Katia Adams Blog

Revival Revisited

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 18:40:23 GMT

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Revival has always been God's plan. In this teaching, Julian revisits the topic of "revival", and gives us clues as to how God might be moving on the earth for today.

This is a featured teaching from The Table Boston, Church.

Jesus, the Ultimate Rebuilder - Nehemiah Pt. 2

Wed, 12 May 2021 14:07:25 GMT

Listen to part 2 of Katia 's series on Nehemiah

We can learn a lot from the story of Nehemiah. In this teaching, Katia shares some important keys for how we can engage with culture, and rebuild the ruins around us.

This is a featured teaching from The Table Boston, Church.

Jesus, the Ultimate Rebuilder - Nehemiah Pt. 1

Thu, 06 May 2021 20:57:59 GMT

Katia Adams shares on rebuilding culture, through the book of Nehemiah.

We can learn a lot from the story of Nehemiah. In this teaching, Katia shares some important keys for how we can engage with culture, and rebuild the ruins around us.

This is a featured teaching from The Table Boston, Church.

Equivalence Podcast with Eve List

Tue, 09 Mar 2021 17:28:14 GMT

Katia Adams sits down with Sophie Le Ray to discuss her journey from medical practitioner to ministry, the place of women in the Church and and what gender equity brings to its message and mission in the world.

This is a talk from the

in 2018, hosted by Eve List

Combating Comparison - Katia Adams

Tue, 01 Dec 2020 16:10:26 GMT

We know comparison kills... but how do we combat it?

One of the easiest ways to kill your confidence is by comparison. If we want to be successful in business, ministry, or creativity, we need to combat comparison. In this talk, Katia Adams gives tools on how to fight off comparison at its root.

This is a talk from the

in 2018, hosted by Eve List

What to Do When Your Sermon Fails (Basic Homiletics) - Katia Adams

Thu, 15 Oct 2020 12:37:25 GMT

Any preacher will tell you they’ve certainly delivered at least one sermon that completely bombed. So as you grow in your preaching journey, here are my top 3 tips on what to do when your sermon fails. Firstly, understand the nature of process - mistakes are okay and are part of growth! Second, ask trustworthy friends to give you positive feedback so you can be encouraged. Finally, read God’s promises over your destiny. Success in the kingdom is measured by believing your promises, not the perfection of your performance. So allow yourself to believe what God has spoken over you as a preacher.

Looking to cultivate your preaching gift? Sign up for my online preaching course, Her Voice!

5 Common Mistakes Preachers Make (Basic Homiletics) - Katia Adams

Thu, 08 Oct 2020 13:51:13 GMT

I spend a lot of my time preaching, and over the years I’ve noticed some good habits and some "not-so-good" habits that preachers often make. To help us in this journey as we grow in our preaching gift, here are 5 of the most common mistakes I’ve seen preachers make!

Looking to cultivate your preaching gift? Sign up for my online preaching course, Her Voice!

How to Prepare a Sermon: My 3 Keys (Basic Homiletics) - Katia Adams

Thu, 01 Oct 2020 14:03:54 GMT

I often get asked, “How do you prepare or create a sermon?” For me, there are 3 stages of sermon creation. The first stage is the revelation, or the "a-ha" moment when I’m reading scripture and something catches my eye. The second stage is the crafting, when you structure your revelation into a message people can understand and remember. The final stage is the delivery , when you’re standing on the platform and preaching from the heart.

Looking to cultivate your preaching gift? Sign up for my online preaching course, Her Voice!

5 Tips for Delivering a Sermon (Basic Homiletics) - Katia Adams

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 13:33:51 GMT

I often get asked all sorts of questions on the topic of preaching and basic homiletics (the art of preaching). So I wanted to take a moment and share my top 5 tips that will help you when delivering a sermon. They are: 1) have positive body language, 2) take your time and breath, 3) avoid jargon in your sermon, 4) rely on the Holy Spirit, and 5) before you preach, imagine your ministry time.

