The Righteousness of God part two.

In my previous blog I wrote fairly extensively about the righteousness of God in Christ that has now been given to us and has come to us.
I wrote about the need to identify ourselves with this righteousness from God in order to separate ourselves from "our old sin tags",and from the old identity of the sinful man that dominated us before we came to Christ and were saved.
In this latest blog I would like to write about the consequences of having this new righteousness which we have received,and of the fruits which it will produce in a believers life who cultivates a rich consciousness that they are "The righteousness of God in Christ."
In the book of Isaiah chp 32 v17 we read that
"The work of righteousness will be peace,
And the effect of righteousness will be quietness and confidence forever.
My people will dwell in peaceful habitations,
In secure dwellings,and in quiet resting places."
So the first fruits of this righteousness being restored to us is a quality of peace and quietness and assurance.
I use the word restore because from the fall of Adam man has been on a perpetual quest to have his sense of lost righteousness restored.(Is this not the mainspring of all of the worlds religions,man seeking to establish his own righteousness through a variety of means,but not submitting to the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus?)
Thank God that because of Jesus this righteousness has now been restored,and restored in such a way that the worst offender and the commiter of the most heinous crime,can after receiving Jesus and being born again walk into the presence of the most holy God without a sense of sin or shame or condemnation.
That is the divinely given right of every child of God, so that if as a christian you are struggling with thoughts of self hatred towards yourself, or guilt or shame for the past it is because you have not yet established your heart in the revelation of your righteousness.
The scripture quoted above states that
"The work of righteousness is peace "
The number one fruit of this new found righteousness is the peace of God,and the more we meditate on our having been made the righteousness of God in Christ the more we shall partake of this quality of peace.
Of course our enemy the devil knows that to steal the peace of God from a Christians life he must get them to remain in ignorance or unbelief regarding their righteousness.
And generally he has been successful in doing so, because very few Christians have their consciences trained and their minds settled on the unchallengeable unalterable fact that they are the righteousness of God in Christ.
This is also why in the sixth chapter of Ephesians when Paul talks about putting on the whole armour of God, he speaks of the breastplate as being "the breastplate of righteousness"
(The breastplate was the part of the protective armour that covered the vital organs, ie the heart and kidneys.)
It is when we are settled and convinced of our righteous standing before God that likewise our hearts are covered and our minds protected from the fiery darts of the wicked one.
What are those fiery darts?
Primarily they are in the form of accusations towards us in the form of regrets for the past, shame and condemnation for the present, or fear regarding the future.
Being established in a sense of our righteousness is what protects us from the accusations of the evil one.
In Isaiah chp 54 and v 14 we read
"In righteousness you shall be established;
you shall be far from oppression, for you shall not fear;
And from terror for it shall not come near you."
Later in that same passage we read that
"No weapon formed against you shall prosper,
And every tongue that shall rise against you in judgement
You shall condemn.
This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord,
And their righteousness is of me,"says the Lord.

Notice how in this scripture the accusations against us are silenced and have no basis because "their righteousness is of me"
Every tongue that rises against us in judgement will be silenced.
Whether it be other Christians who are unguarded and unwise in their criticisms of me, or the accuser of the brethren who accuses us before Gods throne day and night, all of those voices of accusation are silenced in Gods sight, because they have no valid base because my righteousness is of Him.
The Lord does not use the devil to correct his children that is the Holy Spirits role and he is always the Spirit of Grace.
God is jealous to protect his own children.
Even in our own experience as parents we may need to correct our own children but we will protect them from the accusations of others against them;and this is appropriately so.
We may well discern those areas which need our guiding hand and even our rebukes, but it is not the right of another person to correct our children for us.
Many Christians are susceptible to the accusations of the devil or easily shaken by the criticisms of other because they have failed to distinguish between Gods way of correcting them and the enemies way of condemning them.
God convicts us but always with hope rising in our hearts and always with Love.
When we become established in a consciousness of our right standing with God we are not easily shaken by the voices of others judgement towards us, neither are we easily condemned because we know that it does not alter our right standing with God one iota and that we can in all good conscience stand in the presence of our God and say" thank God my righteousness is of him"
Satan's name is "the accuser" and as I said his accusations can take many different and subtle forms.
But basically they always result in some form of pressure against us that makes us feel under a judgement and a failure.
The antidote to this is to become convinced that "my righteousness is of Him"
We must as the scripture says become established in righteousness in order to accurately discern between Gods voice and the accuser of the brethren.
Let us never doubt that our righteousness is an established fact from Gods standpoint, now it must become an established truth in our own hearts and in our minds.
How do we become established in a righteousness consciousness?
We do so simply by meditating upon the word of God in this area of truth continuously.
Deuteronomy 30 v14 says "The word is very near you, in your mouth and in your heart, that you may do it"
This is a passage of scripture that is quoted by the apostle Paul,in the new testament to illustrate the principle of the righteousness of faith.
Notice it has to be in your mouth in order for it to be in your heart.
There seems to me to be something very often within the Psyche of the British character that is reluctant to speak out and confess boldly Gods word.
And yet there is such a power to it.
If we want to establish our hearts or as psalm 112 says fix our hearts on any truth of Gods word, to a place where we are not moved,then we have to continuously say those scriptures again and again and again.
They have to become deeply built into our spirit and into our consciousness, until they become instinctive and "second nature "to us.
In other words we think that way and act that way without having to think about it.
In my own experience I used to greatly struggle with this whole area of finding it hard to grasp a strong sense of my righteousness, and yet I had a tenacity to pursue this with a passion because I new that it would be life to me if I grasped this.
I began by reading a little book by ew Kenyon entitled "two kinds of righteousness" which began to answer the cry of my heart.
I also listened to the preaching of men like Kenneth Copeland on messages concerning becoming established in a righteousness consciousness which gave me a sense of hope for where I wanted to go.
Ultimately however it was in my writing down every scripture that I could find in both old and new testaments concerning the righteousness of God, and in confessing them out loud often in the first person;a process which I did over a period of several years.
Day after day week after week and month by month,I would say aloud "I am the righteousness of God in Christ",and then proceed to build around that confession numerous other scriptural promises concerning the righteousness of God quoting them not in the abstract but as my own possession.
The effects of this discipline have been life changing and I thank God for the power of the word of God to set us free.
Another consequence of become convinced of our righteousness before God and established in it is that we become bolder towards the enemy of our souls.
We are no longer intimidated by evil.
The bible says that for the child of God no weapon that is formed against us will prosper, and that when we are established in righteousness we shall be far from oppression for we shall not fear.
Fear in our lives in whatever area is what opens the door to oppression
The fact that I am righteous is proof positive that God has raised Jesus from the dead
(Rom 4 25 says who was delivered up for our offences and raised when we were declared righteous)
And because he is raised I have been raised up with him and his triumph over all sin and wickedness and evil belongs to me as a child of God.
Therefore I no longer need fear when I walk into the presence of evil because I am the righteousness of God in Christ Jesus and the enemy fears me as he feared the righteousness of Jesus.
Remember how in the presence of Jesus the demons cried out "what have we to do with you Jesus of Nazareth have you come to torment us before the time"
The presence of Gods righteousness is a torment to the enemy and when ever we confront evil we do so as those who have been made the very righteousness of God.
He is far more afraid of us and tormented by us than any christian should ever be of him.
Proverbs says "the wicked flee when none pursue them but the righteous are as bold as a lion"
Boldness and confidence comes as we mediate upon who we are in Christ.
It is then that we will be willing to go where Christ wants us to go, and to say what he wants us to say.
It is then that we shall not shrink back from any intimidation or opposition whether of men or of demons, but resting in the presence of our Father in heaven we will continuously hear his whisper to our hearts,even in the hardest places saying to us,
"Your righteousness is of me"

