The Rock Church Blogs

Holy Spirit is our Teacher

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:56:18 +1300

Hi Family,

I want to share this with you and encourage you at this time with these words.

This came to me on Thursday and I believe will encourage us all in our pursuit of Christ.

The GREATEST OPPORTUNITY yet!!!!

With the enforced decision by the government of not being able to gather, we have the GREATEST OPPORTUNITY of a LIFETIME, a LIFETIME!!!!!

The TIME is NOW to lay hold of with both hands our GREATEST OPPORTUNITY and GREATEST PRIVILEGE and HONOUR ever.

What is this UNPRECEDENTED FIRST PLACE or BEGINNING POSITION?

For the entire church, you and I, bothers and sisters in Christ, to truly KNOW what it is and EXPERIENCE what it is, to BEHOLD the HOLY SPIRIT as our Teacher!!!!!!

The Spirit is saying “the time is NOW to NOT LOOK to man for your FIRST PLACE as teacher, but to Me! I AM, to be your Teacher DIRECTLY."

Matthew 23:8 But do not be called Rabbi; for One is your Teacher, and you are all brothers.

Question: can you honestly say, before God, His Son and the Spirit, that you know Him and behold Him as your direct Teacher?

Do you truly honestly KNOW and have the EXPERIENCE of Him, as your direct FIRST PLACE Teacher, who is GIVING and SHOWING you EVERYTHING pertaining to Life and Godliness?

If NOT, then you have the GREATEST OPPORTUNITY and GREATEST PRIVILEGE and HONOUR ever, RIGHT NOW TO!

DON’T MISS this amazing gift you have been given right now by our governments decision, which the Spirit is all over.

The Holy Spirit spoke so clearly to me personally and said “this is not a time for the church to see your face (Greg) on a screen in their homes, but it is a time for them to turn to Me and discover Me as their Teacher”.

We have a role to play, but it is not as Teacher. It is of disciples, who point people to the Teacher and this is a very fine line. It is so easy to think one is pointing people to God, when in fact, one leads them to ones self.

If you are a Senior Leader, Pastor, Apostle, Prophet, Teacher, Elder, do you KNOW and have the EXPERIENCE of the Spirit as your Teacher, your FIRST?

Do you TRUST the Teacher to do what He is commissioned to do, in the teaching of His people, your brothers and sisters?

Do you TRUST the Holy Spirit in the people to teach them directly?

Big questions which all those in leadership must ask and live out.

1 John 2:27 As for you, the anointing which you received from Him abides in you, and you have no need for anyone to teach you; but as His anointing teaches you about all things, and is true and is not a lie, and just as it has taught you, you abide in Him.

It is a sad state and reality today, that man for many, has become the Teacher of the church of Jesus Christ and the church is suffering for this in unprecedented measures.

We talk about the Coronavirus virus being a pandemic, but I have to say it. I think this reality is far worse and devastating.

The Coronavirus will eventually be brought under control and this pandemic will cease, but will this spiritual pandemic of not having the Spirit as our direct Teacher continue on?

The decision by the government is an absolute GIFT to discover a reality you may not know.

“The Holy Spirit as your divine Teacher”

He is the One who will teach us ALL things and bring to remembrance all that Jesus has said. He is the One who has been sent and commissioned to do this work, NOT MAN. He will DISCLOSE to us what is to come and He is the One who takes what is Christ’s and discloses it to us - John 14:25-26, 16:13-15.

Paul said the Gospel I received WAS NOT taught to me by man, nor did I receive it from man, but I received it directly from a revelation of Jesus Christ - Galatians 1:11-12.

Paul said ear has not yet heard, eye has not seen, heart has not received all that God has PREPARED for those who love Him. For to US God revealed them (all these prepared promises) through the SPIRIT - 1 Corinthians 2:9-12.

The TIME IS NOW for man to MOVE ASIDE and take a step back into his position of SECOND. Man has a role but it is not as Teacher.

Please HEAR what I am saying and don’t HEAR what I am not saying.

Man, disciples, have a ROLE TO PLAY!

Man’s role is of a letter or signpost. A letter or signpost who points everyone to the Teacher. As a signpost we make sure every follower is directed to the Teacher and as signposts, we take every measure and effort, to ensure we are not becoming the teacher in the people’s eyes through the decisions and choices we make.

Jesus also teaches us in Matthew 23:9-10 the following

Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven. Do not be called leaders; for One is your Leader, that is, Christ.

What is the Spirit saying to us right now? Do we have ears to hear what the Spirit is saying?

Every follower who is born again by the Spirit of God, is to have the Spirit as their direct Teacher. He is to be our NUMBER 1.

Do you know Him and have Him as this in your life? If not the time is now!!!!

Don’t look to man!
Don’t look to a resource!
Don’t look to the scriptures!
Don’t look to books!
Don’t look to sermons!

LOOK TO HIM, the Author and Perfecter of every resource, scripture, book and sermon.

Turn and fix your eyes on the Teacher and He will lead you into an Eternal Life, the kingdom of God - Joy, Peace and Righteousness in the Holy Spirit.

My heart is burning and my fingers shake as I write these words. I know it’s Him and my hope is we will use what we have been gifted to discover Him as our FIRST PLACED TEACHER!

My prayer and groan is that we His church, will lay hold of this INCREDIBLE OPPORTUNITY we have been Given by God, through our government and come into the REALITY of KNOWING and EXPERIENCING the SPIRIT as your NUMBER 1 SOURCE as Teacher.

Be blessed today by this!

Crowd to Core

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 16:55:21 +1300

Hi Family,

What I shared last week in relation to the Holy Spirit being our Teacher directly, not man, and using this amazing opportunity of TIME we have been given to experience this reality, was only One part of a two-part picture.

This prophetic eternal reality is intertwined with what I am about to share as the second part of this prophetic picture, which makes it 1 ultimate prophetic utterance from the Spirit.

The title of this picture is CROWD to CORE!

The TIME is now for the CROWD to become the CORE. As you know, I am a massive football fan and God has used this physical sport and everything that goes with this sport, to show me what He is looking for RIGHT NOW.

This prophetic picture involves God’s entire body. This is a church dilemma from those who lead to those who follow and to everything in between.

In the picture I saw 60,000 people (the CROWD) all take their seats in a massive stadium, while the Coach and the 22 professionals who were paid very well to play the game, entertained the CROWD. The players and crowd both love this reality as its focus is self.

As I meditated on what I was looking at, here are the words that came forth from the Spirit.

The church for FAR TOO LONG, have become professional spectators, instead of active players. How has this happened? The answer to this is twofold.

Because the CROWD wants to stay the CROWD and be entertained.

Those who lead and play want to keep the CROWD as the CROWD, so they are recognised as the players, who the crowds adore and worship.

Man as the head, has created and built his own Football Association along with teams and ways of doing everything. This way is highly successful, polished, sparkly and very glam, promising success to all those who join and be a part of this way.

The CROWDS come in their droves and masses to watch the highly charismatic manager, their entourage and 22 professional football players, kick a ball around and entertain the CROWDS.

The CROWDS have little to no desire or even ability, to get on the field and play the game today, because of the years in which they have occupied the STANDS.

They have become so out of shape and unfit. The football strips that are tight fitting and are designed for athletes, are way too tight and far too restricting and constricting for the bodies of the members of the CROWD. They can’t even move in them, so they disregard them and wear big baggy clothing that is way more comfortable for CROWD members.

This CROWD heartbeat and mind set has been passed on from generation to generation, with family members having life time family seats in the stadium and the CROWD have zero reference for who they in fact have been created to be - active players, who know exactly how to BE and DO what they are all called and chosen for.

Luke 14:25-35 Now large crowds were going along with Him; and He turned and said to them, “If anyone comes to Me, and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be My disciple. Whoever does not carry his own cross and come after Me cannot be My disciple. For which one of you, when he wants to build a tower, does not first sit down and calculate the cost to see if he has enough to complete it? Otherwise, when he has laid a foundation and is not able to finish, all who observe it begin to ridicule him, saying, ‘This man began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or what king, when he sets out to meet another king in battle, will not first sit down and consider whether he is strong enough with ten thousand men to encounter the one coming against him with twenty thousand? Or else, while the other is still far away, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. So then, none of you can be My disciple who does not give up all his own possessions. “Therefore, salt is good; but if even salt has become tasteless, with what will it be seasoned? It is useless either for the soil or for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”

For those in the CROWD this standard or level of fitness is way too high and out of reach, and so they are content to just GO ALONG and for the professionals to entertain them and be the ones who live this reality out, while the crowd associate with the players but never become the players.

They are prepared to pay some cost, the cost of entry and the cost of an official shirt and scarf, but not the cost of being set apart, training hard, being disciplined in what they eat and drink, and regular fitness tests, to ensure the highest level of fitness and wellbeing.

Those in the CROWDS have absolutely zero ability to enter into the game today, because they are so overweight, out of shape, under prepared, unfit, unskilled. They have sat on the side lines and in the stands for so long, that although they know all the rules, they have no ability or capacity to last 30 seconds playing the game and would end up throwing up and having heart palpitations and need to come off straight away.

The CROWD is overwhelming under prepared because for years they have only GONE ALONG and watched the game unfold in front of them.

They are not found in a state, that is capable of being an active member of the team, but they are more than happy and comforted by the fact, that they can GO ALONG and follow their team, without too much sacrifice and risk, screaming praise and holding the manager and their team in the highest of esteem.

All they have a capacity for is to associate themselves with the game, their team and the players, by turning up and taking their positions in the STANDS, watching the players play and watching the players enjoy all the attributes of actively participating in the game.

Does any of this sound familiar to you?

As I continued to meditate on what I was looking at, here are the words that describe the remaining part of the prophetic picture.

There were some in the CROWD who started to get unsettled and were not content with just being in the CROWD. Going along and being a CROWD member was no longer satisfying them and this started to sweep across the stadium and cause a sense of discomfort and dissatisfaction of being in the CROWD.

Those in the CROWD started to be awakened to the reality that they too were supposed to be playing the game and no longer watching it. They started to see who they had actually been created to BE and from this posture of being, how they were created to live. No longer a passive, go along CROWD follower, but an active player in the game.

This is when I saw these CROWD followers start to make their way out of their seats and down to pitch level, getting ready to take up their positions on the field. Many were leaving their seats in droves ready to step up and into the game, only for them to get to pitch level and be faced with the STEWARDS who are positioned strategically around the pitch for the very purpose of CROWD control and not letting the CROWD onto the field.

The STEWARDS, who are put there by the Football Association for the task of keeping the CROWDS off the pitch, can be highly aggressive at times, and their role is to ensure the 2 Coach’s, with their entourage and their 22 professional players, are playing the game to the highest level, keeping the CROWDS off the field of play.

What is the Spirit saying right now in relation to these 2 prophetic pictures?

The Holy Spirit becomes our Teacher directly

The Crowds become the Core

Right now we are being presented with a massive opportunity for the Spirit to teach us ALL things, no longer man. As the Spirit reveals and shows us the Father and the Father’s purpose for His church, we are awakened. To no longer be the Crowd WHO GO ALONG WITH Jesus, but to become the Core who are IN JESUS.

We come away from the plans and purposes of the Football Association and we enter into our Father’s purposes as His chosen and called out ones, discovering our God given identity and place on the field of play as a team member, no longer an individual.

Q. How will this happen?

The game has been postponed. The Crowds have nowhere to go now and be entertained by the professional players. The professional players have no one to entertain and show off all of their abilities and natural gifting’s. The charismatic manager has no one to give his very strategic and well-oiled plans to, to put in place as to how the team will play. The stewards are no longer in place to stop the crowd becoming the player’s, and the Football Association is at a standstill, with no ability to put its controlling measures in place.

The entire game, show, performance has come to a grinding halt.

God is taking back His position as the HEAD of all these roles that is associated with the football team. Owner, Coach, Trainer, Manager, Doctor, Skills, Nutrition, Supporter and removing all the stewards out of the way, along with the Football Association, so the church can get back on the field and out of the STANDS.

As the Football Association attempts to come up with ways to try and keep the game going, to keep the manager and the players entertaining the crowd, it’s important the CROWD stand firm and resist these attempts, and seek the One who will divinely impart what is required to enter and play on the field, the game of one’s life, as a team.

