on the word and those with an emphasis on the Spirit. When the word and the Spirit come together, there will be the biggest move of the Holy Spirit that the nation, and indeed, the world has ever seen. It will mark the beginning of a revival that will eclipse anything that has been witnessed within these shores, even the Wesleyan and Welsh revivals of former years. The outpouring of God’s Spirit will flow over from the United Kingdom to mainland Europe, and from there, will begin a missionary move to the ends of the earth.”

The two wheels are the Word and the Spirit. The word and the Spirit together are what carry us forward. We cannot make progress if we just rely on the scriptures that we read  or hear preached, and we cannot make progress if we just rely on supernatural intervention from Heaven to change our lives. Jesus said His words are Spirit and Life, and if the life of the Holy spirit is going to impact us through the word we have to have a genuine expectation of a supernatural encounter with God as we read it or hear it. Spiritual things are spiritually discerned. Psalm 119: 130 says “The entrance of Your words gives light,” but that light does not come to us through our human understanding, but through the operation of the Holy Spirit. Without the Spirit, the Word is only half the bicycle. And unless we “receive with meekness the implanted word (James 1:21), the Spirit has nothing to activate in us and any supernatural experience we may have will just be a spinning wheel going nowhere.

Hebrews 2: 1-4 says this:
“Therefore we must give the more earnest heed to the things we have heard, lest we drift away. For if the word spoken through angels proved steadfast, and every transgression and disobedience received a just reward, how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation, which at the first began to be spoken by the Lord, and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness both with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will?”

The writer to the Hebrews heard the gospel – “so great a salvation” – from “those who had heard” Jesus. This may have been one (or some) of the eleven, or any of the other disciples gathered with them in the upper room at Pentecost. But whoever it was that preached to the writer to the Hebrews, the word that was preached was confirmed by God “bearing witness with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit, according to His own will.” They had the whole bicycle: the word and the Spirit.

I believe that there is something special about to happen in the new season that we are in; and it is what will bring this about. The Lord is leading His church off the main road of the familiar and up the mountain track of “the new thing” that He is doing. Across all the denominations and all the different church traditions – pentecostal/charismatic; evangelical; liturgical – there will be those that follow, and those that don’t. And they will all have one thing in common: a heart’s desire to follow Jesus. And the pentecostal will walk with the evangelical; the evangelical will walk with the liturgical; the liturgical with the charismatic. For each one, this unity will be a new thing. And the wheels of the Word and the Spirit will turn, and the harvest will be gathered in.

“Now it shall come to pass in the latter days
That the mountain of the LORD’s house
Shall be established on the top of the mountains,
And shall be exalted above the hills;
And peoples shall flow to it. Many nations shall come and say,
“Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the LORD,
To the house of the God of Jacob;
He will teach us His ways,
And we shall walk in His paths” (Micah 4: 1-2).

Next: pedal power: compelled by Love.

Be prepared; hold on., Christian Life, Living by Faith, Walking in the Spirit

The Bike Ride: Pictures of discipleship

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The Lord has shown me a picture of a bicycle on a number of occasions; the last one being three days ago. I’ve been thinking about the relevance of the idea of riding a bicycle to our walk as disciples, and the more I have considered it the more aspects I have seen. I am going to try and draw the threads together here over a few posts, because I believe that the Holy Spirit will quicken specific aspects of them  to different individuals. As you read it ask Him to speak to you.

Keep Moving

You can’t sit still on a bicycle: if you do you will fall off. We are encouraged to “press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus” (Phil 3:14). Our faith is dynamic, not static. The Holy Spirit moves, and He wants us to move with Him. Now more than ever God is uprooting and tearing down old strongholds and old ways in the world and in the Church, because He is clearing the ground to build His Kingdom. Ephesians 5:16 encourages us to “redeem the time, because the days are evil.” We don’t achieve this by being static, but by engaging with God’s purpose for us, like the chain engages with the cogs to move the cycle forward as we put our weight on the pedal.  There are times when we doubt this purpose, and so we stop moving. The next thing we know, the faith that was so solid yesterday feels like quicksand today. But the doubt that floored us did not actually arise because the truth of what we believe is in any way questionable, but because the evil one chose that moment to send a fiery dart into our heart. We need to remember and believe the words that God has spoken to us in the past, because the gifts and calling of God are without repentance (Romans 11:29). If we just get on our bikes and start cycling again in these “quicksand moments,” despite the cloud that has descended, we will find that the path becomes solid again and the way clear once more. The shield of faith will extinguish the fiery dart.

Therefore, my beloved brethren, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that your labor is not in vain in the Lord. (1 Cor 15:58)

We are seated

Even though we are moving, we are seated – in Heavenly places with Christ Jesus. Because we are seated, we are at rest – even though we are moving. Jesus tells us that if we take His yoke upon us, we will find rest for our souls. If we have lost our rest and our peace has left us, the chances are that we have left our seats as well. All authority proceeds from His throne, and we are partakers of that authority. He has given us His name, and He has given us His peace. If we can just remember that we are seated with Him in heavenly places (Eph 2:6), anxiety, impatience, stress and many other negative states of mind have nowhere to settle.