The Righteousness of God in Christ part 1

The righteousness of God is such a vital subject for us to understand.
And yet for so many Christians their understanding of this powerful truth is limited to the perspective that God is wholly Righteous and Just, and that they are unworthy and unrighteous.
And if they have any comprehension of the Righteousness of God it tends to be in mostly legal terms-God has forgiven them through Jesus and now reckons them as righteous.
Very few have any conviction that they actually are righteous.
In fact for many Christians it would seem almost an anathema to say "I am the righteousness of God"
Such a statement would seem presumptuous.
One of the chief ploys of the enemy of our souls satan, is to attempt to obscure our true identity as a child of God.
If a persons identity can be obscured or distorted then that person can be more easily misled. Or to put it more bluntly if we are lied to about our identity that we can be more easily enslaved.
That is why Paul the apostle in the book of Galatians is so white hot in his anger at the attempt of those with a religious spirit to usurp the true calling and identity of the christians in the Galatians church.
They had been called to freedom but were being led back into bondage.
They had become new creations but were being bewitched into observance to the works of the law again.
If a christian becomes convinced of their identity in Christ Jesus and of Christ Jesus inheritance in them, then they will be free to act in accordance with the truth of who they really are and satans lies will be far more easily exposed.
It is important for us to understand that in the old testament when God revealed himself as Jehovah it was through a series of divine encounters in which he demonstrated his redemptive nature.
What do I mean by this?
Simply this.That when God revealed his redemptive names it was in order to show us not just what he is like but what he wants to be to us and for us.
For example when he revealed himself as Jehovah rapha or the Lord who heals you,it was not merely to demonstrate that he is by nature a healing God,but to enter into a covenant with us to be our healer personally.
Or when he revealed himself to be Jehovah shalom or the Lord our peace it was in order to be to us our peace.
Alternatively when he reveled himself to be Jehovah jireh or the Lord will provide it was to establish that he would always be our ultimate source in this life of needed provision.
So in actuality when God was revealing himself as Jehovah-(which he did through different attribute names)he was revealing his names in covenant context, "this is who I am, this is what I am like and this is what I want to be in you and for you"
It is not a picture of God standing aloof from us,but rather of joining that aspect of his redemptive nature to us to be that for us in his power and in his love.
Marriage is I suppose the nearest earthly institution which we have to understanding this(because God gave it as the closest covenant relationship between a man and a women)
We do not enter into marriage in order to merely admire and be impressed by the qualities of the one whom we are marrying,but in order to share and partake of that person,and let those qualities minister to us and cover us in love.
How much more is this the case with the Lord who is a covenant keeping God.
In the old testament the Lord revealed his name as the Lord our righteousness or Jehovah Jireh.
It was not as the Lord who is righteous but as the Lord our righteousness.
There are two qualities that are equally important for us to nurture and to grow in in our christian lives,but which some Christians sometimes struggle to reconcile as if they are mutually exclusive.
They are the qualities of faith and of humility.In reality these two qualities go virtually hand in hand.
Humility is our willing acceptance of and submission to the word of God.
If the word of God says that I have been made the righteousness of God than I accept that even if it goes against my own feelings or opinion about the matter.
That is the very essence of humility to humble ourselves under the mighty hand of God with regard to that which he has said.
Faith is the readiness of heart to believe what God has said and to simply act upon it.
Some people therefore misguidedly imagine that they are being of a humble frame of mind when they refer to themselves as miserable worms and unworthy sinners not realizing that they are not seeing themselves in the light of what the new testament says that they are.
And the way that God sees us is based entirely upon the revelation of Christs death burial and resurrection; of what Christ has done for us and who he is in us, and who we are in him.
Why would we want to hold onto the old identity tags of what we once were before we met Christ when by the sheer mercy and grace of God we are now new men and new women,made alive together with Christ and raised up together and made to sit together with him in Christ Jesus.?
It is not a lack of humility to say these things but rather the boldness of faith which is pleasing to God.
In the new testament the Apostle Paul introduces this theme of the "Righteousness of God"in the book of Romans chp 3 in the following statement.

"But now the righteousness of God without or apart from the law is revealed,being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe:for there is no difference;
For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God;
Being justified freely by his grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus:
Whom God set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood,to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past,
through the forbearance of God;
To declare ,I say at this time his righteousness;
that he might be righteous and the righteousness of him that believes in Jesus."

The same Greek word which is translated justice or justification is also the word for righteous or righteousness and can be equally translated both ways.
Personally I find it more helpfull to translate it righteous and righteousness in this passage, for instance in v26" that he might be righteous and the righteousness of him that believes in Jesus",as opposed to that he might be just and the justifier, although both translations are accurate.
In this passage Paul the Apostle is talking about the revelation of Gods very own righteousness which now has been revealed to all and which by faith in Jesus Christ comes to all and upon all who believe.
It is a perfect righteousness which is not obtained by the law or the keeping of it, although the law bore witness of it, and in v24 and 25 we see how this Righteousness of God was given to us.
It is by the grace of God through the great redemption that Jesus obtained for us and by God having made his sacrifice a propititation through faith in his blood.
What precisely does this mean?
Simply this that on the cross God laid all of our sin and every bit of the curse upon Jesus and he absorbed it all.
Everything bad about me Jesus took to himself.
At that moment (I call it the great exchange) God declared to all humanity
"I account all of your sin as belonging to Jesus,and all of His Righteousness as belonging to you."
This is the great substitutionary sacrifice,that all he is was offered to us so that all that we are was placed upon him.
When Jesus rose from the grave he had "put sin away by the sacrifice of himself"
As far as God the Father is concerned if you are in Christ Jesus all of your sin has now been put away and is buried with Christ.
When he was raised you were raised with him and when he was made alive you were made alive with him.
In other words he is now your identity and you are a new creature in Him.
As a christian it is now no longer your unrighteousness in stark contrast with his righteousness but his Righteousness having become your righteousness and your righteousness being entirely of Him.
What the enemy wants to try to do is to separate your identity from Jesus because almost certainly if he can succeed in doing so you will begin to live by how you feel or how you think about yourself,rather than by what God has said in his Word.
"Well I just don't feel righteous", someone will often say,however that has absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with what you now possess.
Paul makes a sobering statement in Romans chp 10 in speaking of those jews who rejected Jesus as the messiah, when he says
"For they being ignorant of Gods righteousness,and seeking to establish their own righteousness have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God"
They have not submitted themselves to the righteousness of God,and really that is the crux of the gospel.
We submit to it by our acceptance of it, and by coming to Jesus in repentance and in faith.
We do not only fail to submit to it by our failure to accept Jesus and to come to Him.
We also fail to submitt to it in a way that honours God when as Christians we still see ourselves in the light of our old identity as we once were before we received this gift of Gods righteousness and his eternal life.

Paul speaks in Romans chapter 5 of the reality of our reconciliation to God when he says
"If when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son,much more,having been reconciled,we shall be saved by his life.
And not only that ,but we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ,through whom we have now received the reconciliation."

