Hear from God and Share the Message

 "Woe to him who gives drink to his neighbour, Pressing him to your bottle, Even to make him drunk, That you may look on his (or her) nakedness! Habakkuk 2:15 (NKJV)

In this chapter we also see the most horrible sin dominating the world in the darkest of times.

    It speaks of evil men using violent coercion and alcohol (or drugs) to sexually abuse powerless victims (male or female). 
        In today’s world rape, kidnapping and trading slaves for prostitution is out of control. It is a huge global industry.

Liberal humanist governments have legalised prostitution in many countries, hoping this will prevent and help control violent criminal sexual abuse but such laws has often have often produced the opposite result.

The democratic freedom we rightly value comes from Western Europe, Britain and former British colonies. These are the countries where the Bible once had a profound influence on culture.

Liberal democracy is only fully effective when there is a measure of respect for Biblical truth and moral goodness.

    When the God of the Bible is ignored or despised, Western Society, once known as Christendom, falls to pieces. That is what we are seeing today.
    All Western Countries are sinking under a mountain of debt and moral confusion.

Habakkuk Chapter 2 vividly describes this chaos. However, in this chapter we also find the solution to the problem.

 I will stand my watch And set myself on the rampart, And watch to see what He will say to me, And what I will answer when I am corrected.  

    Then the LORD answered me and said: "Write the vision And make it plain on tablets, That he may run who reads it.

    For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and it will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, It will not tarry.

"Behold the proud, His soul is not upright in him; But the just shall live by his faith. Hab 2:1-4 (NKJV)


In the traumatic End Times, faithful believers will seek personal encounters with the Living God of Israel and He will not disappoint us. 

    God will share profound and powerful truths with those who love Him and listen to Him.

When God gives you a message to share, don’t wait until your pastor invites you to preach on Sunday because it probably won’t happen. 

    God calls you to share His messages with the people around you, at home, at work, on the bus and on the Internet.
    But don’t just preach. Live by faith. In these difficult times, only a profoundly personal faith in God will get you through. 
    However, the End Time is not only a time of darkness.

    God will answer our heart cry for His presence in a way we have not yet seen or understood, although many of us are beginning to experience fresh revelations of His glory.

 For the earth will be filled With the knowledge of the glory of the LORD, As the waters cover the sea. Hab 2:14 (NKJV) 

We see a similar message in Isaiah.

Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, And deep darkness the people; But the LORD will arise over you, And His glory will be seen upon you. Isa 60:1 (NKJV)  

It is time for us to begin to see the glory of God in more dramatic abundance than ever before. 

    I believe we will see extreme miracles which will surpass the miracles of Moses and the Miracles worked by Jesus when He lived as a man.

Never before in history has the earth been FILLED with the KNOWLEDGE of the Glory of God but it will happen. 

    And it will happen in the midst of darkness and strife before Jesus returns.

Christian nationalists try to fix this by seizing political power and imposing a legalistic form of Christianity on nations, but I don’t see this in the bible. The revival to come must be from God alone, and not from moral compromises to gain power.

Kept by the Power of God

 We also pray that you will be strengthened with all his glorious power so you will have all the endurance and patience you need. May you be filled with joy … Colossians 1:11 (NLT) 

If you entrust your life into the loving hands of Jesus, you belong to God. You have chosen to use the faith God gave you to put your daily life and eternal destiny in the hands of the Father.

When you belong to the Son of God, you know you are forgiven. You know you have eternal life. You know you have been taken out of the darkness and transferred to the Kingdom of Light.

God is almighty, and that is very powerful. He uses His power to give strength to His children.
The Greek word for Power is DYNAMIS. The English word Dynamite comes from this Greek word. It makes you think of dramatic miracles, of sudden breakthroughs, of instant healings.

All of this is true.  In the Bible we see Jesus performing miracle after miracle, healing the sick, raising dead bodies to life, walking on water, multiplying bread a thousandfold.

But the Power of God is not only for instant miracles. There is another English word which comes from the Greek word DYNAMIS. That is Dynamo. A dynamo is a device for generating a constant flow of electric power.

We Need God in our Lives

 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. Gal 5:16 NLT

What are the works of the sinful nature? The original Greek New Testament calls these the works of the flesh. 

There is nothing wrong with your natural flesh and blood, the organs of your body. God created your body and he does not make bad things. But when we let our flesh and blood direct our lives, things go wrong.