(He) raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (Eph 2:6)

Stay focussed

On a bicycle one has to stay focussed and concentrate on the task of staying on the road. If we have a lot of interests and responsibilities it is easy to get distracted, and the next thing we know we are, spiritually, lying on the ground along with our bicycle, and no longer wanting to cycle. But this doesn’t mean that we shirk our responsibilities or (as long as they are healthy ones!) give up our interests: God has put us where we are, and in addition He is the creator and sustainer of all things, therefore there is not a moment when we cannot find Him, and nothing in which we cannot serve and worship Him. The secret to staying on our bikes is in Proverbs 3 vs 6: to actually seek and acknowledge Him in everything we do. If we share everything with Him, as the friend that we are cycling with,  He will direct our paths, according to the rest of Proverbs 3:6. And if God is directing our paths we are not going to fall off our bikes.

In all your ways acknowledge Him,
And He shall direct  your paths. (Prov 3:6)

Next time: uphill, downhill.

Be prepared; hold on.

Endure Persecution for the sake of the truth

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“Preach the word! Be ready in season and out of season. Convince, rebuke, exhort, with all longsuffering and teaching. For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, because they have itching ears, they will heap up for themselves teachers; and they will turn their ears away from the truth, and be turned aside to fables.” (2Tim 2: 2-4)

In SOP today we turned our attention to the recent prophetic dreams given to Pastor Dana Coverstone

Christians have had much to say about the dreams he has received concerning imminent civil unrest in the USA. However when God speaks propheticallty it is always redemptive, and many believers feel that the Holy spirit is warning the nation of what will occur if they do not repent and pray, not what will happen irrespective of what they do. Just as Nineveh repented at the preaching of Jonah and God relented of His judgement, so the USA has an opportunity to receive blessing from the Lord instead of disaster. Patricia King, Chuck Pierce and Barbara Yoda share their thoughts on this topic here:

Dana Coverstone has had a further dream in which he was shown the persecution that is coming on the church. He says that he “doesn’t have a time-frame for this.” There are some that would say it is already beginning. The essence of this message is that vicious persecution will come upon church leaders who preach the undiluted and uncompromising word of God, particularly in relation to moral laxity and sinful lifestyles. This will come essentially not from within the wider church, but from those withing the church family who have been drawn away into liberal values and compromised doctrine. In other words, those who “will not endure sound doctrine,” and who “exchanged the truth of God for the lie.” (Romans 1: 25) You can see the video here:

The message ends with a strong exhortation to “Brace yourself; endure to the end.”

After watching the video, we felt led to pray for the following.

For the USA: Joel 2: 12-18

For Dana Coverstone: Strength and protection, for him personally and for his family

For pastors and elders: that they would preach the undiluted Word of God
Strength,
Uprightness,
Wisdom,
Discernment,
faithfulness,
A fresh anointing of the Holy Spirit.

For the Church: that the Holy spirit would blow away the fog that obscures the pillars of sound doctrine, so that the truth of the full, uncompromised gospel is plain for all to see.

That God will open the eyes of believers to the intensity of the spiritual battle that even now is upon us, and give discernment so that the strategies and the agents of the enemy become clearly visible.

We felt strongly that these dreams are a call to pray; not a call to be fearful.

Be prepared; hold on., Prayer and Spiritual Warfare

How Deep are your Roots?

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How deep are your roots? Are you ready?

I saw the trees shaking violently in the wind. Although the leaves were staying on the trees, dead branches big and small were crashing to the ground, reminding me of the hurricane we had in the south east in 1987 where even huge  ancient trees were were felled by the storm. I felt the Lord say several  things through this.

Firstly: how deep are your roots in My word and spirit? Have you got the spiritual agility to sway, or are you rigid? Are you ready for the great shaking?

Secondly: I’m not only overturning old Christian rituals so my people are flexible, but I am also starting to overturn ancient ways of the world. This is the beginning of the great shaking spoken of in  Luke 15 v 5.
Jesus is asking: “Are you truly grafted into me?”

I was then reminded of an article I read about the coronavirus. Surviving the virus is only the beginning as it can damage your lungs for life.  I believe the Lord was showing me that in the future the NHS will be over-run, so people will start to turn to the Lord asking for healing. That will be our opportunity to grab the bull by the horns and reveal God’s glory, As things are being shaken by the Lord, more and more people will be asking questions and wanting answers .

The Lord is saying: “Are your roots in me deep enough to withstand the shaking I’m doing? Are you firmly grafted into me? Are you ready?

Jacob Dominy