He will get us all in shape as we leave the comfort and safety of our seats and make our way down to the field and start to play our part in His team. All we have to do is get out of the STANDS and make our way onto the FIELD and His Divine Eternal Grace will come upon all those who do.

The TIME has come for both these positions of the CROWD wanting to stay the CROWD and secondly, those who lead and play wanting to keep the CROWD as the CROWD, so they are recognised as the players, who the crowds adore and worship, to come to the end of self and fall upon the Cornerstone and be broken into pieces, and for the church to emerge in the Love and Power of her Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The question is. From these 2 prophetic utterances, will we hear what is being said and will we be prepared to use this time, which we have been gifted, to seek the Holy Spirit as our Teacher, come out of the CROWD, who go along with Jesus and come into the CORE who are in Jesus, and start BEING who we have been created to BE - His Church.

My prayer is these words are life to you.

From Cruise Ship To Battleship

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 14:31:04 +1300

Wilderness Followers Share God’s Word with Temple Followers

Wed, 27 May 2020 10:55:21 +1200

The heart of every wilderness follower, is that their brothers and sisters who are Temple followers would hear the Word of God they declare. Although wilderness and temple followers are of the same people group, they are not of the same kind - the Word, and it is the heartbeat and hope of every wilderness follower, that the temple followers will receive the Word they bring to them.

This was Jesus’ heart when He entered into the physical temple and He began to read out the book of Isaiah which declared Him to be the Messiah. He was making it very clear who He in fact was and for a moment in time the religious temple leaders were taken aback by His Words of spirit and life.

Luke 4:22 And all were speaking well of Him, and wondering at the gracious words which were falling from His lips; and they were saying, “Is this not Joseph’s son?”

Just for a moment things are going well and then just as quickly as they are going well, they start to take a dive. Jesus continues to declare His Fathers spiritual Word, saying no prophet is welcome in his hometown and the temple followers who were taken aback by His words are now on the brink of killing Him.

Luke 4:28-29 And all the people in the synagogue were filled with rage as they heard these things; and they got up and drove Him out of the city, and led Him to the brow of the hill on which their city had been built, in order to throw Him down the cliff.

We see His own family thinking he has lost His senses and they come to take Him away.

Mark 3:21 When His own people heard of this, they went out to take custody of Him; for they were saying, “He has lost His senses.”

Temple followers really struggle to hear and understand wilderness followers, because they try to understand them through the flesh or the mind, instead of hearing and understanding through the Spirit or the heart. It’s the clashing of the 2 kingdoms. What’s the carpenter doing in our temple teaching from the Prophets. This is our role, not the carpenters. Carpenters should be working in factories or in their workshop, not teaching in the temple.

Wilderness followers are seen as nobodies by the temple followers and they don’t honour them as a person or honour the gifting and the words they declare. They disregard and dishonour them and so never receive the reward that they bring with them, hence they remain in their form of godliness, always learning but never coming into the knowledge of truth.

Heaven groans at this reality, because this keeps Temple followers and Wilderness followers separated, as opposed to being of the same kind.

Q. Why do those who attempt to understand in the mind, struggle to hear those who are of the Spirit?

Q. Why is humility of Spirit the key to hearing the Word of God?

Wilderness Followers Know How to Access the Eternal Food in the Wilderness.

Tue, 19 May 2020 09:17:44 +1200

Wilderness followers know how to access the eternal food source that is in the wilderness or the unseen realm. The unseen realm is a very real and tangible realm, called the Spiritual kingdom of God on the earth. Jesus said, “Repent, because My kingdom is at hand.”

2 Corinthians 4:16-18 Therefore we do not lose heart, but though our outer man is decaying, yet our inner man is being renewed day by day. For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.

The unseen seen realm is a handshake away from us all, and as we reach out to Christ and take His hand, He not only leads us into this unseen seen dimension, He gives us the eternal food that exists in this dimension. This is the food which builds His life in us - eternal life.

John 6:27 Do not work for the food which perishes, but for the food which endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give to you, for on Him the Father, God, has set His seal.”

All of our outer external bodies are decaying, as 2 Corinthians 4 says, but because wilderness followers know how to access this eternal food source in the unseen, their inner man is being renewed day by day and this inner man enables and empowers our outer man, to demonstrate a Christ like life now.

Romans 8:11 But if the Spirit of Him who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, He who raised Christ Jesus from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through His Spirit who dwells in you.

It’s not year by year or week by week but day by day. This is because this eternal food is available 24/7. Does this sound familiar, “Give us this day our daily bread”. Who is the Bread of life?

Temple followers have no reference for this eternal food source which the Bread of life gives, because it is concealed and hidden and they haven’t learnt the ways of the spiritual kingdom and how to access this food source. They only have their version of this food, which is acquired through human learning, and it doesn’t produce His life in us.

We know it’s God’s glory to conceal a matter and it is the glory of kings to search out a matter - Proverbs 25:2

1 Corinthians 2 also teaches us that God has prepared all He has for those who love Him, and that all these things have been given freely to us, for those in Christ, to know, understand and live from. The wilderness followers know how to access all this concealed life through the Spirit being their Teacher, and live in accordance to it.

This is what is means to live from the Eternal prophetic predestined Spoken/Written dimension which Jesus was living His life in accordance to.

Question. How well do we know this unseen seen dimension?

Question. Why is it imperative we know how to access it and the food in it?

Question. How does one access it?

Question. What difference does it make to our lives?

Oneness is Only Discovered When we are in Him.

Mon, 11 May 2020 15:36:58 +1200

In the last resource, we looked at incorporating Jesus into our lives, or having Christ as our life. We shared about the difference between them and that followers of the temple have only incorporated Jesus into their lives, as opposed to followers of the wilderness, where Jesus has become their very life.

These are two positions and because they are two, there is not spiritual oneness occurring between these followers, which means these followers live for different things. They can look very similar to the natural eye, but in reality, they are as far apart from one another as North is from South.

This doesn’t mean God doesn’t love both groups of followers, but the difference between the two groups, causes them to be living for different things. As mentioned the deception is in the fact that they can look like they are the same but in the heart, the place of life and understanding, they are completely opposite. The temple follower is still ultimately living for self, and the operating systems of self, while looking like they are living for God, and genuinely believing they are. The wilderness follower on the other hand has died with Christ and their life is hidden in God, they are only interested in the Father’s will, period.

This difference ultimately causes completely different lifestyles which can be the cause of division between these two groups. The difference can cause persecution, jealousy, bitterness, hurt, offence, resentment, anger, insecurity, and ultimately division by the temple followers towards the wilderness followers, because they have no understanding of the ‘why’, they are the way they are.

Why is this the case?

Because those of the wilderness can’t go back to being a temple follower and living from the temple ways. They have to pursue the One who is a type of wilderness, because they have become one with Him. This causes them to make decisions and prioritise life in a way that becomes offensive to the temple follower. They are not trying to offend anyone but be faithful to the One they are one with. In fact, they desire all of the temple followers to surrender up and lose the temple heart and mind set and come and be one with them and the Christ.

Conformity is the opposite of spiritual oneness and it is conformity that the temple follower lives from and towards.

Temple followers attempt to make God and His words conform to their reality. Conformity is the counterfeit to spiritual oneness and it is the demonic version of oneness. Conformity tries to achieve spiritual oneness through function.

Conformity comes up with a worthy common goal, which it can achieve through spiritual and natural gifting's and abilities, and gets everyone on board, by getting everyone to work together for the good of the common goal.

Now there is nothing wrong with achieving a common goal when the Holy Spirit has led and is empowering this work, but this is not oneness of Spirit nor does it produce oneness of Spirit. It just produces the success of a common goal.

Only the Word of God and the receiving of the Word of God which is Spirit, engraved on the human heart by the Spirit, causes spiritual oneness or fellowship. Unfortunately, this is why these two groups exist. For the followers of the wilderness this is a very regular occurrence and forms spiritual oneness between God and themselves, while for temple followers, they are still to come into this operating system of the Spirit, through relinquishing their fleshly ways, and so remain as temple followers, which is not supposed to be the case.

Jesus prayed for spiritual oneness in John 17. John speaks and invites us to have this spiritual oneness with him and the triune God. Can you give testimony to this oneness with Him and others? It is the promise of your Heavenly Father for His body?

Galatians 6:7-8 Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, this he will also reap. For the one who sows to his own flesh will from the flesh reap corruption, but the one who sows to the Spirit will from the Spirit reap eternal life.

Q. What has stood out the most for you in this resource?

Q. What position do you resonate with the most - oneness of spirit or conformity?

Q. Why is conformity so dangerous in the body of Christ?

Q. Which posture do you relate to the most and why?

Wilderness Followers Abide in Christ, while Temple Followers Only Incorporate Jesus in to Their Lives.

Tue, 05 May 2020 12:52:54 +1200

There is a real difference between the follower who abides in Christ and the follower who has only incorporated Jesus into their life. One knows and has Christ as their literal source, while the other only knows Him as their resource. One can not know or have the Father as their source, until they have fully surrendered to God and you can’t surrender to a God you don’t really know or how right you have been made with.

To only know Christ as your resource, is to still have ‘you’ or ‘self’ as the source of your life, and this is a very limiting and crippling reality. Although one doesn’t really know God or know how right they have been made in God, they can still use the gift He has given to see things happen in their lives and the lives of others. This position is a very deceptive and one we must all be made aware of.

This becomes a problem because the pre-requisite for this abiding life in Christ, with God as your source, requires you to have lost your life.

John 12:23-26 And Jesus answered them, saying, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. He who loves his life loses it, and he who hates his life in this world will keep it to life eternal. If anyone serves Me, he must follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also; if anyone serves Me, the Father will honor him.

So instead of operating from fellowship/oneness of Spirit with God, you operate from gifting/function/outcomes, of what you are going to do for God.

If we have invited Christ into our lives for what He can do for us, then we have only incorporated Him into our lives and this position can not deny self. Only those who have lost their lives through fully surrendering their lives, have the power of the Spirit working within them, to now deny one’s self.

This is the follower of the wilderness’ posture and position in Christ, because He has become the source of this person’s life. One is able to fully love God and mankind the way God commands us to, because one has received the all in-compassing and overwhelming life of the Spirit. This position also has coming forth from it, the predestined works of the Spirit.

Q. Why is the incorporated position so dangerous to a follower of Christ?

Q. What does this incorporated position limit you to?

Q. How powerful is the abiding in Christ as your source position?

Q. What life does this position produce in us?

Followers of the Wilderness - Followers of the Temple

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 13:57:12 +1200

Over the next few resources, we are going to look at and discuss the difference between being a follower of the wilderness and a follower of the temple. As previously stated, I am speaking in spiritual thoughts and spiritual words, so I pray you will be able to hear what is being spoken through the Spirit, otherwise you will probably hear the complete wrong thing and disregard what the Spirit is wanting to reveal in and to us.

This is a very real reality today in the church, His body, and it always has been. Although we are of the same people, we are not all of the same “kind”. We are supposed to be, and it is God’s heart we will be, but this unfortunately, doesn’t mean we are. It is the purpose of God we would be “one”, but this doesn’t make this an automatic reality, and sadly it is not.

Just like the 12 leaders who went in to spy out the promised land were all of the same people group, they were not all of the same “kind”. Two of those leaders, Caleb and Joshua were of a different “kind”. They were wholeheartedly abandoned to God, His Word, His purpose and plan, because they had lost their lives and were no longer living for themselves, while the others were of a different “kind”.

The problem today is that those who are temple followers have no idea they are and genuinely think, and are wholeheartedly convinced, they are in Christ when in fact their lives don’t reflect this truth. These temple followers have a form of godliness but do not live a life of Godliness. These followers know how to answer all the questions correctly, and say all the right things, but when it comes to living the right way or righteously walking in the manner which Jesus walked, they are unable.

Many of these temple followers have been raised WITH Christianity, but unfortunately not raised IN Christ. God loves all of His people, but not all of His people live for the Father's will.