If you are a good driver, your car is a blessing, but if your car engine runs without direction from a driver, it can do untold damage.

God has given you a soul and a spirit, designed to direct your mind and body. If your soul and spirit are closely connected to God’s Spirit, and you are guided by the love and goodness of God, your mind and body will be a blessing.

I have recently listened to sermons about repenting of sin. We need that from time to time, but I had the feeling that something was missing. 

Repenting is not just about not doing bad things. It is not enough to avoid rage, hate and malice. God wants us to love, care and help, not just with outward deeds but moved by genuine concern for others. 

It is not enough to avoid revenge. God wants us to forgive people who hurt or threaten us. It is not enough to avoid bearing grudges. God wants us to love and bless our enemies.

When Jesus was dying on the cross, suffering unspeakable agony, tormented by vile verbal abuse, he cried out to the Father to forgive his tormentors. 

Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” … Lk 23:34 NRSV

God wants us to stop doing bad things, but He also wants us to be perfectly pure, kind and loving like Jesus. If we think we can do all of this, we are sadly mistaken. Jesus was the perfect Son of God, God in human form. We are very faulty, flawed human beings. We learned what we know from faulty parents, faulty friends and faulty teachers. 

We can change some of our behaviour with human will power but we need fixing and rebuilding from the inside. 

Jesus died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sins. If we confess our sins, He will forgive us, but we do not have the power to be like Jesus on the inside.

When Jesus was executed, his natural body died, but his spirit lived on. Three days later her returned to this world with a supernatural immortal body. He appeared to his friends and disciples and spent 40 days with them before he returned to heaven. 

A week later the Spirit of God came upon 120 of His followers and changed them from the inside.

Now you and I can have the same blessing, the Spirit of God living inside us and rebuilding our human nature, so we can be more like God on the inside.
If you really want to put your life in God’s hands, just ask Him. He will not turn you away.

Jesus invites us today to come to him to be changed and to have a new life with himself.

“Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Mt 11:28 NRSV

“So I say to you: Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. 
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. 
“Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead? 
Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion? 
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!” Lk 11:9–13 NIV

Spiritual Pregnancy. New Life in the Spirit

 If you grew up in an English-speaking country, you may remember a conversation like this.

“Mummy, where do babies come from?”
“Babies come from mummy’s tummy.”

Of course, we know that the tummy or stomach is for digesting food and babies grow in the womb, or uterus, a totally different thing. 

But in all three languages of the Bible, Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic, there is an interesting word which can be correctly translated as stomach, belly or womb.

In the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink. He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water. John 7:37-38 (KJV)

But this He spoke concerning the Spirit, whom those believing in Him would receive; for the Holy Spirit was not yet given, because Jesus was not yet glorified. John 7:39 (NKJV)

The word BELLY is the translation of the Greek KOILIA. 

The equivalent Hebrew word is BETEN. When Jesus spoke these words in the temple, He may have been speaking Aramaic. 

The Aramaic Bible uses the word: K'aRSeH, which can also mean BELLY or WOMB. These words are often interpreted figuratively as HEART or INMOST BEING.

In the flesh, the womb and the stomach are quite distinct and only a woman has a womb. 
But in the spiritual realm it is a different story.

Jonah went down into the belly of the great fish or whale. When he came out of the fish’s belly, it was like a resurrection. The belly of the fish was like the womb giving birth to a new man.

The satisfaction of hunger and thirst sustains life. This is the function of the belly, to convert food and drink into life, to keep us alive and refresh us.

But the function of the womb goes further. The womb is the place where a seed sown grows into new life until a new person emerges. The stomach sustains life but the womb reproduces and multiplies life.

The inmost being of every born again Christian believer is potentially both a spiritual stomach and a spiritual womb. 

In this spiritual dimension, there is no male or female. God desires to fill us with the Living Water of His Spirit to nourish, sustain and refresh us but He desires more. God fervently desires to satisfy our thirst but then to take us further, to make us bearers of new life for others.

To hunger and thirst for new life and refreshment in your own soul is not selfish. It is essential. But it is not enough. God wants his people to be like healthy young mothers, reproducing, multiplying, bringing newborn again believers into the world.

The conversion of unbelievers is the birthing of new life. Nothing is more wonderful than the restoration of a sinner to the heart of the Father in Heaven.