Looking to cultivate your preaching gift? Sign up for my online preaching course, Her Voice!

Social Media, Judgement, and the Future of the Church (PODCAST)

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 20:35:32 GMT

A Conversation with Liam Parker of Flow Church UK

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Katia Adams and Liam Parker (of Flow Church UK) discuss the future of the Church, Judgement v Compassion, and true persecution (in the time of COVID-19). Katia is a Church Planter and ministry leader in Boston, Massachusetts. Liam is the leader of Flow Church UK.

There's No Room for Racism, Nationalism, or Sexism in God's Kingdom

Thu, 09 Jul 2020 19:03:05 GMT

From Peter's Inaugural Speech in Acts 2

In Acts 2:17-18, Peter gives an inaugural speech of God's kingdom. In it, he dismantles the cultural divides that have separated people for centuries. There is no room for racism, nationalism, classism, ageism, or sexism in the kingdom of God.

This video is an excerpt from A Study of Acts

Who Is Jesus: Good or God? (Podcast)

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 12:57:28 GMT

As a Christian, it's so easy to assume that the people around you know who Jesus is and what He did. But what if they don't? "Who is Jesus?" is one of the most important questions people are asking, but we rarely take the time to explicitly share about Him. In this episode, Katia takes the time to answer questions about the person of Jesus. She tackles the myth that "he was just a good man", and shares personal stories about how Jesus has transformed her personal world.

Search for a church community near you at Mighty Pursuit.

Two Tables - Katia Adams

Thu, 25 Jun 2020 22:09:54 GMT

A Few Thoughts from Mark Chapter 14

As I've been reading through the Gospel of Mark, there have been two moments that have stood out to me. Two tables, and two acts of devotion.

How to Find Rest (Hint: Stop Hustling) [PODCAST]

Tue, 23 Jun 2020 16:04:51 GMT

Why You Should Stop Striving

There's a temptation in every Christian's heart to work hard for her/his breakthrough. But hustling for your breakthrough is the exact opposite of stewardship. In this episode, Katia exposes the worldly expression "hustle", that's been creeping into the Christian vernacular, and reminds us that rest is the best position to take ground in the kingdom of God.

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Authentic Leadership (PODCAST)

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 18:14:17 GMT

Katia talks Mentorship, Authenticity, and Recommended Reading

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Katia Adams wraps up the mini-series on leadership. As she discusses influential books and describes what mentorship means to her, we uncover a lot of great tips on leadership. You are sure to be encouraged and challenged after her authentic responses to the questions: how did you develop your leadership skills? And, what skill was the most difficult to develop?

Recommended Reading:

G.K. Chesterton Orthodoxy

G.K. Beale The Temple and the Church's Mission , and God Dwells Among Us

Trevor J. Burke Adopted Into God's Family

Jack Frost Experiencing the Father's Embrace

God is Setting You Up

Thu, 11 Jun 2020 15:32:46 GMT

No matter your circumstance, God is setting you up for something good. In this teaching, Katia shares stories of when the disciples were "set up" by Jesus, and how he used those moments to display His goodness.

God is setting you up in your hopeless moments. He's setting you up in your day-to-day moments. And He's setting you up in moments of impossibility.

Listen to our podcast, Frequentsee Conversations

This teaching was originally recorded for Gatekeepers Church

Lockdown is An Opportunity for Transformation

Fri, 05 Jun 2020 21:13:30 GMT

In this teaching, Julian speaks out of Luke Chapter 9, and the story of the transfiguration of Jesus. He invites us to change the way we think even as we are in the midst of lockdown. He shares about the transformative power of Jesus, and how he wants to transform our minds.

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Subversive influence, George Floyd, and Covid-19

Thu, 04 Jun 2020 17:26:33 GMT

A Conversation with Liam Parker of Flow Church UK

Julian Adams and Liam Parker (of Flow Church UK) discuss current events including the death of George Floyd, protests, and Covid-19. Julian gives insight into what influence in the kingdom of God is meant to look like. He also shares from his heart about the effects of racism and white privilege on society, and how we can combat them.