Firstly, when I speak about being a follower of the wilderness and being a follower of the temple, I am not referring to a physical place or building, but a heart posture and a mind-set in a person. Our hearts and minds can either be of the Spirit, the wilderness, the unseen, the promised land, the eternal realm OR the flesh temple, the seen, the world, the temporal realm.

Although Moses led the Israelites out of Egypt physically, and Egypt is a physical typology of the world, Egypt was still fully established within them, hence their disobedience to God and Moses in the physical wilderness was incredible. This is what kept them all, bar two people, entering the physical promised land.

Freedom is not on the external but on the inside. In our hearts and minds. Plenty of people live in freedom on the outside, but in their hearts and minds they are in bondage.

The question I want to pose to us all is, which one are we of? Which one do we inhabit and relate to? Which one are we eating from? Which one are we hearing and seeing from? Which one do we spend our time, energy, priorities and resources in and on? Which one are we living from and for?

Although these are confronting questions we must ask them of ourselves, otherwise we run the risk of thinking we are in a reality we in fact aren’t. I can’t think of anything worse than to think you are in something you really aren’t and live from this form of blindness or deception.

We have looked at Jesus, His disciples and John the Baptist all being a “type” of wilderness. A type of the unseen but seen realm, where an abundance of life exists, called the promised land, the eternal life in Christ. The natural or flesh has no reference for this spiritual dimension, and it is from this posture I want to discuss the difference between what it means to be a follower of the wilderness and a follower of the temple.

Buckle up because this promises to be a bumpy ride, but I promise us all, that if we will truly enter into our spiritual act of worship, which is the laying down of our lives, completely surrendering every part of us, the Spirit of God will come and engrave the Word of God on all of our hearts, so we all can live the Way of the Kingdom wholeheartedly.

John the Baptist Received the Word in the Wilderness

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 14:35:21 +1200

John 3:1-2 Now in the fifteenth year of the reign of Tiberius Caesar, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was tetrarch of Galilee, and his brother Philip was tetrarch of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias was tetrarch of Abilene, in the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John, the son of Zacharias, in the wilderness.

The Word of God is often found in a place, where one would least expect to find it. The Word of God is also found in the person, which we would not expect either. I love the fact, that God always does the opposite to what man does. Where man thinks he will find the Word and in whom, is pretty much always contrary to where God’s Word is discovered and in whom it is discovered.

This is exactly the case here. We see the list of the who’s who of the day. To put this into our context, this would be like Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, Vladimir Putin, Benjamin Netanyahu, Xu Jinping, The Pope and his cardinal, all being in one place, and then hearing the Word of the Lord came to a guy name John. They would all look to one another and say, “Who on earth is John?”

The flesh in us never recognises the Spirit and because of this we are always looking for His Word in the wrong place and in the wrong people. God chooses the place, which to the natural or the flesh looks barren, dry, empty and void of life and He chooses the people, who have no credentials, don’t have it all together, very little following, nobody’s to most but somebody to someone.

2 Corinthians 12:11 I have become foolish; you yourselves compelled me. Actually I should have been commended by you, for in no respect was I inferior to the most eminent apostles, even though I am a nobody.

Your ability to receive the life that is in this food source called “The Wilderness”, will be based on your ability to hear and see in the Spirit. If you attempt to know and understand what is being shared through the flesh, you will find yourself rejecting this spiritual food. The words I am speaking and the imagery I am sharing, are spiritual words and spiritual thoughts.

1 Corinthians 2:12-14 Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, so that we may know the things freely given to us by God, which things we also speak, not in words taught by human wisdom, but in those taught by the Spirit, combining spiritual thoughts with spiritual words. But a natural man does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually appraised.

Are you truly open to where and who God chooses to place and declare His Word? Would you and are you humble enough to receive it from the place you would never have considered and are you humble enough to receive it from the one, you never would have chosen. I hope we all are, as this tends to be the place and the vessels, that God chooses to confuse the so called wise, and to bring forth His Truth.

Q. Why does God place His Word in the wilderness and in people who are a type of wildernesses?

John the Baptist Lived and was Found in the Wilderness

Sat, 25 Apr 2020 15:20:10 +1200

Luke 1:80 And the child continued to grow and to become strong in spirit, and he lived in the deserts until the day of his public appearance to Israel.

Where did John live?

This is a very different picture to where we may have expected to find John the Baptist. What on earth is the greatest prophet of the old doing living in the wilderness? The wilderness is John’s place of habitation, really?

I find the next passage in Matthew 11:7-15 extremely fascinating in relation to John being in the wilderness and declaring the eternal gospel in the wilderness.

Matthew 11:7-15 As these men were going away, Jesus began to speak to the crowds about John, “What did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing are in kings’ palaces! But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and one who is more than a prophet. This is the one about whom it is written, ‘Behold, I send My messenger ahead of You, who will prepare Your way before You.’ Truly I say to you, among those born of women there has not arisen anyone greater than John the Baptist! Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffers violence, and violent men take it by force. For all the prophets and the Law prophesied until John. And if you are willing to accept it, John himself is Elijah who was to come. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.

I love the question Jesus asks the crowds. “What did you go out into the wilderness to see?

Jesus then lists a number of things. A reed shaken by the wind, or was it a man dressed in soft clothing? Those who wear soft clothing are in king’s palaces, but what did you go out to see? Jesus is making a massive point about where His prophets, those who are His sent ones are found. What’s even more incredible about all this, is John is not just any prophet, but the greatest prophet of the old and he is found where?

Prophets of God do not live in king’s palaces, wearing king’s clothes and eating king’s food. They are not found living and having their habitation in the man-made religious systems and institutions, but they do visit from time to time and bring with them the Word of God, in the hope that all those who are living in and from the man-made religious institution and system will get set free.

No, they are in the desert, the wilderness, wearing clothing appropriate for the wilderness and eating food that’s appropriate for the wilderness. This is where John was found and lived his life from. The food He ate and the clothing he wore, was supplied to him from the wilderness. There was nothing man made about where he lived, the clothes he wore or the food he ate.

Question for us all, what do you think all of this means for us?

One would have thought God would have set the greatest prophet of the Old Testament up in the flashiest temple, and this is where he would have lived from and given his powerful message of preparing the way for the coming Messiah. But no, this was the furthest from the truth. All the people who lived in the man-made religious institutions, would have to go out into the wilderness if they wanted to hear the Word of the Lord.

Question: What is God communicating to us from this truth?

Verse 15 is such a key to all of this. Do you have spiritual ears to hear what Jesus is saying here?

Hope in the Storm // Foundations

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 15:47:54 +1200

Jesus was Born in the Wilderness

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:10:08 +1200

I want to start by asking us all a question, which I hope will have us considering a reality and dimension in Christ we may not be awake to. My hope is that all of this eternal food which is being given, will steer us towards having our minds renewed to being in Him.

Q. Where was Jesus born?

Luke 2:12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”

Kings are not born in Inns and they are not born in stables. Kings are not laid in mangers. Kings are not placed in a trough used to feed animals. What are you talking about? Jesus Christ, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords didn’t come out of Nazareth did He, because as Nathanael said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

Nazareth was a very small village in this time, with not a lot happening within it. Interestingly enough Nazareth today is a large city in the Northern District of Israel, which is known as the Arab capital of Israel. How fascinating is all of this? That the King of all kings wasn’t born in the luxury of a palace, or the luxury of an empire, like kings of this world. He wasn’t born in the most modern day, state of the art birthing unit, which todays kings are born in, wrapped in the finest of linens.

I mean can you imagine any of the English monarchy being born in an Inn, a stable or being laid in a trough that is used to feed their horses? I don’t think so, and yet this is where our Lord and Saviour, the One and only beloved Son of almighty God was found.

What is all this telling us about God? God is never found in where we think He is? He is never where we expect Him to be and look. Is God a burning bush? No, but this is where His presence was found by Moses and on the most barren and driest part of Mt Horeb.

Jesus was born in the dirtiest, smelliest, darkest of environments. He is found in a broken down and decrepit place, used to house animals. The Holy Spirit comes into broken down, dirty vessels called humanity and this is where He makes His home. He makes His home in the broken and contrite heart, not the heart that thinks it has it all together. What am I saying here?

Not only was Jesus born in a place you wouldn’t expect to find Him, He is also found in the people we don’t expect Him to be found in. He is not found in the people who live in temples, but in the people who live and inhabit the wilderness with Him.

John the Baptist is a Type of Wilderness

Tue, 21 Apr 2020 10:08:55 +1200

As we looked at in previous messages where Jesus and Disciples of Jesus are a type of wilderness, so is John the Baptist.

John was of the Levitical priestly line and was considered the greatest of all of the Old Testament prophets and yet he was not found in the temple, like all the other priests. He could be found in the wilderness, proclaiming the Word of the Lord.

Matthew 3:1-3 Now in those days John the Baptist * came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” For this is the one referred to by Isaiah the prophet when he said, “The voice of one crying in the wilderness, ‘Make ready the way of the Lord, Make His paths straight!’”

What is a priest of the Levitical line doing out in the wilderness when he should be in the temple preparing the sacrifices unto the Lord? He is preparing sacrifices unto the Lord alright, but not like those of the temple. His preparation is in the preaching of the Word about the One who is coming to cleanse the world of all its sin.

Everything about John was foreign to the normality of the priests who prepared the temple sacrifices and offerings. His choice of clothing, a garment made of camel’s hair, and his choice of diet, honey and wild locusts, reflects to us the wilderness.

Matthew 3:4 Now John himself had a garment of camel’s hair and a leather belt around his waist; and his food was locusts and wild honey.

John was also filled with the Holy Spirit while being in his mother’s womb before his birth and he would be a forerunner before Christ’s return, running in the spirit and power of Elijah.

Luke 1:15-17 For he will be great in the sight of the Lord; and he will drink no wine or liquor, and he will be filled with the Holy Spirit while yet in his mother’s womb. And he will turn many of the sons of Israel back to the Lord their God. It is he who will go as a forerunner before Him in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the fathers back to the children, and the disobedient to the attitude of the righteous, so as to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”

More evidence of John being a type of wilderness as opposed to being a type of temple or palace priest.

Jesus, Disciples of Jesus and John the Baptist, are all types of the same kind - the Wilderness.

Hope in the Storm // Joy

Sat, 18 Apr 2020 17:20:01 +1200

Hope in the Storm Pt 3

Fri, 17 Apr 2020 12:41:30 +1200

A Disciple of Christ is a Type of Wilderness

Thu, 16 Apr 2020 17:19:53 +1200

In the previous food source, I shared with us that Jesus Himself is a type of wilderness. He was and is the Eternal Life and this eternal life is not of or from earth, but of an entirely different sphere and dimension, called Heaven.

The people of God, called the church, the body of Christ, are to be just as He was on the earth.

1 John 4:17 By this, love is perfected with us, so that we may have confidence in the day of judgment; because as He is, so also are we in this world.

Jesus Himself is a type of wilderness and Jesus said He would build His church upon the revelation of Himself. All this building work takes place on the inside of us as His disciples. Firstly. in our hearts and secondly in our minds, while at the very same time this can occur simultaneously as one work of the Spirit.

The predestined eternal purpose or calling for every disciple, is to be conformed to the image of the Son.

Romans 8:29 For those whom He foreknew, He also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that He would be the firstborn among many brethren;

Disciples of Jesus, who make up Jesus’ body, those whom God foreknew, are being conformed into the image of the Son, through the spiritual process of sanctification and in doing so, have become also a type of wilderness, because they have become Christ like.

Luke 6:40 A pupil is not above his teacher; but everyone, after he has been fully trained, will be like his teacher.

This is the entire process of the formation of spiritual oneness. No longer separated from God but one with God. This is what true fellowship with the Father, Son and Spirit is. No longer Christ and man, but man’s life is now hidden in Christ. The two have become one and in so doing, disciples of Jesus, have become a type of wilderness.

Colossians 3:3 For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.

John 17:21 that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us, so that the world may believe that You sent Me.

Can we hear and see how both these passages are intertwined in the Spirit? Colossians says our lives are hidden with Christ, who is in God. Jesus says in John, that the Father is in Him and He is in the Father, and His prayer is that all disciples would be in them.

