A New Government

The last few of years have seen a heightened degree of interest at a global level around many national elections aligned with increasing disillusion with the establishment. Last weekend, here in Australia it was our turn.

Although it may appear that we just changed horses, and many feel quite concerned about the outcome, a couple of days before the election I felt that peace beyond understanding creep over me. Exploring what this meant I sensed God saying that the outcome of the voting was largely inconsequential in comparison to what He is doing.

Musing over this alongside my observations of various groups lobbying for this right and that, or for laws to be changed or repealed, I have questioned my involvement and the importance of our activity in these arenas. My journey through these thoughts has taken a few twists and turns, however and I have landed with a quite different perspective. Rather than trying to change our earthly governments directly, I see the concept of what it means for us, as Christians, to rule and reign with Jesus here on earth as being far more important.

I have long felt that simply changing laws to be more in line with “Christian values” only delays the inevitable as society has continued on its merry, progressive way, leaving behind faith and the fear of the Lord as outdated and irrelevant. The law tries to transform from the outside in, but to my mind, what is far more necessary and effective for the transformation of our society is the transformation of our hearts. Indeed, with transformed hearts, laws mostly become irrelevant. As Paul said, in Romans 8:10, “Love does not do harm to a neighbour; therefore love is the fullness of the law.” And hence, my sense that who is governing is irrelevant in many aspects.

The point is, as I have discussed previously, while we operate out of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, right and wrong or judgement, we can never truly love each other. It will always come back to self interest, to blame and to death and destruction. For all our Christian faith,

if we have not learned to live out of the law of love, we will never be world changers.

Returning to the idea of governance, I felt a really deep revelation over the weekend that I believe is quintessential to the way ahead. It is a totally different way of fighting, but oh so much more profitable, so much more bang for our buck. In this past season/era, we have done so much of our fighting in the natural realm, which is only really like a bandaid on a shark bite at best to what ails our world - so often completely ineffective.

So how do we fight differently?

Many Christians I know can quite easily quote Ephesians 6:12:

“For our battle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, authorities and powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.”

However, in the main, we give every appearance of constantly viewing other people as our enemy, and we behave accordingly. We fight people. We can’t see past the behaviour to the person underneath whom Jesus loves so much He died for them. And He commands us to do likewise.

Love God, love your neighbour as yourself – it is that simple and that hard!

Working out what that love actually looks like probably needs to be on a case-by-case basis, but a good rule of thumb is that our response is patient, is kind, does not does not envy; or parade itself, is not arrogant; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. It never fails. (1 Corinthians 13, NKJV)

The real clincher for me, though, was realising how we are to rule and reign in this new era. As I have contemplated this for some months now, and seeing God bringing down old structures and ways, I have wondered what the new might look like. Last weekend, I feel I was handed a key.

It is about our dominion over the spiritual realm. However, there is many a caution here. We cannot and must not even try to do this in our own strength or without walking closely with Holy Spirit in the how and when. Equally, though, there are some very easy and clear indicators of what it looks like.

First, there is a sequence to the level of our authority. The primary and most important area of authority we have is one that every person on the planet has, no matter their spiritual state:

Authority over self.

This is so important because if we haven’t learned to take authority here, our authority in other realms can easily be skewed or twisted and cause more damage than good. The enemy of our souls looks for these areas in our life and uses them to his advantage. Having the right order within our BE-ing is equally important: our spirit needs to take command over our soul and flesh/body. My flesh and soul will demand loudly what they want and need for their appeasement, but this is usually out of sync with the law of love, because they tend to put self ahead of others.

The second area of authority is our homes and relationships, especially in relationships such as with our children. We get to say what operates in those arenas without doubt. The only times that this won’t work is when we haven’t taken authority in our own person over the same issue. For example, I can’t expect to take authority over anger, or shame, or condemnation in my home if I don’t take authority over the way I deal with anger, shame or condemnation in myself.

From there, we move out into our community and beyond as we grow in spiritual stature.

But what does it look like? Simply casting out demons is not the answer (remember the idea of cleaning the house and seven worse spirits coming in?) and besides, it can be very dangerous if we fight above the authority God has given us personally.

There is a very simple measure, though, which is extremely powerful. It starts with the fruit of the spirit. As we manifest the fruit of Holy Spirit – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control – these have the power to overcome many other spiritual manifestations.

