"The anointing of God part 2"

In my previous blog I began to speak about the anointing of God and of the crucial need to determine to experience it more fully in our lives.

The anointing of God is not something mystical or magical it is the very quickened life and presence of Jesus the Son of the living God working in and through his people to accomplish his purposes upon the earth.

I mentioned in the previous blog that one of the first steps that we must be prepared to take in order to function within the anointing that God has given to us is to discern where our place is within the body of Christ and to 'be ourselves'.

This may seem to be easier said than done however in reality the Lord does not lead us into confusion but he does say that he will lead us into paths of righteousness for his names sake.

Jesus said in Johns gospel that "my sheep know my voice" so we should not be strangers or aliens to the will of God for our lives.

It may take some considerable time spent in prayer and spending time in Gods word however I am persuaded that the Lord will always answer the sincere cry of a persons heart who desires to find and walk in His perfect will.

Why is this so important?

Because every one of us has a place to occupy within the church ;a place that is unique.

And God will not anoint us to be disobedient to the place of our calling, rather we will have to resort to natural human reason and natural human strenght if we fail to discern the place of our calling.

I have had to discover this the hard way.

Twenty years ago I received a calling to preach and when I preached there was always a sense of purpose and of unction that flowed out of my heart.

Over the years however I moved into circles where I began to conform to the mould of that which I expected was required of me,and tried to occupy a place of ministry to which I was not ultimately called.

Outwardly people may still have been blessed, the word was being preached but inwardly I was in disarray, and though I did on occasions touch the anointing of God it was nothing like it should have been had I been obedient.

There is a great difference between operating in a gift in this case a teaching gift which will always function even when things are falling apart,because it operates by grace.

There is as I say a great difference between manifesting a gift and walking in the anointing of God; and the primary difference is the measure of fruit you will produce.

The anointing of God is tangible it can move people to tears in its presence even if they do not know why; it can dismantle pride and unbelief in its presence and can fill people with more of God.

If there is a single word that would describe the anointing of God it is liberty.

Paul said that where the Spirit of the Lord is there is liberty.

That simply means freedom.

Freedom from something and a freedom to something.

The anointing will dissolve yokes and destroy burdens that attempt to hold people in bondage.

Remember what Jesus said to the religious leaders of his day concerning the woman who was bowed down "Ought not this woman be loosed from this infirmity seeing that she is a daughter of Abraham?"

I can hear the voice of the Holy Spirit challenging us with these same words today to everyone whom the enemy has held in bondage.

Ought not this son of mine or this daughter of mine be loosed from this snare and deception seeing they are a the seed of Abraham?

When the anointing of God is in evidence freedom will always be the end result.

The importance of finding our God assigned place of ministry is so essential because it is only there that as Ephesians 4 says we are compacted together by that which every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share for the edifying of itself in love.4 16

The effective working described is the anointing and that will most effectively be released when we are in our place of ministry.

One of the tell tale signs that we are operating within our anointing is that what we do seems natural to us.

I realize that this can be a provocative statement.

However I believe that when we are functioning in the place of our anointing then that which we are doing appears to be 'natural to us'

Certainly we may labour hard at our goals however it is labouring in a place of rest, and the sense of divine enablement keeps us from finding our task an excessively heavy burden.

However if we stray out of our place of calling to take on a role or roles that Jesus has not called us to then we shall certainly find the weight of the work difficult for us to carry.

Some people may well contest this I know but in truth I believe that we have accepted a widespread model of ministry within the church that is more based upon human reliance and strengh than upon the inward enabling of the Holy Spirit.

That is why Paul could say speaking of his apostolic labours " I laboured more than them all yet not I but the grace of God that was with me"

Whatever place of service that God has called you to occupy stand in that and be faithful to what God has called you to do, and the anointing of God will be free to operate through your life.

I mentioned in the last blog that the anointing is that which essentially flows from within, out of our innermost being, for it is their that we have the indwelling of the Spirit of God.

You can always tell the difference between a sermon that is mind centered and coming predominantly out of someones mind and that which flows from within.

The former may be impeccably well thought out very biblical and an impressive presentation.

But it will without the anointing leave you more conscious of the impressiveness of the speaker, it will inform you it may impress you but it will not impact or change you.

Conversely you may hear someone speak who cannot speak confidently but when they are ministering they are imparting something of Gods life to you, something of Christs nature is being imparted to you.

You find yourself being stirred and challenged and inspired and strenghtened, you find yourself receiving something of God.

I do not wish to imply that sermons that are well thought are only mind orientated.

Rather I am highlighting the difference between tying to rely upon and to reach predominantly the mind (which is where most of Conservative evangelicalism is operating) and ministering out of the spirit, with a reliance upon the quickening of the Spirit of the living God.

The anointing is where the grace of God most naturally flows through our lives and imparts something of Christs presence and His nature and essence to others even if we are not conscious of that process going on.
It is the place where the gifts flow most easily because our heart is at rest when we are using them.

There are two foundational pillars upon which the anointing functions and by which it operates and they are simply faith and love.
Without our operating in either a spirit of faith or of love we will enviably be prone to either seeking experiences all the time and measuring our success by that which we can feel of Gods presence, or we will resort to formalism and to duty going through the motions hoping but never expecting that the power of God is at work in and through our lives as we minister to others.

Faith is so essential because it looks to God and takes hold of his word against all other contrary evidence that we may see with our five physical senses.
Really faith is not to difficult for any believer as Paul says it is not requiring us to go up to heaven to gain the knowledge of it more fully, neither is it in the depths of the earth.
No Paul says the word is near you in your heart and in your mouth that is the word of faith which we speak.
The word of God in our mouths and in our hearts is the way to consistent faith and when it comes to our expectation for the anointing of God to be in operation through our lives it is essential that faith is our governing force.

For example if the Word of God says that believers will lay hands upon the sick and they shall recover than that is my duty to believe that.
I lay hands upon the sick not by my own power or godliness and certainly not because I feel the anointing but in obedience to Gods word.

I cannot heal a fly but God can heal through me and does heal through me so my job is to be a doer of the word and to fully release my faith that when I pray for the sick the Holy Spirit is working through me to minister to that other persons needs.
I may feel something or then again I may not but that is irrelevant the fact is that I believe that the Spirit of God and His anointing is in operation through me as I step out upon Gods word.
Much of the ministry in the church today is being conducted without any reliance upon Gods anointing and without purposeful faith being exercised that as that person ministers the anointing of God is working to minster grace, whether they can see it or whether they can't.
You see we have to release our faith deliberately and on purpose, and we do that as we walk in obedience to Gods word.

Then it becomes something more than just a wishful hope, but is founded upon the truth of what God has said.

If God has said that in Christ I have been enriched in every way in all utterance and in all knowledge, then whenever I stand up to minister I make that conscious decision to believe in the sufficiency of the saviour who has already enriched me to manifest his goodness and grace through me.
I have to exercise my faith in what he is able to accomplish through me.

When I was at college studying theology I studied at an institution that to all intents and purposes stated that it believed in the baptism of the Spirit and in the present day ministry of Spiritual gifts.
They said that however in reality there was "a great gulf " fixed between what they said and what they practiced.

Caution and fear where more the order of the day all under the guise of sound theology and balance.
No one was contending for the exercise of the gifts of the Spirit through their ministries neither was anyone exercising greater faith for the release of the Spirit through their lives.

The practical model that we were taught was that if you read as much as possible and studied as many commentaries as possible in preparation for a sermon and scripted a sermon as skillfully as possible then you should pray for the Holy Spirit to bless your labours.
How different this is from a model of seeking God and praying for wisdom and revelation to be given; to praying in the Spirit much and to meditate as long as is necessary until the word is full to overflowing in your heart,
Then and only then to listen or read to sharpen what God has already given you.

The truth is that most of the ministry model is a tokenism at best: we approach the speaking and sharing of Gods word with the same cool efficiency that a public speaker would at a political rally, except that his presentation may have more colourful anecdotes in it.

It is filling the mind to feed the minds of others but it is not preparation to minister Gods life.
The reason why it is so important that we minister in the anointing of God is that it is the way in which we impart the Grace of God to one another.
It is only then that we can be fitly compacted together.
Thus we have churches and Christians whose heads are well informed but whose lives are dislocated from one one another.
There are of course many different kinds of anointing.
The bible says that God has set in the church first apostles, then prophets, thirdly teachers, than the working of miracles, then healings, helps, administrations and varieties of tongues.
If your calling is to apostle than all of the works that you accomplish will be wrought in you by God and your lasting fruit will be produced only by the anointing.