If our lives are hidden with Christ and Christ is in the Father, then where are we?

Let me put it this way......

If the Father is in Christ and Christ is in the Father, and we are in Christ, then where are we?

Disciples who are in this posture of spiritual oneness, fellowship, not relationship, but fellowship, are disciples who are in and live from the eternal life, the wilderness, because they have become one with the type of wilderness - Jesus Christ.

Q. What type of church would we see on the earth, if every disciple was a type of wilderness?

Jesus is a type of Wilderness

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 09:43:17 +1200

As we have been looking at in the previous resources, God inhabits the wilderness and the wilderness is a place of extreme abundance of life and vitality. It’s not like many have thought and possibly still think, that it is a place of barrenness, and it is with this in mind that we look at Jesus Christ Himself as a type of wilderness.

Jesus is the eternal life and He brought His eternal kingdom with Him, but the temporal world and all those of the temporal world did not know Him. This world includes all of mankind, including us.

John 1:10 He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him.

The eternal life is just that - eternal. The eternal life and eternal kingdom is an unseen life and kingdom to the temporal, earthly realm. Jesus Himself was a type of wilderness. He was seen by some and completely unseen to others.

Hebrews 11:27 By faith he left Egypt, not fearing the wrath of the king; for he endured, as seeing Him who is unseen.

Jesus Christ Himself is the physical manifestation of a type of wilderness dimension. Unseen and unknown to many, while being seen and fully known by others. Those who truly know the unseen One, the Wilderness, know the eternal life that is contained within this eternal vessel and know how to access the abundant eternal life He gives.

John 17:3 This is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.

The physical natural temporal kingdom has no way of hearing, seeing, understanding or accessing this eternal life through its wisdom, known as the wisdom of man.

Human learning and the acquiring of informational knowledge of the scriptures through the intellect is human wisdom. It is this wisdom that says the wilderness is a place of dryness, lifelessness, empty, barren and desolate. Why, because it is not capable of seeing the incredible abundant life that stands directly in front of it.

Jesus was constantly faced with this dilemma by everyone in His life the entire time.

Why did Jesus have to ask His disciples who He was after they had already declared they had found the Messiah?

Why did the disciples pretty much never hear what Jesus was saying when He spoke?

Why did the disciples for the most part, in the gospels, act completely the opposite way to how Jesus taught them?

Why can we today be exactly the same as Jesus’ disciples were back then?

Because we too, just like them, apply man’s wisdom, when it comes to hearing, seeing, understanding and attempting to access all of the eternal abundant resource that is in the One who is a type of wilderness, but this doesn’t have to be the case.

When we completely surrender the operating systems of man and allow our Will to fall upon the Rock and be smashed into pieces, and start asking the Holy Spirit to engrave His Word on our hearts through revelation, we find ourselves starting to access all of the hidden manna that is concealed and contained in the One who is a type of Wilderness.

Hope in the Storm // Hope in Jesus Christ

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 09:34:43 +1200

God Inhabits the Wilderness

Sat, 11 Apr 2020 09:00:00 +1200

Acts 7:30-31 “After forty years had passed, an angel appeared to him in the wilderness of Mount Sinai, in the flame of a burning thorn bush. When Moses saw it, he marvelled at the sight; and as he approached to look more closely, there came the voice of the Lord:

Where did the angel appear to Moses? In the wilderness!!!!!

The spiritual, eternal life is never where we expect it to be and it is never in whom we expect it to be in. The voice of the Lord came forth from a BURNING BUSH in the WILDERNESS.

Where Moses encountered the Lord was on the driest side of the mountain. It wasn’t in the lush green fields, where there was much vegetation and life. No, it was in the driest most barren part of Mount Horeb. Horeb means desert or mountain of the dried up ground.

What does this tell us about the wilderness and where we can expect to find God and God speaking?

In Matthew 4 we see Jesus being led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Now to the natural eye one would say what on earth is the Spirit doing. leading Jesus to a place where the devil is waiting for Him to tempt Him out of who He is and the Father’s will for Him. What are you thinking Spirit?

This is all a master set up. Not a set up for Jesus but a set up for the devil. Remember where God lives? In the wilderness, the very place the Spirit was leading Jesus. So let’s look at who is now in the wilderness. We have the Father, Son and Spirit, and the devil. Not an even match really now is it, and to think Jesus went in to the wilderness full of the Holy Spirit as well.

What a divine set up this is. The Triune God in the wilderness with the devil, to show the devil, just how much he is defeated and how victorious the Father, Son and Spirit are. The devil goes in there with his ‘A’ game - thinking deception, lies and temptation will be the down fall of Christ and yet comes out with his tail between his legs.

He then perceives Jesus may be weak after the fasting of natural food for 40 days, but he is completely unaware that Jesus is full of eternal food. He was full when He went in and He was full when He came out - why?

Because Jesus, like the Father and the Holy Spirit, is the representation of the wilderness.

They are the wilderness and they inhabit the very thing they are. They are the food source of the wilderness. The enemy’s ploy was to deceive Jesus in areas of Identity, doing His own will, testing of the Father, and in whom He would worship and serve.

All these attempts and efforts where futile and ultimately powerless, because the One who He came up against was full of Eternal Life that is discovered in the wilderness. This is to be our exact reality as well. There is no battle between us and Satan, when we all come into the Eternal Life that is discovered in the Triune God - the wilderness.

We just live out the victorious life in Christ, even though he dances around us, doing all he can to deceive, tempt, lie and distract us from entering the wilderness, inhabiting the wilderness and receiving all our food from the wilderness. All his efforts fall to the ground when the Eternal life is ABIDING in us.

Hope in the Storm

Thu, 09 Apr 2020 15:50:22 +1200

The Wilderness - The Place of Abundance 3

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 13:12:31 +1200

This may surprise us all, but there is an eternal purpose for why God leads us into the wilderness. God is so in love with us and so intent on bringing His beloved creation into the life He has predestined for her, that He took Israel and He takes the church out of their version of God and just like He placed them into the wilderness, He places us into the same place, to reveal our true heart state.

Deuteronomy 8 is a profound chapter of life and describes what the Father has been doing for the last 10 years in our family called The Rock. Let’s have a look at what God has been doing in the hearts of the people who call the Rock their church family.

Deuteronomy 8:1-3 “All the commandments that I am commanding you today you shall be careful to do, that you may live and multiply, and go in and possess the land which the Lord swore to give to your forefathers. You shall remember all the way which the Lord your God has led you in the wilderness these forty years, that He might humble you, testing you, to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep His commandments or not. He humbled you and let you be hungry, and fed you with manna which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that He might make you understand that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

God has been speaking to us profoundly over the years about whether we are able to keep the 2 Commandments which all the Law and the prophets hang on. God commands us to do something we can’t do in our own strength. Just like the Israelites couldn’t keep the 10 Commandments because they weren’t empowered by the Spirit, neither can we unless we are empowered by the Spirit.

The problem that the Israelites faced and that we also face, is that in not being able to keep these commandments, we are not able to enter in to the life that sits behind the commandments, accessing and possessing the life the Father has promised us. An eternal life in His Son.

Because of this reality, God has to lead us into a place we have not been before, to perform a very deep work in our hearts. This place isn’t a place we would naturally chose to go from our own free will, so He leads us there so we can receive ALL He has for us. Things in God are never as they appear.

Here are the reasons why God leads us into the wilderness.

1. To humble us - to create in us a spirit of humility. Blessed are those who are

poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom.

2. To test us - God needs us to see what is in our own hearts. God taking us into the wilderness is a time of the heart being uncovered, for what’s truly there. He tests us to see if we can keep His Commandments - 1 John 2:3-6

3. He lets us be hungry - God takes us to the wilderness to starve us of the current food we are eating. Food we trust in but food which perishes, fleshly food which doesn’t produce an eternal life. He takes us there, to humble us and make us aware of our true need for true food.

4. He gives food - it’s in the wilderness that God starts to give us the food we need, to live as Christ and receive all of the life that is in Christ. This is the food we need, to be able to keep the 2 Great Commandments. It’s a food that we and our forefathers have never eaten before. Only the Father can give this food.

5. He makes us understand - through the Father giving us this food, we come to the realisation that we do not and can not live on bread alone, but man lives by everything that proceeds out of the mouth of the Lord.

This is the process we must all be in and follow as this is the ONLY WAY, if we want the incredible life which verses 4-18 (READ) speaks of. The Israelites never entered into the life in the promised land because they did not heed what God taught them, and we too will be the same if we don’t either.

We must live the Way we are commanded to live, if we are to access and possess all that is in Christ for us today.

The Wilderness - The Place of Abundance 2

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 22:00:00 +1300

Following on from the first part of the wilderness being a place of abundance, I want us to look at Isaiah 43:18-21.

Isaiah 43:18-21 “Do not call to mind the former things, or ponder things of the past. “Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert. “The beasts of the field will glorify Me, the jackals and the ostriches, Because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to give drink to My chosen people. “The people whom I formed for Myself Will declare My praise.

Isaiah teaches the Israelites not to call to mind the former things of the past or to ponder the things of the past. Why is this the case? Because of what God is about to do. God has been doing, is doing and is about to do a new thing, in the hearts and minds of all His followers today, IF we will let go of the former things of our past.

Luke said to receive the NEW WINE one must stop drinking the old wine which is good enough. The things of the past have got us this far, but they are not enough to take us beyond our current reality. The old wineskin which contains the old wine, is out of date for the new work God is doing today. We need a brand new wineskin to receive the new wine.

This new work which produces this new wine is just this - NEW. We don’t have a reference point for it yet. We don’t have a revelation of it yet. This is a brand new dimension in Christ that is concealed from us, but for us and it is discovered in the wilderness, the unseen but seen dimension.

“Behold, I will do something new, now it will spring forth; Will you not be aware of it? I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”

A mistake that I have seen consistently made in the body of Christ, is to judge and discern this new wine through the reference for the things of the past, the former things. When we try to fit the NEW wine which we are hearing into our old wineskin, we will find ourselves rejecting, denying, deflecting, ignoring or walking away from what we are hearing, because the spirit of pride within us, can not understand what we are hearing, so we say to ourselves, this isn’t of God.

The new wine comes from a place we don’t expect. The new wine also comes forth from a person or a people we don’t expect.

“I will even make a roadway in the wilderness, rivers in the desert.”

Q. Why do the beasts, the jackals and the ostriches of the field glorify Him?

A. Because I have given waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert.

Waters in the wilderness and rivers in the desert!!!!

Only the Father can produce this reality and dimension. Out of nothing comes something. Out of what is not, comes what is.

God gives this water in the wilderness and rivers in the desert, to supply His chosen people with living water to drink. From receiving this living water that comes forth from the wilderness, the desert, as His chosen people we will declare His praise. This incredible living water is only found in the One and the place called the “Wilderness”.

Word of Encouragement

Mon, 30 Mar 2020 08:15:15 +1300

The Wilderness - The Place of Abundance

Sun, 29 Mar 2020 17:34:03 +1300

One of the greatest mistakes we make as God’s people, is to carry a conviction of belief, that the wilderness is a place of dryness, barrenness, desolate, parched, lifeless, empty, and lacking anything of life.

This convictional belief can’t be any further from the truth when it comes to God, and yet as stated, it is a belief that I have heard come out of the mouths of many followers. We say things like “I am having a wilderness experience or a desert experience”, and the context for these statements are one of despair, destitute and death.

We believe this because we haven’t yet had our eyes opened by the Spirit and discovered the incredible life that is directly in front of us. We are no different to the Israelites who couldn’t see the Eternal Life that was directly in front of them when they were in the wilderness of Zin, the temporal place.

I have incredibly good news for you if you believe the wilderness is a place of nothingness and have made it your mission in life to avoid the wilderness at any cost.

There is an “ABUNDANCE of LIFE” to receive, come into and live from, in the wilderness.