At times it will require us to lay down our lives, if not physically, definitely emotionally and spiritually. However, as we do, as we cease to respond to negative behaviour and situations in kind, but in the opposite spirit, we first learn to carry the victory of Jesus Christ in ourself, and then on into our communities and beyond. As we respond in Godly ways, we actually start to change the atmosphere around us and rather than increasing the negativity around us, will start to cleanse and bless it for Kingdom of God change.

A great insight into this comes from Roy Godwin (The Grace Outpouring), who has practiced this with amazing results in his local community by simply blessing his community with every good thing. At first, this is very confronting. In our minds, we believe that “bad people” don’t deserve blessing; they deserve punishment. Just like I did or do – I’m not perfect yet! And yet Scripture tells us that it is God’s kindness that leads us to repentance, (Romans 2:4). Not His wrath. So why do we keep looking to wrath and punishment as the answer? It is not our job to judge or meet out judgement or punishment. Our investment in ourselves is far too comprehensive to do it with any measure of justice, let alone the fact that this type of judgement is not what God has meted out to us.

Changing the spiritual atmosphere in our world may seem like a daunting or even impossible task. However, I am seeing more and more clearly that we are only required to step out into this in the degree Holy Spirit asks us to at the time we are asked. Sometimes it might be as simple and helping or encouraging someone in the street. Sometimes it might be singing or humming worship and praise as we go about our daily activities in the world. Other times it might be something more overt, praying for someone, or some activity. Personally, I use the sound of sirens – ambulance or other – as a prompt to pray and speak out life over whatever is going on, be that an accident, illness or other. The challenge is not how much we do, but to start, to do something. It may be a little awkward or uncomfortable at first, but as we learn to operate under Holy Spirit’s guidance, we find that those promptings yield fruit, which further encourages us to take the next step and the next step.

So here is the challenge: What is the next step the Lord is asking you to take in ruling and reigning for the Kingdom of God? Ask Holy Spirit to show you, and then simply step out. I’d love to hear your experiences!

(And if you have questions about what any of this looks like, please ask!)

“For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace. Of the greatness of his government and peace there will be no end.” (Is 9:6-7 NIVUK)

If you want to investigate more on this theme, you can purchase a copy of “Untruth: Exploring Truth in a Post-Truth World” on my home page.

Are you a chicken?

Recently, I felt God speaking to me through some fun and games with the latest addition to our household.

Last year we bought two chickens, which we ironically named “Butter” and “Tandoori”. It hasn’t taken them long to claim the yard as their own and likewise dominate the dog, although she has learnt to chase them away from eating her food! The other day, however, they decided that our acreage was not enough and took themselves out for a wander down our semi-rural street. It took us some time to find them, amid our concerns about foxes and vehicles. They had found their way down to the overgrown driveway a couple of houses away, and were having a lovely time, totally unperturbed about our concern.

A day or so later, we suddenly had two extra chickens in our yard. It seems our neighbour’s chickens had caught the restlessness and decided they’d check out if our grass really was greener.

Then, Sunday morning, things stepped up a notch. At some point in the night, I heard chickens clucking like they’d laid an egg, which was unusual, but failed to concern me enough to get up and see what was going on. However, a little while after sunrise I heard them chatting away somewhere around our bedroom – the opposite side of the property to their coop, where they should have been, safe from foxes and other night predators.

The short story is that hubby went looking and eventually found them holed up under our bedroom – the space in which two of our dogs have often slept if they were out for the night. (We live on the side of a mountain, so not quite as inaccessible as you might think.) Somehow, they had managed to open their cage door and escape at some point after we had gone out for the evening. They were in no hurry to come out from under the house. Martin realised that they were in “laying mode”, but that they didn’t really want to lay their eggs where they were. In the end, he had to pick them up individually and carry them back to the coop, where they rushed straight up into the nesting boxes to lay their eggs.

Over the week, I had felt God’s prompting to pay attention to these scenarios. The idea that the chickens were breaking out, and were indeed, “flying the coop” took on a deeper meaning, especially in light of the words, “The King has left the building” that kept rattling around in my head toward the end of last year.

For those a bit younger, this statement has its origin with Elvis Presley, the “King of Rock’n’roll”. In order to calm the crowds screaming for more, or even just to get them to leave at the end of his concerts, the announcer would often say, “Ladies and gentlemen, Elvis has left the building”. This has later morphed to “the King has left the building”.

