Spiritual Growth is a discipline

Well, its been a while since my last post. I believe that transparency among Christian leaders is such a key principle to personal growth as well as the growth of fellow believers, and so on that note I must say that instead of over-spiritualising my absence, it simply has been due to laziness and a battle against discipline. We never want to call ourselves lazy, do we! But the truth is the truth :) and the reality is that if we want to grow spiritually, we must give ourselves to discipline. That is while the followers of Jesus are known as two particular names: Disciples, which means that they came under the discipline of being with, learning from, and becoming like Christ; and Apostles, which are sent out to operate in the disciplines they have come to live by. I would say then that without discipline we cannot be disciples, and without first becoming a disciple we cannot become an apostle, for what will we have to take with us as we go?

This morning I have been watching some Bill Johnson messages on Youtube... Life-changing stuff...

Sometimes we are tested by what we DON'T have

I remember, not so long ago, watching one of my spiritual father's cry during his preach as he had broken away from his sermon notes and was speaking from the heart about the many family events, anniversaries and his kids' birthdays that he had missed over the years while he was travelling apostolically into the nations. Some in the room shared his tears, the ones who did were the ones who knew what he was feeling, the ones who had shared in counting the cost, the cost of the work of the gospel. I remember hearing another preacher, I think it was Brian Heasley from the 24/7 prayer movement in Ibiza, saying that the testing we are often faced with is not merely the testing of the desire for material things but rather the desire to have what some one else has, that's covetousness. Coveting another man's wife, another man's house, his life or his ministry, whatever it is, we are faced with seeing what someone else has, and we are left desiring it. The temptation is even stronger when what we see in another's life is something we have desired for a long time for our own lives, perhaps even something we have prayed and stood in faith for. Stronger yet is this temptation to covet when we have counted the desire as part of the cost we have paid as we have considered ourselves going about the King's business. For example, we may have always wanted to travel but have spent our money on apostolic trips rather than on going to holiday destinations, or perhaps we have given up a career to follow the call of Christ and as a result have had to delay certain desires such as having children until the time, or finances, are right and things are more settled. I must be honest, I am not usually faced with this feeling, but today I am, well sort of. I don't feel covetousness over what I have seen in the past 24 hours, but I do find myself faced with the option to travel down this road, which I know to be depressing.
I won't travel that road, not today, or any other. FOR I AM ABOUT THE KINGS BUSINESS. His timing is perfect, and He will make a way in His perfect time. He has us in His hands. He has the blueprint for our lives. The questions I am left pondering then are of a healthier nature, I hope. How long till we see Your promise coming to life Lord? Your promise over our lives, family, ministry. For as we go forward we will continue to count the cost, we will try to follow Your timing as best we can, but please, PLEASE don't allow us to miss out on things in our life that You have for us. Lead us not to sacrifice things that You are not asking us to sacrifice. Help us not to give up the blessing You have purposed for us. As we sacrifice this earthly economy to build into our spiritual savings account, help us not to discount the wonderful life that you have also purposed for us to have on this earth. All Lord, in Your time. Your time.

Transferred Authority

Over the past few days I've read and meditated on the book of Jude as well as 1 John. Jude is so relevant to the modern day church it is scary! Almost as if written yesterday it addresses the issue of false prophets, false teaching "with swelling words, flattering people to gain advantage" (v16), and an attitude of grumbling and complaining, walking according to the lusts of the flesh. I don't want to be the one Jude is describing here! The solution... verse 20,21... build yourself up by praying in the Holy Spirit, keep on loving God and sharing that love, and stay focused on Jesus who gives us eternal life.

1 John also deals with deceptions of the last days but focuses on the issue of sin in the lives of believers, overcoming it, and living holy lives. As I've written before, I believe strongly that a holy life is the very foundation for sharing in the privilege of carrying God's manifest presence. As with Jude, 1 John also highlights the importance of loving God and living in community which outworks love with each other.

Of course these are the briefest of summaries, but in my quest to carry His presence I come to understand once again the need for holy living, the importance of love and by extension compassion, and our need for total dependence on the Holy Spirit.

Over the past 3 days I have felt a strong pull of the Holy Spirit to just be with Him in my devotional time. To allow Him to fill me, but more than that to just simply BE present and allow Him to be present to me. He is doing something and I feel that I am about to get to know Him! Perhaps something that many believers never do.