Many Christians have never renewed their minds to receive the reconciliation when it comes to the righteousness which they now possess.
They still see themselves as unworthy sinners and focus on the sense of distance that they see between God and themselves rather than upon their being reconciled and redeemed.
We should in the passage quoted above give more attention to the phrase in verse 10 "much more"
I was an unworthy sinner who was reconciled to God my heavenly Father by the death of his Son, but how much more now that I have been reconciled should I be walking in and experiencing the benefits and blessings of this new life and of the gift of righteousness that have been given to me.
I once had a relative who was given a sum of money in an inheritance and purchased for herself a brand new top of the range television set.
However so as not to appear ostentatious she kept the new television locked away in the front palour room which was virtually never used and continued to watch on her old rather worn out set(she was an avid viewer)
When she died my family inherited this set which was by then rather an old model,and I could not but wonder at the tradegy of thinking of this old woman having purchased this brand new television set and never having derived any pleasure from using it.
The analogy however is even more tragic when we think of how much we fail to enjoy the benefits of all that Christ has given us.And that includes the gift of his righteousness.
Romans chp5 v17 says"For if by the one mans offence death reigned by one;much more they which receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness shall reign in life by one Jesus Christ."
We are meant to be reigning in this life because of the abundance of Gods grace that has come to us,and because of the gift of righteousness.
We can only do this when we change our thinking and renew our minds to become more conscious of the grace of God and gift of righteousness rather than our unworthiness and sinfulness.
Some people are afraid of becoming righteousness conscious, that is to see themselves as the righteousness of God at the forefront of their thinking,because they fear that it will make them blase about sin.
However the exact opposite is true.
The more we educate ourselves to think of ourselves as those who have become the righteousness of God the more our intolerance level to sin is greatly increased.
Why?
Because we are beginning to walk in the light of the truth of who we really are in Jesus and that truth is setting us free.
Now the gift of Righteousness has given me a right standing with God and his resurrection life is transforming me and changing me from glory to glory.
I am a child of God, and I am a new creation.
And him who knew no sin was made to be sin for me that in Him I might be made the righteousness of God.(2 corn 5 21)
What precisely does it mean to say that God has made me righteous in Christ.
Sometimes we need to demystify a word to lay bare it clear meaning.
To say that I am righteous through Jesus is simply to say that I have been given a right standing with God.
It is to say that now I may enter into the presence of a holy God without any shame or condemnation or fear of judgment.
I am right with God because Jesus is completely right with God and his rightness has now been given to me.
Why do so many in the church today struggle to take a firm hold upon this vital truth of our right standing with God?
I believe that the number one reason why this is so is because much of the church has failed in their teaching and comprehension of Gods word to rightly divide between the soul and the spirit.
And this is so vitally important when it comes to our distinguishing how God has made us righteous now and how we can walk in the joy of that revelation.
Man is a spirit that is that he is created in the exact image and likeness of God who is a Spirit.
To say that man is a spirit is simply to state the biblical truth that the spirit of a man (which is to be distinguished from his soul) is the essential core and heart of his being.
His spirit and spiritual things should always have ascendancy over his soul and soulish things.
Mans spirit is called in scripture the hidden man of his heart and the place out of which will flow the rivers of living waters.
When we are born again it is into our spirits that this new life from God is deposited, I John calls this the seed of God.
"Whoever has been born of God does not sin,for his seed remains in him;and he cannot sin,because he has been born of God"
This scripture has often confused some who read it thinking that it is implying the possibility of sinless perfection, however what it is clearly stating is that we have now received into our hearts or spirits the seed of God and that seed has quickened in us an entirely new life and nature.
Just a few verses further on John writes that "Whoever hates his brother is a murder and you know that no murder has eternal life abiding in him."
Eternal life is not just something that is promised for the afterlife but is the Resurrection life of Jesus that is now dwelling and abiding inside of every child of God.
Peter in his first epistle refers to the fact that "You have been born again,not of corruptible seed but of incorruptible,through the word of God which lives and abides forever"
There is a remarkable similarity between the passage in Johns epistle and this one in Peters, both make mention of a divinely planted seed giving us new birth and bringing forth a new life that now abides within us.
What is the significance of this to understanding our righteousness?
When you accepted Jesus and believed in Him, God planted the seed of a whole new life into you,which is in reality the same Resurrection life that raised Jesus from the dead.
It is the same life that dwells in Christ, and God quickened this to you by the operation of the Holy Spirit of God through your hearing and believing the Word of God.
In Johns epistle it is clear that this seed of a new life has given to us a new nature which manifested itself in our new desire for righteousness and our desire to walk in love.Why is this?
Because this new nature is now righteous and it is now love.
Paul writes in his epistles of this new life and new nature as a new man and leaves us in no doubt that this new man or new self is as righteous as Jesus because it has been created in his exact image and likeness and is connected for its nourishment and life to Him.
"And that you put on the new man which was created according to God,in righteousness and holiness of the truth"
This new person that God has created in me by virtue of my having received eternal life ; that is by the reality of Christs life now living inside of me, is created in righteousness.
God did not create any hybrid models part the righteousness of His Son and part my old rotten self.
No this new man is a brand new person made to look just like Jesus.
The art of Christian growth is now to feed the new nature and to starve the old, for in our flesh we still have to contend with the fallen nature.
However many Christians act as if they believe that the flesh is strong and the spirit is weak whereas when we learn to feed our spirits upon the word of God, we soon discover that this new life within is infinitely more virtuous and powerful to drive out the darkness and swallow up that which old.
In reality when you think about it how can anyone say that they are not righteous when they have the righteous One himself, His seed ,His life and His Spirit not to mention His word living in them.
It really goes back to my initial thoughts that to think as God thinks about us we must think in covenant terms and that means that all that Jesus is, and all that he has He has given to us.
We simply cannot separate our identity from him at any point.
Because the majority of Christians are living in the soulish realm they have to try to grasp righteousness as a doctrine only,a legal exchange on Calvary, but one which they do not believe has made them righteous in their essential nature now.
This is because they do not understand the change that God has wrought in their spirits now.
They tend to judge their understanding of righteousness from the standpoint of what God has legally granted to them(which is true) but in their own thoughts towards themselves and in their feelings they remain unconvinced of any real change.
So to summarize we are made the righteousness of God in the new birth by virtue of the great work of exchange that God the Father wrought in Jesus upon the cross.
All of my sin and my sinfulness(the inclination of my sinful nature to sin)was laid upon Jesus so that all of his Righteousness might become available to me.
That is the legal side of our righteousness;God reckons and declares us to be righteous the moment we accept his Sons sacrifice on Calvary personally.
But we are made Righteous also by virtue of a new life that God has placed within us,and this new life has created a brand new person that reflects the image and likeness of Jesus in His Righteousness and Holiness and truth.
We are now called upon to renew our minds to the reality of our being a new creation and to know and be fully persuaded that old things have passed away and all things have become new, and that all things are of God, in relation to his new man.
We must learn to feed the things of the spirit and to walk in the spirit consistently so that the things belonging to our old life and to the flesh lose more and more place over our lives and over our thinking.
Most Christians are waiting to attain to some higher level of sanctification before they feel more confident of seeing themselves as righteous rather than laying hold of that reality by faith now and confessing it boldly now so as to increasingly bring forth the fruits of it.
We do not grow in this Righteousness because it has been given to us by Jesus Christ and is perfect and complete(again it is seeing our right standing as one and the same as his right standing for all that he is now belongs to us)
What we do grow in is bearing the mature fruits of righteousness and bringing forth those good works of righteousness that God has planned for us to walk in.
In part two I will talk about some of the fruits of this righteousness which we can now
enjoy.

Hearing Gods voice in dreams.

One of the clearest statements that evangelical Christianity has consistently and historically asserted is the truth that God is speaking to men.
He is speaking to all men clearly and "His voice goes forth to the ends of the world", as the psalmist declares.
Hebrews chapter 1 makes the emphatic statement that God has spoken to all men through the prophets, but now in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son.
In addition God has spoken to all men through his redemptive acts in history.
When God parted the red sea and delivered his people from the bondage of Egypt it was not done silently or in obscurity but before the eyes of the whole earth that this is how God delivers his covenant people who trust in him.
He was speaking to all peoples for all times.
Likewise when God came down on mount Sinai and shook the earth he was audibly declaring that his moral character enshrined in his holy law was God speaking to the heart and conscience of all men,"this is what I am like, this is how great the gulf is between me and you".
The psalmists states that God speaks also through nature for the heavens declare the Glory of God the skies proclaim the work of his hands.
But it is most essentially true, the bible tells us, to say that God has spoken supremely through his Son whom he appointed heir of all things and through whom he made the worlds.
Jesus is the very pinnacle of Gods revelation and if we reject Jesus then we reject Gods voice and his council for our lives for no man will hear Gods voice outside of Jesus Christ.
The above having been said the new testament also tells us that Jesus as our shepherd will speak to us and we as his sheep will recognize and hear his voice.
The Holy Spirit desires to speak to us to reveal and to make known the testimony of Jesus and there are several different ways that the scripture indicates that he does this.
The primary way that God does this is through His Holy precious written word which is a light to our path in this life and a lamp to our feet.
So far almost all evangelicals would be on the same page,but for many Christians the fact of God speaking today is understood to mean that he has spoken to us through his word and speaks as we hear him through the pages of the bible, understanding and applying Gods word to our current circumstances today.
That is indeed true and necessary for us to underscore often, especially in this day when the authority of scripture is under assault from almost every turn.
However is that the only way that God speaks to us today?
To say that is the primary way of hearing Gods speech is certainly not the same as to say that it is the only way.
And yet many sincere Christians stumble over the belief that God can and does communicate with his children today through supernatural means as if that somehow detracts from the authority of scripture.
But surely that is a false assertion since the bible itself supports the idea that God will speak to us through a variety of ways in addition to our reading scripture but never contrary to it.
The book of Hebrews speaks to us of not refusing him who speaks, and the word for speaks in that context is in the continuous present tense, so could be equally translated as "him who is speaking" (Heb 12 25)
And one of the clearest ways that God has historically spoken to his people through the ages and does continue to speak is through dreams.
In Job chapter 33 we read that
""For God may speak now in one way,or in another,
Yet man does not perceive it.
In a dream,in a vision of the night,
When deep sleep falls upon men,
While slumbering on their beds,
Then he opens the ears of men,
And seals their instruction.
In order to turn man from his deed,
and to conceal pride from man,
he keeps back his soul from the pit,
and his life from perishing by the sword."
This is an illuminating passage of scripture and has some noteworthy points to consider.
God does speak to men we are told now one way now another yet man does not perceive it.
The key thought is in the statement," yet man does not perceive it."
The emphasis is not placed upon that of God not speaking but upon man failing in discerning.
And immediately the next verse highlights an example of one of the primary ways that God does speak to men as
"In a dream, in a vision of the night,When deep sleep falls upon men,while slumbering on their beds."
It is then that he opens the ears of men,and seals their instructions."