There are also in that list the calling and gift of helps and the gift of administration.
The anointing is just as necessary to those who find a place within the "helps " as it is for the apostle.
If I am called to a practical place of service and yet I know that God has placed me there be it welcoming or opening the church or keeping the books or administration of any other kind of pratical assistance then I will operate in the supply of Gods grace.
We get into difficulties only when we rely upon our own human strenght and resources.
Just as faith is essential to walking in the anointing so also is love for in reality it is faith that works through love.
There are few things calculated to hinder and shortcircut the anointing of God from flowing as the Lord intends as the entering in of strife.
Proverbs says that the beginning of strife is like the releasing of water therefore stop contention before a quarrel starts.

When we walk in a commitment to love we are in effect making a quality decision to keep our hearts free from all ill will, ill thought, and ill feeling towards another human being.
Love is the track that the locomotive of faith runs on if you are sloppy in love you will be feeble in faith.
The enemy of our lives delights to attempt to sow tares of strife misunderstanding irritation and unforgiveness, in particular unforgivenesss in the church.
To function in heart faith and to maintain the anointing we have to maintain a vigilance over our hearts in this area.
We cannot have control over what someone else may think or feel or how they may acts towards us.
But we can determine how we will respond and how we will think and how we will speak concerning them.
The snares that the enemy lays for us in the body of Christ in this area are I believe very sutle and insidious if we have not made walking in the love of God a law of commandment from which there is no retreat and from which we seek to make no allowances for our selves.

I know a minister who has been a spiritual father to me because of his teaching and influence of his life and of his faith.
He has made a standard of integrity concerning not only what only what comes out of his mouth but also what he allows to enter into his ears.
For all too often what we may allow others to whisper into our ears is going to infect us just as much as if we were responsible for saying it our selves.
On one occasion this minister was in a restaurant with a group of ministers and the conversation as it so often does got round to some other ministers who were not present.
In due course the conversation deteriorated into a slandering of these other men and enjoying some cheap humour on their behalf.
The minister whom I respect picked up his plate and walked to the other end of the restaurant and sat down to finish his meal.
For him to even be party to that kind of activity was a violation of the commandment of love.
Some may consider this kind of reaction as extreme however this minister in question has maintained a powerful anointing throughout his ministry that has only got stronger and more fruitful as the years have passed.
In this case wisdom is proved right by her children.
I think that a failure to forgive is probably the number one reason why many have lost the anointing in their lives.
For to maintain the anointing we have to become skillful in love.

In these days in which we are privileged to be alive the greatest harvest of souls that the earth has ever witnessed is going to be reaped.
All of us have a part to play.
And all of us need to find and to contend in faith for that anointed place of service to which Christ has called us.
The Glory of God will be seen in the land and Jesus will receive His inheritance of a worshiping bride of wholehearted lovers.
Never has the need for wholehearted anointed ministry been as great as now.

"The anointing of God" Part 1


The following message that I am about to post is one that is very dear to my heart.

It also is an area of biblical truth that the Lord has reignited within my own spirit in part by leading me through a process of losing sight of certain things for a season only to have their value restored as exceedingly more precious in my life.

Today I have no doubt in my mind that what stands between us in the church and the lost in the world and the need to bring the harvest in, is not a lack of ingenuity or organization or mobilization or zeal or lack of it, or training or education but simply this; a lack of manifestation of the anointing of God which alone can destroy yokes and quicken life to the dead.

The ten million dollar question therefore is how do we get more of this anointing to be made manifest in our lives and within our church services so that we can bear more fruit?

I will answer this question as honestly as I can however first I would like to show how this vital area of new testament teaching has been put in a place of obscurity where it is not clearly understood or if it is discussed it is in such a manner that has had a tendency to exalt people rather than the Lord Jesus Christ whose anointing we are the recipients of.
The biggest reason for this obscurity is in a failure to properly translate the word Christ from the Greek in our English language.


For in reality every time that the new testament speaks of Jesus Christ it is referring to the fact that he is the One anointed by God with the Holy Spirit and with power(acts 13 )


The word Christ rather like the word baptize is taken directly from the Greek, and as to baptize simply means to immerse so the word Christ simply means to anoint.


So what does the word anoint mean?


It is a word that is best translated by several concepts which include "to pour over to smear all over and rub into, or to quicken and to make alive to empower and to energize"

It is the released and quickened presence of God, sometimes a person or a congregation may 'feel it' sometimes nothing is felt however its effects are aways evident for all to see.

It is the anointing only that will destroy the yoke(Isaiah 10v27 ) and there are as many yokes in the church as there are in the world.

There are yokes of religious pride, bondage to lust or mans approval or fear or sicknesses or diseases or unbelief


Part of the difficulty of seeing the anointing in a fuller and more open manifestation is that so much of the church has associated it and tried to understand it through the lives of those who have evidenced it in their ministries to a larger degree, however since some of the most anointed individuals in church history have also been larger than life we can end up attempting to discern the anointing through the lenses of personality and presence rather than upon the firmer ground of what the new testament teaches us upon this subject.


For in truth many things that may be supposed to be the anointing may in fact be human traits or quirks where as many of the vital hallmarks of the anointing of God that we need to encourage and to cultivate people can be ignorant of.


It is a fact that just as we need to learn to become skillful in handling the word of righteousness so also we must learn to acquire skill in handling the anointing of God.


And no two of us are anointed the same,therefore it is important that we learn to discern what our area of calling is, and to develop in the anointing of God in that area of our lives.

The anointing of God centers and revolves around Jesus Christ, he is the one anointed by God with the life of God and the Spirit of God without measure.

Therefore every gift and grace and manifestation of the anointing given among men comes from Jesus and flows from him.


Sometimes I feel that we lose the sense of the picture of great anticipation that builds through out the whole of the old testament of the messiah or the Christ who would come to bring Gods saving power into this world but would be recognized by one thing- that he would carry the anointing of God more than any other person ever has or ever would.

Isaiah paints a magnificent picture of Jesus as the one specially anointed by God when he states in Isaiah 61

"The Spirit of the Lord is upon me

Because he has anointed me to preach good tidings to the poor

He has sent me to heal the broken hearted to proclaim liberty to the captives


And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;


To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord."


This of course is the precise passage that Jesus launched his public ministry with identifying himself with Gods yoke removing, darkness overcoming ,sickness destroying power and the people who knew him only in the flesh took great offense that day.


But later in the gospels we find even John the baptist whom Jesus described as the greatest of all the prophets succumbing to momentary doubt when he sent messengers to Jesus from his place of imprisonment to ask "are you the one or should we look for another?"


John had already on several occasions identified Jesus as the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, so what is he needing to settle in his own heart and mind before death?


Simply this "Are you the coming messiah?", which is the Hebrew word used to describe the same word in Greek Christ 'the anointed one'


It is fascinating what Jesus immediate response to this request is


"Go and tell John the things which you hear and see:


The blind receive their sight and the lame walk; the lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear; the dead are raised up and the poor have the gospel preached to them.

And blessed is he who is not offended because of me"

Remember how the man born blind challenging the Sanhedrin in Johns gospel when they tried to dismiss the fact that Jesus had healed him by saying "Since the world began it has been unheard of that anyone opened the eyes of one who was born blind" He spoke the truth.


No one had ever healed the lame or opened the eyes of the blind or unstopped the ears of the deaf until Jesus.


And Jesus describes these kingdom acts as the primary evidence of the anointing of God being upon him and of his being the one to whom God gave the Spirit without measure.


Peter sums up the ministry of Jesus as succinctly as possible in acts 13 when he says "How God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holt Spirit and power who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil for God was with him"


God was with him meant that God was poured all over smeared into and flowing to fullness out of Jesus life.

And he still is.

There is a single statement in the book of Isaiah that does more to describe what the anointing of God is sent to do than possibly any other place in scripture.

It is found in Isaiah chpt 10 and vs 27 which says,

" It shall come to pass in that day

That his burden will be taken away from your shoulder

And his yoke from your neck,

And the yoke will be destroyed because of the anointing oil."

It is the anointing of God that destroys the yoke. It destroys every yoke.

The Hebrew word used here to speak of the yoke being destroyed is a particularly strong one. It speaks of complete annihilation, of something that has been binding being not just overcome but rather completely obliterated.