Numbers 20:1-11 Then the sons of Israel, the whole congregation, came to the wilderness of Zin in the first month; and the people stayed at Kadesh. Now Miriam died there and was buried there. There was no water for the congregation, and they assembled themselves against Moses and Aaron. The people thus contended with Moses and spoke, saying, “ If only we had perished when our brothers perished before the Lord! Why then have you brought the Lord’s assembly into this wilderness, for us and our beasts to die here? Why have you made us come up from Egypt, to bring us in to this wretched place? It is not a place of grain or figs or vines or pomegranates, nor is there water to drink.” Then Moses and Aaron came in from the presence of the assembly to the doorway of the tent of meeting and fell on their faces. Then the glory of the Lord appeared to them; and the Lord spoke to Moses, saying, “Take the rod; and you and your brother Aaron assemble the congregation and speak to the rock before their eyes, that it may yield its water. You shall thus bring forth water for them out of the rock and let the congregation and their beasts drink.” So Moses took the rod from before the Lord, just as He had commanded him; and Moses and Aaron gathered the assembly before the rock. And he said to them, “ Listen now, you rebels; shall we bring forth water for you out of this rock?” Then Moses lifted up his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod; and water came forth abundantly, and the congregation and their beasts drank.

Exercise: take some time to marinate on this passage of scripture and ask questions of the passage.

Where did Moses bring the water forth from? V11

What is this object where the water came out a foreshadowing of? (Eat John 4:7-38)

Why did the people assemble themselves against Moses and Aaron? V2-4

Have you ever done this and maybe never even realised it?

What lens were the Israelite people looking through in the wildernesses? V5

How did the Israelites get access to the water?V11

Why is it important we look to God and others to help us access the life in the wilderness?

The Wilderness or Isolation Dilemma

Sat, 28 Mar 2020 10:08:16 +1300

Where does one turn to for life in the wilderness - isolation?

Does one look to create life or turn to the One of Life, who has His very existence in the wilderness- isolation?

To create life or turn to Eternal Life?

This is the dilemma right now for everyone around the globe!

We all have an opportunity of a lifetime right now, but there is a war between self and spirit for life in this period of isolation, the wilderness.

Where will you turn?

What will you do?

What are you turning to?

How will you cope?

Can you be still?

Will you create your own life or look to Eternal Life for life?

Being put in the wilderness - isolation, exposes and reveals what is or isn’t in us.

What people see as abundance - “self”, one’s ability to create is absolute lack and a substitute or a replacement for real life.

When the illusion of abundance “self” is put into the wilderness - isolation, it gets exposed for what it truly is - lack.

It is made aware of what it truly has - nothing. It doesn’t know where to turn or look, because there is no self in the wilderness-isolation.

The wilderness-isolation has nothing that is man made in it. It is stripped of anything fleshly and anything created by man for his sensual pleasures.

The wilderness is a barren and desolate place when viewed through the lens of self, the flesh.

But wait.......There is incredibly good news to be found here.

There are 3 things that exist in the wilderness-isolation.

God
Those followers whose habitation is the wilderness
The enemy.

Self-isolation, being placed into the wilderness is an absolute gift by God right now to discover Him as our FIRST.

It is also an opportunity to be in Fellowship with those who know Him as their FIRST as well. They are waiting for you.

Will we gather and be found discovering Him and one another in the wilderness at this time, in what the scriptures declare as true Fellowship and not companionship?

Will we use this time to be transformed and realise the people of God inhabit and have their being in isolation, the wilderness?

This has NEVER happened before in NZ’s history and the time we have been given right now is an absolute blessing.

We see the enemy from scripture is also in the wilderness. What is he doing in the wilderness?

The enemy’s role is to tempt us away from the Life that is concealed for us in the wilderness.

He looks for any flesh that is in the wilderness with him to Lie to, to Deceive and to Tempt into thinking there is NOTHING of Life there, and he whispers to us, that we must CREATE our own life, if we want life in the wilderness - isolation, as a temporary measure until we can return to the way things were.

On the other hand, God tests us, by placing us in the wilderness - isolation, to see if we will TURN to Him and those in Him in the wilderness, for LIFE, and be SET FREE from self and self’s ways, that attempt to create life for itself, through its own strengths.

What will self/flesh do?

Will it allow the voice of the enemy to tempt it to try to create life in the wilderness- isolation, or will it recognise and acknowledge its absolute lack and complete inability to create Eternal Life.

Will it acknowledge its absolute need for dependency on Him for Eternal Life and find true spiritual repentance, not remorse but repentance and turn towards the One who is Life for Life.

The isolation will expose us for our abundance or our lack. Self-isolation is an absolute gift by God right now to discover Him as our FIRST.

This has NEVER happened before in NZ’s history!!!!!!

For those in abundance it’s an opportunity for more. For those in lack it’s an opportunity to turn and start afresh.

May we ALL take this opportunity we have been given NOW!

Encourage those around you in abundance and lack, to take this gift with both hands and allow it to propel you into His Presence where His Power resides.

It’s His power that creates the abundance Eternal Life in us - not man’s wisdom - temporal life.

God’s power creates an Eternal Life in us. Man’s wisdom creates a temporal life in us.

Which one do we desire and seek?

And He has said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for power is perfected in weakness.” Most gladly, therefore, I will rather boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore, I am well content with weaknesses, with insults, with distresses, with persecutions, with difficulties, for Christ’s sake; for when I am weak, then I am strong.

2 Corinthians 12:9-10

Call to Me, I will answer

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 15:46:40 +1300

Hi Family,

On Sunday, He reminded me of the prophetic word that Steve Mccracken brought our family in 2018.

I believe this is particularly relevant to this time - as well as what you've shared below, and the prophetic picture you sent today also.

The message from Steve to leaders is from 5 May 2018.

'I saw you as miners with helmet lights on. I saw you go from one blackened tunnel into another tunnel on a 90 degree left hand turn. And as you entered this new tunnel, it was only then that I noticed the lights shining brightly from your helmets'.

'I saw multiple people walking together and entering a new tunnel. Yet it was the collective individual lights that lit up the tunnel'.

Steve said in this message: 'The shift of position (90 degree left turn) is the belief that Father wants to bring revelation to me from Him, not just to me through others.'

There is a time for everyone to do their seeking, not relying on others.

It is only the Holy Spirit, not a person who is the Revealer of Truth.

Will you walk together, individually seeking? 'It was the collective, individual lights that lit up the tunnel'.

There is an invitation from Father.

Steve also mentioned 'isolation breeds error when it comes to people, and (isolated) truth', which is why we need multiple people walking together, no one person will receive all truth.

The 'isolation' word jumped out - and I felt that at this current time of 'self-isolation', where the world is isolating in 'fear and self-preservation', we are called to come 'underground with Him' (mining Truth)'. We might be physically isolated from others, but through the digging for Him - in the Spirit, we are collectively drawing near to Him, and one another. Instead of fear, to receive Love revealed. Instead of self-preservation, coming to know Him where Grace enables the losing of our life for His sake.

I love how His ways are always opposite to the worlds ways!

He also reminded me of Jonny Gilling's message from a while back where Jonny describes a picture God gave him of journeying through a blackened tunnel - but when the lights went on there were jewels embedded in the walls.

'For if you cry for discernment, lift your voice for understanding; If you seek her as silver, and search for her as hidden treasures; then you will discern the fear of the Lord and discover the knowledge of God.' Pro 2:3-4

'She is more precious than jewels; And nothing you desire compares with her'. Pro 3:15.

Interestingly, Steve's picture for us starts at '33 minutes' into this message.

I wrote down '33' on a piece of paper when I was listening. Towards the end of the message, you by chance mentioned '33' miners in the documentary He highlighted to you.

He then reminded me of Jeremiah 33:3 which sums up the message to us - 'Call to Me and I will answer you, and I will tell you great and mighty things, which you do not know'.

Not looking to man, or to familiar ways we've leaned on in the past - but to Him.

https://www.therock.org.nz/media/static/uploads/sermons/2018/05/Leaders_Dinner_-_Steve_McCracken_-_5_May_18.mp3

This is My Time

Tue, 24 Mar 2020 15:29:59 +1300

Hi Family,

This got me up at 2am this morning..

"Be still and know that I am God, I will be exalted upon the earth. Behold everything and anything that has raised itself against me, I am bringing low.

I am stilling your busyness oh man. I am shutting your mouth. I am laying waste every idol, every foundation, every hobby, every dependence and reliance. Everything that can be shaken is taken away that only I the unshaken will remain. The world and its systems have come to halt, wheels stopped turning, knees brought low and hearts made ready for the King.

In the wilderness, in the desolation and stillness, in the non-doing and undoing, you will find Me. In humility and gentleness you will behold Me. Reach out, groan and cry if you must. Call upon me and I will hear. I am your Saviour and today I will be your Lord.

Playtime is over. Look, the coming waves have lapped up the sandcastles you have built and lived in. Its time to come home. Return to where you were made and where you were truly destined to be. Your place from the beginning, your place by Me.

Arise now, leave your playthings behind and take your place. Get ready for My return. I, your glory await. Now that I have wrenched you from your busyness, now that i have gotten your attention, now that i have given you time...Become!.

Arise shine for your light has come. The glory of the Lord is upon you. Live and breathe from My being. Take up your mat and walk. Throw away everything that hinders, run with all your might. My power is made perfect in weakness, My joy is your strength. Fear not, take courage, don now your robes and trim your lamps for you are called into such a time as this.

This is My time. Now is My time. You have called me Saviour, today I will be your Lord."

The Root of Self (6)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:56:09 +1300

Jesus taught In Luke 9:23-24 that if anyone wanted to follow Him they must deny them self and that whoever wanted to save their life must lose it and lose it for His sake.

These types of passages roll off the tongues of many followers so easy and we say yes of course and amen to theses verses, and yet many seem completely oblivious to the fact that none of us can deny the god of self or lose our life for His sake, until the root of self has been dealt to.

Just because we may start doing things differently and living differently, being fully committed to works for Christ, doesn’t mean we are denying self or not loving our lives.

Peter said he had left everything to follow Jesus and yet what in fact did Peter actually leave and what didn’t he leave behind. Peter’s external life was changing but his internal life hadn’t changed one iota. He swapped a boat, his nets and the sea for inland activity. He was no longer going to be a fisher of fish and his new mission was to become a fisher of men. His physical environment would change and yet Peter was the same man on the inside.

Because Peter had the root of self still living within him when confronted as to whether he knew Jesus or not, he denied knowing Jesus and being with Him. This is the man who walked on water.

This is an absolute contradiction to what he had just declared, in saying he would go to his death with Christ.

Peter still loved his own life more than the love he professed for Christ. He was found out through the pressure test and his hypocrisy and pride were exposed.

Peter professed something he couldn’t live out. He had to come to the realisation of this before he could truly repent and discover the life that Jesus had predestined for him.

We are no different.

The prerequisite for following Jesus of denying self and no longer living for self, can only be accomplished by wholehearted surrender to Christ.

Jesus will walk us through this deep inner work of repentance if we will allow Him and lead us into life.

We may find ourselves being committed like Peter, but how surrendered are we to Christ?

Food for thought!

The Root of Self (5)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:54:40 +1300

Believing requires our self will to be broken, which is something self doesn’t gravitate towards at all. Anything that has self in it is not of God. Self righteousness, self ambition, self works, self control, self help, self sufficiency, self determination are all of man, and are wisdom from the kingdom of darkness. These are the attributes that man promotes and aspires to live from.

Self must be crucified by the Word of the cross and be put to death. Paul said I have been crucified with Christ and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me.

Can we hear what Paul is saying?
I, the will of man that lives in all our soul, has been crucified with Christ. In other words, I has been put to death and ceases to exist. It’s not being crucified, it has been crucified.

This must become all of our reality if we are to come into and experience the fullness of life Jesus promises us. The relinquishing of our will in our soul is non negotiable.

This is a work that only the Holy Spirit can perform within us.

Zechariah 4:6 says: Then he said to me, “This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel saying, ‘ Not by might nor by power, but by My Spirit,’ says the Lord of hosts.

Too many in the body of Christ are still operating from their might or power that comes from the Will of self. We say this dying to our will is a process, and yet this isn’t what the scriptures teach. Paul said his will WAS crucified. To say dying to our will is a process, is to not have our will crucified and put to death. When you are dead you are dead. If you are in process you are not dead but alive and are fighting to stay alive. There is no death of self yet. Our will is still alive and well and wrestling with God. Its no different to saying Jesus did not die on the cross but was in process.