I found myself praying this:
Holy Spirit, come and take control. Become all encompassing of my life, become BIG over my life. I don't want to administer You, I want You to have the freedom to do whatever You want in, through, around and all over my life. The authority I have in this earth, which is the authority the Father created me to carry through His design in Adam, the very authority You need to operate through, is the authority I now give to You. I place it back in your hands. As opposed to me operating and making some space for You to move, I choose for You to operate and make space for me to be used if needed. I choose not to administer You, but for You to administer me, You steer this ship. Thank You!

Lord, I feel You all around this morning.

Come Holy Spirit,

come.

Come fill me.

Holy Spirit I want to know You.

I want to know Your personality.

I want to know Your character.

I want to know Your likes and dislikes.

I want to come face to face with You,

in a friendship for which there are no words.

Come, please,

show me who You are... 

His Glory is ever before us

My wife and I have just returned from a 3 week holiday to South Africa to visit family. Part of our time there was spent in the Drakensberg mountains at a sports resort. It's wonderful how we can never escape the visual reminder of our Fathers presence. How majestic He is, and what would have been such a small feat of His awesome creativity is to us awesomely overwhelming. What am I on about? Well, I've developed this passion for playing golf. Not because of the game necessarily, but largely because golf courses are some of the most beautiful places to walk. Someone once said that golf is a good way to ruin a nice walk, that's funny, but I guess it largely depends on who you are walking with. You see, when I'm out on the course surrounded by all this beauty, I can't but help myself from talking to God. I can't stop myself from saying "Wow Dad" and being overtaken by this beauty created to show a mere glimpse of who He is, His beauty, and the love He has for us in that he created this beauty for us. Golf courses may be sculpted by man, but he has never created anything. God created the land for man to sculpt, and somewhere in that partnership I find a connection, a merging of our presence meeting His. This truth came into full light on the Drakensberg course, which sits at the foot of the mountains. There it is, mans sculpted beauty of what God created, and yet while the course is beautifully sculpted it still cannot touch God's creativity. For what man has sculpted a mountain so overshadowing that it fill half the sky? We are not gods, we are men. He is God, worthy of our worship, worthy of our praise, worthy of our service. What and honour to be aware of His presence. Open your eyes, look around, He is calling out to us, the display of His presence draws us to Him.

Build yourself up

But you, beloved, building yourselves up on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Spirit

Jude 1:20

Be found by Him

This was posted on Facebook by a good friend of mine, Rudolph Boshoff, whom I studied with at bible school a few, or make that many, years ago.


"For most of my life I have struggled to find God, to know God, to love God. I have tried hard to follow the guidelines of the spiritual life—pray always, work for others, read the Scriptures—and to avoid the many temptations to dissipate myself. I have failed many times but always tried again, even when I was close to despair.
Now I wonder whether I have sufficiently realized that during all this time God has been trying to find me, to know me, and to love me. The question is not “How am I to find God?” but “How am I to let myself be found by him?” The question is not “How am I to know God?” but “How am I to let myself be known by God?” And, finally, the question is not “How am I to love God?” but “How am I to let myself be loved by God?” God is looking into the distance for me, trying to find me, and longing to bring me home."

From The Return of the Prodigal Son: A Story of Homecoming by Henri J. M. Nouwen (New York: Image Books, 1992).

Living in Favor - Warren Eltringham

This morning I listened to a preach by Warren Eltringham.
Some great keys that stood out for me in relation to my ongoing quest to seek His presence are:
- The word affirms our identity
- The word affirms our favor
- His affirmation of us is revealed by His love over us
- One of the greatest expressions of His favor is access to His presence

http://www.wolhome.com/Message%20Downloads/11-07-16%20Warren%20Eltringham.mp3

History Makers

Tonight I leave for my third ministry trip to Sri Lanka for 5 days. We are history makers. Our simplest acts of travelling to another country with the truth in hand and the power of God, are recorded in heaven for eternity. My prayer for this trip is this...

Not to impart mere knowledge Lord,

not to flow only in wisdom.

Not merely to see signs and wonders,

not only to see blind eyes open and deaf ears here.

But, that your presence will flow.

That we will feel You tangibly with us,

And people will come face to face with You.

Demons will flee,

Sickness will leave,

Salvation will come.

We cannot go unless Your presence goes with us.