I think in my minds eye of the old agricultural heavy solid oak yokes that they would fasten securely to two oxen and drive those beasts with a stick or with a whip in whatever direction the farmer wished them to go.

Those animals had no choice they could not break themselves free or change direction willy nilly rather they were under the burden of that heavy yoke and it not they determined the direction that they could move forward in.

Many people are living their lives in a similar way under the reality of a heavy yoke of bondage.

The devil who is a legalist has found some point of access to their lives and they are not free, He is driving them cracking at the whip and though they may try to break free of their own volition they remain bound.

Only Jesus the anointed one can set them free.

If we could see into the spiritual realm we would witness these yokes as tangible forms of bondage that they have been carrying driving them relentlessly into further misery.

But the moment that they turn to Jesus and call upon Him, the moment that they learn to receive from him of his anointing those yokes are not just broken they are destroyed, completely obliterated.

They are so totally destroyed that there is no remaining evidence that they ever existed to begin with,and with the power of Christs cleansing blood even the memory of them can be completely wiped away.

Again I visualise the fist of Jesus the anointed one coming down full force on those yokes and shattering them to fine dust and powder that is blown away by the wind.

No wonder that satan so fears the anointing, for in reality he fears it as much as he fears Gods word.

For he knows what it can do.

He knows that the anointing of God can in a second undo a lifetime of bondage and seriously mess up his plans for peoples lives.

Actually the anti Christ spirit in the church today is best discerned when we understand what its objective is.

It is simply anything that seeks to hinder hamper persecute and oppose the anointing of Jesus from operating in our services as he would wish it to.

And the Pharisees and the Pharisaical spirit (or religious spirit) has always be the primary veil behind which this evil spirit seeks to hide.

What is a tragedy today is the extent to which churches are functioning with unanointed ministry.

People go into a service bound and come out the same.

People go in with depression and come out with depression.They go in with fear and come out with fear.They go in with torment and find little or no relief.They go in with some form of addiction and come out only more condemned.

They are not encountering the life changing yoke destroying burden removing presence and power of the risen Lord Jesus Christ.

And yet the anointing is available for us today the Lord Jesus Christ has never removed it from the church.

If it is not being seen in the church it is only because the people in those situations have not learned how to receive it and to release it. The fault therefore is entirely on our side not on Gods. His arm is still not to short to save nor his power to heal.

Much of the ministry in the church of the west today is about leaving people better informed in their minds and letting them get on with the business of living their lives by encouraging the exercise of the will and determination to do what is right; in most cases by being informed by what they have heard in a sermon or studied in a book.

Certainly studying has a valuable place in our growth as Christians however it is certainly true that the overwhelming emphasis today is placed upon feeding and informing the mind and intellect and little is spoken of the human spirit let alone the cultivating of the anointing of God which resides inside of our regenerated spirit.


The art of biblical meditation which is the key to increasing our spiritual strenght and the development of the presence of God within our hearts is almost totally neglected.

And yet the book of proverbs says that we are to guard our hearts with all diligence for out of it flow the issues if life.

The word issue is translated as stream, or flow or spring, speaking of the location of the Spirit of God within us, and indicating that our life force is that which flows out of our spirits not predominantly out of our minds.

I intend to write about this subject over two parts however it is important to state in this initial blog that is vital we understand and grasp that all of Gods people are anointed.

Every single one of us is a possessor of Gods anointing to some measure and to some degree.

We may not yet be walking in the realization of that anointing and we may not have learned how to release that anointing but all of us have been made inheritors of the anointing of Jesus who is the anointed one.

If you are in Christ then you are in the Anointed One and in his anointing and if Christ is in you then the Anointed One and his anointing is dwelling inside of you.

I started this blog by saying that the ten million dollar question is how do we learn to access and to release this anointing within our own lives?.

And my honest answers to this question is that which I shall endeavour to share over this and the next blog.

However it is also important for us to understand that scriptually the anointing of God has a twofold revelation.

It is both that which dwells within us (which is what every christian as a child of God has inherited) and is also that which comes upon us for specific tasks and works of service in the ministry.

Firstly then the anointing of God is that which dwells within us.

In 1 John 2vs20 says "But you have an anointing from the Holy One and you know all things"

Every born again child of God has the Spirit of God resident within them to teach them and to guide them into all the truth.

That unction within also will enable them to speak about the truth as they share it with others.

1 corn 1v says that "you have been enriched in Christ or in the Anointed One and in His Anointing in everything in all utterance and in all knowledge."

This is saying precisely the same thing as John is writing in the verse quoted above.

No christian should be tongue tied or should be easily misled away from the truth.

Often with a newborn baby christian they may lack the understanding of what God has given to them but even a brand new christian will know the alarm bells going off in their spirits when they hear falsehood, if they are taught to listen to their hearts.
But what is important for us to realize is that the anointing of God is the Spirit of God living inside of us and that Jesus said that the Spirit of God within would flow out of us as rivers of living water.

When we were born again we received eternal life and the Holy Spirit came to reside within our spirits.

However there is also a greater fullness of Gods presence that he intends for us to experience which is when we are filled with the Spirit or baptized with the Holy Spirit.

This experience should be normative to every child of God, however this is never portrayed as an end in itself in the scripture but as the door through which we walk into a greater fullness of the things of the Spirit.

That is why in the book of acts the first disciples were filled with the Spirit on the day of Pentecost and yet we find them only two chapters later being filled with the Spirit again to enable them to withstand the threats of the Jewish authorities and to give them greater boldness.

That is also why Paul exhorts the Christians in Ephesians to be filled with the Spirit and the literal Greek is continuous presence tense meaning that it would be more literally translated as be being filled with the Holy Spirit.

After the initial experience we should cultivate a life of be often refilled with the Holy Spirit and the scripture is very clear in giving us instructions on how we should do this.

This life of being filled with the Holy Spirit is the way in which the anointing of God most freely flows through our lives not only to refresh ourselves but to minister grace to others.

Many Christians therefore have the Spirit of God dwelling inside of them but have not learned how to release the Holy Spirit through them to others.

And the scripture is explicit in how this is achieved

Ephesians 4 says "be not drunk with wine where is excess but be filled with the Holy Spirit speaking to yourselves in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing and making melody in your heart to the Lord.

Colossians chapter 3 says that we should speak to or admonish one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs singing with grace in your heart to the Lord.

So whether it is speaking to ourselves or to one another or whether it is singing to ourselves or to one another we maintain this fullness of the Spirit by saying things and by singing.

Simply put we release what is in us with our mouths.

This puts us in a place where the river of grace within our hearts is always ready to be released and it is I believe the primary manner in which the anointing of God is released through our lives to edify and to encourage others in the church.

It is evident however that the anointing is not just evident in what we say or in what we sing but it is also the manifestation of the power of God also to equip us for works of service.

This include healings deliverances and the release of the Spirit and of the gifts of the Spirit into others lives.

Most of these I will talk about in part two of this blog.

But let it be said and said well that Jesus is still the one anointed by God to do good and to heal all those who are oppressed by the devil.

And he is looking for those who will be willing to let him use them to manifest his power through their lives regardless of the cost.

The last point that I wish to make in this discourse on the anointing is the importance of the role of faith.

For many christians the great pitfall to their being confidently used to minister the anointing to one another is that they tie so much to their five senses, what they 'feel' or what they do not 'feel' of the presence of God.

This may be natural to a young christian but it is not acceptable to one who has grown out of spiritual babyhood.

For in reality our feelings are fallible and faith always precedes our feelings and enables us to be consistent not as those who are constantly looking for some evidence of their physical senses that God is working or moving in their midst.

If God does give such evidence we can rejoice but even if at the time we minister we see no evidence that does not or should not alter what we believe.

Neither does it alter the faithfulness of God and of Gods word which works in every situation where we minister it with faith.
Smith Wigglesworth who is one of my spiritual heroes coined the famous phrase that "I am not moved by what I feel I am not moved by what I see, but I am moved only by what I believe"
He probably saw more of the anointing of God and of the miraculous then any other person in church history I know, however his attitude when he walked into a service was that he would judge nothing by how it might appear but act only in the light of what he knew Gods word declared about the issue.
He was a man totally governed by his faith in God.


Recently I spoke at my grandmothers funeral, and shared some recollections concerning my grandmothers life.

I also read from the scripture both in the service and at the graveside.

Since I was not preaching a sermon or even giving a message I simply prayed that the anointing of God would be upon me (and the others who spoke )and that the word of God that was spoken as it was read would not return void but would accomplish what God pleased and prosper in the thing for which it was sent.

