Not Will Power but Spirit Power

Romans 7:18 “I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.”

There’s no such thing as self-help in God’s kingdom. If self-help was as effective as its promoted to be, we wouldn’t have needed Jesus Christ to die in our place and rise again conquering sin, Satan and death. We all can identify things in our minds, hearts and lives that we’d like to change. Many of us search for answers in the strategies of human reason than the power of the Holy Spirit. The reality is our will is limited in its ability to bring sustainable and permanent change to our hearts. Stop trying to change yourself by your own will and just start following Jesus. When you surrender to Jesus as your Lord, and you start to follow him out of relationship, transformation is a natural byproduct of the work of the Spirit’s power in your life. Paul said to the Romans, “If you live according to the flesh you will die but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons (and daughters) of God.” Selah!

Where is the Power?

Acts 9:33-35 Peter found a man named Aeneas, bedridden for eight years, who was paralysed. Peter said to him, “Aeneas, Jesus Christ heals you; rise and make your bed.” And immediately he rose. And all the residents of Lydda and Sharon saw him and turned to the Lord.

The Apostle Peter was on the move, preaching the gospel and ministering healing and freedom in Jesus name, wherever he went. In the town of Lydda, Peter encounters a paralysed man, bedridden for eight years. The reality of the situation is intimidating for anyone of us but Peter doesn’t appear to miss a beat. He pray’s a simple but powerful prayer of faith in Jesus name and commands the man to get up. The bible records the man immediately rose up from his paralysed state and started to walk. I’m challenged by Peter’s faith and simple prayer. I’m confronted with the fact that although, I too have seen miracles in other’s lives through the power of the Holy Spirit in Jesus name, and yet I hunger for more of God’s love, grace and power to flow through me into the lives of other’s, helping them to be restored into a place of freedom, healing and purpose. Where is the power of God? God’s power is found in a revelation of the name of Jesus Christ. God’s power is found in the expectation of faith that believes God will move in any given situation, no matter how intimidating the circumstances. God’s power is found in the daily pursuit of relationship with Jesus where a greater portion and awareness of his presence grows with each prayer and step of faith. I encourage you to not settle for the comfort zone of your life but to seek God and step out in faith, releasing God’s power into the lives of the people around you. Explosive Insights!

First Hand Revelation!

“That which we have seen and heard we proclaim.” (1 John 1:3)

John the Apostle speaks and tells us that he doesn’t borrow someone else’s testimony to inform his proclamation but he preaches from a first-hand eyewitness account of encounter with God. John, along with the other disciples were ministering out of their personal experience of Jesus and we should do so as well. I can’t be effective in someone else’s revelation but I can be authentic and effective if I am speaking out of something that I have personally encountered along the journey of my relationship with Jesus. Power is imparted to people when it flows from a first hand revelation, not second or third hand. Hearing other’s stories is inspirational and helpful but living an adventure and telling others your story is powerful. First hand revelation requires us to grow in awareness of what God’s saying to us and what we are learning along the way. We are called to be a witness of what God has worked into our lives so that others may come into their own personal encounter with God!

Follow the Cloud, Not the Crowd!

Exodus 13:21 And the Lord went before them by day in a pillar of cloud to lead them along the way, and by night in a pillar of fire to give them light, that they might travel by day and by night.

Wow! I love this verse of scripture. Here is a beautiful picture of God leading his people through night and day seasons by going before them in a pillar of cloud and a pillar of fire. The people weren’t left without a witness to follow and this must have been so encouraging for Moses in his leadership of what sometimes was a group of very difficult people to lead.

In our lives, we can too easily get distracted by the opinions and voices of the crowd. The crowd can have far too much influence in our lives than what God wants or intended. There will always be someone out there who thinks they know best for you and who has a wonderful plan for your life.

It’s in these moments, that you and I need a conviction that heaven has spoken and that God is going before us to make a way in both dark and light seasons of life.

What about you? Are you following the crowd or the cloud? God loves you and wants to lead you in such a significant way. Stay focused on the cloud before you.