How to Lead Together (PODCAST)

Tue, 02 Jun 2020 19:57:14 GMT

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In this podcast, Julian and Katia discuss their experiences around leadership, both as singles and as a married couple doing ministry together. As two gifted individuals, they have found that mutual submission and honoring each-others moments of favor have been key to a healthy marriage and ministry. An identity that is grounded in God leads to a flourishing gift that doesn’t force someone to be something they are not. They are also passionate about creating safe spaces for single men and women to walk in their leadership gifts. Their team approach to celebrating leadership within one another displays a beautiful picture of what the body of Christ is intended to look like.

How Should We Face Our Past Pain and Disappointment?

Thu, 21 May 2020 18:01:26 GMT

Terah's Great Loss.

Over the past few years, I've become increasingly fascinated by the account of Abraham and Sarah in Genesis. I've spent more time anchored in that story than ever before and have started seeing things I'd previously never noticed. One of the gems in the story that has been new to me is that Abraham and Sarah's destiny didn't really start with them but with Terah, A braham's father.

We're told in Genesis 11 that Terah had three sons—Abram, Nahor, and Haran, but Haran died while they were in their land, Ur of the Chaldeans. We're then told that Terah took his family from Ur to go to the land of Canaan, which subsequently becomes quite interesting given that the land of Canaan is what God later promises to Terah's son, Abraham. It's almost as if there was a pull in Terah toward the promises of God for his descendants.

What I find so fascinating about the unfolding story is that, en route to Canaan, the family come to a place called Haran , and they end up settling there rather than moving on to where they had originally set their sights. It can't be a coincidence that the place they settle in shares the name as the son Terah lost. There's something significant the story is trying to tell us here, and I believe it has to do with the need to process our pain and brokenness.

The reality is that areas of pain or past defeats in our hearts become a stumbling block to destiny unless we learn how to process them fully, bringing them to Jesus and allowing both the healing and the redemptive work of the cross to permeate our hurts.

His heart is to bring comfort to pain, to empower us to forgive others and ourselves, and to apply the immeasurable power of grace to our brokenness, so that what would have seemed as loss is transformed into a platform for His goodness.

That's what redemption of our history is meant to look like, where there is no sting from the past, only radical transformation that leaves us open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the overwhelming kindness of Papa.

Jesus didn't ignore His past, neither should we.

I love the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew's gospel. They're not verses that many of us love to read often, but laced in those verses are incredible signposts to the redemptive purposes of God.

There's a reason why the 'broken' parts of Jesus' lineage are included.

Any reasonable or sensible person who was concerned about their reputation would want to hide areas of the past that were less than glorious. Not Jesus. His Word displays the lowest parts of his lineage as highlights. He's wanting us to see them. He's provoking us as we see them. And He's placing a promise before us when we see them.

Rahab, the prostitute, is mentioned. T amar and her sons— the products of incest —are mentioned. Ruth, a foreigner , is mentioned. 'Uriah's wife', Bathsheba, is mentioned—explicitly pointing out her and David's adultery.

The broken parts are displayed under spotlights for all to see.

Why? Because Jesus loves to show how even the worst moments, the parts that no one would want anyone to see, can be redeemed in the love of God so that what would be a historical moment of shame can become a showcase of the deepest goodness of God.

Don't let your past become a sticky-trap.

The fact is that unless we deal with our pain, we will become like Terah—unable to move past those memories and hurts. They are like sticky traps in our hearts and, no matter how deep we bury them, they will inevitably cause us to trip over them and will disable us from running with abandon into the fullness of our destiny.

Let me encourage you today—don't be afraid of your past.

Don't ignore areas of pain, no matter how deep, areas of brokenness, no matter how full of shame. There is a promise in Kingdom life that everything finds redemption in the cross, and all wounds find their healing. Don't try to keep anything back from encountering His transforming goodness.