But evangelism is not the only way to birth a work of God’s Spirit. 
To sing an inspired song, write a book or paint a picture with God requires a joining together of the Spirit of God with the human spirit in an intimate connection like a husband and wife producing a new person. 

Every work of faith involves the bearing of living fruit, like giving birth to a child.
Have you been feeling tired and heavy lately? Maybe you need to stop struggling in your own strength. Get filled with the Spirit who can produce new life in you and then through you.
Or can it be that you are heavily pregnant in the Spirit?

Do you have a vision for a ministry, a mission, a book, a business, a child, a family revived and restored, a move of the Spirit in your city?

You may feel heavy because the baby is nearly due.
Be encouraged!

Some of you are in labour now and your dream or vision is about to be transformed from faith into sight.

Where are your Roots? Your life is from God.

 In many churches, you hear a call. The preacher issues an invitation to all who do not know Jesus personally to accept Jesus as their Saviour and Lord. 

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. 
He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— Jn 1:10–12 NIV

Many pray with the pastor and ask Jesus to come into their lives and forgive all their sins. Then we see how some experience a whole new life. They think differently. They speak differently and they live differently.

But unfortunately, we see others who do not change. Some stay in the church for a while and then disappear. 

Others stay in the church, learn to fit in and become religious, but their colleagues at work see no trace of God's love in their lives.

What is the difference? 

Jesus explained that the message of God's grace is like a seed. The seed must fall into the ground and take root. 

Are you ready to let God's Spirit work deep within your soul? Jesus is no longer physically on earth, but He has sent His Holy Spirit to us. 

• The Holy Spirit wants to help you.

• The Holy Spirit wants to heal the wounds and scars in your soul.

• The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of truth and the Spirit of love.

• The Holy Spirit is the Spirit of Jesus Christ. He is like Jesus Himself, but invisible and close to us.

 
When you give the Holy Spirit space in your soul, you will be able to read the Bible in a new way. God's Word will come alive for you.

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. 

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.” Jn 7:37–38 NIV (from their heart or from their inmost being)

You are like a plant in God's garden. Without roots and water, you will die. 

Where are the roots of your life? In your job? In your family? In your church?

God gives us work, families and churches. These are gifts from God, but only God Himself is the source of your eternal life.

And now just as you trusted Christ to save you, trust him, too, for each day’s problems; live in vital union with him. 

Let your roots grow down into him and draw up nourishment from him. See that you go on growing in the Lord, and become strong and vigorous in the truth you were taught. Let your lives overflow with joy and thanksgiving for all he has done. Col 2:6–7 The Living Bible, Paraphrased

WIthout the Holy Spirit. Only Dead Religion

  Imagine you are sitting in front of the television. You have the remote control next to you. Then the enemy sneaks in, takes the remote control and changes the channel. 

If you passively accept this, you no longer control your thoughts, because what you see before your eyes will direct and distract your thoughts.

What we see or read on the internet influences our thoughts. 

How can we know what is true and what is not?
How can we understand what is important and what is trivial?

The apostle Paul gives us an important instruction.

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

How can we purify our minds from the deceitful influences around us?
We must truly pray and hold fast to God's Word.

But there is another danger. We can turn away from worldliness, but then become narrow-minded and religious....

 for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Corinthians 3:6 

Prayer and God's Word are our shield and weapons, and also our medicine.

But without the Holy Spirit, prayer is like a car without petrol.
Without the Holy Spirit, the Bible is a dry religious textbook.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Rom 8:26 NIV


But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, Jude 1:20 NIV

I often pray in tongues. To some, this seems like a charismatic aberration. 
But let me ask you a question. If you don't pray in tongues, how do you pray ‘in the Holy Spirit’? 

We can pray in a known language with a strong anointing and inspiration of the Holy Spirit. In my experience, praying in tongues increases my ability to receive inspiration to pray in my own language with palpable blessing and power. Clearly, Paul did this.

For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 
So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit, but I will also pray with my understanding; I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding. 1 Co 14:14–15 NIV

The context of these verses clearly indicates that when Paul speaks of praying in the Spirit, he means praying in an unknown tongue.

If prayer in the Holy Spirit is not a reality in your life, you can ask God to lead you into a deeper experience of the Holy Spirit.

