Non Toxic Jesus

2 Thessalonians 2:16-17 …….. May our Lord Jesus Christ himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word.

A phrase I have heard being used a lot recently is, ‘toxic relationships’. Apparently, these are relationships where one or both partners are poisoning the other with a negative, critical attitude.

It seems that we can all insidiously fall into the trap of being toxic or being poisoned without really knowing it. We can even have long-term friends who have been negatively influencing us but because we consider them to be our friends we have not noticed it.

What do we do abut it? Well, take an objective look at those around us and consider their influence upon us. We should also look at ourselves and listen to how we speak.

As Christians our standard is the life of Jesus and the word of God. Are we magnifying Him in all we think say and do? Are our words in line with biblical truth or have we unconsciously become subversive heretics?

Is Jesus at the centre of our lives or have we sidelined Him? Is He the fulcrum that keeps us balanced or have we gone off kilter?

From time-to-time we need to take a step back from ourselves and look objectively at who we are. If our lives have become poisoned by the world around us we need to take the antidote to stop that venom from killing us. We need to inject Jesus back into our sanctified souls so that He fills our hearts once again and what comes out of the overflow builds-up and encourages those around us.

Lord Jesus, please be my words and my actions today and always. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KWFR6ePFjHc

Their Jesus

Isaiah 53:2b ……. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him.

Sometimes we can take things for granted. We make assumptions based on presumptions and end up in error.

When I was at school we started every day with the whole class, including the teacher, reciting The Lord’s Prayer. Not any more.

“Merry Christmas” has been substituted with “Happy Holidays” and an ‘X’ now replaces ‘Christ’ in Christmas. What we took for granted has been removed to appease political correctness to avoid offending our antichrist society.

It is time for a radical rethink.

From the time that Christ was taken out of our schools we have created an X-generation who have little or no concept of who Jesus really is. The UK is no longer a Christian nation; that ‘X’ now represents all kinds of things. We have taken Christ for granted and He has been replaced by something else.

As I travel around the world I have discovered that my Jesus is not necessarily the same Jesus to Christians in other places. It is a huge mistake to presume so. Even among Christians, Jesus has become Lord X; a character with a personality of our own making. We all talk about Jesus but we are not all talking about the same person.

It is time to rediscover who Jesus Christ truly is. It is time for us all to meet Him in the Most Holy Place and to know Him intimately in every aspect of His glorious multi-faceted being. He is crying out for lovers; He is calling out for disciples.

It is time for us all to meet the awesome Jesus of the bible and stop making the assumption that Christians know who He is. When we do this we will be able to present a wonderful, fascinating and relevant Jesus to a lost generation and replace that ‘X’ with the Cross.

Lord Jesus, please forgive us for taking Christianity for granted. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XmdYfjBBrNo

Freedom

Galatians 5:1 ….. It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.

For years I have had problems with what is called ‘deliverance ministry’. Please do not misunderstand me, unsaved people are full of the world and that can often include demons, but when we come to Jesus at the cross at Calvary and give our lives to Him, we are set free.

That does not mean that we no longer have issues in our life to confront and deal with but it does mean that we now filled exclusively with the Holy Spirit and no other evil or demonic spirits are in us.

At Calvary, Jesus washes us clean with His precious blood and a process of sanctification begins. The Holy Spirit helps to refine us and we progressively become more and more like Jesus.

However, sometimes during this process, we come across well meaning people with a ‘deliverance ministry’ and they want to help Jesus to set us free.

This can often involve frequent visits over days, weeks, months and even years, as they take the unfortunate Christian on a regressive journey even, not uncommonly, as far back as the womb. This inward journey usually requires the ‘demonised’ Christian to writhe, scream and throw-up in a bucket as the ‘demons’ manifest at each appointment.

People I have met who have fallen victim to such ‘ministry’ are usually really messed-up and I ask myself if they are more messed-up after this ‘deliverance’ experience than before they started.

Sure, we all have scars from before we were saved; bad memories that need to be dealt with but making appointments to visit Doctor Deliverer is not the answer.

Christ THE deliverer is all that anyone needs to be completely set free.

