Whole Hearted Ministry!

2 Chronicles 25:2 “And he (Amaziah) did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart.”

The book of Chronicles lists the names and exploits of the Kings of Judah and Israel post King David. It reads like a Game of Thrones episode filled with betrayals, assassinations and uprisings. King Amaziah began to reign in Judah when he was 25yrs old and he was described as someone who did what was right in the eyes of the Lord, yet not with a whole heart. It’s possible to do things by the book but your whole heart not be in it. It’s possible to tick the box but not own it where it counts. What has God asked of you, that you are skimming the surface on, but not really committing to? This is the difference between good and great ministry. Good ministry does the right things but great ministry does the right things with a full heart behind it. Jesus said the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with ALL your heart and soul and strength (Mt 22:37). Doing what’s right in the eyes of God, yet not with a whole heart leaves the door open for inevitable compromise. It’s living with a Plan B lurking in the background waiting to pounce. Shut the door on compromise and say goodbye to Plan B. Don’t just tick the religious box and settle for surface level obedience. Live life with a whole heart. Own what God’s asked of you, embracing it in your heart. Clear your conscience and dive completely into God’s will and purpose for your life. Live from a whole heart. Selah!

Do All God Asks Of You!

Genesis 6:22 “Noah did this; he did all that God commanded him.”

Life is complex! Complexity seems to grow the longer one lives. Everyone at some point in their life feels overwhelmed by the complexity that exists, not only in our culture but in our personal lives. Noah, the great patriarch, found himself alive at a time when the complexity of man’s wickedness was at an all time high. Every intention of man’s heart was perpetually evil and God decided to hit the reset button of humanity and start again. However, Noah was an exception. Noah found favour with God and walked with him all the days of his life. Noah became the patriarch of a remnant that would begin the re-genesis of humanity but it required uncompromising obedience. God asked Noah to build a huge boat to preserve a remnant of humanity and the animal kingdom for the rebirth of the planet. Without any evidence of weather patterns pointing to rain or any historical context to aid his boat building directive, Noah did everything God asked of him and ended up saving the future of the world. Noah is the original superhero. The complexity of your life will only be eased when you settle firmly in your heart the Lordship question. Who is Lord over my life? Am I Lord or is God my Lord? When you surrender your heart to God and live for the audience of one, you resolve 10,000 problems all at once. Why? Because your hearts affections and directions are shaped solely around one primary thing, obeying God without reservation. Selah!

Here Am I, Send Me!

Isaiah 6:8-9 And I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here am I! Send me.” And he said, “Go, and say to this people..”

God is looking to and fro across the earth for people he can use to accomplish specific assignments in the building of his kingdom. Before Isaiah became a prominent prophetic voice to Israel, he firstly was an everyday believer in God who made himself available. Availability is the first prerequisite for being used mightily by God. Isaiah 1:19 says, “If you are willing and obedient, you shall eat the good of the land“. To answer God’s call on your life, you must be first willing and secondly obedient. Not only did God call Isaiah but he counselled him in what to say. Too often we are attempting to come up with something inspirational that will connect with people, rather than simply sharing out of the well of what God has already revealed to us. If you want God to call you and use you mightily, first examine your heart and ask, “Am I available? Am I willing? Am I going to obey what he’s asked me to do? Selah!

Something Greater than Silver and Gold

Numbers 24:12-13 And Balaam said to Balak, “Did I not tell your messengers whom you sent to me, ‘If Balak should give me his house full of silver and gold, I would not be able to go beyond the word of the Lord, to do either good or bad of my own will. What the Lord speaks, that will I speak’?

In Israel’s journey through the wilderness, Balaam the prophet was asked to prophesy a curse against Israel by Balak, the king of Moab because the king feared God’s people. The king believed that Balaam’s prophetic declarations had power to change natural circumstances and if Balaam would prophesy destruction against Israel, it would come to pass. The king offered riches to Balaam to prophesy a curse and the context of the story suggests Balaam wrestled with the request in his heart. However, for Balaam, silver and gold wasn’t as important as obeying and honouring God’s will both for his own life and for Israel. Everyone of us will face moments in our lives where we will have to decide between following our will or God’s will. Temptations will come to compromise on the conviction of God’s will in our own hearts. There is something greater than silver and gold and more important than satisfying the desires of our own will and that is living in the centre of God’s will for our lives. I want to encourage you, no matter what the temptation, the next time you wrestle between obeying God’s will or following your own will, stay true to what God is calling you to do and let God take care of your rewards. Selah!

Not One Word Will Fail!

Joshua 21:45 “Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to the house of Israel had failed; all came to pass.”