In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. Rom 8:26 NIV

Not Sent but they Went

A newly converted taxi driver in an Asian city went to a bar where the waitresses were prostitutes and the owner sold drugs. He made friends with the owner and showed them the love of God. 

The owner and prostitutes became Christians, and the bar became a church.

The taxi driver went on his own initiative. 

He was not sent but he went.

A young English woman went on a voyage to Hong Kong. She went to the most horrible slum where the police never went. It was a closed community of gangsters, drug addicts and prostitutes. God protected her and used her. The horrible slum was cleaned up and many became Christians.

She was not sent but she went.

Now those who had been scattered by the persecution that broke out when Stephen was killed travelled as far as Phoenicia, Cyprus and Antioch, spreading the word only among Jews. 

Some of them, however, men from Cyprus and Cyrene, went to Antioch and began to speak to Greeks also, telling them the good news about the Lord Jesus. Acts 11:19–20 NIV

These first generation Christians were not appointed by the Apostles.

They were not sent but they went.

In fact these pioneers were sent by God, although not appointed by human leaders.

My wife and I started a prayer meeting at home on Friday evenings. We prayed with the woman across the road who belonged to a different church. My wife watched the crime statistics in our suburb. The number of crimes steadily declined as we prayed.

Then our pastor and his wife asked if they could come. Of course we agreed. Some time later they said the church didn’t have a prayer meeting. They took over the prayer meeting and relocated to another house nearer the church. Not long after that the church failed and closed, along with the prayer meeting. We felt cheated.

It is so important to encourage Christians to take initiative. How do you mobilise the Holy Spirit? Just let God do what he wants with anyone who is willing to do something.

My wife and I spent ten years in a church which had no membership list. People from other churches or no church were welcome to come to free flowing meetings on Friday evenings. The pastor told us listen to the Holy Spirit and just go out and do something.

God called me to go to Germany five times from 2011 to 2016. I did not ask the pastor for permission and when he found out, he just encouraged me to just go and do it. God blessed my freelance mission trips with many invitations. I preached many times and made lifelong friends.

I started writing Christian messages in about 2008. In the beginning it was a circular newsletter using email. Then I started blogging in 2009. Since then the readership has multiplied and I have received feedback from people who have reported their lives have changed.

When I started writing, my pastor was not at all supportive but then we moved to a better church and the pastor actually prophesied that God was using me.

If you have a gift or a calling from God, it may help if your pastor or your church appoints you but sometimes you need to just go and do something.

Church leaders can be great encouragers, but sometimes they can hinder what God wants to do.

Expect Sudden Turnarounds from God

When Jesus came down from the mountainside, large crowds followed him.
A man with leprosy came and knelt before him and said, “Lord, if you are willing, you can make me clean.”
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. “I am willing,” he said. “Be clean!” Immediately he was cleansed of his leprosy. Mt 8:1–3 NIV

God can change a man or a woman in an instant. God can change a person’s life in 24 hours. The day that David killed Goliath, he changed from being a shepherd boy to being a national military hero, in one day. More than that, in one day the nation of Israel changed from being terrified victims to being conquerors as God intended, all because one boy became a man in one day.

When the day of Pentecost finally arrived, there was the sound of a mighty rushing wind. 120 disciples of Jesus were baptised in the Holy Spirit. They all spoke languages they had never learned; Peter preached an inspired sermon and 3000 people were born again. The Church was born in a day.

One day a Pharisee named Saul was on his way to Damascus. The purpose of his journey was to arrest and imprison Christians in that city. On the way, Jesus appeared to Saul and the Apostle Paul was born.

On two days towards the end of 1915, a great but defeated army evacuated the coast of Turkey. Not one life was lost. In 2 nights, an unknown Australian colonel became a military hero whose brilliant thinking rewrote the British military textbooks and whose battle plans in 1918 shortened that terrible war by months.

When Jesus returns to Jerusalem to end the Battle of Armageddon, the surviving Jews will see their Messiah and believe, and a nation will be born again in a day.

Prepare for good things and great blessings. Expect sudden turnarounds.

We Need Supernatural Gifts Today

 Why do we still need the supernatural spiritual gifts that appear in the New Testament?

God still wants to heal supernaturally today.

Why did Jesus heal? The suffering of the sick aroused such compassion in Jesus that his stomach turned. He never changed. God is love. He has never changed.