If we consider the fact of the extent to which the Lord has either wrought a work in or spoken to his people in a state of sleep in the scriptures it is very revealing.
Beginning in Genesis with the creation of Eve we are told that the Lord caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam,and he slept;and he took one of his ribs,and closed up the place in his flesh.(Gen sis 2,21)
Later in Genesis chapter 15 when God Almighty cut the covenant with a man named Abram we are told that
"When the sun was going down,a deep sleep fell upon Abram;and behold,horror and great darkness fell upon him"
So it was in this sleep state that he saw a vision of God "Behold there was a smoking oven and a burning torch that passed between those pieces".
God sealed his covenant with Abram by manifesting his Glory in a fiery torch and by speaking to him his promise of the settlement of the land, all while he slept.
Later in Genesis the Lord appears to the king Abimelech to warn him in a dream not to touch Sarah, Abrams wife, sexually lest judgement fall in the forfeiting of his own life.
It is interesting that Abimelech did not have any way of knowing that Sarah was not Abrams sister as Abram had insisted but the Lord showed him in a dream so as to warn him and I believe to save him and turn him from the inevitable destruction which would have ensued had he taken Sarah to be his own wife.
Remember the verse in Job 33 which says that one of the reasons that God does speak to us in dreams is
"to turn man from his deed................. and his life from perishing."
Jacob received a powerful dream in which he saw the angels of God ascending and descending from heaven to the earth.
Joseph received a dream revealing his destiny which came to pass, and also had the ability to interpret dreams from the Lord,thus paving the way for the Lord to save an entire nation during a worldwide famine.
It is interesting to note that both the pagan kings Pharaoh and Nebuchadnezzar received major revelation of significant future events through dreams, which were interpreted for them by the Lords prophets.
The Lord appeared to Solomon in a dream in which experience he asked for an impartation of divine supernatural wisdom,and after he awoke this wisdom had been granted to him(1 Kings 3)
Likewise in the new testament Joseph was directed by an angelic encounter in a dream to marry Mary, shown that the baby in her womb was Divinely conceived, instructed to flee to Egypt and told when to come back and where to come back to.
The common feature of all of these biblical characters is that none of them took what they had heard in their dreams lightly or dismissed them but recognized that God was showing them things that were important for them to know.
The lord gave a night vision or dream to Paul in acts chapter 16 in which he had a vision of a man of macedonia which in turn redirected that missionary band into a part of Asia from which was born the Philippian church.
These examples that I have sited biblically underscore a reality that has occurred throughout history that God does speak to men and women and release revelation through dreams.
This fact is so well established in church history that it requires a deliberate prejudice to fail to recognize it.
In addition the Lord has often spoken to non Christians releasing facts and information that needs to be known in the earth at any given time.
Consider how many scienctific breakthroughs have come in the form of someone seeing something in a dream.
The fact that the Lord can and does use anyone who is open to him not only demonstraes his Soverignity over all truth and all knowledge but also should be a just rebuke that it appears evident in this that the church has often been behind in her faith to recognize how God speaks to us through dreams because of our unbelief.
Some people say,"If God wants to speaks to me in a dream then he will do so. It is His sovereign decision to do so "
What is wrong with this attitude?
If we carry this attitude through into any of the other gifts that Gods gives we can see its potential flaw.
We could say "If God wants to heal me that is his sovereign prerogative"
Alternatively someone could say "If God wants me to preach and to have a ministry he will have to do it all"
In all of the above examples God action is required in our lives but we to have a responsibility .
Churches that only believe in Divine healing as entirely Gods Sovereign prerogative rarely see healings.
They may see certain people healed by the sheer mercy of God but it is in churches where healing is taught as part of Christs redemptive work for us and where peoples faith is built up that healings more consistently occur.
Likewise God will call a person into the ministry but they have a responsibility to study to show themselves approved unto God, and they have to pursue that calling and discern their place of service.
So to in each of the examples we could readily see our heart response and active cooperation with the Lord is vital in order to carry out his plans and purposes for our lives.
So to in dreams it is indeed true that God will sovereignly speak to us and we will never coerce or manipulate that right to give or to withold revelation from the Lord.
However we do have a responsibility to allow the Lord to awaken our spiritual ears to be able to hear, therefore we need to cultivate a discerning ear to listen.
If we do not believe that God speaks to us today through dreams then we are unlikely to receive them, it will not stop God from speaking to his children through dreams but we will not partake of that grace.
Have you ever been in a situation where someone to whom you were speaking was not able to hear you?
I remember a friend that I had who had the unfortunate habit if looking over your shoulder whenever you were speaking to him in public.
Rather than giving you his eye contact he was focusing all of his attention on what was transpiring at the end of the street.
This was hardly calculated to make you feel that your conversation was worth listening to!
Similarly I have a friend who is now with the Lord in heaven who when I spoke to him on the phone would be lost in his own thoughts at various times, his voice would became silent and his responses when forthcoming were vague.
Why do we imagine that the Lord of Glory would wish to share his secrets with those who are indifferent to his voice?
In Isaiah chapter 50 the prophet speaks of the process of the Lord awakening his capacity to hear "The Lord God has given me,
The tonque of the learned,
That I should know how to speak
A word in season to him who is weary.
He awakens me morning by morning,
He awakens my ear to hear as the learned.
The Lord God has opened my ear;
And I was not rebellious
Nor did I turn away."
Here we see the prophet speaking of the Lord opening his ear and sharpening his discernment to speak that which will strenghten the weary.
As he rises each morning to wait upon the Lord, and gives himself to meditation upon the Tarah law of God so the Lord is literally cleaning out his ears.
The word in verse 5 of this passage "the Lord God has opened my ear" is in the Hebrew the word that carries the sense of "to dig out" indicating that as the prophet of God meditated upon the Tarah law of God his ear was being cleaned out and his ability to discern Gods voice strengthened.
Psalm 119 speaks of the psalmists love for the scriptures when he says" Oh how I love your law!
It is my meditation all the day
The entrance of your word gives light;
It gives understanding to the simple.
I rise before the dawning of the morning, And cry for help;
I hope in your word.
My eyes are awake through the night watches,
That I may meditate on your word."
The Lord has always given great grace to those of his people who make their love for the bible primary.
It is there that we must stay and continue to sharpen our discernment through our love for and meditation upon the precious written word of God.
I cannot stress sufficiently that it is as we commit ourselves to put Gods word into our hearts and minds constantly that our spiritual ears are likewise being dug out and our spiritual ears awakened; that and our willingness to wait upon the Lord are the primary foundations to hearing Gods voice that we cannot neglect.
In Job ch33 we read that the Lord "opens the ears of men,and seals their instruction when deep sleep falls upon them and whilst slumbering upon their beds."
The Lord I believe wants to increase our aptitude to hear his voice in these days through any and all of the biblical means that he has given to us.
And part of the way that we do this is to have faith in God that he desires to speak to us in the watches of the night.
In Joel 2 and in Acts chapter 2 we find one of the most significant prophecies for these last days.
"And it shall come to pass in the last days,says God,
That I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh;
Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
Your young men shall see visions,
Your old men shall dream dreams.
And on my menservants and on my maidservants
I will pour out my Spirit in those days;
And they shall prophesy."
This word of prophesy is speaking about the activity of the Spirit of God in the last days.
We understand that "the last days" are referring to that period of time between the first and second coming of the Lord.
That is in part why it is incorrect to say that prophesy dreams or visions ceased with the early church,this promise is for the last days and we are still very much in those days.
In fact I firmly believe we are now living in the last days of the last days and that God is pouring out his Spirit upon his church and many today are hearing his voice in dreams and visions from the Lord.
In my own experience for the first twenty years or so of my christian life I think that I only received two definite dreams that I knew were from the Lord.
However in the last seven years or so I have received many more.
When they come they are almost always unsought but given in such a way that the portion of the dream which is from the Lord is clear and distinct and stands out from the rest of the nights dreams(most of which I will usually forget)
For instance last year I came through one of the severest tests that I have ever walked through.
This came after several years of not having sought the Lord as faithfully as I should have done.Thank God for his mercy.
The Lord was delivering me from many years in a spiritual wilderness and right in the midst of this time I had a vivid dream in which I saw a church leader who had been very influential in my life in times past coming to me holding an open book.(This leader died several years ago and is with the Lord)
In the dream I looked at the book which he was holding out to me and on it was written the title "Delivered from the ways of Egypt"
Subsequent to this dream I began to pick up and to read some of his books again.
The effect of this was that the truths that I was reading began to go off like a light inside of me and my confidence to walk in the things of the Spirit again grew hugely.
It was as if my connections of faith with the Lord were being made once more.
Likewise a few months ago I had a dream in which I saw a couple who are well known to my wife and I.
In this dream I saw an area of anxiety coming upon the wife( I was aware of this issue of anxiety in the wife already in the natural) but in this dream I saw this anxiety as a weight of oppression that had become almost overwhelming to this woman.
I knew in this dream what the anxiety was about,and I saw the husband extending a helping practical hand towards us that given the nature of the circumstances in which we were in was a sure sign that the Lord had touched his heart.
The following day at lunch I shared the dream with my wife.
Shortly after within a couple of hours we received a phone call from this couple(who live abroad) and in it the husband shared with us the issue of anxiety that I had seen in the dream the night before saying that his wife was almost overwhelmed with it.
During the conversation he also offered us some financial assistance should we ever need it.
This telephone call was a wonderful confirmation of that which I had seen the night before.
Why would the Lord show us something like that in the event that I was going to hear about it anyway?
Mostly I believe that it is to underscore something that he wants us to know, and it is almost always for the purposes of intercession and anticipation so that we can make the right preparation for what lies ahead.
In the instance of the last dream which I cited I believe that the Lord wanted to confirm a reality that was going on in the lives of a couple who are close to us so as to awaken us to more accurate intercession.
In addition subsequently to this dream we were offered some financial assistance from this couple which was very valueable to us.
Had I not had this dream I probably would have turned down the offer of help because of pride, but because of the dream I was able to understand that this was the hand of the Lord upon this couple and therefore I did not want to turn away from the help that the Lord desired to give to my wife and I or the blessing that would come to them.
Some people may ask why the Lord chooses to speak to us through dreams.Why not in our waking and conscious hours only?
The two answers that I have for this are first because He chooses to.
And secondly I believe that we are often disarmed when we are asleep as our minds are less active and our objections and mental filters are removed.
I believe that it important in these days that our spiritual discernment is more finely honed so as to be able to hear Gods voice in which ever way that he chooses to speak to us.
And that includes through dreams.
We should not seek the experience of having a dream from the Lord rather we should seek the Lord and pray often that He will open our spiritual ears to hear.
And then we need to listen and that means that if we do have a dream that we think is from the Lord that we don't dismiss it but ponder its contents and pray for the Lord to give us His truth and discernment concerning it.
A good prayer to pray is from Ephesians 1 v17 for the Lord to open the eyes of our heart (and the ears of our heart) with wisdom and with revelation so that we may know.
There is a knowledge that comes only from God and that is what we so need to be hearing in these challenging days.
We need to be hearing Gods voice in order to hold out to a lost and hurting world the words of this life and to be awakened by God to hear a word in season to sustain the weary of heart.