The anointing of God is always on His word and when we speak that word with faith in our hearts it will always bear fruit.

We may not see the evidences of that fruit straight away but God is not a man that he should lie and He has said that His word will never return to him fruitless.

I released my faith that the anionting would be manifest and though I did not especially feel anything the number of people who commented to me or to my family subsequently that they had been greatly moved was amazing.

What was it that they were responding to?

The Anointing.

When a person is ministering under the anointing of God you feel that you could keep on listening to them all day. You dont get bored or weary.

Likewise when a person is singing with the anointing of God you feel ushered into the presence of the Lord you do not sit there thinking about how gifted this person is.

When the anointing is operating through a ministry in a service you feel refreshed invigorated. You leave feeling encouraged and lifted.

When the anointing of God is operating in a service people are ministered to spirit soul and body.

They do not leave the same.They have been quickened in the presence of God.

Today we stand at a crossroads.
The greatest harvest of souls is about to be reaped.
The church is facing her greatest hour but in order to be the instrument of blessing to our families and to our towns and villages and cities we must begin to make this resolve.
We will do nothing without the anointing of God
But as we begin to grow in our confidence of how to flow in the anointing we shall see greater friuts and we shall fruitfully exercise those gifts that Jesus has entrusted us with.

"The fivefold ministry and a personal word about Jan and I "
I wanted to write this blog to convey where Jan and I are at this time and the direction that we are looking to go in the near future.
As such this is less of a teaching blog although there is an area of understanding from the word of God in Ephesians that I do have burning upon my heart to share, however in general this is more a' posting' of what we are about to do.

In Ephesians 4 Paul speaks of five distinct leadership gifts sometimes named the five fold ministry v7 "But to each one of us Grace was given according to the measure of Christs gift.

Therefore he says "When he ascended on high He led captivity captive And gave gifts to men"

v11 And he gave some to be apostles, some prophets some evangelists,and some pastors and teachers"



So the risen and exalted Christ has continued to apportion grace in the form of an ascension gift which when received calls equips and anoints men (and women) into one of these five ministry offices.

Now the church has often been confused in its conception of this, and there are indeed large segments of the body of Christ that insist that the first two categories of these ascension gifts have been struck off the list.

In part they believe this because they have been taught that eph 2 v20 states that the apostle and the prophets ministry was to lay the foundation of the church.

Thus they erroneously conclude that part of their task became all of their task and that once the foundations were laid their purpose was expended.

Other traditions of theological reasoning have taught that since the cannon of scripture was closed; meaning that the bible in its current form was finally accepted by the church as the unalterable and inspired word of God, there is no further need for apostles because many of them were used to write inspired scripture.

To me both of the above arguments are unconvincing and are at heart quite contrary to the clear meaning of the scripture.

Simply put the bible gives us no such leeway to chop off the list of eph 4 those gifts that we assume have fulfilled their purpose already, on the contrary I believe that all of these gifts are vital to the present and future maturity and equipping of the church.

Eph 4 v 12 continues to state the purpose for these ministry gifts "And he gave some", by saying that it is for "the equipping of the saints for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ till we all come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God to a perfect man to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
That we should no longer be children carried about by every wind of doctrine and by the cunning craftiness of men by which they lie in wait to deceive.

But speaking the truth in love may grow up in all things into Christ who is the head from which the whole body jointly knitted together by that which every joint supplies according to the effectual working by which every part does its share causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love."

This is a very concentrated statement but nowhere does it suggest that the fivefold ministry gifts have been suspended or withdrawn until the job of perfecting the saints has been complete(and this will only happen when the Lord returns for his church)

On the contrary to disbelieve in the validity of some of these gifts is to guarantee our perpetual immaturity and our tendency to be swayed by winds of teaching that do not cause us to grow up further into Christ.



On the practical side I believe that the church in this country is woefully negligent in its understanding of the role, validity and purpose of the ministry gifts and that ignorance is costly to us.

On the one side you have the conservative Evangelical world who for the most part deny the existence of contemporary apostles or prophets and say that the ministry today should revolve around the pastor who is the teacher and called to do the work of the evangelist.
Some however would acknowledge the distinct calling of an evangelist.

On the other side you have the charismatics many of whom believe passionately in the many membered ministry, but often imply that every gift and ministry is as necessary as the other and have so emphasised that every christian is called to the work of the ministry that they have often failed to distinguish and to discern that only some are called into one of the five fold offices.

On both sides the unbelief or the immaturity ensures that the place and provision of those operating in the ministry gifts often is overlooked or neglected in many churches.
This does not prevent the Lord from raising up those whom he has appointed to these offices and using them for his purposes but it does mean that many churches and individual churches are spiritually robbed of the blessings that could be theirs if they were more open hearted to believe.

One of the major stumbling blocks that we must remove in order to mature in our view of the ministry gifts is to remove the mystique that surrounds the calling to be a prophet or an apostle.

For many people to say in all good conscience "I am called to, or so and so is called to be a evangelist or a pastor," requires no explanation and elicits no controversy. However should those same people say that they or someone that they know is called to the office of a prophet their assertion is met with scepticism at best and scorn at worst.

In reality each one of these ministry gifts are less about the personalities or people who are the recipients of these callings rather they are about the ministry of the risen ascended Lord Jesus Christ who is fulfilling his ministry and working through these gifts to mature and to perfect the church.

To be a pastor means that the calling and the grace to occupy that office is manifesting in the life of the one called to occupy that office, which in turn quickens the ability in that person to minister the Grace of God in a particular way to Gods people.

In a similar fashion to be called to be a prophet means that the grace of God and the anointing of Jesus Christ is operating through and flowing through the person called to occupy that office.

It is usually accompanied with a manifestation of the gifts of the Holy Spirit especially in the areas of the word of knowledge and the discerning of spirits and the gift of prophecy.

None of these gifts are intended to have a sort of spiritual kudos attached to them but we should get to the place where we can discern those ministry gifts among us and receive them for who they are.

Jesus said that he that receives a prophet receives a prophets reward so it is clear that to harden our hearts towards one called to an office of ministry is to fail to receive the benefits and blessings of that gift.

In fact even if someone has a wonderful anointing their effectiveness can be severely impeded in any given situation by the failure of the people that they are ministering to to receive the gift of God that is working in them to minister to the saints.

Why is there this rampant unbelief in so much of the church today?
What ever the reasons it has impeded our growth, however it is also encouraging to see how much more understanding the body of Christ has gained in this area in the last thirty years.

I believe that in this next generation all of the ministry gifts are to going to operate in tandem together to a higher level than we have seen since the early church.
Infact it is my settled conviction that we will go beyond the early church not in terms of revelation which is already set in the scripture for us, but in terms of the scope and reach and fruitfulness and effectiveness of the anointing of God and the manifestation of His Glory in these last days.
And the purpose?
To preach this gospel to the ends of the earth and then the end shall come.

As an illustration in church history which highlights to me this movement away from seeing the ministry gifts for what they are during the Scottish reformation there were certain individuals who clearly operated as apostles or prophets. One of these men was a man by the name of Alexander Peden who demonstrated a powerful prophetic ministry.
Whilst this period of history would not have been noted for accepting the restoration of the ministry gifts in a wholesale way there was an open and frank acknowledgement of the way in which the Spirit of God moved through certain men in ways that gave them the unambiguous title of being called prophetic or apostolic.

For instance Robert Flemming who lived in the seventeenth century wrote a book called the fulfilling of scripture in which he included many first hand accounts of the miraculous events surrounding the lives and ministries of many of the key men in that Scottish reformation.

He unambiguously asserted that God had released an apostolic and prophetic Spirit upon the lives of many of his servants who were contemporary ministers of Flemming.



In 1755 John Howie wrote a book entitled Scots worthies in which writing of one of the key leaders of the reformation in Scotland George Wishart , Howie wrote that,
"He possessed the spirit of prophecy to an extraordinary degree"

However when this same book was republished over seventy years later the publisher could not bear to reprint such 'primitive beliefs' and changed the text without license to read that Wishart possessed "an extraordinary degree of sagacious foresight"

This is a single small example of the way in which there has been a veil of unbelief concerning the supernatural, except with relation to the new birth .

However it is my conviction that in these days in which we are privileged to be alive we are going to see the wraps coming off and the Glory of the Lord being displayed in extraordinary ways.

