Category: Articles

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Cleansing the temple

There is a cleansing happening in the Body of Christ, a sifting that is preparing the way for the King of Glory to make his entrance. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit and He wants to inhabit us in His glory.

The Lord is a jealous God and will not share His glory with another so when His glory comes into the temple the temple must first be made ready and cleansed of anything that is not God.

First comes the wind

The wind can be likened to when Jesus chased the thieves from the temple. His zeal for His father’s house consumed him, he made a whip from chord and chased out the merchants saying “you have made My father’s house a den of robbers”.

God is sending the fierce His wind of His love to chase the things that are stealing space in His temple and establishing false alters; death, fear, anxiety ,sorrow, grief, sickness, infirmity, lust and the cares of this world are all false alters that occupy His temple and He will not put up with His temples being invaded and abused any longer. He will chase out all that has been oppressing us and re-establish His altar.

Then comes the water

Next comes the water, the deep cleansing. When false alters are established in us, we often make sacrifices upon them by giving our attention to these things and letting them occupy our thoughts, resources and lives, even affecting our emotions and bodies.
We are giving them pre-eminence in our lives over God, so essentially worshipping them. If we think about a normal altar where sacrifices would be made, it leaves a mess of ashes, dead bones, liquids, oil and grains etc. The water comes to cleanse all the leftovers from the sacrifices made to false gods, it cleans the slate so to speak (Malachi 3:2 Jesus is likened to the fuller’s soap and a refining fire).

Then comes the fire

Once the altar of the Lord is re-established, we make sacrifice upon it through praise, prayer, lifestyle choices, generosity and worship to God the way we should: holy, pure and uncompromised. This is acceptable to God and fire then falls on an acceptable sacrifice, essentially sanctifying the temple (setting it apart) and approving the offering.

Last comes the glory

The sanctified temple is now ready to receive the King of Glory in His glory. Once the glory comes, everything changes, God is on the thrown and dominion is established. The temple starts to influence and change the culture and atmosphere around it as the authority and power of God rests in it and up it and godly governance is established.

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Waters above and waters below

And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water

Genesis 1:6  
6 And God said, “Let there be a vault between the waters to separate water from water.” 7 So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it. And it was so. 8 God called the vault “sky.” And there was evening, and there was morning—the second day.

God separated the waters on earth from the waters in heaven. Is it possible that this is an image of the Spirit of God in heaven and the Spirit of God placed in man where deep calls to deep and the Spirit of God rises up in man as the Spirit of God draws His Spirit “out” of us towards Him? Is it possible that when the two are joined that we get a manifestation of heaven on earth?

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Friction makes fire

When there is sufficient friction, a fire is started. The question is what kind of fire will the friction or trials of life create in me.

There are 2 kinds of fire that can be created in us when friction (which are the difficulties of life: sickness, loss, financial hardship, relational challenges etc.) occurs.

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Open doors and the illegitimacy of thieves

The Example of a House

open doors

The devil likes to tell us that he has a legitimate claim to our lives. That we “leave doors open” and that gives him a right to come in and rob, steal and destroy our lives, our families or our friends. This is a lie, I will explain why.

If a person leaves the doors or windows of their home open and a robber comes in, steals and vandalises the house, does the fact that the person left the door open make the act of the robber legitimate? no, of course not. The person will file a complaint with the police because the action was illegal. The house did not belong to the robber so the robber had no rights over it or its contents.

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Sin and Slavery: The Generational Cycle

Sin is slavery. Generational sin is generational slavery.

Sin is slavery. Generational sin is generational slavery.

Introduction

When someone enters slavery at first, after knowing freedom, they consider it to be an abnormal state. As time goes by, they are gradually submitted to their new condition through constant oppression. They begin to accept it, to view it as inevitable, unchangeable and as their “new normal”. There may be passing thoughts of resistance but the fear of the consequences of acting on those thoughts paralyze them into passivity, submission and inaction.

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Just one bite!

A woman biting an apple

The root of male/female relationship problems

There is a direct connection between how we relate to God and how we relate to each other. Simply put, the more we are in love with God, our Creator, the easier it is to love people, His creation. Our close relationships demonstrate this in our fluctuating levels of grace and compassion. This is particularly evident in the marriage relationship. Recently I realised how corrupt this relationship had become as a result of ‘The Fall’. Adam and Eve’s sin not only wrecked their relationship with God, but also dramatically changed the way they related to each other. Their actions produced divisions and negative ways of relating which have been passed down through the generations, to affect us today.

Continue reading “Just one bite!”
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What is witchcraft?

A witch drawing in black and white, the witch has a pointy hat, a black dress and a knife in her right hand, she is looking down on and old book, she has a candle in her left hand.

Firstly, what exactly is it? Most of us imagine a man or woman in a pointy hat looking at dusty old books and making up magic potions. That is not the core definition of witchcraft.

Witchcraft, above anything else, is the imposition of one being’s character, desires or opinions over another person’s free will in opposition to the latter’s complete freedom. It is the power of agreement imposed upon another person. It is coercion, manipulation or imposition of one person’s free will over another’s in order to obtain agreement on an subject, issue, opinion or action.

The premise of complete freedom was given to us by God himself when he said Christ has given us freedom for freedom itself, not to impose an agenda, opinion, doctrine or way of life, but so that we could be truely free to make our own choices and decisions in life.

So our foundation in Christ is complete freedom. Imagine being able to fly, you can go up, down, left, right, forwards or backwards; that is the spiritual position Christ puts us in when we accept Him and He says “I set you free now go for it, try something”.

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Religion obliges vs. love empowers

There are so many different religions, so what’s the difference between Christianity and any other religion?

Most religions lay out a set of laws and rules that you need to obey to be worthy or righteous or to attain some degree of spiritual piety, prestige or position. The most holy thing in the religion is the rule book or law by which the believer abides.

With Christianity, the law or rules are not obligations that hover over you with a promise of punishment for wrongdoing; they are a foundation on which you stand.

The premise is that Christ died to make you perfect. You are born again and setup for success on a solid foundation. That foundation then is not above you, crushing you, but under you, built by those who went before you.

It’s for you build on. You stand on Christ (the Word of God), the foundation, to do greater things than He did. Everything is sustained by the Word of God, not by your own effort.

You do not begin your journey under an impossible burden of perfection, you start as a baby for whom all is provided and you grow and learn to hunt for your own food; to “build the temple” of the Holy Spirit on the foundation of The Word that is given to you at conception.

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Should Boris Johnson resign?

We’ve all heard the cries of scandal in the past week over a couple of parties held at No 10 and the demands from various parties for Boris Johnson’s resignation. All well and good, politicians should be held to account.

The question that arises as soon as I hear these kinds of things is; What is in the nation’s best interest?

The answer is not always self-evident as there are many parameters to consider:

Stability

Firstly, let’s talk about stability. In a context of Covid and economic uncertainty, do we need a change of leadership or would it be wiser to let those who have some experience of leading the country in the current context continue to do so?  A government that changes too often does not have time to implement policies that are potentially beneficial for the country, it is also vulnerable to outside influence from other countries as it is weakened by the lack of internal support and so needs to seek allies externally, this invariably comes at a cost, there’s no such thing as a free lunch in politics.

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