Love the perfect Way.

A new commandment I give to you,that you love one another; as I have loved you,that you also love one another.
By this all will know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another .John 13 34,35.
With this single statement Jesus gave to us the identifying badge that would readily identify us as being his disciples to the eyes of the world.
It is the single clearest sign that we are followers of Jesus Christ if we have love for one another.
At the same time this one statement of Christs has probably caused more consternation, condemnation and guilt to fall upon those who consider that they have tried but failed to live up to their expectation and to this standard and almost all of this condemnation could have been avoided if we understood that there are two kinds of love.
Jesus is not talking here about having the same love that we had before we became Christians.
Neither is he talking about our human love operating with a higher or loftier principle or ideal.
Rather he is referring to an entirely new kind of love that has invaded fallen humanity,a divine love that has been poured out into the hearts of those who have been redeemed, that we now become the recipients and the demonstrators of this supernatural love of God that is dwelling within us.
One of the primary obstacles to our understanding what Jesus is saying to us in this commandment to love is simply the relative weakness of the English language in comparison with the Greek.
In the Greek language(which is the language that the new testament is written in) the word for love can be translated in several different ways.
And for each of these different ways a different word was used leaving no confusion as to what kind of love was being referred to in each instance.
In English by contrast when we read the word love we bring to it whatever thought we may have in our minds as to what love means to us.
We have to use a sentence to be more specific, the Greek language can achieve this with a single word.
For instance in English we may speak of someone being in love referring to their physical or emotional attraction towards a particular person.
Similarly we can speak of a loving friend denoting the qualities of loyalty and support.
We can think of love as the motive for noble sacrifice or the driving force behind crimes of passion.
People can refer to love as merely a stronger form of liking something such as loving their house or loving their holiday.
There is little doubt that this lack of understanding the weight and depth of Jesus words has cost us and cost us greatly.
In the new testament there are two basic forms of love that are referred two, or two kinds of love revealed.
On the one hand there is the word Phileo used to refer to the natural love and affection that families or loyal friends would normally have for one another.
And then there is the word that Jesus uses continually whenever he speaks about love.
This is the word Agape and it would seem that in using this word Jesus created a brand new word that never existed before in the Greek language.
For in reality he came to bring a new kind of love to this earth one that never existed before.
When Jesus said a new commandment I give to you that you love one another as I have loved you he was using the agape word.
That you agape one another as I have agaped you.
Before I talk about what precisely this agape love is and how we are to show it to one another let us look at the contrast with phileo.
Phileo love simply means human love.
It is the natural human affection of a parent for their child and of a child for their parent.It is the natural human love of a friend for a friend.
It is the best thing that this world has to offer apart from Christ and yet it is the most wretched thing also.
It is the high priestess of the divorce courts and the high priest of violated vows.
Phileo swears to love to its own cost and consistently fails to do so.
Phileo promises until death do us part but once crossed becomes vindictive and vengeful.
Consider throughout the course of human history how often phileo has begun with words of kindness and love and ended with jealousy and hatred.
For the truth is that Phileo is bound by its own limitations which is the natural fallen nature in man.
Phileo springs from the natural heart of man, it is therefore the manifestation of the natural man.
Agape springs forth from the reborn heart of a child of God and is the manifestation of Gods nature living in men.
2 Peter 1 v4 tells us that we have become partakers of the divine nature and the first manifestation of this new nature is Agape love.
The great failure of Phileo is that at its core it is utterly selfish,for it will ultimately serve its own interests first.
The glory of Agape is that it has a new centre which is outside of itself and which is therefore no longer limited to itself.
And that new centre is none other than God.
And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.God is love;and he that abides in love abides in God and God in him.1 John 4:16
This contrast between Phileo and Agape is nowhere more clearly contrasted then in the last chapter of Johns gospel where Jesus is restoring Peter after his denial of Christ.
Jesus asks Peter three times the question "Simon son of Jonah do you love me?"
In each instance he is using the agape word and Peter responds at first with "yes Lord you know that I phileo you"
Finally he catches on to what Christ is saying and responds the third time "yes Lord You know all things you know that I agape you."
Peters concept of phileo was extreme loyalty even unto the death,but as we know when fear of death gripped his own heart his professions of loyality lay in ruins.
Agape love is a spiritual love that comes from the reborn spirit of a born again child of God.
It is energised and quickened by the Holy Spirit who lives inside of us.
Phileo is a soulish love or a love bound to the senses.
It is more sensuous in nature and needs outside stimulants to inspire it.Phileo needs to be fascinated amused drawn inspired but at the heart it thrives upon what it can get rather than what it can give.
Many Christians simply do not make this distinction between the supernatural nature of Christs love that is now abiding in them by the power of the Holy Spirit and the limitations of their own human love.
They read all of the new testament exhortations to love as a reminder to aim for something higher or nobler but all the time rather than living by faith in the love of God at work within them, they are in fact relying upon their own efforts with miserable results.
We know that at the heart of this agape love is forgiveness and it was FB Meyer who reminds us so well in one of his writings how revolutionary this kind of forgiveness and this kind of love was and is that Jesus brought to us.
He says "Forgiveness is the exclusive prerogative of Christianity.
The schools of ancient morality had four cardinal virtues-justice in human relations,prudence in the direction of affairs,fortitude in bearing trouble or sorrow,temperance or self restraint.
But they knew nothing of mercy or forgiveness,which is not natural to the human heart.
Forgiveness is an exotic,which Christ brought with Him from heaven."
Agape is something that Christ brought with him from heaven, but thank God he did not take it back with him.
"I will not leave you as orphans but I will come to you"and he has come to us by his Spirit who now dwells within us and empowers us to walk in this new kind of love.
If you think that forgiveness is not alien to the heart of natural men then just ask someone who has recently been double crossed or wronged or taken advantage of to simply forgive,and see what kind of a response you will get.
Forgiveness may not be natural to the heart of a natural man because his nature has not been changed but forgiveness is instinctive to a child of God because he now has a new nature residing within him.
And that new nature is now like Gods nature for God is love;therefore the wellspring of this new redeemed nature in a born again child of God is essentially love.
Why some will say if this is true are there so many Christians who walk about in strife and harbour bitterness for one another?
I think that it is a tragedy that Jesus who went to the cross and became our substitute and poured out his life's blood in other to offer us the great exchange;the exchange of his life for our death his righteousness for our sinfulness and his love for our fear and hate, it is as I say a crying shame that he who gave such great sacrifice to give us a brand new nature should receive so little reward in the willing obedience of our hearts But I believe that before he comes again that will greatly change
The truth is that we can have the infinite wealth of the resources of Gods word and of Gods Spirit and yet fail to appropriate very much of these spiritual realities in our lives because of our spiritual ignorance and our unbelief.
The mighty agape love of God ought to be cultivated in our lives but it will only be so when we know what belongs to us in Christ and lay hold of it by faith.
The word of God says in Romans chapter five that the Love of God is now shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit who was given to us.
Do you realize that your regenerated human spirit is now the container of the mighty Glory of God and of the love of God himself?
Why are these things then not more made manifest in the church?
Because like everything else in the kingdom of God they are only ever appropriated by faith not by good works.
And faith begins where the will of God is known.
"So then faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of God"
Some people have heard some teaching on the subject of this agape love vs phileo and often what is communicated by those teaching upon this subject is that agape is essentially of the will, a matter of choice where as phileo is the love of sentiment.
Those who have heard this (myself included in my earlier days) are therefore left with the distinct impression that this agape love is to be something rather stoical "I love you not because I like you but because I will to do so".
That presentation of the love of God (or one that fosters that image) is I believe a warped view of agape, a picture of Christianity as individuals who can be unfeeling and uncaring like automation's willing to love others in Christs name.
It is certainly true that this new love is no longer tied to our feelings but is a decision that we make(a choice of the will) thereby freeing us from not loving and not forgiving others when we may not feel like doing so.
However it is equally true that when we allow this magnificent love to have free course in our lives our hearts will be supernaturally enlarged and will have a capacity for compassion and for sensitivity to the heart of God that exceeds anything that we have ever known.
When the scripture says that Jesus was moved with compassion if you think that refers to a stoical objective love you are most stupendously deceived.
Jesus was the only man who ever allowed the full force of the love of God his heavenly Father to course through his entire being like a Niagara of Gods compassion for man in his lostness and captivity to sin.
Paul prays in Ephesians the third chapter that we as believers would be supernaturally strengthened with the might of God in the inner man so as to be rooted and grounded in agape love and so as to know this love that surpasses knowledge.
How can you or I know something that surpasses knowledge?
By being quickened and strengthened by the mighty Spirit of God to experience more and more of this love of God until our whole inner man is permeated with it and our words and thoughts are filled with it.
In other words this is a process that we are to experience more and more through our lives.
Those who are baby Christians, either because they are newly born again or because they are largely ignorant of the Word of God will always be more captive to their feelings.
This may be excusable if you are a brand new christian and yet untaught but not if you have been saved for any considerable length of time.
Christians who are led by their feelings are always going to struggle to walk consistently in the love of God.
Ask most Christians who are struggling to forgive why that is so and you will invariably hear the answer is them telling of the offense that someone has committed against them and rehearsing it in vivid colours.
If you press these people further and suggest that love keeps no record of wrongs then finally you will almost certainly get to the place where they will say "I just don't feel able to"
When the agape love of God is operating in our lives as it was intended to be we can actually keep our hearts consciously free of all ill will, ill thought and ill feeling towards another human being.
So how can we walk in this agape love of God so that we are not misled by our feelings or bound by any unforgiveness?
Is it possible for us to walk consistently in this supernatural love of Christ so that it has a free course in and through our lives no matter how great the provocation we may face or the trial that we may be called upon to endure.?
IT most certainly is.
The word of God says that agape never fails.
We most certainly do fail, but this love of God this agape love can never fail.
And it is as we walk by faith in this love that we move over into another realm where we are not any longer bound by our own limitations or hampered by our own efforts to try to keep this love, but are walking in that place of confidence and rest in what this love is accomplishing in and through our lives.
And the simple key that opens and keeps open that door in our lives is our diligence to keep Gods word .It is the steadfastness of our faith.
Three times in John chapter 14 and 15 Jesus makes clear the truth that our ability to practice this agape love towards God and towards one another is vitally joined to our commitment to walk in obedience to Gods word.