The Oracle!

Stay Flexible in 2013!

According to John 3:8 every believer is a child of the wind (symbol of the Holy Spirit). The wind blows where it wishes and you hear its sound. You don’t know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit of God. Jesus is saying, just as man cannot control what the wind does, so man cannot control what the Spirit does.

The Holy Spirit is a person of cosmic mystery that blows upon our lives in different seasons for different purposes. However, my observation of some believers are, the longer they are saved, the more inflexible they become. The opposite should be taking place, the longer we walk with God, the more flexible and pliable we should become. The more inflexible we become, the more we try to control the outcome in our own flesh.

Paul wrote to the church in Galatia, ‘O foolish Galatians! Who has bewitched you? Having begun by the Spirit, are you now being perfected by the flesh? Does he who supplies the Spirit to you and works miracles among you do so by the works of the law, or by hearing with faith?’ (Gal 3:1,3,5)

How do believers become inflexible towards the blowing of the Spirit in their lives? We stop hearing by faith and start working by the flesh! One reason why we stop hearing by faith is because of a hard heart. A hard heart anaesthetises your capacity to discern what the Holy Spirit is saying and doing in your life. This is a dangerous place to be because your faith is weakened by what you cannot hear. Faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God (Rom 10:17).

We can develop a hard heart for lots of different reasons but the primary reason why believers develop a hard heart towards God is, ‘God didn’t do what I wanted him to do’. When God doesn’t perform for us the way we expected him to, we can develop a hard heart towards him which can lead to being defiled by bitterness (Heb 12:15).

God wants to blow his Spirit in your direction in 2013. He wants you to be a kite in his hurricane of favour, blessing and opportunity, as you go about his purpose for your life but you must allow him to soften your heart and you must guard your heart against bitterness because out of it flow the springs and issues of life.

2013 could be your best year yet but it won’t be dependant upon God, whether it is or not, it will be determined on your responsiveness to the blowing of the Holy Spirit in your life.

The Oracle!

Spirit-Led or Self-Led?

I’m fascinated with God! I love the fact that my full-time life on planet earth is pre-occupied with my relationship with God. Could there be a better use of time than living each moment in the presence of God? 

One of the privileges God has extended to us is CHOICES! God has given us free will to exercise our power of choice. We can steward this gift or abuse it. The choices we make in life determine how we spend our moments. It seems like there are an infinite number of potential wrong choices to make in life but living with God at the epicentre of your existence empowers you to make choices that promote light instead of darkness. 

Whenever I read Jesus in the Gospels, I’m fascinated by his rhythm of life. I could spend the rest of my life telling you all that he did, and yet, he carried himself and his waking moments with such grace and purpose that who he was really marked what he did. How did he do it?

Jesus was led by the Spirit! Jesus had a relationship with his Father that made all the difference in how he approached his life. He only did three fundamental things that was routine (Synagogue on the Sabbath, early morning prayer and observe Jewish feasts) in his life but everything else was led by the Spirit of God. Jesus didn’t even speak on his own authority. He said, “What I say, I say as the Father has told me.” (Jn 12:50) Every moment was informed by the Father, not as a robotic event but as a fluid movement of synergistic relationship. The Father started the sentence and Jesus would finish the sentence. Jesus would pray the prayer and Father would answer the prayer. There was such love, unity and honour in the God-head that God’s purposes could be fulfilled through Jesus’ words, actions and relationships.

I believe this is the pattern we are to observe in our own lives today. I’ve experienced the benefits of approaching life in this way and I want to encourage you to do the same. If your life feels more self-led than Spirit-led than reflect on how you view your relationship with God. How you view God will determine how you live your life. There is a relationship with God where what’s in Gods heart becomes so intertwined with what’s in your heart that you don’t know where one begins and the other ends. All great relationships function in this way.

The Oracle!

God’s Letter To The World!

2 Corinthians 3:2-3 “You yourselves are our letter of recommendation, written on our hearts, to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of human hearts.”