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever. Heb 13:8 NRSV

Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father. Jn 14:12 NRSV

We need to release the healing gifts of the Holy Spirit because Jesus commanded it, because he loves sick people.

We need the gift of grace to discern spirits. (1 Cor 12:9)

So many Christians try to discern spirits, but only on the basis of Bible knowledge. But how can we help a mentally ill person if we don't know what the cause of the illness may be? Natural or demonic?

• Is the sick person demonised, or do demons play a lesser role?

• Should we pray for miraculous healing or cast out demons?

• Does this person need counselling or psychiatry or simply deliverance?

Bible knowledge or psychology often cannot provide answers. We need revelation from the Holy Spirit.

Once I wanted to help a person who had taken a lethal overdose. I prayed for hours in unknown languages from the Holy Spirit. God intervened and the person recovered without harm.

Why was praying in tongues necessary and effective? I desperately needed a miracle from God, but my faith was not enough to get the miracle I needed, but the gift of praying in tongues added God’s supernatural power to my limited faith.

Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.

And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Rom 8:26–27 NRSV

Paul did not want to speak in tongues in the church service, but rather prophesy so that the congregation would understand, but in his private prayer time it was quite different.

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you; 1 Cor 14:18 NRSV

Your Calling and Mission

 Jesus came to purge you and me of our sins. What should our lives look like afterwards?

Jesus didn't just come to cleanse your life of offences so that you could continue your everyday life without dirty sins. God wants to use you to set other people free.

When the first people believed the devil's lies and rebelled against God's commandment, they gave their God-given dominion over this world into the hands of the enemy.

Jesus defeated the devil with his sinless life, his death on the cross and his resurrection from the realm of the dead.

Shortly before his return to the Father in heaven, he instructed his disciples to take back the lost world for God.

We find the final instructions to his disciples in four biblical passages.

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Mt 28:19 NRSV

And these signs will accompany those who believe: by using my name they will cast out demons; they will speak in new tongues;
they will pick up snakes in their hands, and if they drink any deadly thing, it will not hurt them; they will lay their hands on the sick, and they will recover.” Mk 16:17–18 NRSV


But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” Acts 1:8 NIV

When we read these passages carefully, we see a heavenly calling to a dramatic mission, but the enemy has been misguiding us for centuries.

We have thought this mission was only for a few especially holy ordained preachers and missionaries.
We have thought that the dramatic spiritual gifts in Mark chapter 16 were only for a short time 2000 years ago.

But when we read all these passages together, we see that Jesus has called us to a supernatural mission ‘to the ends of the earth’. (Acts 1:8)

This mission is still a work in progress. You and I are called to play an important role. God is at work in your life.

Don't stay where you are. Let the Holy Spirit give you a new revelation of your heavenly destiny.  

Start seeking God's path for your life today. Do something new. How can you act differently today? Start small. Move forward step by step.

Experiencing God Personally

There are Christians who hold on to biblical truths, but they are not enthusiastic about spiritual experiences or strong emotions.

It is true that our feelings cannot be a reliable basis for our faith, but God is love. Without strong feelings, love is just an abstract theological idea.

The foundation of our faith is the Bible. The Holy Scriptures are from God himself. We must understand the clear theological statements in the Bible as authoritative, but it is a big mistake to focus only on theological statements.

In the Bible we also find the experiences of faithful Jews and Christians who loved God. These experiences are just as important as theological statements. They belong together, like flesh and blood, like truth and love, like light and life.

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? Ps 42:1–2 NIV

When we try to separate feelings and experience from truth, we go completely wrong.

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness,
gentleness and self-control… Gal 5:22–23 NIV

This is a theological statement. Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control are not feelings, but virtues.

Love is also a virtue, but not just a virtue. Love without feelings is not love.
Peace without feelings is not peace. Joy without feelings is not joy.

In Psalm 42, the psalmist speaks of his longing for God's presence in the services in the tabernacle or in the temple. Where God reveals his holy presence, we experience something.

There is a big difference between a map and a beautiful fertile landscape. Theological statements are our indispensable map, but God's direct presence is our promised land.

I have experienced wonderful blessings in church services. Hopefully you have too, but we no longer live in the Old Covenant. In the Old Covenant, God's tangible presence was mostly found in the temple, but 50 days after his death on the cross, Jesus sent us his Holy Spirit from heaven.

Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”
By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Jn 7:38–39 NIV

It's wonderful when you experience a fresh refreshing of the Holy Spirit in a blessed worship service, but sometimes it's even better when you can feel and enjoy God's glory in your daily life at home or on a walk in the park.

Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. Rev 3:20 NRSV

This is not just an invitation for the unconverted, but an invitation for Christians to enjoy a tangible communion with God in our everyday life.

Your Life is a Work in Progress

 God is our creator. If you have achieved some things, who gave you your talents?

For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? 1 Cor 4:7 NIV

Do you have a very good knowledge of the Bible? There is always someone who understands better. Who gave you a mind to understand?

We cannot understand anything of God's truth without the grace and revelation that comes only from the Holy Spirit.

Unless the LORD builds the house, the builders labour in vain. Unless the LORD watches over the city, the guards stand watch in vain. Ps 127:1 NIV

Imagine you're working on a building site. The architect is a genius. His plans are available, but you want to design everything yourself. A bit silly, isn't it?

Your life is a building site. We are all a work in progress.

Paul, the great apostle, knew that he had not reached God's holy perfection.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Php 3:12 NIV

God has given you his plans. You have the Bible, the Word of God. But how can we understand God's deep wisdom in the Bible? God has given us his Spirit.

If you have given your life into Jesus' hands, He has given you His Spirit. Do you know the Holy Spirit personally? Or is the Spirit of God just a theological concept for you?

“If you love me, keep my commands.
And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— Jn 14:15–16 NIV

Without Jesus we are lost and without God. If you trust Jesus and want to follow him, he will forgive your sins. Firstly, Jesus says that he wants our love. If we love him, we will obey his commandments.

But what Jesus is asking is impossible. It's like telling your five-year-old son to build his own house, get married, find a job and have children.

That is why Jesus promises in the next verse that He will give us His Holy Spirit as our counsellor, who alone can enable us to live a life with God. The Holy Spirit can do this because He Himself is God.

The first disciples could only follow Jesus because Jesus was with them.

That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. 1 Jn 1:1 NIV

Jesus wants to give us an experience of God's presence that is just as tangible as the fellowship of the first apostles with Jesus before the cross and then after his resurrection.

Have I come that far? Not yet, although I have wonderful experiences with God.

Like Paul, I can say.

Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Php 3:12 NIV

Believe Patiently. God Steps In

 Sometimes we pray with confidence in God, but we don't see an answer for days, weeks, months or years, but sometimes we see an amazing answer from God in minutes or seconds.

I was converted in 1974. I prayed for my father for almost 36 years. At 88, he was bedridden in an aged care home and he gave his life to Jesus. He died at 91 and is now in heaven.

Faith without patience often doesn't work.

In 2011, I was in Germany with my wife. We visited a friend of ours in a clinic. When we left the clinic, it was dark and cold. It was drizzling. We urgently needed a taxi, but we didn't see a vehicle in this quiet suburb. Our host told us not to expect a taxi here. Nevertheless, my wife prayed for a taxi and one appeared almost immediately.

Everything can change in a short time.

Jesus had to die on the cross. His disciples gave up all hope, but three days later Jesus came back from the grave.

Moses was a refugee. He spent forty years as a shepherd in the desert, but then God himself appeared as a fire in a bush. Suddenly his life was totally different.

After his resurrection from the grave, Jesus spent forty days with his disciples, but then he returned to heaven. After that, the disciples stayed together for a week until, in an instant, God intervened dramatically.

And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting.

And there appeared to them tongues as of fire distributing themselves, and they rested on each one of them.

And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak with other tongues, as the Spirit was giving them utterance. Acts 2:2–4 NASB95

You may have been frustrated and disappointed for years, but God sees your heart and He cares for you. God has not forgotten you.

Don't give up hope. You can trust God. He will amaze us in the time to come.

The Leading of the Holy Spirit

 Not that we are competent in ourselves to claim anything for ourselves, but our competence comes from God. 2 Cor 3:5 NIV

It is very dangerous to be led by impressions or feelings without having firm grounding in biblical truth. All kinds of deceptions can lead to shipwreck. So many sects and false religions have arisen because of this.

Our foundation is God and his truth. Without the Bible, we are groping around in the dark.

Jesus himself said:

Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. Mk 13:31 NIV

We may be guided by our own thoughts, but we must submit to God's truth, and this truth is found in God's Word.