"He who has my commandments and keeps them,it is he who loves me" Jn14 21

"If anyone loves me,he will keep my word;and my Father will love him,and we will come to him and make our home with him.
"He who does not love me does not keep my words". 14 23 24

""As the Father has loved me,I also have loved you;abide in my love.
"If you keep my commandments,you will abide in my love,just as I have kept my Fathers commandments and abide in his love"Jn 15 9,10.

How did Jesus abide and remain in the agape which he received from the Father when he lived upon this earth?
By keeping Gods commandments.
Notice that in each instance this little word "keep" is expressed.
"Keep my commandments......... keep my word "
In the Greek language this little word denotes a watchfulness and a guarding of Gods word to us both in our thought life and in our conduct.
It speaks of diligence.
In order to walk in this agape we have to walk in the light of Gods word and to be doers of the Word of God.
If the word of God says to forgive even as Christ has forgiven me, then I do not let my mind talk me out of that.
I forgive whether or not I feel like doing so, in obedience to Gods commandment and in doing so the love of God is being perfected in me.
Obedience opens the door so that the love of God can work in me and keeps me in this supernatural realm where I am walking in a love that comes from God and not from myself.
1John 4 16 says "And we have known and believed the love that God has for us.God is love,and he who abides in love abides in God and God in him.
We will be walking in an atmosphere of God and letting Gods love be perfected in us when we choose to act upon his Word and keep his commandment of love.
Similarly if the Word of God states that I must give and it shall be given to me,then I obey this even if I feel afraid of personal lack or being taking advantage of for in so doing agape is being perfected in me.
If the word of God says to think no evil or to get rid of slander than I choose to obey this even if I am in the company of those who are not walking in the light of this command.
For in so doing I am walking in the light as He is in the light and the love of God is being perfected in me.
So it is our faith in God, our faith in His love that resides within us and faith in that love working through us that is released when we keep Gods word before our eyes and choose to act upon it rather than anything else in our lives.
My feeling my thoughts or my sensibilities do not matter a fig when it comes to walking in the light of Gods word,neither will I tolerate them disqualifying me from the prize.
And what is the prize of being more rooted and developed in the love walk?
Simply this to be filled with all the fullness of God.(Eph 3 19)
When you are filled with more of the fullness of God depression self pity and hurts have very little place if any at all.
Most christians act as those who try to fulfill the commandment of love as if it is their own human love somehow energised or strenghtened by the Holy Spirit that is at play here.It is not.
It is a love that is other a love that is divine, a love that in the matter of all other loves is excelling.
It is a love that is perfect; a love that is invincible; a love that will never pass away.
It is a love that never changes; and can never "alter when it alteration finds"
We change, those around us change, our life's circumstances change; but this vast ocean of loving kindness and tender mercy that exists in the being of God; this love that flows unstopped from his throne has laid hold of you and has laid hold of me.
We are now slaves and captive to this love for it is this love that has set us free.

Finding your place and releasing Gods grace.

One of the greatest needs today in the body of Christ is that of Christians who have not yet discerned the place of their calling.
Multitudes within the church are unaware of latent gifts within them or unsure of where their most fruitful place of service should be.
The idea of finding Gods perfect will for their lives and for their place of service is viewed by many as either practically unobtainable or unnecessary for the attitude is often held that we can muddle along and do our best and God will somehow direct us and always bring his will to pass in the end.
Is that scriptural however?
I would venture to say that it is not.
Kenneth Hagin once had an experience with the Lord where the Lord appeared to him in an open vision and spoke to him concerning his future calling.
During the course of this encounter the Lord revealed to him that 90 per cent of ministers do not enter even the first phase of the ministry that Jesus had planned for their lives.
They may be following good plans even thoroughly biblical plans, but not necessarily Gods plan for their lives and ministry.
Think about that figure, that means that 90 per cent of Jesus ministers on this earth do not find Gods perfect will for their lives,
They are not apprehending that for which Christ Jesus has apprehended them.
I know that this word is true firstly because I believe in the integrity of Kenneth Hagins ministry and what he said I trust implicitly.
But I also know that this is true because of my experiences as a minister in the body of Christ both in my own journey and my observation of others in the ministry.
The norm today in christian ministry even amongst those who would be considered evangelicals in doctrine and Spirit filled in pratice is not, generally speaking, one of people who know that they are walking in the perfect plan of God for their lives and are filled with joy no matter how adverse the circumstances that they face.
It is not one of an absolute conviction that they are walking in Gods perfect will for their lives and therefore have little or no regard for the opinions of other men as to whether they gain the approval of other men or not.
I believe that many today are at heart restless and frustrated because they do not feel themselves to be accomplishing much for God and there is a general air of confusion with which the enemy has blanketed much of the church so that although many people are not satisfied in themselves they simply do not know how to change.
Yet I believe that God has placed within the DNA of every born again child of God a heart cry to be fruitful and a longing to be fulfilled.
So why is it that so many today simply do not know what Gods place of anointed service for them is and how can we break free from that syndrome?
In this blog I would like to give a few pointers from the word of God and from my personal experience that I believe can sharpen our discernment to fine hone our sense of where Gods wants us to be and what it is He wants us to be doing.
In Ephesians 4 v 7 we read that "But to each one of us grace was given according to the measure of Christs gift." and then in v 15 and 16 we are told that
"speaking the truth in love, (we) may grow up in all things into him who is the head-Christ-from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."
This is really the Lords blueprint for the church that we may first grow up into him as the head by being properly nurtured and spiritually fed, and as we grow up in our relationship with Christ so we also grow out in our ability to minister to other saints.
This is not a vision restricted to christian full time ministry, it is a vision for all of Gods people finding and fulfilling their place.
Notice that verse 16 says that the body is only joined and knit together by that which every joint supplies. Every joint has a supply to bring.
And it goes on to conclude that the growth of the body comes only as every part does it share.
That means that you have a part to play and a supply to bring and a measure of grace to share that is unique.
No one else can take your exact place.
Logically that means also that if you or I fail to bring our supply or to share our measure of grace with those that God has called us to serve then there will be an obvious lack in that local body.
This beggars the question are we thriving or merely surviving in our place of service for Christ?
I believe that at this season we have entered into in the body of Christ it has never been more essential to find our God assigned place and be able to minister that portion of God manifold grace to those that we have been called to serve.