Come Lord.

Come Holy Spirit.

Come Jesus.

Let us go together on another mighty adventure!

Take a knee

There is an image in my mind. The one above is but a shadow of the emotion attached to the one I see. It is of the warrior, immediately after a battle. He is clearly exhausted. It is cold, cold enough to see the vapor in his breathe as he exhales deeply, as if having just run a race. Steam seems to be coming from his body, through his armour, evidence of how hard he has fought. The dark, blue haze in the air only makes him feel colder, and more fatigued. And yet as he comes here he is strangely refreshed. He is not here to rest. As he takes to one knee he places his fist, knuckles down, in the dirt, and bows his head. He is here to take orders. Orders from his King. He knows he must go on. He knows that he must return to the battle. But without His presence, he cannot continue. This is my secret place

Present day Power - Bill Johnson

This morning I listened to Bill Johnson preach about present day power. Awesome stuff so have a listen at http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/bethel-church-sermon-week/id76583739

I also read this short writing below from Bill Johnson, and watched the video at http://www.bjm.org/content/10/hosting-the-presence.html (I have made the bits that stand out to me blue)

Hosting the Presence

Our greatest privilege in life is to learn to be a person that God will rest upon. He is in all of us by covenant, and will never leave. But He is not upon all of us. The challenge we face is to learning to be people who host the presence of the Lord as our greatest calling in life. While He is in me for my sake, He is upon me for yours. When the Lord rests upon a person, there is actually an atmospheric change that takes place wherever that person goes.

As our own faith increases—in conjunction with our realm of authority and responsibility—we are allowed to carry a greater weight of presence into an environment. The “reach” of His presence is transformational in nature, changing the climate that people live under. It is what happened on the day of Pentecost when the Spirit of God fell on 120 people. It completely changed the appetite of a city that only days earlier rose up to crucify Jesus. After the Spirit of God began to manifest and rest upon this group of 120, thousands spontaneously dropped all they were doing to come and gather around them at nine o’clock in the morning. When the prevailing atmosphere is the presence of God Himself, hunger is created in the hearts of people. It is normal to hunger for God.

As we become faithful to host the presence of the Lord, we find a tension between two realities—that He has been given to us without measure but that we set the limits of that measure. Though all of the measurements are set up on our end of the equation, we can experience the measure of presence we are willing to jealously guard. Whatever you will jealously guard, that is the measure you will have on a consistent basis. All measurements in the Kingdom exist for us to pursue increase. The whole Kingdom is based on this principle: the faithful use of what you have been given is what qualifies you for more.

This is the process we will experience in the coming days, for the glory of the Lord will cover the whole earth!!

How to block the His presence

As believers we are called to live holy. Not holy in part, not holy in certain areas of our lives, no, we must wake up and realise who we are and how we are called to live. We want all the power of the believer, we want the presence of the Almighty, but we want it on our terms. We want to live with one foot in the world with none of the consequences, and one foot in the kingdom with all the benefits. How can we represent Him by carrying His presence if we are not living holy lives? How can we stand before God, the righteous, holy, creator of the universe, and wag our finger at Him saying "flow your holy water through my life, never mind the thick layer of oily sin that I choose to hold onto." I have tried to live this way. Fulfilling the desires of the flesh, while desiring His power and presence to flow through me at the same time. It does not work that way. We cannot have both. We must each make the decision as to what is more important, our flesh or Him.

Picture a glass filled with crystal clear, pure water. That is you as a believer. Now picture a thick layer or dirty, filthy oil on top of that pure water in the glass. That oil is the sin we hang on to in our lives. As we seek Him, as we seek His presence, He wants to fill us, but neither can he pour more of His pure water through that layer of oil, nor can we reach up to Him through it. You see, when a Christian sins he does not lose his salvation. Our legal standing before God is unchanged. However, as we choose to live unholy, this is what is affected [Moller:1998]:

• Our fellowship with God is disrupted and our Christian life is damaged (Eph 4:30)
• Our fruitfulness in ministry is damaged (John 15:4)
• Loss of spiritual strength, some diminution of spiritual power, some loss of effectiveness in the work of God's kingdom (1 Peter 2:11)
• Loss of heavenly reward (1 Cor 3:12; 1 Cor 3:15)
• We will stand in judgement one day and give account of what we have done in the body (2 Cor 5:10)

Bottom line... If we want to experience more of God's presence we must put away the sin that so easily ensnares us. We must get control of ourselves, get control of the flesh. As we live holy we open the flood gates for His presence to flow into and through us.