I love and esteem God’s Word and I can understand you thinking that with my blog titled, ‘God’s Letter to the world’ I was going to be speaking about the bible. However, I’ve discovered like you have, the world doesn’t read its bible but it does read its Christians.

Paul in his letter to the church in Corinth didn’t need to send a reference letter to them because the people themselves were his letter of recommendation. The credibility of Paul’s ministry was found in the people whom he’d ministered to.

The canvas of ministry is people. A ministers work of art is people. Every minister should look at people like Picasso looked at a blank piece of canvas and see incredible potential. Recently, I had the privilege of baptizing a new believer into the life of the church. At his baptism his family and friends came up and expressed with heartfelt emotion their appreciation for us investing into their loved one’s life. They shared how amazed they were at the difference in the young man’s approach to life and priorities because of the time and energy I and others had invested into him. This is what winning looks like in God’s kingdom. When God takes a person who is broken and restores them, he is sending the world another letter of his love, power and grace.

Your life is a letter from Christ delivered to the world. God is writing on the tablet of your heart. Your heart is the canvas God writes his story upon. He doesn’t use ink but he uses the Holy Spirit. This means you need to pay attention to your story because your story is your brand, your message. Every one loves a story, especially kids. Every night before bed, my youngest son, Joshua, will ask me to read him a story. As we get older, we become weighed down by information but a good story will snap us back to life straight away.

What’s your story? What has God written on your heart through the different experiences you have had in life? Take time out to pause and reflect on your story. Where has God taken you in the different seasons of your life? What have you learnt? What has the devil meant for evil that God has turned into good?

Your story is your work of art and it’s God’s letter to the world!

The Oracle!

A Kite in God’s Hurricane!

Recently, in the news we’ve all heard of the tragic events surrounding Hurricane Sandy which hit the northeastern coast of the United States. Over $20 billion worth of damage is estimated to have occurred and many lives have been lost. Don’t you think it’s odd that we name such cataclysmic events after lovely ladies names… like Sandy or Katrina or Cyclone Tracey. I know a Tracey and she is a lovely lady. Why don’t we call them ‘Hurricane Hitler’ or ‘Hurricane Lucifer’ or ‘Cyclone Frankenstein’? Just a thought!

No matter how sturdy or stable a house, boat or car looks pre-hurricance, if the hurricane winds are strong enough then the object will have no power over itself to determine where the wind blows it. There are massive implications in the spiritual dimensions of life as well.

One of the symbols of the Holy Spirit is Wind. All throughout Scripture we read of the wind of God’s Spirit blowing upon his people and world events (Ezekiel 37, Acts 2). John 3:8 says, ‘The wind blows where it wishes. You can hear its sound but you don’t know where it comes from or where its going. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit of God.’

Believers are born of the Spirit of God and are children of the wind of God’s Spirit blowing upon people. I’ve observed, though, that after a number of years, some believers become very static and inflexible when it comes to the leading of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The opposite should be the case. The longer we walk with God, the more flexible, dynamic and passionate we should become as we anticipate the blowing of the Spirit in our lives.

Unfortunately, hard-heartedness anaesthetises us to the Spirit’s leading in our lives. A hard heart disguises itself in religious activity and piety (Pharisees) but really finds its seed in pride which leads to rebellion. Hebrews 3:7-8 says, ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as in the day of rebellion.’

What stirs God’s heart to blow a hurricane in our lives is a soft and broken heart before him. It’s not that God can’t blow upon a hard heart, he does all the time (after all, how could any of us be saved), it’s that he delights in blowing upon a soft heart. Psalm 51:17 says, ‘The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit. A broken and contrite heart O God, you will not despise.’ Are you a bucking stallion that needs breaking or do you have a soft heart that the trainer (Holy Spirit) is able to bridle and ride into God’s purposes on?

The Oracle!

A Kite in God’s Hurricane!

John 3:8 ‘The wind blows where it wishes, and you hear its sound, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes. So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit.’