All that I have said above brings me to share where Jan and I are at this point and what we believe that our future holds.
Many of you who read this blog regularly have been stalwart supporters of Jan and I in your friendships and in your prayers for us, and still others of you in your financial generosity.
We do genuinely appreciate all of these displays of kindness and support and thank you for them.
Twenty two years ago I had a life changing encounter with Jesus Christ that turned me from the path that I was pursuing and the worldly success that I had envisioned for myself.
I did not then know then that I was called to preach, but I did have a burning desire to serve the Lord in any way and in capacity that he would lead me into.
As a point of interest that same year of 1988 was the time that Jan was also filled with the Holy Spirit and awakened to her calling.
When two years later God called me to preach, or empowered me to preach it was my desire to walk out this calling as faithfully as I can.
And it has been my desire in the subsequent years to continue to do so.
What has become evident to both Jan and I over the last few years is that we have been trying to fit into a mould that we could never fully obey God whilst remaining in, not just in terms of the constrictions that I have felt in that environment, but also in terms of trying to occupy a ministry office to which I am not called.
This decision is not a snap one but rather the culmination of many years of hearing God and of endeavouring to cultivate a more obedient ear to his heavenly calling.
In reality sometimes it is easy to get sidetracked by circumstances that seem expedient or by the desire to see a measure of financial security coming in so that the uncertainties and need for faith are diminished.
But we have known that our calling lay on a different path and that knowledge has lay at the root of much of our unhappiness over the last decade, not with standing many peoples kindness towards us.
I spoke recently on the phone to a minister friend of ours and said that in my view there are three tell tale signs of a person trying to pastor who has not been called to be a pastor.
Firstly there will always be in that man himself a great measure of restlessness.
Inwardly he will remain a frustrated man because in reality he cannot enter into his rest until he finds the place of ministry that the Lord has called him to.
Secondly he will always seem to be contending against a 'cap' over his church with regards to church growth.
Even if he is very gifted and able and anointed it will seem that the church just continues on the same level more or less of attendance but never experiences real significant growth.
This is partly because part of a true pastoral anointing is the God given ability to gather.
And lastly a person not called to the pastoral office will never see the fruitfulness in their ministry that they would if they were true to their anointing and stayed true to that.
So what do we believe that God is saying to us?
Well ultimately we believe that our calling and the next step for us is to go to Spain and to begin a work in Barcelona.
That is what we are praying towards, sowing towards, releasing our faith towards and working towards.
But in the mean time we believe that we need to actually begin the ministry that God has called us to, and to do so by making ourselves available now and taking every opportunity that God grants us to minister his word to his people.
That will we believe involve travelling and as such I am now beginning again to make it known to my contacts that I am available for ministry, trusting that the Lord will open doors of utterance to us ,especially to open new doors now into the more Spirit filled church scene.
My calling is to be a teacher and to minister with a prophetic anointing as God leads.
For years I have been to embarrassed to state this clearly and unambiguously, for fear of being misunderstood, but now I know that I must obey God rather than man.
That means that we look to the Lord as he develops this ministry to meet all of our needs, but our purpose now is to devote ourselves fully in terms of our time talent and energies to the discharging of this ministry that we believe that God has called us to.
I have applied for jobs over the last few months that I would have considered myself very qualified for and did not even get as far as an interview.
Recently as we took communion Jan and I prayed that if I did not get offered the job that I had most recently applied for which looked potentially good that we would take this as his indicator that we were to entirely trust him to embrace our calling to an itinerant ministry.
Subsequently we heard that I was not given an interview.
I am still applying for jobs to supplement our income but it does seem to us that thus far the Lord has not opened up or blessed these endeavours which has only served to focus us more concertedly upon the ministry that we believe that we are called to.

The issue of our trusting God now to step out fully into this ministry calls into question whether we will need to combine this initially with some secular work or to entrust ourselves to live by the ministry alone, and that will become evident by the extent to which the ministry develops over these next few months.

I know that as we begin to launch out in the freedom to minister the way that God has anointed me that the fruitfulness will be considerably greater and we will be far happier.

I believe that as we say a big yes in our hearts to fulfilling this itinerant role of teaching and encouraging Gods people the Lord will manifest the open doors of ministry to us and will pave the way for us to get to Spain.
For in reality we know that Barcelona is to be our future base and that we will continue to consider ourselves as travelling ministers of the gospel, both in Spain and abroad.
For those who have stood so faithfully with us over the past few years we thank you and encourage you to pray for us as we pray for you daily, that the Lord will anoint us and use us in these days to testify of the gospel of his Grace.

As a postscript I have just published our ministry website which is extremely basic and still being finished.
However it is a point of contact with the wider public out there to introduce them to who we are.
The web adress is malachi4heartsofthefathers.weebly.com.

" The laws of sowing and reaping."
One thing that anyone who follows the news and the pre election build up will be in absolutely no doubt of is the importance of the issue of the economy.

I predict that the economic challenges that we will face in the next year to eighteen months will go far beyond anything that we can imagine. Most things are going to receed into the background in comparison to this, and really I am convinced that we have only heard the early warning shots of what is set to happen in the economy of this and several other European nations in the near future.

In my prayers for the election of a new prime minister I am praying along two primary tracks; first that whoever is elected will be sypatheticially and favourably disposed towards Christians and Christianity.

I pray this in order that the basic platform of freedoms that we have enjoyed to preach the gospel may be maintained and not further reduced. I am quite convinced that the church in great Britain is not where we are supposed to be, we are behind.

Thus I am praying that whoever is elected may be kindly disposed towards Christians in order that God in his great Mercy may give us time.

We need time to see some key leaders that God is raising up within the body of Christ come into their spheres and positions of influence and to begin to make known the manifold wisdom of God and Grace of God to our society at large.

We need time to see the churches that are called to be an influence in the major cities of this country grow into churches that when they pray and when they speak unitedly the world will take note.

And we need time to see the harvesters of this coming move of God brought up to the level of readiness and maturity, so that when God begins to reap the great harvest in these coming days they are ready to labour to bring the harvest in.

That is my first prayer for the coming general election and the second is for the man whom God appoints to be one who has the strenght of character to make the crucial decisions that will need to be made in order to lead this country through the most difficult economic times that we have possibly seen in over seventy years.

Rick joiner is a man of God that I admire and respect highly and recently I listened to a talk that he gave where he outlined his insights for the coming economic situation. Because of the position of leadership that God has given him he is in the fortunate position of relating to many individuals in field of economics who are well placed in terms of their knowledge and understanding to know the early warning signs.

Many of these individuals are saying that we have a window of possibly a year to eighteen months until the full unravelling of this economic crisis kicks in.

The unveiling of how sick the economy really is in the United States as well as many other European countries and in Japan is already beginning however the full revelation of just how serious the situation is has not yet come to the fore.

When the wheels begin to come off the economy in many of these countries seemingly simultaneously the immediate effect will be fear, panic and then inevitably anger as people turn their ire upon their governments and blame them for all the woes( when in reality this mountain of unsustainable debt has been growing for over three decades.)

There will also be great despair, and that is where the church is called to arise and to be the beacon of hope and point people to God in the darkest hour.

People who say that the economy is showing early signs of recovery and that we have turned a corner are simply not telling the truth. For whatever reason whether it be a misplaced optimism or a desire to conceal the full truth for the sake of popular gain one thing is certain things are going to get darker before they get better.

In that respect Mervin Kings reported comment about the enormity of the task of the next incoming government and that it would probably reduce them to a one term in office government because of the unpopularity of the measures that it would need to take was a more accurate prediction then will be heard upon the lips of many politicians these days.

I have said the above to say this, if that was the whole picture then it would indeed be bleak, however I believe that in the midst of this coming economic storm the Lord has called the body of Christ to so learn to walk with Him that we prosper and excel in the abundant Grace of God ,learning how to trust God to make us those who always having all sufficiency in all things may have an abundance unto every good work.

The church is not bound to the world in either its source of provision or in its liberty to give, however I do believe that at this time and this moment we need to diligently disentangle ourselves from the worlds way of thinking and to let what the scripture says with regard to sowing and reaping both inspire and govern our thinking as never before.

There is a powerful principle that runs through out the scriptures which is in reality one of the governing principles of the kingdom of God, and that is seedtime and harvest, or sowing and reaping.

We as the people of God really need to have more than a tacit agreement that it is a biblical truth, we must release our faith in this principle and reconize that our lives are governed by it.