I'm so aware that what I'm suggesting isn't easy. It's never easy to come face to face with our own 'Harans' and to have to look squarely in the face of pain and disappointment and hurt. But, unless we courageously deal with our past, we'll never be fully free to enter into our future, and the destiny that God has marked out for us will only ever seem like a pipe dream.

The promises over us are too great, too wonderful, and too life-giving to let them fall by the wayside at the mercy of our past. Let's trust Jesus' heart for us.

He is gentle, and He is kind.

He will not break a bruised reed ( Isaiah 42:3 ) or deal harshly with us. He wants to bring healing comfort to our most profound disappointments so that they no longer have power over us. Let's let Him in. Let's let His light in. It's time to get up from Haran and to start moving towards Canaan.

It's time to be set free.

This post is an excerpt from Seven Keys to Living Big. D ownload the book FREE.

Can You Change God's Mind? (PODCAST)

Tue, 19 May 2020 20:05:04 GMT

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As believers, we are often called to step outside of our comfort zones to take risky steps of faith. When approaching those decisions, how do you determine if something is a good decision or a "God decision?" Join us for a discussion on how pragmatism and the prophetic play into Julian and Katia’s decision-making process. As they talk about their approach to faith decisions, they also give us great leadership tips on how to proactively build a community that expects God to speak.

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What is Revival? (PODCAST)

Tue, 12 May 2020 15:33:20 GMT

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In the course of history, many revivals have come and gone. With each one looking different, it's no wonder people question what revival is supposed to look like. As someone who has lived through many revivals, Julian has a unique perspective on this topic. He believes that revival is meant to be a go and show movement, taking the power of the Holy Spirit out of the church to awaken the world. The best days of revival are happening now, and the world needs to be shown what it means to be a follower of Jesus.

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How to Live Life in the Spirit (PODCAST)

Tue, 05 May 2020 20:52:42 GMT

One of the most common questions our team is asked is: how do you live a supernatural lifestyle naturally? Living a life connected to the spirit brings about the fruits and gifts of the spirit. By showing up to a community ready to share the fullness of God inside of us, the supernatural becomes natural. This provoking episode provides practical advice on how to bring the miraculous into your everyday life.

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Navigating Delay and Disappointment

Thu, 30 Apr 2020 19:33:45 GMT

It seems like most of us are dealing with some level of delay or disappointment during this season. It's so easy to get discouraged in our calling during times like this.

Julian and I have by no means gotten this down perfectly, but there are several principles that have helped us navigate these times. We thought it would be helpful to sit down and discuss these with you.

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Desolate Places can Lead to Destiny

Mon, 06 Apr 2020 20:22:27 GMT

Places that seem "desolate" are often just opportunities for us to step into destiny.

In the Gospel of Mark, Chapter 6, Jesus tells the disciples to “come away to a desolate place to rest. This was a build-up for the Kingdom to take place. Many times we curse what seems like desolate places in our life when really it’s just an opportunity for us to step into destiny. Don’t run from your desolate seasons or spots in life.

How to Deal with the Storms of Life

Fri, 20 Mar 2020 17:19:39 GMT

Life feels a bit like a storm right now. Not only is it raining outside (and has been for the past week), but uncertainty about COVID-19 and its impact on the world has created a sense of anxiety and fear across the globe.

But storms are not proof that God has abandoned us, they are a set-up for His goodness to come in greater measure.

See, the Bible promises us that storms WILL come. But Jesus gives us a perspective of hope beyond the storm. In the midst of these difficult and turbulent times, it's important to remember that there are promises on the other side.

In my new online bible study, I share about the early Church, and how they faced incredible adversity. We can learn a lot from how they faced persecution with courage, unity, and hope.