However, this requires that we entirely surrender all to Jesus. Without our total and full surrender there will never be absolute freedom.

Our life ends and begins at Calvary when we are born again. Only Jesus Christ, the Son of God, can do this.

Thank you Lord Jesus that you came to set free. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cHcZn1aOXrU

Blessed

Psalm 144:13 …… Our barns will be filled with every kind of provision. Our sheep will increase by thousands, by tens of thousands in our fields….

More and more often I find myself reflecting on how blessed I am. I am tremendously blessed. Ever since I came to know Jesus Christ as my Lord and Saviour, over twenty years ago, He has blessed me abundantly. In fact, even before I knew Him, even when I was a sinner, God was looking out for me.

I know that the very breath I breathe is because of the love of God, His grace and His faithfulness. I am overwhelmed by the goodness of God.

There has never been a time when I have not had enough food to eat and enough food to share. Progressively, over the years, God has enlarged our ministry to become tens of thousands of members in the mission fields of the world. His anointing has increased to our leaders who are also greatly blessed and are in turn blessing many.

I cannot understand why some Christians moan and complain about their life. Yes, challenges come but Jesus never forsakes us, He never abandons us. He turns our challenges into triumphs.

Take some time right now to recall the goodness of God towards you; count your blessings. I guarantee that very quickly you will be thanking God and praising Him. You will repent for your ingratitude and begin to magnify the name of Jesus.

If you are not rejoicing with a heart that is full of thanksgiving and praise to God, perhaps it is because you have never given your life to Jesus. You can do that right now and immediately you will have something phenomenal to sing about. You will have been blessed with the gift of eternal life; rescued from death and darkness and brought into His marvellous light.

I am abundantly blessed, are you?

Lord Jesus, thank you for blessing us phenomenally. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ESLDXYI2r6M

Soulish Prayer

Jude 1:18-20 …….. "In the last times there will be scoffers who will follow their own ungodly desires." These are the men who divide you, who follow mere natural instincts and do not have the Spirit. But you, dear friends, build yourselves up in your most holy faith and pray in the Holy Spirit.

As we discovered in recent Gists, often we do not know how we ought to pray (Romans 8:26). At times like these the Holy Spirit helps us. Therefore, the last thing we should do when we do not know how to pray is to go ahead and pray out of our soul because this will invariably do more harm than good.

Our soul comprises our mind, our will and our emotions and it will conceive an amazing assortment of unsanctified good ideas. As Godly as these good ideas might seem, if they were not inspired by the Holy Spirit, no matter how much we dress them up in religious sounding Christianese, they are soulish.

Rather than praying the will of God to be done on earth as it is in heaven (Matthew 6:10), we end up praying our own will from our own understanding influenced by how we feel. These kinds of prayers are unspiritual and selfish. The words that we speak can be creative or destructive; a blessing or a curse (James 3:9-10).

Soulish prayers are counter-productive and can be used by the enemy to block and delay the heavenly response to genuine Holy Spirit inspired prayers (Daniel 10:12-13). Surely, true and genuine Godly prayer is born out of an intimate, deep and personal relationship with God our Father. We can only have such a relationship if we have met Jesus Christ at Calvary and become Christians.

Once born again and baptised in the Holy Spirit (John 1:29 and 33), not only do we have access to God in heaven but we have insight into His heart of compassion. As we spend time with Him we come to know His will as the Holy Spirit leads us in progressive revelation. Jesus teaches us how to pray.

When we pray like Jesus we will see life-changing and world-changing miracles happen all around us as the will of God is done on earth as it is in heaven.

Lord Jesus, please help us to pray like you. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khrVXgjUOzs

Praying in the Spirit

Romans 8:26 …… 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 with groans that words cannot express.

We have already established what prayer is and what prayer is not. Now, it is time to look at how to pray effectively.

Prayer is hearing God and declaring what He says. The key in this is hearing God. Every born again and baptised in the Holy Spirit Christian can hear God, we simply need to learn how to listen. God is so creative that he can communicate to us in any way He chooses.