The first mention in the bible of this truth is found in Genesis 8 22 where God is making a covenant with Noah and with his sons and with his descendants, verse 22 says

"As long as the earth remains, seed time and harvest, And cold and heat, And winter and summer, And day and night Shall not cease".

Some people would say "ah yes but this is talking about the Lords covenant with the earth, with nature to order it and to regulate it"

This is obviously true however there is also a transcending principle in this which governs not only all of nature but all of life as well. Seed time and harvest.

Paul in Galatians Cht p6 demonstrates that this principle applies to all of life when he makes the emphatic statement "Do not be deceived God is not mocked. Whatsoever a mans sows that shall he reap. He who sows to the flesh shall of the flesh reap corruption but he who sows to the spirit will of the spirit reap everlasting life.

Let us not become weary in well doing for in due season we will reap a reward if we do not faint and lose heart. "

Do not be deceived God is not mocked whatever a man sows that shall he also reap.

So it is evident that we can become deceived by not reconizing that everything we are sowing will come back in some form of harvest in our lives.
Many people choose to see this principle in a fearful light, however the exact opposite should be true.

This biblical principle is in reality a wonderful thing because every good seed which we have sown and continue to sow will return to us in the form of a good harvest.

It is not arbituary. We something think that it is, but that is only because we have not renewed our minds sufficiently to the word of God to be totally persuaded of Gods justice and righteousness contained within this law.

This explains why some christians also seem to grow so much more rapidly then others, when we look at their lives we will always discover that the law of sowing and reaping is at work. Here is a man who was saved out of drug addiction , abuse and a raft of other problems and yet when he came to Christ he was filled with the Spirit and had a hunger for Gods word.
Maybe he did not understand two pages together but he listens to faith building and faith inspiring messages and his heart hunger begins to grow.

Every day he is staying with the word of God, and as he consistently does so, so his thought life begins to radically change. He is getting his mind renewed.
He is learning to be able to receive from God, healing when he gets sick, peace when he becomes fearful, courage when he becomes timid.

Now he is beginning to be in a position to help others to find the life transforming power of Gods word, and to encourage others to be able to receive from God for themselves.Why is he so fruitful?
Because he is sowing the Word of God into his life consistently and combining it with faith.

We think that Gods dealings with us are arbitrary but they are not. They are based upon the laws of sowing and reaping.

Overarching this law of giving and of receiving is the truth that God is a God of rewards who loves to reward us with good things.
This is the antithesis of religion which says that all we have comes from Gods Mercy and we can never do anything to deserve it.
It is certainly true that all the good that we ever receive from the Lord and every manifestation of His Grace and of His goodness we could never earn.
We are unworthy of it from the standpoint of human merit.
But sowing and reaping is not about earning something from God, it is rather about reaping the fruit of our obedience and faith.
Thus we will reap what we sow and if we cultivate and sow good seed good things will come forth in our lives in due season.
Bringing this back into the financial realm My daughter who is just eight years old decided last year that she was going to tithe every financial gift that she would receive.
I encouraged her that she would receive more from God if she freely gave.
I want her early on in her life to grasp the truth of giving and receiving, that as she obeys, God will provide her with more.

Some may object that our giving should not be coloured by the desire to gain more but purely by the desire to give freely as an act of love.
Certainly as my daughter grows into greater maturity I would look for the motive of Christs compassion to also grows in her, but for now I see nothing prohibitive about teaching her that God delights to give back to her as she gives to him.

Evidently neither did Jesus when he said "Give and it shall be given unto you, good measure pressed down and shaken together shall men pour into your bosom. For with the measure that you give it shall be given to you."
This principle of having faith in a seed that you sow, a seed that will always grow is fundemental to the way that the entire kingdom of God operates.

When we were born again we received a seed from God, the imperishable seed of Gods word which he sowed into our hearts and germinated by the quickening power of the Holy Spirit. From that comes forth a whole new life from God.


Similarly when God desired to raise up a family of sons and daughters for himself and a bride for his son he first gave the seed of his only Son to fall into the ground and die but in raising him from the dead he raised us up together with him( john 12 24 & Isaiah 53 10)
Some Christians give in obedience to the word of God, however they rarely if ever actually release their faith deliberately and on purpose in that good seed bearing good fruit.
In other words they have no expectation of a harvest coming to them from the seed that they have sown,and when good does come back to them they never join the dots.
Behind this principle of sowing and of reaping is the reality that God is our ultimate and only source. He may use and employ many channels to bless and to provide for us but God is our only source.

This is going to be such an important principle I believe for us to grasp and to live our lives by in the days that lie ahead.

We may lose a job but that job was not our source and therefore God can give us a new and better one.We may lose support from one source but no human being, no person and no human institution is our source, only God is. He may close one channel and open another but if our faith is in him then that faith can never fail. For that faith will never be disappointed.


One of the most powerful examples in the scripture of this principle of having faith in a seed or seed faith is found in 2 Corinthians chapter 9 v 6 where Paul talks about the grace given to the Macedonian church. "But this I say He who sows sparingly will also reap sparingly,and he who sows bountifully shall also reap bountifully.
So let each one give as he purposes in his heart, not grudgingly or of necessity , for God loves a cheerful giver.

And God is able to make all grace abound towards you, that you always having all sufficiency in all things my have an abundance for every good work.

Now may he that provides seed for the sower, and bread for food, supply and multiply the seed you have sown and increase the harvest of your righteousness, while you are enriched in every way for all liberality, which causes thanksgiving through us to God."

There is no ambiguity in this passage where Paul clearly carries the seed time and harvest principle over into the area of the giving of our money.
He does not say if you sow you are blessed but maybe you will reap in kind and maybe you won't.

On the contrary he is quite emphatic, He who supplies seed for the sower and bread to eat will multiply the seed which you have sown.

What you have given to others will be accounted to you for a harvest and God will not only bless what you have given but also increase your very capacity to give.

Notice that the grace is given to those who give not to those who withhold from giving and it is a grace to increase and to multiply their capacity to give.



The heart is so central in this for it is noteworthy that the very church or group of churches that Paul sites as an example of this powerful spirit of generosity were those most impoverished in their personal circumstances.
But this lack did not hold them back from releasing what they could to give to those in need.

History indicates that the same group of churches were brought out of their impoverished circumstances within a few years.

I have no doubt whatsoever in my own mind that part of the Holy Spirits strategy to bring them out of their dire poverty was to empower them first with this extraordinary grace of giving. As they got their minds upon helping to meet others needs so the God of heaven moved to meet their own.They were sowing seeds for the future.

As the coming economic crisis deepens and expands the default response of anyone whose mind has not been renewed by the word of God in the ares of giving and receiving or of God being our only source is going to be one of fear and of wanting to hold on more tightly to what they possess. But Gods wisdom is to sow for a greater harvest.

There is a wonderful example of God blessing and prospering his people during a time of great national crisis in genesis 26

'There was a famine in the land, besides the first famine that was in the days of Abraham. And Issac went to Abimelech king of the Philistines, in Gerar.

Then the Lord appeared to him and said " Do not go down to Egypt; dwell in the land of which I shall tell you. Sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and bless you"

V12 says 'Then Issac sowed in that land and reaped in the same year a hundredfold; and the Lord blessed him.

Then the man began to prosper and continued prospering until he became very prosperous.'

Going down to Egypt was synonymous with looking to the world and the worlds way as an answer to his need. (Abraham his father had gone down to Egypt in a previous time of national famine and it was a costly mistake)
God was in essence saying to Issac don't leave where you are and where I have placed you.
Stay in the place of great need and faithfully sow, and I your God will bless you .

This is a remarkable testimony of the faithfulness of God, that even in the midst of a national famine Gods hand was upon Issac and in the same year that he sowed he brought forth a hundred fold return.
Hundredfold return to me simply means maxim yield, to suffer no loss no blight no destruction upon what you have sown.

Compare this with the promise of Malachi 3 v10, 11

"Bring all the tithes into the storehouse that their may be food in my house, And prove me now in this " Says the Lord of hosts,"
If I will not open for you the windows of heaven And pour out for you such a blessing That their will not be room enough to receive it."

"And I will rebuke the devourer for your sakes, So that he will not destroy the fruit of your ground,
Nor shall the vine fail to bear fruit for you in the field" Says the Lord of hosts;
And all nations will call you blessed, For you shall be a delightful land, " says. the Lord of hosts.

Contrast this with Genesis 26 28 29
' And Abimlech came to Issac with Phichol the commander of his army and said,'

"We have certainly seen that the Lord is with you. "You are now the blessed of the Lord"

"And all the nations shall call you blessed." malaci 3 12

This was the promise for those who honoured God in the tithe and looked to him only as their source.