Paul says I have been crucified WITH CHRIST, because Christ was crucified and died.

This human strength is complete foolishness to God and needs to come to the end of its existence. It needs to breath its last breath.

My prayer is that the will of man will surrender itself to the Will of the Father, and cease to exist, so we all become who He intends and calls us to be.

The Root of Self (4)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:53:22 +1300

We see this root of self operating and presenting itself all the time in the scriptures and in particular in Jesus’ disciples throughout the Gospel.

In Jesus’ disciples we say?

Certainly not! They left everything and were wholeheartedly committed to living for Jesus.

Certainly you mean the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the lawyers and their scribes, not Jesus’ disciples that this root of self was operating in?

Luke 9:51-56 is a perfect example of what I am describing. When James and John do not get the response that they expect, their reaction is one that exposes the root of self that is within them.

We will all manifest what is truly within us when put in the right situation. When we squeeze an orange we receive orange juice. When a follower of Jesus gets squeezed, it’s then that we see who truly lives within each of us. Does the spirit of self manifest and present itself or does the spirit of the Christ come forth?

Jesus says to James and John that they do not know what spirit they are of. Jesus knows what Spirit is operating and presenting itself right now and it’s not the Spirit that lives in Him. It’s the spirit of self. The spirit of self is always in opposition to the spirit of Christ and finds itself completely unable to model Christ like behaviour, especially in times of pressure and opposition to what self wants.

James and John are not just any disciples. They are part of Jesus inner leadership team. The ones He took with Him on the Mount of Transfiguration. The ones that He took a bit deeper in the garden of Gethsemane. The ones He took into the house of Jairus the synagogue official to heal his daughter.

John is the one who constantly told the other disciples that he was the one Jesus loved, as if Jesus loved him more than the other disciples?

It is one thing for Jesus to love John but a completely entirely different reality for John to love like Jesus. John and James are being found out for the spirit of self that is currently living within them. This is the spirit of self that must be crucified by the Word of the cross. The Word that is foolishness to the root of self, but is liberating to those of the spirit of Christ.

Ask yourself how you react when things don’t go the way you expect and why you may respond the way you do which is not Christ like?

Christ is loving us with an all encompassing love while He desires to do a deep inner work of purification in the deep recesses of who we are. Only Christ can build His church the Way He intends, so my prayer is we as His people will all be surrendering and being found in this true inner building work of the Spirit.

The Root of Self (3)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:50:40 +1300

As previously mentioned this root is hidden in our inner most being and can only be detected and uprooted as we come to the end of our selves. Coming to the end of ourselves requires a breaking of the spirit of self, which is embedded in the DNA of our fallen nature.

Jesus spoke to the religious leaders of His day who were firmly entrenched in this root, controlling people and preventing people from the eternal kingdom life. He said “everyone who falls upon the Rock will be broken into pieces”. He said those who reject the Stone, the Stone will fall upon and crush them. Certain Jews rejected the Stone and would suffer this fate but everyone who fell on the Rock would be broken into pieces.

What kind of height does one need to fall from to have the spirit of self broken into pieces? A GREAT height! When one only falls from a medium or small height, one is only chipped and cracked, and the spirit of self is shaken, dusts itself off and continues to live. It has not been broken into pieces as Jesus promised, because the fall was small.

The fall represents REPENTANCE.
How great was your repentance, the day you acknowledged your absolute need for Christ. Did your repentance come as a shout from the depths of your inner most being, where you raised a hallelujah in the acknowledgment of the death of self and breathed clean air for the first time, because you received the DNA of heaven, the Root of Love.

Do you have a reference point for what I am describing? If this isn’t your experience you probable still have the Tap root of self in you, which is why you still struggle to deny yourself and love mankind as Jesus commanded. This root must be dealt to once and for all so spend time with the Father and ask Him to release you from it through His power and your repented heart.

The Root of Self (2)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:47:42 +1300

Have we ever tried to rip out the Tap root of a plant in our own strength. It takes a mighty effort and more often than not it requires one to receive help from an outside source.

The Tap root has its foundation firmly anchored and grounded deep into the earth and gets all its nutrients from the earth to feed and keep the plant that it is embedded to alive.

Paul said we are to be rooted and grounded in love. In other words our Tap root is to be God as God is love. It’s one thing to say my Tap root is Christ and yet it is an entirely different reality to KNOW and experience your Tap root as Christ.

This is a Tap root that can never be ripped out no matter what the force or pressure and stands up to everything that is thrown at it.

When Christ becomes our Tap root our lives are anchored into the Kingdom of God. No longer do we look to receive our nutrients from this physical earth as we have been re-rooted and established in a brand new kingdom.

Once this Tap root is established we become the recipients of this brand new life in our inner most being. Deep from within us starts to flow the nutrients of this brand new Root, giving us incredible power and life on the inside of us.

This is not something we are trying to produce, it is a life that is being produced from having this new Root system, the Root called Love.

Are we experiencing this new life on the inside of us or are we still connected and embedded in the root of self. If we are not yet free from the Tap root of Self, make seeking the Lord and being found in prayer your number one focus and priority. Through this act of humility, obedience and trust, the Father will perform a deep work within you, releasing you from one Tap root and establishing you into an another.

Ephesians 3:14-20.

The Root of Self (1)

Fri, 15 Nov 2019 14:42:17 +1300

“I give the letter s in Self a capital because Self is a god. Self is a god with a little g but nevertheless self is a god. As followers of Jesus Christ I pose a question to us all.

Has the root of Self (god) been ripped out of your inner most being place, the hidden place deep within the recesses of your heart, through the power of the Gospel?

Has the Word of God, the gospel, found its way in to the deep recesses of your fallen human nature and set you free from you?

When I say this I don’t mean theoretically, verbally, in principle or intellectually but experientially. Have you experienced deep within your inner most being this freeing work of the power of the gospel? Jesus said it this way. “My truth makes you free” and He will
continue to make us free the more we experience Him. He is the Way, the Truth, the Life. He is not a process but a person.

Only when we have experienced the power of this work will we be free from the power of our fallen nature, the god of self and find ourselves able to love as Jesus loved and as Jesus commanded us to love.

Memorisation of scripture doesn’t do this work. The proclamation of scripture doesn’t do this work. Only through the REVELATION of the Word of God deep into the inner most being place, the deep hidden recesses of your heart, does this powerful transformative work take place, freeing us from our old human nature.

If we are truly going to be the church Jesus said we can be, and who He called us to be, we must all experience the power of the gospel of Jesus Christ and not just have a mental and verbal agreement of the words of the gospel.

If you know you are yet to experience this deep powerful work within you, today is the day for it to be done.

Don’t wait any longer in seeking the Holy Spirit to perform this deep work within you that only He can do. I guarantee you, when He performs this work through your confession and surrender, you will wonder what you have been doing all this time!!!!

The Spirit helps us pray

Tue, 10 Jan 2017 08:52:27 +1300

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Fri, 23 Dec 2016 09:49:27 +1300

To those who love God...pt6

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 15:29:26 +1300

To those who love God...pt5

Wed, 26 Oct 2016 15:28:51 +1300

To those who love God...pt4

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:14:09 +1300

To those who love God...pt3

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:12:28 +1300

To those who love God...pt2

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:08:45 +1300

To those who love God...

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:06:17 +1300

Hope for what is unseen

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:05:00 +1300

Awaiting the redemption of our body..

Wed, 28 Sep 2016 11:02:12 +1300

Set free

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:34:19 +1200

The revealing of the sons of God

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:32:16 +1200

Sufferings are nothing compared to the glory in Christ

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:28:43 +1200

Heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:26:54 +1200

The Spirit testifies that we are sons.

Thu, 15 Sep 2016 16:25:07 +1200

We've received the Spirit of sonship.

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:39:53 +1200

Sons of God are led by the Spirit of God.

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:39:02 +1200

As we live by the Spirit, our flesh naturally dies.

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:35:17 +1200

We are no longer bound to the flesh.

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:33:38 +1200

Living and walking from the Spirit

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:31:27 +1200

Alive to Christ by Faith

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:30:00 +1200

The Spirit of Christ dwells in us

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:28:31 +1200

The flesh's hostility towards God

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:25:19 +1200

The mind set on the flesh is death...

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:24:08 +1200

Living by the Spirit

Mon, 29 Aug 2016 15:21:47 +1200

Walking according to the Spirit

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:53:33 +1200

The Law can't save

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:51:23 +1200

Set free from the law of sin and death

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:50:01 +1200

No Condemnation in Christ

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:48:54 +1200

What is the Gospel?

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:48:12 +1200

6 Attributes to receive God's Word

Fri, 29 Jul 2016 12:46:11 +1200

Appointed Time

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 16:47:42 +1200

The Purpose of Marriage

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 16:46:07 +1200

A Vision to Become

Wed, 29 Jun 2016 14:07:58 +1200

Demonstration of God's Power

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 10:05:46 +1200

Proving that we are of Him

Mon, 13 Jun 2016 10:03:29 +1200

The Gospel

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 10:32:32 +1200

Be found at His feet

Tue, 07 Jun 2016 10:31:48 +1200

Wholehearted Disciples

Wed, 01 Jun 2016 09:14:16 +1200

Rules of God's Kingdom

Wed, 25 May 2016 15:48:38 +1200

"Surely the Lord is in this place and I didn't know it."

Fri, 20 May 2016 09:46:56 +1200

Unseen Things

Fri, 13 May 2016 14:22:19 +1200

The Unexpected Messenger

Fri, 13 May 2016 14:19:58 +1200

Lets Be Wholehearted

Fri, 13 May 2016 14:17:58 +1200

Seeing through Eyes of Faith

Fri, 06 May 2016 11:26:24 +1200

Fighting for Unity in Spirit

Fri, 06 May 2016 11:24:10 +1200

Communal in Heart : Missional in Attitude

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 09:47:47 +1200

The Clash of Kingdoms

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 09:47:16 +1200

The Standard of Truth

Thu, 28 Apr 2016 09:46:11 +1200

We Lay Our Lives Down

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 12:08:11 +1200

Blesssed are the Peacemakers

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 12:06:25 +1200

We Can Know God's Will

Thu, 07 Apr 2016 10:52:33 +1200

The Purpose of God's Word

Thu, 31 Mar 2016 09:00:10 +1300

The Love of Christ Controls Us

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:02:59 +1300

Be Quick to Hear and Slow to Speak

Thu, 17 Mar 2016 17:01:43 +1300

The Great Commandment

Tue, 15 Mar 2016 17:00:11 +1300

Hear and Obey

Mon, 21 Dec 2015 12:29:51 +1300

Speaking only the Living Word

Sat, 19 Dec 2015 12:28:28 +1300

Understanding the Words of Christ

Fri, 18 Dec 2015 12:27:51 +1300

Truly Believing and Changing

Thu, 17 Dec 2015 12:26:42 +1300

Hear what the Spirit is saying

Wed, 16 Dec 2015 12:25:46 +1300

People of No Compromise

Tue, 15 Dec 2015 12:25:09 +1300

Love with the Father's love

Sat, 12 Dec 2015 12:23:35 +1300

The Principle or The Person?

Thu, 10 Dec 2015 12:22:57 +1300

Eating of the Bread from Heaven

Tue, 08 Dec 2015 12:22:07 +1300

Choose Life choose Christ

Sun, 06 Dec 2015 12:21:12 +1300

Are we abiding in Christ?

Sat, 05 Dec 2015 12:20:29 +1300

Kingdom vs. Empire-building

Fri, 27 Nov 2015 12:19:33 +1300

Things not yet seen

Wed, 25 Nov 2015 12:18:02 +1300

Faith in Son of God

Wed, 18 Nov 2015 12:16:56 +1300

Operating from Power of God

Tue, 10 Nov 2015 12:15:34 +1300

Letter or Life?

Fri, 03 Apr 2015 00:45:59 +1300

Hi everyone,

Thought for this week: "Are we obeying the letter of His commandments without the corresponding life of His commandments?"