When I heard this phrase in my head, though, I immediately knew it was about King Jesus. It was a reinforcement to me that it is well and truly time we shift our thoughts away from the church being a building. The perception church is what happens on a Sunday morning must become past history. We cannot continue to try to box God into a place, into a building or even a time frame. And it is well past time for us to stop expecting people to come into a place of our choosing to encounter God.

In contrast, the chickens flying the coop is about us, His people. In the world of visions and dreams, chickens can be representative of the people of God. (I think it relates back to Jesus looking to Jerusalem and longing to gather His people under His wings as a mother hen gathers her chicks, see Matt 23:37).

Just as I sensed that God is not constrained by the buildings we have constructed for Him, I felt that God is calling us out with Him; out of those things that have constrained us, or even those places and practices that have been about our own safety or comfort. Even the behaviour of the chickens wanting to get back into the coop to lay their eggs seemed to be a counter call to us to instead take our “best work” that we have previously given to “the church” out into the world for the Kingdom. In the past, we have perhaps seen the church and the Kingdom of God as somehow being synonymous. However, I believe many of us actually need to upgrade our understanding of just what “Church” means.

The idea that the Church is not a building but people has been doing the rounds for some years now, even decades. Unfortunately, while we might have many ideas about what Church is not, I am not convinced we have really nailed what “Church” actually is. Even though we might use terms like the “Body of Christ”, or family, these also have different connotations for each of us.

Heading back to the Bible is not immediately helpful either. The word translated to church was, in the original Greek language, “ecclesia”, which perhaps gives us more insight. The literal translation is “the gathering of those summoned”, and it was a term used in the secular world to indicate a political gathering of citizens. While there is a sense of governance around this, it would seem that rather than being hierarchical, all those deemed eligible had a say in the way in which the community operated and what was acceptable. It was quite democratic.

I wonder if we read our New Testament with a greater understanding of what the ecclesia meant to those first disciples it would change our view (and acceptance) of the way we tend to “run church” today?

Coming back to what I am specifically sensing from God around these two phrases, I have to mention the dreaded virus. As we slowly emerged from a lengthy lockdown last year, many were complaining that we couldn’t get back to “church as normal”. However, in our community, we had such a strong sense that we are not meant to. We have this amazing opportunity for substantial change in what is implied by the term “church”. I personally have loved the gatherings we have held outside our buildings, even though we have had a cold summer. It has felt so wonderful to connect with the outside world as we worship – both creation, as well as being visible and perhaps more accessible to the community around us, with people walking past getting a glimpse of what we are about and occasionally even joining us.

I believe with all my heart that God wants us to move out of our places of safety and comfort, out of hiding. I also believe that He wants a shift in our focus, from being a “church” that simply gathers together for our own needs, getting our weekly fix of spiritual input, to a people who, like the Israelites coming out of Egypt followed only where God was going. They didn’t follow a program, a formula, what seemed logical or even those who had come before them. They learnt to be wholly dependent on God.

In the season we are in, where there are so many differing opinions and ideas, where we seem to be in something of a minefield, it is ever more important for us to only go where He is going.

Will you follow?

IT'S TIME TO COME OUT OF THE CAVE AND ROAR!

In the last few months, so many of us have been hiding away in the secret place with God, keeping our eyes firmly fixed on Him, riding through this storm under the protection of His wings, or at least trying or learning to. However, I have such a strong sense

It is time for us to come out of the place of hiding and ROAR!

This is not a roar of pain, anger, frustration or distress, but a ROAR of praise and worship, a ROAR OF VICTORY!

Used with permission: https://pixabay.com/photos/lion-predator-mane-big-cat-yawn-3317670/

While our natural eyes may be looking and only seeing defeat, discouragement and despair, I believe it is time for us to take up the authority we have in Jesus, and to come out on the offensive. It is time to storm the enemy’s camp with the surety that we already have the victory. This is not about the physical realm, although it will surely be impacted. It is very much a spiritual act, but it is burning in me that we do it in a physical way, and that way is through very overt worship.

For those in my area, in Melbourne and Victoria, we may be being told we are back in that place of “lockdown” and “shutdown” and the weather may even seem to agree, with promise of a snap freeze and snow down to 400m. However, our hearts and voices cannot be locked down, shutdown or frozen without our say so. I declare

It is time to arise and to release a shout of praise, a shout of victory. Our victorious King Jesus, Yeshua Messiah, has won!