Abraham had learned this principle from God when he met Melchizedek and Issac in turn passed it down to his son faithfully,

"And this stone which I have set as a pillar shall be Gods house, and of all that you give me I will surely give you a tenth of all" Gen 28

Genesis 26 is a powerful reminder that Gods blessing will operate in spite of adverse economic conditions for it is not dependant upon current conditions but only upon the word of God.

In addition the Philistines kept contending with Issac over the wells that his herdsman had dug, but he simply moved on and discovered fresh ones.

Eventually they came to understand that they were coming up against more than simply human ingenuity but rather against a divine blessing that they could not successfully contend against.
The blessing of God was greater than either the famine or their schemes to try to take Issac's wells of water for themselves.

We may well be facing the greatest challenge to our economy that some of us have ever faced within our lifetime however in our own families we can stand and see the exceeding Grace of God and Gods hand of blessing upon us to prosper us in these days.
The purpose of this Grace is only ever in one direction to enable us to more bountifully give.

One minister put it so well in saying "My needs are met by my giving not by my getting"

When we truly come to this settled conviction in our own lives the foundation of all fear has been destroyed, because I live to give and by my giving my own needs are abundantly met.

I believe that in 210 we need to take a courageous stand in the area of our giving, across the board.

We cannot allow fear to spoil our joy in our giving, but like Issac as we sow our seed in the midst of a "famine " that surrounds us we shall surely reap a reward, and our confession to a watching world is that the God of Abraham ,Issac, and Jacob is our only unchangleable source; the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ even our very own heavenly Father is with us to bless us and to keep us and to supply and multiply the seed that we have sown and he will enlarge us in the fruits of our righteousness.

"The urgency of praying for Israel"
As this year progresses I have marvelled at the acceleration of events around the world, from political turmoil to natural disasters.
Many prophetic ministries of credibility have spoken of this decade beginning with a shaking of things on the earth to parallel the shaking that is now taking place in the heavens.
From the first devastation of the earthquake in Haiti to the subsequent destruction in Chile, one incident seems to have followed close upon the heels of the other.
From the volcanic eruption in Iceland to the floods in Brazil to the landslides in Italy to the eye of the discerning something is going on.
Our usual weather patterns are often Topsy turvy, consider that last month people were killed in freak storms in northern Spain and my own parents in law were cut off in their usually tranquil home without electricity telephone or running water by powerful snow storms that virtually dismantled the northern Costa bravas infa structure(over 75 per cent of the power grid was brought down)And this at a time of the year when people would normally be basking in the sun in tee shirts and shorts.

The question that needs to be asked is this "are these simply unrelated incidences or are they signs to us of a great shaking that is now taking place in the heavenlies precisely because of that which God is about to do to reap the greatest harvest of souls upon the earth that history has ever known"? I believe that the answer to this question is the latter.

There is a verse of scripture in the Old testament that has often been a challenge and a spur to me in my own prayers for wisdom.
It is in 1 chron 12 32 and speaks of the sons of Issachar who discerned and understood the times in which they lived and knew what they should do.

There are far to many Christians who are living in the past, their vision of the ideal Christianity goes back to John Calvin or Martin Luther or to John Wesley or George Whitefield or to Charles haddon Spurgeon.
But it is never now that they are excited to be alive never now that God is moving powerfully, never now that God is speaking, and never now that the Glory of God will be seen in a way that far eclipses anything that we have seen in the history of the church.I call this lopsided Christianity it is always weighted by the past being better.

The truth is however that the Lord wants us to be biblically aware of where we stand in terms of his purposes for these last days, furthermore we can only pray effectively if we discern correctly where the Lord is taking us and how we are to prepare ourselves(this does not imply an elitist mentality of I hear from God you don't but it does involve learning from and listening to cutting edge and freshly anointed ministries in other words those who are hearing from heaven and learning from them)

The book of Hebrews tells us to not refuse Him who speaks and the literal Greek is continuous present tense do not refuse Him who is speaking.
In other words we serve a God who did not cease to speak when the cannon of scripture was closed or cease to move with Charles Spurgeons generation, but who is constantly desiring to communicate with his children, and is moving in powerful ways in many parts of the body of Christ today as he sovereignly moves history towards its grand finale and the return of His beloved Son.

I have said all of the above to say this, there is no other event in twentieth century history and there is no other event this year that indicates where we are in the divine calender than Israel.
Furthermore it is my conviction that the most significant sign that is before us in 2010 is what is currently taking place between Israel and the United States, and as such requires the body of Christ to pray.

I have never regarded myself as an intercessor in the sense of those individuals who are called to pray intercessory prayers often, rather as one called to teach in the body of Christ I have tended to spend a greater proportion of my time in the word of God and in praying in other tongues which charges my spirit and sharpens me to the unction of the Holy spirit.
This year however I have sensed the Spirit of God laying the burden to pray for Israel upon me and as I have been obedient to that unction so I have watched as world events concerning Israel have developed at startling speed.

I have always recognized the importance of Israel to the purposes of God and have even done some teaching upon this subject as a pastor in my previous church,however until this year I never really endeavoured to study this subject with the intent that I am currently doing.

There is no doubt that anti semetism is on the rise and to an extent not seen since the 1930,s.
Partly this is seen in overt forms like the hostility in many university faculties across Britian,but partly it is being expressed in more devious ways but no less hateful towards Israel or Gods purposes for her.

With regard to the former sense of open hostility I was shocked on a recent visit back to my mother in Aberystwyth as she told me of her encounter with a student who positioned himself daily outside Morrison's supermarket to distribute anti Israel propaganda and to urge passeres by to boycott the sale of any goods from Israel.This is anti semetism in its most blatant form.
What strikes me most in this incident is the blatant hypocrisy involved in it.
Why is it that Israel has a standard applied to her that is applied to no other country on earth today?

Since Iran and Syria are currently the two leading nations in the sponsoring of terror and militant Islamist organizations why does not anyone call for the boycott of goods from those countries? The behaviour of such individuals as my mother witnessed has alarming similarities to the treatment against Jewish shops and businesses in Germany in the 1930 which began with calls to boycott those businesses and then turned to aggressive systematized persecution against all Jews.

If we think that history can never repeat itself then consider that as I pen this blog one of the most radical anti Semitic parties in Europe is poised to take power in Hungary. If that should happen what would that mean for the quality of life for those Jewish Hungarians?

By far the most serious development in my mind however is as I intimated earlier the shift of stance of the United States towards Israel which if it continues on its current course has major implications for not only the U.S but for Europe(since we are greatly affected by the U.S economic fortunes)

There is a scripture in Joel 3 v2 which says "I will also gather all nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat; And I will enter into judgement with them there On account of My people, My heritage Israel, Whom they have scattered among the nations; They have also divided up my land".

This passage of scripture is a salutary warning against any nation that thinks that it can deal in a proud or arrogant manner towards Israel . "Dividing up my land" in contemporary speech is called partition, and this is precisely what the current U S administration, the EU and other middle eastern nations are seeking to put pressure upon Israel to do.

Consider this: In 1920 the league of nations(the forerunner to the UN) assigned to Britain a mandate for the land of Israel the terms of which were to provide a national home for Israel. In 1922 Winston Churchill with a single piece of legislation signed away 76 percent of that land to an Arab nation called Trans Jordan, now called Jordan, and in that territory no Jew is permitted to live.

They divided up the land 76 percent to 24 percent. In 1947 the united nations arranged a scheme to divide up the land so that out of the remaining 24 percent Israel would get maybe 10 percent and 14 percent would go to the Arabs.

What where they guilty of? Dividing up Gods land.

Derek Prince who taught so passionately and ably on Israel recounts how he was a personal eye witness of the birth of the Jewish state at the time that it was still under British administration.His observation was that short of open ware fare Britain did everything in its power to seek to prevent the birth of the Jewish state.

History bears eloquent witness to the fact that Israel was born into a nation in a day, in fulfillment of Gods Word and the British empire faded away almost overnight. God takes seriously the treatment of Israel by other nations.
Likewise America stands at a crossroads today as to whether she will side with Israels enemies or stand in a spirit of love and solidarity towards Israel.
Make no mistake God will not stand by and allow other nations to attempt to piecemeal Jerusalem up to satisfy political expediencies. Rather he will demonstrate his faithfulness to His word by being swift to judge the nation or nations that attempt to do so.