One of the most obvious and essential things that is required for us to be able to find our fruitful place and to bring our spiritual supply is to ensure that we are in the right local church.
It seems to me that this first and most essential fact is so often the one thing that is the reason as to why Christians are not fulfilling their fruitful place or being knitted together with others in the christian ministry.
The enemy knows that once we are in our right setting and begin to be joined and knitted together with others in our christian walk that then we will grow and the church will grow were we belong.
That is one reason why he fights us on this issue and tries by tactics of strife and intimidation and offence to get us out of our place in the local church were God has called us to serve.
We have to be wise to his tactics.
And yet many Christians allow other motives to colour their judgement when it comes to the church which they belong to.
We cannot allow a sense of loyalty or being comfortable or habit or desire to change a needy situation hoping to turn it around or any other number of considerations to cause us to lose out because in actuality we are out of our God assigned place.
When you or I stand before the Lord at the end of our earthly life we will have to give an account of whether we stewarded our gifts in the right environment and ministered them to the right people.
That is our responsibility.
We cannot say in that day "Lord the people would not have listened if I had said that", or "Lord the people just did not believe in that where I worshipped, so they would not have received my ministry"
Multitudes today are trying to serve God out of a misplaced sense of duty or loyalty in the wrong setting.
It is wrong if you cannot be yourself in terms of who God created you to be and if you cannot minister those gifts that God has deposited into your life.
I am not suggesting that freedom to do or say what we want is the barometer of being in the right setting for that is merely immature and selfish.
Rather I am speaking of being in the body of believers where you know that the Lord has called you, willing to work together with others in love submitted to the godly leadership and supportive of it willingly, but a place where you know that your core beliefs are reciprocated and your calling will be fulfilled.
I am amazed at how many Christians good Christians even born again and spirit filled Christians are languishing in churches where they will never fulfill their God given calling and yet they are reluctant to leave.

I myself was in this position for several years.
I can look back at situations where I loved many of the people and they loved me but I could not have ministered my source of supply into that local setting and I was not receiving any spiritual supply or nourishment from anyone else in that particular setting.Why?
Because it was not the right setting for me.
If you are out of your proper setting you will always feel frustrated and restless, and it is again a sad commentary of so much of contemporary christian ministry that many accept these things as the norm for their lives rather than as an indication that something is wrong.
And what is wrong is that they have not yet found their place,for when they do they will find real hope the hope of their calling rising up in the place of depression and frustration.
I spent several years being in an environment where I could not have spoken about some of those biblical truths that I saw in Gods word and where I could never have ministered as I believed that God was calling me to.
I thought that I could be a bridge builder to reach those of a more conservative non Spirit filled inclination however I discovered to my cost that they only attempted to change me!

There is however a more sober side of this whole area of being in the right place and it is that of the cost to us spiritually if we do not.
Paul in writing to the church at Corinth says "For this cause many of you are weak and sickly and a number have fallen asleep"
This scripture has a double application for it is speaking not only of the communion table and a failure to discern the literal body of Jesus sacrificed on the cross for us, but also has application about the need to rightly discern Jesus spiritual body.
And we discern Jesus spiritual body by learning to discern our part and our place in it, or as Ephesians 4 says by being fitly joined and knit together as each part does its share and brings it spiritual supply.
Can you see also how ludicrous it is to think that an acceptable model for church is to have people coming and listening to a sermon and going out and having no more involvement or part to play then that Sunday by Sunday.?
The seriousness of failing to discern our part and our place is that eventually it can open us up to judgement by getting us away from Gods supply of Grace and make us vulnerable to the attacks of the evil one.
It is in the perfect Will of God for our lives that we are impregnable to the enemies attacks succeeding.
If however we are not rightly discerning our place within Christs body than there will be a progression of this giving ground away to the enemy.
Firstly there is the fact that we become spiritually weak (many are weak among you)
We find that our spiritual strenght is not being renewed.
We are easily offended. We are more easily tempted.We are more easily discouraged and depressed. We begin to need other stimulants because we suffer from spiritual boredom.
Then if this is not readily discerned we can become sickly that is our health can begin to suffer.
Make no mistake God had provided for us to walk in a divine flow of health for Jesus has already paid the price having taken all of our sickness and bearing all of our diseases.
But if we are disobedient then it give legitimate ground for the enemy to attack and we need to quickly discern the place where we have missed God and close the gaps in order to receive our healing.
I know a minister who is very powerfully used by the Lord and through his ministry the Lord has wrought some wonderful healings.

Several years ago whilst still in his fifties he was diagnosed with cancer in his body.
He knew the things that I am speaking of and went before the Lord to enquire as to where he has missed it,and the Lord graciously showed him.
As he made a correction in his life and ministry the Lord spoke to him that he would be healed within 21 days.
True to what God had said to him after three weeks there was not a trace of the cancer in his body, and he has walked in good health for almost twelve years now.
Healing is for us but if we do not discern our part and take our place then we can hinder our ability to walk in that healing flow that God has provided.
Lastly the final stage of judgment is that many sleep which speaks in this context of premature death.
Again I am convinced that Gods word promises to us a long life "with long life will I satisfy them and show to them my salvation" but disobedience can open the door to the enemy usually in the area of sickness and disease that can result in death.

I am aware that not everyone will accept these things but I do believe that it is time for all of us in the body of Christ to wake up and grow up so that we begin to discern the Lords body as we ought and to take our place.
When we do this we will see that greater fruit in our lives, and we will find our joy being commensurately increased.
One way that the enemy lies to Gods people is by their doubting that they can ever know or ever fulfil Gods perfect will for their lives.But we can.
The Lord has not shrouded His plan and His purpose in mists of obscurity for us to stumble along through this life hoping to discover it at every turn.
He has given us His Holy Spirit and he has given us His word.
We need to ask ourselves some questions often so as to maintain a clarity of spirit and a clarity of purpose, such as "What makes me come alive?" What are those ministry gifts God has placed in the church that stir me up the most?" "What are those areas of ministry that my heart most resonates with and where I seem to be able to do what I do most naturally?"
All of these kinds of questions can serve to sharpen our discernment to where God has called and gifted us.
Who are the ministries that most help you feed you and strengthen you.
Stay connected to them, for they are those through whom you will receive your supply.
We cannot continue to sit in churches where there is a divorce from all of the above and the reality of what is practiced and preached in that church.We are just occupying space if that be the case.

I believe that the challenge to us is to ask ourselves the question "is my loyalty to men or to God.?"
When Peter and John were released from prison in Acts 4v 23 the bible says that "being let go they went to their own company"
That is surely a telling little phrase "their own company"
We must know those who are our own company who share our deepest values and with whom we can share the richest of fellowship for it is only with these that we can truly fulfill our calling.
God has called us to freedom not a freedom to please ourselves but a freedom to hear Gods voice to obey His will and to follow His plan.
It is a freedom to know Gods life (zoe) in all of its fullness and to bear fruit that is lasting and that will remain.
That may not be by the worlds standards or even by the human standards often promoted within the church, rather it is according to the richness and the fullness of our fellowship with Jesus and with those whom he has place alongside of us.
God has as I said not make it to complicated for us to know,but thank God he has given to us the bible, and he has given to us His precious Spirit.
He has given to us also the gift of a clear conscience, by which we can safeguard ourselves.
Paul could say "I am conscious of nothing against myself" and " I myself always strive to have a conscience without offence towards God and men"( Acts24 16)
We will know in our conscience and in our innermost being whether we are giving our all to do everything we can to be faithful to steward those things that God has entrusted to us.
And it is in that place of a good conscience that we can trust our Heavenly Father to lead us into the unfolding of every good and perfect plan that he has planned for our lives as we seek him with all of our hearts.

Guarding and preserving the life of God within.

Over the last ten months I have become increasingly aware of the necessity of defining what being spiritual really means rather than what peoples thoughts and ideas concerning being spiritual is.
People are sometimes accused of being overly emotional or flaky or unstable or superstitious or simply naive all under the supposed guise of being spiritual.
And these concerns are most often expressed by those who would consider themselves as stable consistent and biblically governed.
I am sure that anyone who has been a christian for any length of time at all will have seen first hand or heard of situations where all of the above descriptions of flaky or unstable Christians could be aptly applied
However I also am convinced that most of that which purports to be biblical and sound Christianity is no more spiritual than the former. For in reality both of these are what I would call soulish christianity, that is they are largely emanating from the mind or will or from the emotions.

