Now Believe

28/08/2023

I’m not against dating apps, I am for them, I have 2 friends I can think of who are now married having met online. How wonderful is that? My friends started ‘Salt’. But that said, I believe the Lord would say this to some: your husband, your wife, are found at the altar. We can waste much time, energy and heart ache engineering. Yes, faith means we get out and about, God works through the mundane, through websites, that party we didn’t want to go to, but real faith doesn’t yield via great effort, but through great surrender. The altar is the place of divine exchange.

Prayer: Lord, help me to open my clenched fists, to enter your marvellous rest, to dwell as a living sacrifice on your altar. Lord, we cry out for every divine marriage to be sealed in Jesus’ name. And the people said “Amen”

28/08/2023

What does it mean that Jesus is Lord? It means that I am not. It means that money, my plans, you name it, is not. It means that today is not only a gift and not a right but that it is to be given back to Him. Today is willingly, joyfully thrust back into the holy hands of the Lord Jesus. And so is the rest of my life. This is Lordship: I submit my plans, my desires, my possessions, my will, trusting in the One who loves me more than I can fathom and knows me better than I can imagine. Lordship is freedom and wonder and miracles!

Lordship is Christ in me, Christ all around me, Christ through me. You cannot serve two masters: you cannot serve God and money, you cannot serve God and you, you cannot serve God and success, you cannot serve God and popularity, you cannot serve God and comfort. Lorship is making yourself a happy slave to the only Master who sets free, the only true and lasting comfort, the only true and lasting loving friend and father. Newsflash: you are already a slave: someone or something will be lord of your life today, that is guaranteed. Let’s submit well, in Jesus’ name and see the world turned upside down!

26/08/2023

Self-help is a prolific nightmare. The cross is the heavenly dream, the only place of lasting victory.

Romans 6:7 - For he who has died has been freed from sin.

Self is the landing strip of sin. Don’t be a better you, get out of the way completely. You can’t dress and prop up a dead body and expect anything lovely to come out of it. The born again Christian died in the waters of baptism to stay dead!

You hear this expression much in self help/secular circles: “Jim has done a lot of work on himself….” It is often accompanied by nods of virtuous, congratulatory approval. Look, it’s better than nothing, I suppose. But it’s ultimately trying to make a dead body smell nice.

Colossians 2:13
“And you, being dead in your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, He has made alive together with Him, having forgiven you all trespasses”

Sometimes, though acutely painful, it’s good to be reminded of the stench of resurrected Adam on our lives. Remind the enemy he is buried, trample condemnation aggressively and put Christ back on with joy. Christ in us and through us is our only hope. A new creation! He is the way of righteousness.

I have been around church and ministry 20 years. It’s complicated. Men and women come and go, “ministries” come and go but we look for what the Holy Ghost is doing, the flow of His wine, the wine skin He has prepared for it, the fools He is choosing to use as vessels. Don’t be caught in the past, don’t prop up a model or man. This is dust. Honour the move, honour the man, the woman but look for Him, find the River, jump in and get out of the way.

25/08/2023

Rest is the realm of God. Restlessness is the working of the flesh. Rest is the quiet sense, the inward joy, that all is right in God under His easy yoke and perfect rhythm. I’m in the right place at the right time.

We enter rest through faith; we cease from our works and enter into God’s completed work. We sit down in Christ, enraptured by Him alone.

Relaxing is different. Relaxation can be restless; it can be frought with stuffed fear, as we try to escape with counterfeit solutions. Rest is stillness of spirit, not inactivity. Rest is the sofa, duvet, escalator of the spirit!

Strive to enter rest, if you are to have any FOMO, fear that you miss out here alone. (Heb 3:18-4:11)

Try to be still every day, preferably first thing in the morning, until all the lying voices, all the tormenting cravings, all the vain ambitions and activities have been silenced by the quiet joy and expansive peace of His rest. Abide here, in Him, and if you leave, return.

23/08/2023

Did Paul write this?

“And He Himself gave some to be pastors, some pastors, some pastors, and some pastors and pastors, for the equipping of the pew warmers for the work of churchianity, for the maintenance of the churchy church.”

No, this was not Paul, not to the Ephesians 🤣😂😂

Does anyone feel me? Funny not funny. 🙏

23/08/2023

Christianity was never merely a religion, an institution, or a Sunday meeting - it was originally known as “the way.” Why? The ever beckoning, elusive founder is to blame. With an outstretched hand, this resurrected, Jewish, God-Man Jesus invites us into a journey, on to a shimmering road of sorts, occupied by other wild, world-rebelling pilgrims chasing after life and that eternal found only in Him. I have discovered that I am only as alive as I am abandoned to where Jesus is, what He is saying and what He is doing. I never graduate beyond beginner. I’m good when I’m like a hungry dog after the scent! Take my petty religion and Give me the way at all costs.