We need to live in accordance with this belief rather than agreeing with all the negative that is swirling around.

This is not about civil disobedience. It is something we can do from wherever we are. For me, it has looked like taking my music and worship flags out into my garden and singing and dancing in praise of God (if we can do this without annoying our neighbours). I have also found myself singing full bore in the car as I have gone about my other responsibilities – the other day I felt compelled to crank up the stereo and my voice and open the sunroof. Do it to whatever capacity you can with the words Holy Spirit gives you. Do it boldly. Do it whether you feel like it or not! The feelings will come as you release the sound.

This is not about whether others may hear or not. It is about changing the spiritual atmosphere. It is about releasing the sound of heaven on earth.

It is about releasing the reverberations of the coming of King and His army of angels. It is the thunderous cheer of the rising Bride, preparing to meet Her Groom.

And as we sing, as we praise, as we make a joyful sound to our Lord, I see strongholds being shaken and falling, roots from the past being loosened and removed, spiritual giants coming tumbling down, the hidden plans of the enemy not just being exposed, but being brought to nothing.

Psalm 24 (NIV) is a great starting point:

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it,
the world, and all who live in it;
for he founded it on the seas
and established it on the waters.

Who may ascend the mountain of the Lord?
Who may stand in his holy place?
The one who has clean hands and a pure heart,
who does not trust in an idol
or swear by a false god.

They will receive blessing from the Lord
and vindication from God their Saviour.
Such is the generation of those who seek him,
who seek your face, God of Jacob.

Lift up your heads, you gates;
be lifted up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is this King of glory?
The Lord strong and mighty,
the Lord mighty in battle.
Lift up your heads, you gates;
lift them up, you ancient doors,
that the King of glory may come in.
Who is he, this King of glory?
The Lord Almighty—
he is the King of glory.”

The antidote to your weariness

In historical battles, armies met face to face. The aim was to drive into and through the enemy lines. In particularly fierce battles, as an army pushed through, soldiers could often find themselves alone on the other side, in enemy territory. A rallying call would then be issued by the standard bearer, to call the soldiers to fall back and regroup, so that they could fight together again. The standard or ensign bearer held the banner or flag aloft, which was there to remind them who they belonged to, who they fought for and why. As long as that banner was still held up, they were not overrun, they were not defeated.

Often, as they pushed out, the cry was:

“For King and Country!”

Sunday night, I was at a gathering of local Christians where we were asked if anyone was feeling weary. Without hesitation, nearly every adult there raised their hand.

In my interactions elsewhere, I am aware that this is not a unique scenario. Many of us are weary, feeling isolated and like we are alone in enemy territory. Sometimes we wonder if the battle will ever end and whether we still have it in us to fight another day.

So I want to issue a rallying call.

I am raising the banner of Christ high and calling us back to refocus and remember.

At this time of weariness and even some hopelessness, I call us back to look again to King Jesus, the Author and Perfector of our faith; to look to His glory and majesty and be reminded that the victory is already won through His death and resurrection.

I call us back to remember and be reminded of the way in which we have experienced the Kingdom break through in the past, so that we can hold on to the hope that it will again; that victory in this battle is close at hand – we are coming to the final push! Just as we are feeling pushed to - or even past - our limit, we need to dig deep and hold on. We need to regroup and reconnect with like-minded friends, who will also help us keep our focus on our King.

Victory is coming!

On Sunday night, as we prayed into this weariness I was reminded of Ephesians 6. In this allusion to the battle there is a point where we are called, when we have done all else, simply to stand. Sometimes that is all we can do.

“…after you have done everything,…stand”

Recently, God has repeatedly reminded me of the importance of this in a number of scenarios. Sometimes that is all He is asking us to do. Sometimes, rather than all the other things we believe we might be doing in our ministry or life in general, what we are actually doing is simply standing in a space, and through that very act of obedience we are holding ground that otherwise the enemy would have overrun. Raise your banner high! Hold your ground!

And even as we stand there, HIS banner over us is His love, which keeps us and protects us.

Keep standing firm – He is coming!

“Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured such opposition from sinners, so that you will not grow weary and lose heart.” Heb 12:1-3