I have lived for many years with a high level of clarity on what goals I would like to achieve in my life. However, over the last 3 years I have become more and more relaxed about what I want to achieve and more and more focused on Jesus and what he wants me to do.

I have found that God has used key people and unique circumstances to help me release my grip on those things I once held so dear and close to my heart. The more I lose my life for God’s purposes, the more I seem to find God’s grace at work in my life. Often we hold so tightly onto things in life we deem to be important that we actually don’t realise the damage it’s causing us. Too many of us shape our identities on things (possessions, people, performance, career, image) rather than on our relationship with God.

There is freedom to be found in abandoning one’s self to God. He alone establishes our identity and sense of purpose in life. While he can and does use events, conversations and people to help shape us, the most important shaping comes from an intimate relationship with him.

In this season of self-abandonment I have found myself praying the boldest prayer I have ever prayed, ‘God make me a kite in your hurricane!’

Oh my gosh. I love this prayer. Every time I pray it, something wells up in my spirit and I’m filled with a sense of awe and amazement at the goodness and wonder of almighty God. God responded to me the first time I prayed it with, ‘Be very careful what you pray for, cause you might just get it.’ I don’t think we realise how seriously God takes our prayers. When I pray, ‘God make me a kite in your hurricane’, I’m saying to God,

“My life is yours. I present my body as a living sacrifice on your altar. Do with me and through me what you want. I don’t want to be on the outside looking in, I want to be in the epi-centre of the eye of the storm of what you are doing on planet earth. Blow my life in the direction you want me go. Blow in my life, like a hurricane. Let it be so shockingly obvious to the world, that you and you alone have done what you are doing in my life and ministry. Don’t bless what I’m doing, just connect me to what you’re doing, cause what you are doing is already blessed. I love you and I abandon myself to you. I don’t have an agenda anymore, other than to do what is on your heart and fulfil the purpose for which you created me. In Jesus mighty name, Amen.”

Where are you spiritually at today? Are you holding things so tightly to your heart that you would die, if they were taken from you? Or are you living with a sense of abandonment to God and his purposes in your life? I dare you to pray this audacious prayer, ‘God, make me a kite in your hurricane!’ Truth is, you better hold on cause he might just answer it.

Fire of God!

Recently, we had a smoke alarm continually go off in the middle of the night until I pulled it off the roof. There was a whole lot of noise but no fire or smoke anywhere. That’s like you and me at times, and even some churches – a whole lot of noise but no fire. We don’t need more noise. We need more fire.

Someone once asked John Wesley why so many people attended his rallies. He replied, ‘Cause I set myself on fire and people come and watch me burn.’ People are drawn to fire.   Watch how many people come out to see a fire cause people are drawn to it (obviously, except where there is a bushfire).

In Matthew 3:11-12 John the Baptist compares himself to Jesus and he basically says, ‘Im the warm up for the main event. I have come with a baptism of repentance but Jesus will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.’

Fire in the natural purifies and refines, cleanses and purges and stimulates growth in the environment. Fires start when 3 elements come together = combustible material, an oxygen rich compound and a heat source. In the spiritual a baptism of fire happens when 3 elements come together = Jesus, an individual and the Holy Spirit.

The fire of God sets an individual apart. Jesus ministry separates the wheat from the chaff. Wheat represents believers baptised with fire and chaff represents unbelievers judged by fire. Paul mentions in 1 Corinthians 3:13 that our works will be revealed and tested by fire. Whichever way you look at it, God uses fire to minister to us one way or the other.

In Acts 2:1-4 on the Day of Pentecost the early church was baptised in a Holy Ghost fire. The prophet Jeremiah said, ‘Gods word is like a burning fire shut up in my bones and I cannot hold it in.’

God hasn’t called you to be a false smoke alarm that makes a lot of noise but have no fire. Jesus is alive and wants to set you ablaze with passion and boldness for his glory and his call on your life. Position yourself in prayer by faith for the fire of the Holy Spirit to ignite you.

Grace!