If our obedience does not bring life then we are missing the whole purpose of the commandments. Anyone can apply self-control and obey a rule, but God is calling His people to a greater revelation that awakens the life of the commandments in us. Peter said God has given us His precious and magnificent promises so we can partake of the divine nature^[1]. Did you catch that? “...so that we can PARTAKE of the divine nature”!

What is this divine nature we can participate in? God’s nature is His love, His joy, His peace, His faithfulness, His holiness, His righteousness and all His other communicable attributes that through His Spirit well up from within us.

The ultimate purpose of God’s promises is to lead us into His divine nature. Can you honestly say that you are partaking of this? Be encouraged, it is fully possible, for in God ALL things are possible^[2]. The only thing that holds us back is our unbelief.

I will be sharing on the divine nature - particularly His love, joy and peace - over the next coming weeks to bring greater clarity to the life He wants to release in us and from which we can live the abundant life He has offered us.

My prayer is that we are meditating and marinating in these thoughts that are being shared and we are allowing Him to define our lives through His word.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

[1] 2 Peter 1:4
[2] Matthew 19:26

Do we want to know the power of His resurrection?

Thu, 26 Mar 2015 11:14:11 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week: "Do we want to know the power of His resurrection?"

Do we want to know intimately, and experience in our inner most being, the power of God that raised Jesus from the grave? This is the power that Paul says he wants to know in Philippians 3:10...

“I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,”

Paul had experienced the power of God being revealed in him to an overwhelming measure, and yet he was not satisfied with this measure. He desired to know it more and more. Why?

Paul knew that it was the power of God being released into his inner most being through the Holy Spirit that empowered and enabled the internal transformation of his very being. He knew full well that it was this power that arrested him when Ananias laid his hands on him and God filled him with the Holy Spirit.

He knew that the more power that was released in him - the more he would be the embodiment of God’s wisdom on the earth. He also knew that the more power that was released in him, the more equipped, empowered and mobilised he would be to accomplish God's will.

This brings to light the promise of Jesus from Luke 24:49...

And behold, I am sending forth the promise of My Father upon you; but you are to stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high." Luke 24:49 (NASB)

This promise was to Jesus' disciples, and it is also our promise as His disciples today. I guess the question is: are we a disciple of Christ or someone who just goes along with Christ?

The promise was made to men and women who were not getting it perfectly but who were committed "wholeheartedly" to following Jesus Christ, and doing His will and not their own.

Questions to ponder...

- Are we wholeheartedly committed to following Christ and doing His will?

- Do we want to intimately experience this all encompassing power in our inner most being?

- What has the Holy Spirit said to you through these thoughts?

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and the questions in the comments section below.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

God disciplines His sons.

Thu, 19 Mar 2015 12:45:38 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week: "God disciplines His sons."

If you are a son^[1] of God then you should expect to be disciplined by God out of the love He has for you. God’s discipline sanctifies us so that we are able to share in His holiness^[2]. God has this incredible kingdom life that He has made available to us, and His discipline enables us to come into the fullness of this abundant life now.

All discipline for the moment seems not to be joyful, but sorrowful; yet to those who have been trained by it, afterwards it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness. Hebrews 12:11

This passage is so powerful. All who have been trained by God's discipline have produced in them the fruit of righteousness. Righteousness is living a life of right standing before the Father, allowing the Father to build you His way so His life is produced in and through you. It is those who do the will of the Father who enter the kingdom of heaven^[3].

Hebrews 12:8 says that without this discipline, of which all have become partakers, then we are illegitimate children and not sons. Let us all allow His discipline to shape us as His sons, not shying away from this discipline but embracing it full on. Then we can all come into the fullness of this spiritual life awakening within us, and receive all that He has for us as true sons of God.

Spend some time in Hebrews 12:4-13 this week, meditating on these words and engaging with His Spirit to reveal the message He has for you there.

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and the questions in the comments section below.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

[1] “sons” referring to our adopted relationship with God the Father, irrespective of our biological gender.

[2] Hebrews 12:10

[3] Matthew 7:21

Function or relationship?

Wed, 11 Mar 2015 23:53:10 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week: "Is our worship to God coming from a place of function or of intimate knowledge of Him?"

³⁸Now as they were travelling along, He entered a village; and a woman named Martha welcomed Him into her home. ³⁹She had a sister called Mary, who was seated at the Lord’s feet, listening to His word. ⁴⁰But Martha was distracted with all her preparations; and she came up to Him and said, “Lord, do You not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone? Then tell her to help me.”⁴¹But the Lord answered and said to her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and bothered about so many things; ⁴²but only one thing is necessary, for Mary has chosen the good part, which shall not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

In this verse we find an enlightening illustration of one person's worship coming from function and another’s coming from intimate relationship.

Our function - or what we do for God - is to flow from our intimate knowledge of God and not the other way around. When we flow out of function and not relationship, very quickly what we do for Him becomes our purpose and our source of identity - even what we live for, rather than from God Himself.

If we are living from function, from the doing, then we are not building our lives on the true foundation of Christ himself, but on what we do for Him. This will ultimately lead us into dysfunctional place.

Ask yourself today what position you are living your life from. If you find yourself living from what you do for Christ rather than your love for Him, then repent of this, turn to Him and ask Him to change you through the power of His Spirit.

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and the questions in the comments section below.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

God tests His people

Fri, 19 Dec 2014 13:37:57 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week: “God tests His people.”

God tests us to see whether we will put Him first in our lives. He creates opportunities for us to be tested to see where our hearts truly lie.

God tested Abraham, asking him to sacrifice his son Isaac on an altar. Would Abraham obey his Lord? Did he truly love God more than his beloved son^[1], the son of God’s promise?

God tests our hearts and looks at our response to Him. A great question to ask is, “why does He do this? What is God looking for, and why?”

All this is a temporal example of a spiritual dimension and reality. God uses the temporal to teach us the spiritual.

The way that Abraham responded to his test is the key to all of this. Abraham didn’t falter and think twice but acted immediately to obey what God had commanded.

When the disciples were invited to follow Jesus the bible says they acted immediately^[2].

The blessings that Abraham and the disciples received were incredible, and the eternal reward that we have to look forward to is greater still.

God was testing them and He is testing us. Let's be a people who rise to the test and prove our faith and commitment to God by trusting in Him and doing what He asks us to do and becoming who He has called us to be.

Here are some questions to ask ourselves:

1. What is God looking for from us when He tests us?

2. What gets produced in us through the testing?

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and the questions by email or leave a comment on this post on our discipleship blog: http://therock.org.nz/blog/

Have a favoured week,

Greg

[1] See Genesis 22:1-19
[2] Matthew 4:22

"Transformative knowledge"

Fri, 12 Dec 2014 08:00:00 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week:

"Are we seeking and receiving transformative knowledge or factual knowledge?"

Clay used the term "transformative understanding" in his message last Sunday, speaking of a knowledge that transforms us from the inside out.

It is this knowledge that births the life of Christ in us and literally changes us so we are fully capable of demonstrating His nature, character and power on the earth now.

Transformative knowledge is a living, active, creative, powerful knowledge that births life where life wasn't. This is the life we receive as He abides in us and WE ABIDE IN HIM. May we pursue this transformative knowledge and no other.

We will know what knowledge we are in because we will have the corresponding life operating in us, the life that innately comes with and from this transformative knowledge.

If there is no change and ongoing transformation in us then we only have factual knowledge and this isn't the knowledge the Bible speaks of.

⁹And this I pray, that your love may abound still more and more in real knowledge and all discernment, ¹⁰ so that you mayapprove the things that are excellent, in order to be sincere and blameless until the day of Christ; ¹¹ having been filled with the fruit of righteousness which comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God. Philippians 1:9-11

Here are some questions to ask ourselves:

Ask yourself what your life would look like if you received more and more of this transformative knowledge?

What fruit could you expect to see being produced through a person who was loving from the nature this transformative knowledge nurtures?

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and the questions by email or leave a comment on this post on our discipleship blog: http://therock.org.nz/blog/

Have a favoured week,
Greg

“Truly knowing Jesus intimately is the master key to unlock the abundant resurrection life found in Him.”

Fri, 28 Nov 2014 17:43:32 +1300

Hi family,

Key thought this week:

“Truly knowing Jesus intimately is the master key to unlock the abundant resurrection life found in Him.”

A great example in God's word of someone coming into this intimate knowledge of Christ and the impact this has on their life is of the apostle Paul in Philippians 3:1-11...

³ For it is we who are the circumcision, we who serve God by his Spirit, who boast in Christ Jesus, and who put no confidence in the flesh— ⁴ though I myself have reasons for such confidence. If someone else thinks they have reasons to put confidence in the flesh, I have more: ⁵ circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; in regard to the law, a Pharisee; ⁶ as for zeal, persecuting the church; as for righteousness based on the law, faultless. ⁷ But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. ⁸ What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ ⁹ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ—the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith. ¹⁰ I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, ¹¹ and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.

Here are some questions to ask ourselves in relation to this passage:

What is the difference between "knowing about Jesus" and truly "knowing Jesus"?
How can we tell which of these positions we are mainly living from?
Why is knowing Jesus intimately so important to us becoming mature disciples?
What difference should an intimate knowledge of Jesus make in our lives?
Are you experiencing this difference in your life? If so what testimony are you able to share of this?

Please feel free to respond with any thoughts that you have on this passage and questions in comment section below.

Have a favoured week,
Greg

"Set your mind on the things above..."

Fri, 14 Nov 2014 17:01:34 +1300

Hi guys,

Here is a thought for the week...

"Set your mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth" - Colossians 3:2

How many of us have written this off as impractical or just considered it some biblical rhetoric that holds no value in real life?

To dismiss this scripture would be a big mistake, as Paul teaches us this for a specific and significant reason.

Ask yourself why Paul wrote this for us and let me know your thoughts in the comments section below.

Have a favoured week,
Greg

...by word only?

Fri, 31 Oct 2014 18:13:19 +1300

Hi guys,

Here is my thought for the week...

Q. Did the gospel message we received come to us by word only?

We read in 1 Thessalonians 1:5 Paul affirming to the church in Thessalonica that the gospel they received did not come to them in word only, but also in power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction.

I want us to meditate on this passage and ask ourselves what was our testimony?
Have we received the message of the cross in word only; or have we received it not only in word, but also in power, with the Holy Spirit and with deep conviction?

There is a massive difference between these two experiences and just like the Thessalonian church we must experience the later position and come into the fullness of Christ and transformation that they did.

Let us seek and pursue God for this reality in Him, as it will radically affect our relationship with Him.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

Living from His Presence

Fri, 17 Oct 2014 20:11:53 +1300

Hi Family,

Key thought this week: "We are to live our lives from the presence of God."

Ask yourself this question: “Do I spend more time seeking and pursuing the presence of God, or living from the presence of God?”

These are two very different positions.

As a follower of Jesus Christ we received His presence, His Spirit, the day we made a commitment to follow Him wholeheartedly^[1] . His Spirit came to live and make His home IN US, and because of this we can now live our lives from His presence.

Learning to live from the reality of His presence is a life long process that was made possible through the work of the cross which we all received, and continue to receive as we are sanctified into His likeness, and it is imperative we understand it continues to be a process^[2].

Through Jesus' death and resurrection everything required for us to come into a Spirit-filled life was accomplished. All barriers to God’s presence were removed. Everything we need to live this life now has already been given to us.

No longer do we need to look for rest, our rest is found in Christ^[3] whom we already have, we just need live to live from what He has already given us. No longer do we need to look for peace, we have been given a peace which transcends all understanding, we just need live to live from what He has already given us^[4]. These are just two examples of the gifts we have already received that are we need to recognise and live from, rather than continue to ask for and pursue.

If this isn't your reality today, be encouraged, it can be. God knows what is holding you back from living in the revelation of His Spirit, so be courageous and ask Him to show you what that is, and ask yourself honestly, do you actually want to live your life from the presence of God?

There are people in our community who are living from His presence already, and we can learn so much from them. You will know them from how they speak, and the example of their lives. Take the initiative to ask these people to share the story of how this reality was birthed and continues to mature in them. And can I encourage and urge us all today to continue to ask God for the breakthrough in this area. We don’t need Him to give us His presence, we need the sight to see that we already have it!