We learn from Romans 8:26 (above) that one such way can involve the use of Tongues. God wants Christians to have this Spiritual gift; ask God to give you it and He will. Use the Gist Video this week as a catalyst to help you if you do not already speak in tongues and follow this link if you need more help: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-CE2THFaOQ

However, the focus here is not the gift but the purpose for the gift. When we exercise the Gift of Speaking in Tongues it will stir-up the Holy Spirit within us and when this happens, the complementary gift of the Interpretation of Tongues will help us to understand what we are saying. We can then pray the will of God as revealed by the Holy Spirit and we can press-in deeper as we pray with the Spirit and the understanding.

This kind of effective, fervent prayer is like white-water rafting with the Lord, it has all the thrills and spills of riding the rapids. It is dynamic and exciting. It is overcoming prayer; mighty to the pulling down of strongholds and removing obstacles that would try to block us. It is mountain-moving prayer.

Why are we waiting? Rise up army of God and let us begin to see the kingdom of God advance upon the Devil and his dark, depressing, debauched and deceptive lies that are the foundation of his world.

Passionate, praying Christians are not weak and impotent. We have an arsenal of primed prayer missiles that will hit every target that God helps us to identify. We can destroy the works of the enemy and establish the will of God against sickness, poverty, depravity and hopelessness. The victory belongs to Jesus.

Lord Jesus, shake us out of our apathy and stir us up to battle. Amen

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EP36OM7F0kA

Prayer

Romans 8:26 ……. 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 with groans that words cannot express.

Prayer is an awesome privilege, it is powerful and life-changing. It is not about mumbling a list of requests or even about dialogue with God. It is about speaking out prophetic proclamations of faith inspired by the Holy Spirit.

If our prayers do not come through revelation by the Holy Spirit, what then are we saying? Jesus taught his disciples (us) to pray in Matthew 6: 9-13 . It is the will of God that we will pray His will to be done on earth and God reveals His will to us by the Holy Spirit. If we are not hearing the Holy Spirit what are we praying?

This is dangerous because what we say is extremely potent. Our words are able to build-up or destroy; to bless or to curse. Our prayers should not come from our minds, they should not even come from our hearts. They should only come by way of revelation from the Holy Spirit.

Yet, as we see from Romans 8:26 (above), many of us do not know how to pray. Sadly, this means that what we think of as prayer can be working against the will of God. Unless we are expressing what God has inspired us to say, our prayers are not only soulish and counter-productive, they can be very dangerous.

It is like giving children a bomb to play with, not only will they destroy themselves but they will damage and destroy much of what is around them. Well meaning but naïve Christians can be doing more harm than good.

To pray effectively we need to spend time in the presence of God listening. When we have heard God speak to us we will know His will and then we can begin to pray as Jesus taught us.

Lord Jesus, thank you for teaching us how to pray. Amen.

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMRl9A4ARok

Be Prepared

2 Timothy 4:2 ……. Preach the Word; be prepared in season and out of season…..

There is only one way to prepare ourselves to be ready ‘in season and out of season’ and that is to build a lifestyle that is centred on Jesus; a lifestyle that is Christocentric.

How do we do that? We need to practice His presence. From the mundane to the sublime Jesus is our constant companion. He told us that He will never leave us.

Once the revelation of this truly dawns upon us we will begin to practice His presence; talking with Him and Him talking with us, loving Him and receiving His love, simply being with Him as our best friend who, at the same time, is our saviour and the king of the whole universe. He is God. Wow! This is the privilege and the lifestyle of a Christian, a disciple of Jesus.

To help us to know Him better we want to read the bible, the word of God, which is all about Jesus, the Word of God made flesh. However, we do not read it to know Him only in our head, we read the bible to know Jesus in our heart. God the Holy Spirit helps us to do that.

The Holy Spirit inspired men to write the bible. That means He is the author. As Christians, born again and baptised in the Holy Spirit, the author brings the bible alive in our human spirit and, by revelation, we come to truly know Jesus.

By nurturing this relationship we come to know Him intimately. He is the lover of our soul and when we talk about Him to others they sense this amazing love. When we share our hearts with others they catch a glimpse of what they could also have if they become Christians.

Thank you Jesus, you poured out your love for everyone. Amen.

YouTube video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lYuAmEXaUh4