On the one hand there is zeal aplenty and passion and a sincere desire to please God. Likewise in the other there is a thoughtful reasoned approach, no less a desire to glorify God, but the human intellect is king and anything that cannot be filtered through the natural understanding is rejected.(this is one reason that tongues is such a powerful gift to the church because we can pray in the spirit but our mind is unfruitful.
That is we can pray in the spirit realm and not be limited or governed by our natural understanding.)
In the latter instance the kind of Christianity described is primarily about cultivating the mind and living by the determination of the human will, thus christianity is reduced to a series of decisions and to learning the right kind of theology.
Does that sound like an over simplification?
I wish that that was true.
To be spiritual is to walk consistently in the spirit, and to walk in the spirit is by definition to be truly spiritual.
And to walk in the spirit is to let your spirit man have the ascendancy in your life above your natural reason and above your emotions.
The bible says the it is the spirit of a man that is the lamp of the Lord searching all his inner parts.
That is that it is in our spirit that the Lord searches us out and it is from there that he communicates with us.
When you and I were born again our spirits were reborn.Our souls were not reborn.And our bodies certainly were not.We may have felt a flurry of emotion as the love of God was released into our spirits but our soul was not instantly changed.
It is our spirit that was changed.
Our soul which consists of our mind and our will and our emotions now must be brought under authority to the word of God.
Our minds need to be renewed.
This would not be necessary if our souls were instantly changed at the new birth, because then it would be submitted to God to begin with.
But as you and I know all to well our minds and our emotions can constantly try to mislead us and to side in with our flesh if we do not learn to walk in the spirit and renew our thought life to agree with what the word of God says.
Christians who let their unregenerate thought patterns largely govern them or their human fleshly emotions dominate never grow out of spiritual babyhood.
And sadly the church is all to full of individuals who have never developed spiritually as they ought.
The truth is that when you and I were born again our spirit was made brand new.We became a new creature in Christ Jesus.
Old things passed away and all things became new.
In that moment of time that we made Jesus the Lord of our lives and believed that God raised him from the dead God connected us to Jesus and we became one spirit with the Lord.
The life of God in the greek it is called zoe was injected into our spirits and we became spiritually alive to God and to the things of God.
We passed from death that is spiritual death into spiritual life.
This is the definition of what it means to become a christian.
If that be so and it is so then it surely follows that the highest priority of our lives should be to safeguard and to cultivate the zoe life of Jesus Christ that is abiding and residing in our reborn human spirits.
Christianity is really the preservation of and increase of the life of God within.
There is a scripture in the book of proverbs that to me encapsulates the heart of christian discipleship and it is proverbs chapter 4 v20 27

"My son,attend to my words;incline your ear to my sayings.
Let them not depart from your eyes;keep them in the midst of your heart.
For they are life to those that find them,and health to all their flesh.
Keep your heart with all diligence;for out of it are the issues of life.
Put away from you a deceitful mouth ,and perverse lips put far from you.
Let your eyes look right ahead and let your eyelids look straight before you.
Ponder the path of your feet,and let all your ways be established.
Turn not to the right hand nor to the left:remove your foot from evil."
This is such a rich passage of scripture that I could take up the entire blog delving into it, however notice how in verse 23 it says Keep your heart with all diligence for out of it are the issues of life

Jesus said in Johns gospel chapter 7 v 38 that "Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said out of his heart will flow rivers of living water."
It is in our heart that the issues of life are sourced;and it is out of our innermost being that those living waters flow.
The book of proverbs tells us that we must guard diligently our hearts for this very reason and it specifies two primary activities that will ensure that the flow of life in our hearts is guarded firstly the diligence with which we keep Gods word before our eyes and in our hearts, and secondly the diligence with which we guard everything that proceeds out of our mouths.
And both of these are vitally important.
1John 3 v 9 says the following "Whosoever is born of God does not commit sin;for his seed remains in him: and he cannot sin because he is born of God.
When we became a christian a new life was imparted to us that gave to us a brand new nature,and that nature causes us to walk in love and to practice righteousness.
We are not nonchalant about sinning anymore,when we are living out of that new nature.
This new nature is described here in this passage in 1 john as 'the seed of God'
Some versions are more specific. They translate 1John 3v9 as the divine sperm dwelling in us.
Gods life was imparted into us as a seed, and that seed was the living word of the living God.
It therefore is perfectly logical that in being exhorted to protect and guard this divine life or nature of God that dwells within our hearts the first priority mentioned is diligence to keep the word of God in our hearts.
Notice that proverbs 4 21 says to keep (Gods word)in the midst of our hearts.
That is the challenge to us.
Many many Christians do not do this this because if they did what comes out of their mouths would be so different.
Jesus said that out of the abundance of the heart the mouths speaks.
When we have got the word of God from being in our minds only down into our spirits then we begin to be very diligent about that which comes out of our mouths.
Why? Because we want to safeguard that source of life flow from within.
Remember that Jesus said that his words to us "they are spirit and they are life(john 6 63)
The word of God is living and powerful and is the primary container of Gods life to us so the more we get that word into our hearts the greater the measure of Gods life is released in and through us.
Remember how in the parable of the sower Jesus identifies that all four of the different categories of those people who listen to the word of God heard it, but only one out of the four where determined to keep that word in their hearts so that it would bear fruit.
How do we get the word of God into our spirit? Simply by keeping it before our eyes and keeping it constantly in our mouths.
In other words by rediscovering the lost art of biblical meditation.
The Hebrew word for meditate includes elements in it that speak of muttering or repeating something over and again to yourself. It certainly includes a vocal element.
It may be quietly under our breath but we should incorporate some element of saying the word of God to ourselves in order to get into down into our spirits.
Even in the world of theatre an actor can memorize an entire play by rehearsing his lines over and again.
Once he is into the production run the lines are kept alive by the fact that he is saying them every night and sometimes twice a day.
Once the run come to an end he may retain a knowledge of some of the lines but the words will not freely flow as they once did.
In the same way if we desire to keep the word of God in the centre of our hearts than we must speak them out often and repeatedly.
I usually begin my morning devotionals by amongst other things speaking out loud certain verses of scripture to myself.
I do this to build myself up but also to keep the word active within my heart and I am almost always conscious of the invigorating effects to my heart of this kind of discipline.
Consider today how much time and energy and money is spent upon the development of the mind and of the body.
Truly our society is saturated with materials geared to preserving youthfulness and keeping trim, additionally think of the money spent on university degrees and higher education to train peoples minds in a particular academic discipline.
By contrast how much time is given to the training and to the development of the human spirit?
I have seen some students who are completely immoral and poor in social skills,yet are funded to study a given subject through higher education.
Yet as to the development of the whole person ie spirit soul and body they are sadly lacking.
They may be very knowledgeable in a given field but very ignorant in a basic grasp of general knowledge,and may possess no moral character at all.
If anything the trend is fast moving into a descent today amongst the students of higher education, and believe me I know in this matter what I am saying is the truth.
Partly this is because of the decline in our society of its moral foundations that is merely mirrored by the young adults of today but also it is stark to see how being well educated can affect nothing more than the mind of an individual, not touching their spirit, and not affecting their character at all.
How much more as Christians should we be developing our whole sense of person hood and I believe that there is a glaring imbalance in western Christianity between how much we have over developed our intellects at the expense of developing our hearts and becoming like John the baptist those who are strong in spirit.
But keeping the word of God ever before our eyes and in the midst of our hearts is only part of that which cultivates this life of God within, there is also the place of praying in the spirit which can charge us up and make us more conscious of spiritual things.
The gift of tongues is a precious and powerful gift to the church and one that we should earnestly desire to receive if we are a christian.
How sad that small wars have been fought over this area of biblical truth when all the time the Lord has provided us with this precious gift that can edify us and strengthen us in our spirits.
I am totally convinced that tongues is available and residual within the spirit of every born again child of God who has been subsequently filled with the Spirit of God.
I do not believe that this greater fullness or baptism of the Holy Spirit has been received by every christian, but it is available.
And to those who have received this gift the gift of tongues is present within their spirits if they will learn how to release it;that does not mean that every Spirit filled believer will automatically speak in new tongues but they can if they are taught how.
I simply cannot imagine trying to maintain my prayer life or to keep my spirit strengthened without exercising this precious gift within my life.
Within the scriptures tongues has many facets and different operations however one of those is to edify us.
The word for edify in the Greek is similar to our English word for charge, like one would charge up a battery.
This is precisely what praying in other tongues will do.
There is a scripture in Isa that prophesies the bestowing of this gift to the new testament church and which describes the fruit of it in a believers life.
Isa 28 v11 12 "For with stammering lips and another tongue He will speak to this people, To whom he said,This is the rest with which you may cause the weary to rest," And,"This is the refreshing".
Many in the ministry today are becoming burned out and worn out and yet the Lord has provided us with this wonderful gift the can keep our hearts charged up and can cause us to rest in the refreshing presence of God that dwells within us.
Lastly the passage in proverbs 4 mentions the imperative of guarding that which comes out of our mouths in relation to guarding that river of Gods indwelling presence within us.
"Guard your heart diligently for out of it flow the issues of life"
Put away perversity from your lips and keep corrupt talk far from your mouth"
What does being diligent in this matter entail?
It means that we screen out any unbelief or doubt or scepticism or slander because we reconize that these things can actually dissipate the sense of Gods presence overflowing in our hearts
This is not legalism in reality rather it is freedom, freedom to select our words carefully and wisely the freedom to speak words that minister the grace of God to ourselves and to others.
All of these things can strengthen and nurture the life of God within our hearts and surely there is an imperative need in these days for more of the life that is within to come flowing without to a world that is largely heading for hell.
We who are in the west are not living as we should we are by and large not living as spiritual men and as spiritual women;that is putting the things of the spirit first and learning to walk in the spirit consistently.
But in these days God is shaking everything that can be shaken and a host and army of the people of God will arise,shaking off their soulish stupor they will be alive in the spirit and trained to be sensitive to the Spirit of God, and through them the Glory of the Lord shall be made manifest as never before.