Have a favoured week,

Greg

[1] Ephesians 1:13, Romans 8:9-11
[2] Philippians 1:6
[3] Matthew 11:28
[4] Philippians 4:7

Who we are...not what we do!

Fri, 10 Oct 2014 12:16:34 +1300

Hi guys,

Key thought this week: "God sets his premium on who we are...not what we do."

What we do and who we are, are radically different, but God will use what we do to form who we are and who we are becoming.

Paul supported himself through his trade of tent making.
Jesus followed his adopted father into the trade of carpentry.
Peter worked as a fisherman.
I am employed as a church minister, but also serve as a music leader, an elder, and a ministry leader.

But none of these things defines me. Our vocations and ministries are not who we are, they are just things that we do...so who are we?

“... you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession...” 1 Peter 2:9

This is how God defines us. This is who He says we are. Are we hearing Him? Are we believing Him? Are we living from this reality, from the new identity He has given us? Something to chew over this week.

Have a great weekend everyone,

Greg

Talking with Dad

Fri, 03 Oct 2014 11:54:06 +1300

A growing heart’s desire to know God our Father in spirit and in truth sits at the centre of our love for Him, and we love because He first loved us^[1]. This is revealed by and in His Holy Spirit dwelling within us, and in His truth as He defines the truth about Himself.

Our Messiah said “If you really know me, you will know my Father as well. From now on, you do know him and have seen him.”^[2] There is so much more to knowing Jesus than simply looking at the writing in the Gospel accounts and studying the words. We are to seek to know Him in His word and respond to His revelation in us. This is when intellectual knowledge becomes intimate relational knowledge, and the living reality of the Christ grows in us. As we have been hearing, the Apostle Paul says, “But when it pleased God who separated me from my mother’s womb and called me by his grace. To reveal his Son in me that I might preach him…”.^[^3] This revelation of ‘the Son in him’ opens up a wide range of discovery for us regarding who the Son is, who the Father is, and how He reveals Himself so that we can know Him intimately as His children.

How can we know God as father as the Son does? This must come by revelation from Him, and the best way I know how this takes place is through a humble heart asking for this revelation through prayer, knowing His word, walking together, and a readiness to repent of things we hold fast to that may not be of Him and are holding us back. Remember, repenting is turning to the Kingdom of God, not just turning from sin in thought or deed.

Love is the hallmark of this process, and not love as the world knows it, but love as God loves. This is agapē, unconditional love; love that allows us to walk in truth, and discover truth without the need to defend ourselves, or judge others for their understanding when it differs from ours. We walk together with humble hearts, striving for the truth together. Remember, it’s His Spirit and His truth we are seeking, allowing the Holy Spirit room to bring revelation of “...his Son in me”.

As Jesus is our example of how to live this life in the Spirit, it is worth noting He spent lots of time in prayer. Who did he pray to? What was the relationship from which He approached prayer? It was to God, His (our) Heavenly Father^[4]. So if this was His posture and practice, surely this would be a model for us to follow also.

Praying together as a family is great (and we encourage you to join us before our Sunday Services and at Mountain Movers as often as you can), but prayer as a life posture is even greater. Prayer needs to be more than a programmed meeting. God is calling us to a lifestyle of prayer, to pray without ceasing^[5].

I encourage us all to be honest with our Lord and let Him know our heart in regards to prayer. His arms are open for us to come and be real with Him; and in His arms we will find that He will fill us to a greater measure with this gift of love and faith.

Paul Costelloe

[1] 1 John 4:19
[2] John 14:7
[3] Galatians 1:15-16
[4] Deuteronomy 32: 6; Matthew 6:9
[5] 1 Thessalonians 5:17

Renewing the mind = transformation

Fri, 26 Sep 2014 18:33:58 +1200

Hi guys,

Key thought this week... "Renewing the mind = transformation."

As you may have noticed, we have been preaching a lot at The Rock on transformation. We have been teaching that the main purpose of God's people is their personal transformation into the image of Christ^[1], which will in turn sanctify us corporately as Christ’s glorious, eternal Bride^[2]. This transformation will be produced through our daily commitment to love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength^[3]; and by the renewing of our mind^[4]. This transformation is a work of His Spirit^[5] that will enable us to hear, see, think, speak, and act like Christ.

As an eldership, we have been pressing our family at The Rock to commit our lives to this process, because this is what we know God is calling His Church to become. As every one of us engages in this process of transformation then we will see a whole community become one with Him and each other; an authentic oneness in the Spirit, where we can say without any doubt we are of the same mind, maintaining the same love, united in Spirit, and intent on one purpose^[6].

As His people we are all called to live a demonstration of His life, which is the fruit His Spirit and His word operating in us^[7]. From this revelation we share with people the hope and the life that we have in us from our relationship with Him^[8].

This is all well and good, but for us to see and experience this truth in our lives, our minds must be in a state of constant renewal by His Spirit and truth. In other words: His reality is to become our reality, His ways are to become our ways, and His truth is to become our truth, so that we are able to see from a divine perspective rather than a worldly one^[9] and start living it^[10].

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

How many of us are still conformed to the pattern of this natural world we live in? How many of us have allowed our old natures to determine how we live and think? This is not an unusual condition; even the Apostle Peter struggled with it on occasion^[11]. This natural thinking is from the kingdom we have been rescued from, the kingdom of darkness. We are not demonic but this natural way of thinking is^[12].

Jesus constantly declared the truth and lived from its reality in Him; and so we find Him continually speaking and acting in opposition to the way of the world, and to the natural thinking of those around Him who could still not see, hear, or understand the truth He was proclaiming^[13].

Christ has given us the Spirit of truth to lead us into ALL truth^[14], into all of His divine reality. The Spirit leads, but to partake of His truth we must follow. His truth is a light that will reveal our old natures for what they really are. His truth sanctifies our souls^[15], killing off the old nature and nurturing the new.

Paul spoke in Romans of a "renewing" of the mind. This is an ongoing process, not a one-time event^[16]. God has proved Himself faithful to complete the good work that He has started in us^[17], but we must daily surrender to allow that work to progress in us^[18].

Christ’s blood covers all our short comings (i.e. our iniquity and sin^[19]), so these things don't disqualify us from all that He has for us. So let us all press into Him and come into His fullness, through the renewing of our minds by His Spirit and truth.

My prayer is that we continue to surrender ourselves to Him and His process of transformation here at the Rock, so that the demonstration of this life will be seen both in the life of our church and in each one of us.

Love to hear your thoughts on this.

Have a favoured week,
Greg

[1] 2 Corinthians 3:18, Colossians 3:10
[2] Revelation 21:2, Luke 1:17
[3] Mark 12:30
[4] Romans 12:2
[5] 2 Corinthians 3:18, Romans 15:16
[6] Philippians 2:2
[7] John 14:17, 1 Thessalonians 2:13, 2 Thessalonians 2:13
[8] 1 Peter 3:15, 2 Corinthians 5:11-20
[9] 2 Corinthians 5:16
[10] James 1:22
[11] See Matthew 16:23
[12] James 3:14-16
[13] Matthew 13:13-14
[14] John 16:13
[15] John 17:17
[16] Colossians 3:10, 2 Corinthians 4:16
[17] Philippians 1:6
[18] Philippians 2:12
[19] 1 John 1:7, Hebrews 9:14

Stinking thinking!

Fri, 12 Sep 2014 19:01:58 +1200

Hi family,

Speaking with a buddy of mine a wee while ago, he gave me this acronym: ANTS...

"Automatic Negative Thinking Syndrome"

When we live from our old nature we tend to see the world through the lens of the negative rather than the positive. We tend to see why something won't work as opposed to how it could. We tend to squash all possibilities and speak death into it before it has ever had a chance to form and breathe.

Ultimately, we tend to speak death over our own lives.

Why do we do this?

Because of our "automatic negative thinking syndrome".

As His followers, it is imperative that our thinking is undergoing constant renewal to His divine perspective by the Holy Spirit^[1]. Without this ongoing transformation in our lives we will be locked in a state of negative thinking and doubt, which will blind us to the spiritual reality that Jesus died for us all to see and enter into - the Kingdom of God.

Jesus came to seek and save ALL that was lost^[2]. He didn’t come just to save sinners from hell, but to reconcile us to right relationship with the Father^[3], to restore us to our destiny as sons and heirs^[4] of the King of Heaven.

Let’s surrender our negative thinking to God, taking every faithless thought captive and making it obedient to Christ^[5], and allowing His Spirit to renew our minds as we seek Him with all our heart^[6] and follow Him into His glorious Kingdom.

Have a favoured week,

Greg

[1] Romans 12:1
[2] Luke 19:10
[3] 2 Corinthians 5:18
[4] Romans 8:17
[5] 2 Corinthians 10:5
[6] Jeremiah 29:13-14

Are our lives a reflection of Christ's life?

Fri, 05 Sep 2014 21:29:10 +1200

Here's a question I believe God would have us all ask ourselves at this time:
"As His people, are our lives a reflection of Christ's life?"

We can no longer be content with mere words about truth^[1] without the corresponding reality that the Truth brings^[2].

God's grace is one of the most powerful, life giving and life changing attributes of His nature^[3]. It is given to us so that we are able - by the power of His Spirit - to come into the fullness of God; a transformative reality, not a theoretical view point that we hold or discuss.

Let's not be found in apathy, or ingratitude - abusing His incredible grace^[4], a gift that cost Him the life of His one and only Son. Let's be found living in the freedom it bought for us and the transformation it enables.

The more humble in spirit we are, the more we will come into this fullness of God He has promised us^[5]. So let us allow God to continue to work on us and build His life in us^[6], so that we are found in this authentic place where our words match our lives^[7].

Let His truth arrest you today to create life bringing change.

All things are possible to those who believe!^[8]

In His love,
Greg

[1] Matthew 15:9
[2] John 8:32
[3] Acts 4:33-37;
[4] Romans 6:1-14
[5] Ephesians 3:19; Ephesians 4:13
[6] Philippians 1:6
[7] James 1:22
[8] Mark 9:23

We are the church, we don't do it.

Fri, 29 Aug 2014 21:27:11 +1200

Here is the thought for the week: "We are the Church, we don't do it".

I am constantly surrounded by God's people who are both in positions of leadership and not, who continue to ask "How do we do church differently today?" They say we live in modern times and we need to be relevant and change the way we do church. I have even heard people say “church is boring”. Yes, we need to be relevant; and yes, church services may be boring; but despite what some may think this has very little to do with programming, and everything to do with who we are.

“How should we do church?” is not a question of the Kingdom of God, but of the wisdom of the world. These kinds of questions can distract us from the true purpose of Kingdom community. Jesus encountered this type of question when Nicodemus asked Him how a man could enter into his mother's womb and be born again^[1]? Jesus didn't give this question any of His precious time, but instead spoke of a true kingdom reality and then said "Are you the teacher of Israel and do not understand these things?"^[2]

The questions that we need to start asking ourselves (if we haven't already) are: "How can we be the Church?" And, “What do we need for us to be the Church and embody HIs Kingdom?”

What God has been showing me is that we need a revelation, a growing revelation of the Christ/truth in us; and we need His power operating within us continuously through the Spirit.

While our focus and priorities remain on external things, we will never enter into the truth God has for us. Unfortunately for many, the external things that God has given us to help facilitate our transformation have become our focus and priority. We have become distracted and confused, focusing our energies on the services, the music, the programmes, the building; rather than on the only One who has the truth, and can transform our spirits and renew our minds.

We have lost sight of our true purpose: not to do church, but to be God's people and function as His ambassadors on the earth^[3].

Please hear me, we are all called and taught to meet together regularly as His people^[4], as a family^[5]; and we continue to do this to receive greater revelation of Him and an ongoing transformation of ourselves, rather than just ticking religious boxes.

A prayer we could all offer up this week and in the weeks to come is...
“Lord, renew our minds through the power of your Spirit as we seek you.”
And in this prayer we will find the true purpose of our gatherings and our community.

In His love,
Greg

[1] John 3:4
[2] John 3:10
[3] 2 Corinthians 5:20
[4] Hebrews 10:25, 1 John 1:7
[5] Hebrews 2:11, 1 Peter 22:17