HE IS WORTH IT, LIVE HOLY

Have mercy upon me O God,

...Remove my transgressions.

Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,

and cleanse me from my sin.

For I acknowledge my transgressions,

and my sin is always before me.

Against You, You only, have I sinned,

and done this evil in your sight - 

That you may be found just when You speak,

and blameless when You judge.

Create in me a clean heart,

O God,

and renew a steadfast spirit within me.

Do not cast me away from Your presence,

And do not take your Holy Spirit from me.

- Psalm 51:1-4, 10-11  

Cited:
Moller F P. The Wonderful Christ and the Meaning of Humanness. Words of Light and Life, vol. 2. Pretoria: Van Schaik, 1998, chapter 5.

The virtuous man - Danny Silk

This morning I listened to a sermon by Danny Silk called "The virtuous man". Some great stuff in there for us men. I especially like the part about choosing a path and going with it, especially in light of this devotional focused on actively choosing to chase after His presence. Have a listen at http://www.ibethel.org/podcast/2011/06/21/the-virtuous-man

His face is turned toward us

I love this picture. It always brings me to devotion. Jesus. His heart breaks for us. It breaks for His creation, as we slowly destroy ourselves. It was not meant to be this way. This is not what He made, but this is the way we chose it to be. Yet all the time He is calling us back to Him, back to what we were created to be. His heart breaks for us. John 11:35, "Jesus wept", and He weeps still. In our pursuit of His presence we should know that He seeks it too. He desires us. He calls us to Him. To sit with Him. To spend time with Him. As much as we desire His presence, He desires ours. His face is turned toward us, as we turn ours toward Him.

Become aware

I guess it is only natural that the first inclination when starting a new "project" is to get stuck in with the "work", and certainly my initial thoughts about how to pursue the presence of the Almighty were just that. The first task I thought of is to do a word search in the Bible for the word "presence". That thought expanded to a study of every time we see Gods manifest presence in the Bible. It would probably be worth noting here that my current understanding of His presence is that there is the "general" presence of God, and the "manifest" presence of God, a topic for another time, however it suffices to say that the study of Gods presence I had in mind was that of His manifest presence. You know, those times in the Bible where He "showed up" and His presence was powerful and apparent. It was not long until the Holy Spirit gently reminded me of Jesus come to earth, a thought which very nearly destroys any such planned study of the "mystery" of Gods presence appearing among us as here He is, present, on the earth, with us, for 33 years. Add to that the study of probable theophanies throughout the Bible as well as the fact that we as believers are indwelt by the very Spirit of God, and we can see that the topic would make for vast study indeed.

Perhaps then the best way to move forward is to simplify my desire in this pursuit of His presence, for it is not mere head knowledge I seek, but rather the outpouring of the manifest presence of the Most High. I want to feel Him here, physically. I want to have others feel Him. And indeed, if I may be so bold, dare I say as Moses did, I want to see Him. "And he said, 'Please, show me Your glory." - Exodus 33:18. I desire to be a carrier of His presence, a river through which He flows. What a privilege, what an honor. Indeed not a small thing, and certainly not to be taken lightly.

So as I sat in this devotional time, gathering my thoughts somewhat, and seeking a starting point for my pursuit, I felt the Holy Spirit draw me to the place at which I should make my first step...

"Be still, and know that I am God"

                                                  Psalm 46:10a

Although many upcoming devotions will include studies of Gods presence and will have many words written, surely the starting point, and one worth returning to each time, is to simply be still. Allow God to be God. Become aware of His presence. Breathe. Breathe the very air He breathed in this earth. Gods breath in my lungs. 

Become aware of Him.

He is present.

He is here.

A promise of His presence

On June 9, 2011, Paul and Tracy Tothill from Gateway International church, Adelaide, Australia came to minister in Dubai. In a leaders meeting Paul prophesied over me with regard to the anointing and Gods presence. This devotional is a result of that prophecy, as I focus devotional time to this pursuit of the presence of the King, our Father, our friend, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.

Lord come.

Holy Spirit come.

Jesus come.

Come teach me.

Sit, and show me.

Make me a river.