22/08/2023

Saying no to gossip is like waving on the desert trolley at a restaurant. It’s both holy and unnatural. No one at the table gets to eat… so it’s not necessary popular, a few of the guests might feel quite non-plussed, but everyone leaves dinner in better health.

Gossip makes the promise you will feel better about yourself and find connection with others by finding carnal communion and agreement around someone else’s misfortunes, faults and failures. The enemy both fuels gossip in the flesh and thrives on its spoils. The difference between gossip and passing on news in love (particularly with a view to pray), which is quite another thing, is the appetite of the flesh and the posture of the heart.

James 4:11: Do not speak evil of one another

Dietrich Bonhoeffer wouldn’t allow his students to speak of a brother in their absence. If you are not ready to follow that route, then you can move in the opposite spirit, evangelise grace, by developing the habit of simply honouring people behind their backs.

22/08/2023

"Do your best... and relax!"
- parenting
- work
- everything...
A powerful, scriptural message that helps the understanding of the apparent paradox of human responsibility and God's sovereignty. We need be neither paralysed, nor passive. Do your best and relax.

Tim Keller sermons via Gospel in Life: How are we to understand and receive the absolute, life-changing assurance God offers to us?Download or gift the sermo...

21/08/2023

I have found the call to prayer best answered by the love sickness no earthly saviour can remedy and the growing conviction of my own and others people’s powerlessness.

21/08/2023

The success of your life hinges on your response and obedience to Jesus Christ. In the last instance, when all has been judged and weighed by God, a person was not successful because they became wealthy, achieved great milestones, were generous, or even because they had wonderful relationships and friendships.

The degree of faithfulness to God is the measure of any man or woman’s success.

The omniscient God is the only fit judge. Healthy relationships, though often a fruit of obeying God, are only ever secondary. Many popular, well loved people, are tragically on their way to hell without a Saviour, let alone the everlasting fruit of obeying His call. Obeying God can actually make you deeply unpopular on occasion.

The most successful decision you will ever make is to make Jesus Christ Lord of your life. Not servant, Lord. Ongoing success then, though the appearance in this life may seem to the contrary, though not always, is simply following Him and loving Him with everything in you. First commandment love then flows into second: a life of loving others, with His overflowing love, in the truth, whether appreciated, celebrated, or not.

Ecclesiastes 12:13-14
Let us hear the conclusion of the whole matter: Fear God and keep His commandments, For this is man's all. [14] For God will bring every work into judgment, Including every secret thing, Whether good or evil.

20/08/2023

Christians hurt Christians. But don't let being hurt by the church, drive you from the church. There are so many gifted, wounded loners who can become dangerous, false prophetic voices. The enemy wants you isolated, critical, justifying your isolation, even hiding your pain behind "doctrinal concerns". God wants you planted within the imperfect love of His multifaceted family of children, walking in humility and honour. People = mess. So what to do when something goes wrong? Keep a soft heart, forgive 70 x 7, receive healing, try to grow in conflict management and brave communication (in a world filled with fear and misunderstanding) and settle back within the tribe God has for you. No church is perfect, people and leaders will let you down again. But forgiveness carries on, grace never runs out, God wastes nothing, He gets you ready as you follow Him through the fire. The healing we need is actually in being planted and connected within His ecclesia.

19/08/2023

Being a serving, praying, healthily submitted church member is not an option for the Christian. Our consumer culture has indoctrinated a compromised church to help many folk believe that it is. That it is okay or normal that I “go to church” where I feel like it and when I feel like it. That I get to enjoy the worship, get something out of the preaching, or leave and go elsewhere if I don’t. Here’s a key: The most you will get out of the preaching is what your poured in in service and prayer. I am all for sound doctrine, the anointing of the Spirit, meat from the pulpit, fiery mission but without devoted consecration to a spiritual family, in love, it is all noisy percussion in the end. You will not grow - God’s ways are higher than the world’s.

There are “hallway seasons”, but they are never disconnected from the Body.

I beseech you: Join a family, led of the Holy Spirit. It won’t be perfect but if you will be humble and serve, you will be transformed by God. Leave as family, led of the same Lord, blessed and sent by brothers and sisters in the Lord. We are one church, under One head, Christ Jesus.