Paul wrote the above verse. He had a problem. He knew the Old Testament by heart. Contact with non-Jews was strictly forbidden in God's law. A Jew was not allowed to eat with non-Jews.

But Jesus had given the command:

Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,  

and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” Mt 28:19–20 NRSV

How was Paul to fulfil this commandment? Jesus lived as a Jew and so did his disciples, but many of the newly converted Christians were not Jews. Many were slaves who always had to obey their unbelieving masters.

If their masters ordered them to work every day, they were not allowed to observe a holy day. A man was allowed to simply execute his slave for disobedience.

Paul had to be guided by the Holy Spirit. For Paul, God's law was still holy. In his letters we find commands against idolatry, theft, murder, adultery, etc. That is, the Ten Commandments, but if we research Paul's writings in detail, we find only nine commandments. The commandment to keep the Sabbath is missing.

We must hold fast to God's Word, but like Paul, let ourselves be guided by the Holy Spirit.

Is a Christian allowed to visit a pub or a brothel? If we look in the Bible for fixed laws, perhaps we can make a rule against it. But there are Christians who do mission work in pubs.

But there are Christians who do mission work in pubs or brothels and win people for Jesus. We need to be led by the Holy Spirit. For many Christians, such places are terribly dangerous, but there are some Christians who, like Jesus, have the grace to be a friend of sinners.

He has made us competent as ministers of a new covenant—not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life. 2 Cor 3:6 NIV

We must never deviate from the truth in the Bible, but we must also, like Paul, be led by the Spirit of God.

We must read the Bible under the guidance of the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, we read with our own minds.

We can then become humanistic theologians or legalistic Pharisees.

If we understand the New Testament as an inflexible law book, without the guidance of God, we go wrong.

Falling Away or End Time Revival?

 No matter how weak you feel right now, you can rely on God's strength.
God has brought you this far in his love. He wants to be your helper and friend for the whole of your life.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I shall dwell in the house of the LORD my whole life long. Ps 23:6 NRSV

And I am certain that God, who began the good work within you, will continue his work until it is finally finished on the day when Christ Jesus returns. Php 1:6 NLT

God has a very special plan for his people.

When we look around us, we no longer see a Christian civilisation. It is hard to see how God is in control of this world.

In families and nations that took the Christian faith for granted 100 years ago, we see all kinds of other worldviews and ways of thinking.

Many faithful Christians see an urgent need for revival, but others don't believe because they point to Bible passages that warn of apostasy.

Then many will fall away, and they will betray one another and hate one another.
And many false prophets will arise and lead many astray.
And because of the increase of lawlessness, the love of many will grow cold. Mt 24:10–12 NRSV

The apostasy has long been underway in Western countries. Before the Enlightenment and the French Revolution, atheism was almost unknown. In formerly Christian countries, we see how biblical laws are increasingly being disregarded and abolished.

There are some Bible readers who claim, ‘So if apostasy prevails, we should not expect revival.’

But this is not the case. In this age of increasing unbelief, God has brought about the most amazing revivals of all time.

In 1727, a prayer movement began in Herrnhut, Germany. Under the leadership of Count von Zinzendorf, faithful Christians prayed around the clock for 100 years without ceasing.

The awakened Christians in Herrnhut sent missionaries all over the world.

It was through these missionaries that John Wesley came to a living faith. John and Charles Wesley became fires for Jesus. Their ministry transformed England.

The influence of Zinzendorf and Wesley reached North America, where amazing revivals emerged and shaped the whole culture.

In 20th century Russia, communist atheism became dominant, but they could not extinguish God's light. A persecuted underground church caught fire and a hidden revival was unstoppable.

The communists in China and the Muslims in Indonesia tried in vain to suppress powerful Christian revivals.

For 300 years we have seen apostasy and revival manifest simultaneously.

In the midst of the deepest darkness, God keeps producing new life in this difficult world. The devil wants to stifle God's life in you and around you, but God is still at work.

God is still the almighty God, the God of love and dramatic miracles.

The Egyptian Pharaoh wanted to exterminate the Hebrew babies, but Moses was saved by his own daughter.

Herod wanted to kill God's Son as an infant. All the babies in Bethlehem were slaughtered, but God had a plan for Jesus, and Herod could not overrule God's plan.

What does God want to say to you in this difficult time?