At this moment behind the face of thinly veiled civilities towards Israel America is acting with a high handed manner to place enormous pressure and threats upon her if she does not take steps to comply with the road map that they together with the EU and several other nations have drawn up.
To his credit Netanyahu recently spoke at a press conference in the U S and defended the right of Israel to Jerusalem, saying in effect that the issue is not over the building of some new houses (which was in a Jewish quarter) but the issue of their right to regard Jerusalem as their capital city.
Would any other country take kindly to the interference of another sovereign power dictating the rights and terms of their use of the land?

Let me state unequivocally that I love and hold a great affection for America , for its people and for the individuals and ministries that have blessed and continue to bless me. There is also a ground swell of Americans who are raising their voices in alarm at the direction that this present administration is moving in, from both within the church and amongst the resident Jewish people within the US.
We need to pray for this present US administration that it will act according to Gods wisdom and truth and come into agreement with his divine purposes.

It is a sobering thought to consider that Americas vast economic strength has been largely due to her unwavering support of Israel, one cannot imagine the possibilities of her renouncing this stance,but surely the history and fate of other nations that dealt treacherously towards Israel should be a sober reminder.

It is always important to remember that the bible states clearly that God has made sovereign provision for every nation upon the face of the earth in terms of the allocation of land.
Acts17 26 says that"From one nation He made every nation of men, that they should inhabit the whole earth;and determined the times set for them and the exact places where they should live."
If the Lord of heaven and earth has allotted the exact places where nations should live and the times that they should live there that reminds us that the boundaries of nations are not arbitrary, and that He has a place not only for Israel by Divine plan but for every other nation as well.
There is just something very important for us to consider, the place which he has assigned to Israel is not up for negotiation for other nations to occupy .Neither does this mean that Israel was called to function as a hermetically sealed unit excluding the presence of all other races or nationalities(this has never been the case in their history)

In Ezek 47 22 23 God makes an allotment for Israels land that still awaits future fulfillment.

In this passage of scripture he also makes specific provision for people of other nations to reside among the people of Israel, however that rests upon the understanding that Israel has a right to her own sovereignty within her own land.

Really when you consider the fact that at present the Arab nation from the Atlantic to the Persian gulf encompasses a land mass of 14 million square kilometers.By comparison Israel controls only 28,00 kilometers, and yet the nations are desperate for her to yield up more of her land mass.

Psalm105 is a powerful reminder of the Lords attitude towards Israel, for v 7 says He is the Lord our God; His judgements are in all the earth( which speaks of Gods sovereign right to rule and of his justice over all the nations of the earth.)

v8 continues He remembers His covenant forever, The word which he commanded for a thousand generations, The covenant which he made with Abraham, and His oath to Issac, and confirmed it to Jacob for a statute, To Israel as an everlasting covenant Saying "To you I will give the land of Canaan As the allotment of your inheritance"

In this one passage of scripture the Lord speaks of his unwavering attitude towards Israel by using repeated statements of his commitment, first he speaks of His covenant then of His word , also of His statute and finally of His oath.
All of these statements are given to underscore v11 "To you I will give the land of Canaan, As the allotment of your inheritance."
One thing that anyone who has read through the bible will discover is that the Lord does not waste words but such is the integrity and power of His word that He says precisely what He means to say.
So why does he employ so many different words here to express His chosen allotment of the land of Israel to the people of Israel? Precisely because He intends for us to know that His commitment towards the Jewish people in the land of Israel will never change.The wise thing for us to do is to bow before this and to bless Gods purposes and pray for their accomplishment.
In the book of Hebrews it states that by two immutable things in which it is impossible for God to lie we who have been given a strong consolation might draw near to God. The two immutable things are Gods word and his oath which he gave in raising Jesus from the dead and giving him as our great high priest to appear in the presence of God for us.
Similarly God has given not only his Word and His promises to Israel to give them the land of their inheritance but has confirmed it by His sworn oath.(when we really understand this we begin to realize how utterly foolish it is for us to go crosswise of his purpose for Israel.)

As a point of fact there are 47 instances throughout the bible where God has given his oath towards Israel concerning their settlement in the land. In three instances this oath is joined to an everlasting covenant that God established with the descendants of Abraham Issac and Jacob, and in three instances it is explicitly stated that Israels possession of the land is forever.
The simple truth is that the land boundaries that God promised to Abraham and to his descendants belong to Israel because God gave it to them by an everlasting covenant for an everlasting inheritance.

One thing that we should not be is uncertain concerning Gods intent to resettle the people of Israel in their land boundaries, given the clear and overwhelming testimony of the scripture.

It is tragic that in the history of the church antisemitism has often been nurtured and cultivated.
It has even been protected by various theological teachings that transfer all or most of Gods promises towards Israel over to the church in the misguided belief that Israel forfeited the right to these blessings by her unfaithfulness.
If that is so then I would like to ask just one question where does that leave the church? If Gods dealings with Israel have ceased to be founded upon His integrity and His Word and His sovereign election, then what is to say that He cannot discard the church on the same basis.For to be sure the churches record of unfaithfulness over the last two millenia is just as bad or probably far worse than Israel checkered history.
No thank God the same Jesus that said concerning the church that the gates of hell will never prevail against it also said concerning Israel that if the sun ceased to give light by day and the moon by night then the seed of Israel would cease being a nation before the Lord. And that if the heavens can be measured and the foundations of the earth searched out only then would he cast off the seed of Israel for all that she has done.(jerm 31 35 37)

We need to understand that our commitment to pray for and to love Israel has nothing to do with our agreement with a particular political party or the thought as to whether Israel deserves the land, as I stated above all of the spiritual blessing in Christ that God desires to pour upon us have nothing to do with our deserving them, in both instances it has everything to do with the integrity of what God has said and of His great Love.

So what should our response be in our thoughts and prayers towards Israel?
In psalm 122 we read the following words "pray for the peace of Jerusalem may they prosper who love you. Peace be within your walls, Prosperity within your palaces." For the sake of my brethren and companions, I will now say "peace be within you ." Because of the house of the Lord our God I will seek your good.
We pray for Israel because we desire to be obedient to Gods word (and psalm 122 is pretty explicit) and because we want to see Gods kingdom come to this earth in fullness one day.
We also desire to co labour together with Christ in his purposes for Israel and for the church, and according to psalm 122 we pray also for the sake of the house of the Lord our God.
That is we pray for the release of the Spirit of the living God to be poured out mightily upon Jerusalem and upon the people of Israel in our day, that many would turn to the Lord our God and be saved.
The wonderful thing about this psalm is the promise of verse 6, "may they prosper who love you"
I believe in biblical prosperity and that begins with the prospering of the soul(3 john v1)
The promise of prosperity is all encompassing here but in the Hebrew scripture here in psalm 122 v6 the emphasis is especially laid upon that prosperity that speaks of the quality of our peace and the sense of well being .
If you and I desire to experience a greater measure of Gods peace and a sense of His well being in our souls then there is nothing calculated to bring this down upon us as quickly as praying for Israels and Jerusalem's peace.
I have been doing this for several months now and can testify first hand to the change that I have felt in the increasing quality of peace that I am walking in. Thank God that He is always faithful to his word.
Some Christians dont know how to pray for Israel but a good place to start is psalm 122,which can be prayed as virtually a single sentence each morning.
In addition I would pray for Israels protection, for her prosperity and blessing according to Deut 28, and for the wicked schemes in the hearts of wicked men towards Israels harm or destructionto be exposed brought into the light of day and come to nought.
Also we should pray for the success of the gospel not in word only but in demonstration and power of the Holy Spirit. I often pray the prayer of acts 4 that the Lord would once again strectch forth his hand to heal and to perform signs and wonders in the name of His holy child Jesus.
Pray that the eyes of many Jews would be supernaturally opened to look on the One that they pierced and to mourn deeply for him as a man mourns for a son, and for a fountain to be opened in that land a fountain of the blood of Christ for cleansing from all impurity and sin.
The truth is that if we in the body of Christ do not pray for and bless Israel and the Jews then who precisely will?
The Lord impresed upon me recently the importance and power of blessing Israel with the words of my mouth, in the spirit our words of blessing and of peace carry power.
Think of how many are cursing Israel and desiring her complete destruction and those words of cursing are being released and directed towards Israel every day.
How much more should we be using our prayers and words to create a bullwark in the spirit around Israel to open rivers of blessing towards the one whom Gods word describes as the apple of his eye.