Everyone of us knows the feeling of wanting to give up on a delayed word God has spoken over our lives and into our hearts. We don’t see the reality of it in our expected time line and we conclude its not going to come to pass. Israel must have felt like this for hundreds of years. Centuries before Israel’s conquest of the Promised Land, God spoke to Abraham about the land of Canaan being given as a possession to the nation that God would raise up from Abraham’s seed. Several generations had passed since that word, including 400 years of slavery in Egypt, and yet towards the end of the book of Joshua we read of God’s faithfulness to his promises to Israel. Not one word of all the good promises that the Lord had made to Israel failed. They all came to pass. God is true to his word. Heaven and earth may pass away but his word remains forever. Whatever promise God has given to you and however long ago you received it, it will not fall to the ground empty but will accomplish what God has sent it to you to perform. Stand your ground, hold onto God’s promise and trust in God’s faithfulness. Every word will come to pass. Explosive Insights!

What’s your One Big Thing?

Philippians 3:13 “But one thing I do..”

The most common question i get asked when I travel and speak is “What’s God’s will for my life?” This is asked in a variety of ways but essentially comes back to this underlying wrestle in our hearts, “What on earth am I here for?” God has created you for a singular purpose. You can have many hobbies and interests but you can only have one purpose. You can be gifted and skilled in many areas but God has created to fulfil a specific calling. The Book of Proverbs tells us, “Everything is made for a purpose.” My one big thing is to inspire the global church to fulfil its calling on planet earth. What’s your OBT..? I encourage you and challenge you to discover, develop and direct your time, energy and abilities towards knowing and doing your One Big Thing as if your life depended on it.. because it actually does. Explosive Insights!

Don’t Give Up on Gods Promises!

Genesis 16:1-2 “Now Sarai, Abram’s wife had borne him no children. She had a female Egyptian servant whose name was Hagar. And Sarai said to Abram, ‘The Lord has prevented me from bearing children. Go in to my servant; it may be that I shall obtain children by her.’ And Abram listened to the voice of Sarai.”

I love the story of Abraham and Sarah’s journey of faith because it mirrors what many of us go through in our own lives. When we face the delay of Gods promises being fulfilled, most of us take matters into our own hands. This is exactly what Sarai and Abram did after 10years of not seeing the fulfilment of God’s promises. When Abram should’ve kept listening to the voice of God, he listened to the voice of doubt and retreated from the life of faith. When we can’t see in the natural what we are expecting from God in our timeline, we often look for other options to bring the promise to pass. Unfortunately, our efforts to secure what God wants to secure for us indicates our lack of trust for Gods timing and purposes. 2 Corinthians 5:7 calls us to “walk by faith, not by sight.” Faith hears the rhema inspired word of God and stays focused on it regardless of what the natural circumstances might be indicating. When Abram took matters into his own hands, he only delayed what God always intended to bless him with, the promised son Isaac. Whatever your Isaac is, God wants you to trust him with the timing of the promise. Guard your heart from doubt and run back to the rhema word of God. Your Isaac is coming your way. Explosive Insights!

Don’t be Anxious about the Future!

Matthew 6:34 “Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.”

The future is filled with uncertainties. Many people fear the future and live with anxiety over the unanswered questions of what tomorrow may hold. Truth is, your future will be a reflection of what you are sowing into your life today. Today is the day God has made for you and I encourage you to live it to the full and be mindful of the moment that God has you in rather than anxiously waiting for tomorrow. The key to making the most of your tomorrow’s is maximising the opportunities that are infront of you today. Many of us suffer from destination disease. We’re so desperate to get to a place called there, that we miss the place called here. I understand for some of us, life may be so painful today that we’re just holding on for tomorrow, hoping it will take away the pain we feel. But God is not only in your tomorrow, He’s in the pain of your today. He wants to bring you closer to himself and he wants to speak words of life into your spirit that will give you strength for whatever it is you are facing today. Don’t believe the lie of anxiety about your future. The same God who’s with you in your today will sustain you in your tomorrow. Time is the most precious resource we have. Focus your attention upon Jesus and make the most of today. Tomorrow will take care of itself. Explosive Insights!

Walk It Out!

Ephesians 4:1 Walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you’ve been called. Everyone of us have been called to something unique and specific. Everyone of us are accountable to God and ourselves for how we fulfill that calling. There are specific things God asks of one person to do within their calling, that he doesn’t ask of another person. I can’t compare myself or what God is asking me to do with someone else’s calling and their personal approach to it. I’ve got to get on with being obedient in the things that help me fulfill my calling and you do too. Whatever God has called you to, walk in a manner worthy of the calling which you have received, otherwise you’ll undermine what God wants to do through you. Consider what it looks like for you to walk it out in this season of your life. 

Simplify!

Philippians 3:13 But one thing I do.. 

Remove the distractions and unclutter your life! One of the greatest blessings of modern day life is the increase of options which brings with it the curse of increasing distraction. All of us know the feeling of setting our minds and hands to a task, only to find ourselves wandering off into some seemingly pointless pursuit of social media or TV watching. What is it that is getting in the way of what God has created you for and called you to? It’s time to unravel yourself from the complexity of life and focus in like a laser point on the one thing you are here for. Everyone of us have the same amount of hours in the day as the president of the USA and other seemingly high capacity people and yet what are we doing with the precious gift of time Gods given to us. Resolve in your heart that you are not going to let life pass by you any longer and take hold of that which God has purposed you for. This one thing I do!