Arise, shine; for your light has come, and the glory of the LORD has risen upon you.
For darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples; but the LORD will arise upon you, and his glory will appear over you. Is 60:1–2 NRSV

Overcoming Distractions

 God gives you and me important assignments and sometimes we don't fulfil them.

 Why is that?

I often allow distractions to hold me back. Do you too?

We are so easily distracted by electronic media.

Jesus is our role model. He always lived in communion with the Father. He never allowed himself to be distracted.

Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? What I say to you I do not speak of my own accord: it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his works. Jn 14:10 NJB

If you love Jesus and follow Him, then God Himself lives in you.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever—
the Spirit of truth. ... you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. Jn 14:16–17 NIV

The Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit, dwells in us, but we must be attentive.
We must be careful that we listen to Him, that we live in communion with Him, that we are not distracted by our visible environment.

We certainly want to follow Jesus, but in our thoughts we sometimes wander and then we do not listen to the voice of God as we would like.

But Paul exhorts us to train our minds, and we certainly want to do that because we don't want to be failures.

Do not conform yourselves to this world, but be transformed and renew your minds,
that you may prove and discern what is the will of God, what pleases him, what is good and perfect. Romans 12:2

It is so easy to be influenced by negative thoughts.
The internet and worldly media a full of negativity.
If you always eat unhealthy food, you can't be healthy.If you drink a lot of beer or wine several times a day, you can no longer think clearly.

This world is poisonous and we must defend our hearts against it.
We need to let God's word cleanse our hearts. but don’t let bible knowledge be an end in itself.

Jesus said to the Jewish scribes:

You study the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. These are the very Scriptures that testify about me,
yet you refuse to come to me to have life. Jn 5:39–40 NIV

Bible reading can be learning about God or getting to know God personally.

We need to build ourselves up daily in the Spirit. I thank God that he is so merciful with me and always wants to help me.

God has given me his Holy Spirit and I can pray in the Spirit. Speaking in tongues is not difficult at all and the Holy Spirit then prays with me.

But you, dear friends, by building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit,
keep yourselves in God’s love as you wait for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ to bring you to eternal life. Jude 20–21 NIV

Paul wrote:

I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you. 1 Cor 14:18 NIV

If we want to fulfil the tasks that God gives us, we must build ourselves up with God's help.

In the same way the Spirit also helps our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we should, but the Spirit Himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words;

and He who searches the hearts knows what the mind of the Spirit is, because He intercedes for the saints according to the will of God. Rom 8:26–27 NASB95

Knowing Jesus. Hearing His Voice

 Jesus did not call people to be passive believers waiting to die and go to heaven.

For Jesus, faith was a strong personal connection with his heavenly Father. He wants you and me to experience nothing less.

“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. Jn 15:9 NIV

 Jesus lived his whole life on earth, saturated with the love of his Father and filled with the Holy Spirit of God. He wants nothing less for you and me.

On the last and greatest day of the festival, Jesus stood and said in a loud voice, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink.
 
Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.”

By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified. Jn 7:37–39 NIV

He called people to follow Him, to learn from Him, to obey Him, to become like Him, to live in friendship with God as He had just done.

When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” Jn 8:12 NIV

What does it mean to follow Jesus?

It does not mean travelling to Israel, wearing old-fashioned clothes and preaching in Aramaic.

Nor does it mean fitting in at a church where nothing special happens. With Jesus in Israel, it was never conventional, routine or religious.

God calls you to trust Him as Jesus trusted, to know Him as Jesus knew Him personally.  

God calls you to be full of love for others, loving like Jesus.

God is calling you to hear His voice and recognise and do what He shows you, just like Jesus.

Don’t you believe that I am in the Father, and that the Father is in me? The words I say to you, I do not speak on my own authority. Rather, it is the Father, living in me, who is doing his work. Jn 14:10 NIV

You and I are far from living up to this amazing example, but we can grow into Christ.

Follow God's example in everything, for you are his beloved children.

Let your lives be characterised by love, just as Christ loved us, for he gave himself as a gift and sacrifice for our sins...

How did Jesus live on earth?

He was always in communication with his Heavenly Father. He was always open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, in every moment.

I am learning to experience the guidance of the Holy Spirit better and better. This is a learning process for all of us.

My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.

I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand. Jn 10:27–28 NIV

Are you not yet travelling with Jesus? You can start now.