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Jesus and Mary Magdalene: Breaking Ceilings

Fri, 14 Feb 2020 19:29:08 GMT

Why We Should Pay Attention to The Way Jesus Treated Women

The more I get to know Jesus, the more I encounter a God who has no interest in making Himself what we expect. He simply will not play neatly within our preordained boundary lines. One area where this is clearly seen is Jesus’ interactions with women in the narrative of the gospels. Even 2,000 years later, I wonder how many of us would end up offended with Jesus if He walked into our churches today and radically included women in the manner that He did in first-century Palestine.

In my book, Equal, I share in far more detail some of the stories from the gospels, which reveal Jesus' heart to lift women up. This post is an exerpt from chapter 2 of Equal , titled Jesus and Women:

Breaking Ceilings: Mary Magdalene

Either Jesus just kept stumbling into moments where He challenged the understanding of a woman’s role in society, or He was intentionally choosing for that to be the case. My guess is that it is the latter.

Just think of all the ‘firsts’ that Jesus chose to designate to a woman. The first news of the incarnation (Luke 1:32–35). The revelation of God’s incredible act in the incarnation was brought to a teenage girl even though it would have been much more culturally appropriate to go to either her father or her fiancé. But the announcement was made to her and ‘not her father, the high priest, the ruler of the synagogue, a male prophet—and not even the man to whom she was betrothed ...’ ( Gilbert Bilezikian, Beyond Sex Roles ) Following that first, there’s the first Samaritan convert (John 4:7–42); the first Gentile convert (Matt. 15:21–28); the first resurrection teaching (John 11:23–27); all culminating in the first witness to the resurrection (Matt. 28:9; John 20:16). Some complementarians insist that biblical order signals a hierarchy of authority. In that case, I wonder what they make of all of these firsts.

At first light on the morning of Jesus’ greatest victory, before He had even ascended to His Father, He chose to reveal the reality of His resurrection to a woman. A woman. A woman whose testimony would not hold up in a court of law. A woman who would never be given the time of day. A woman whom His male disciples would not believe (and would be subsequently rebuked for—see Mark 16:14).

Why did He do it? Why would He jeopardise the reliability of the testimony of His resurrection by putting it in the hands of a woman? As Tom Wright notes, ‘Mary Magdalene and the others are the apostles to the apostles ... If an apostle is a witness to the resurrection, there were women who deserved that title before any of the men.’ Jesus reveals himself to Mary and, in so doing, breaks a ceiling that some in the church have been trying to put back together ever since.

It would seem that perhaps Jesus is not as convinced as some are of the lesser authority that women have. I have heard my husband say, ‘What was lost in a garden was restored in a garden.’ Here, in the inauguration of a new creation, in the setting of the garden of an empty tomb, Jesus restores the place of women as He entrusts a woman to be the first witness of the greatest act in all of history. A woman failed in what was entrusted to her (and her husband) in the first garden. But here, in a new garden and a new creation, a woman is entrusted again with what is most precious.

However we want to interpret it, in bringing primary revelation of the resurrection to Mary, Jesus appoints a woman in a place of undeniable authority and dignity as He sends her (the literal definition of being an apostle) to share the news with His disciples. And let us note here that this is no commission to women’s ministry—Mary’s testimony was not only to be shared with women; it was intended to be shared with the men as well (John 20:17).

But is it Significant?

In His everyday life, Jesus systematically broke down a staunchly patriarchal system and opened the doors for women to enter into male-only roles. Jesus’ treatment of women was so staggering that it created a different way of men and women worshipping. Where once there would have been clear gender separation in Jewish worship, we see in Acts 1 men and women praying and worshipping together as they wait for an encounter with the Holy Spirit. His careful, meticulous approach to changing the cultural understanding of women’s roles resulted in the early church taking a very different stance with regards to gender roles than what had gone before.

This post is an excerpt from Equal , by Katia Adams

Purchase the book on Amazon , or download your FREE Chapter now .

God Wants to Speak to All of His Children

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 17:44:33 GMT

Katia Adams' Tips for Recognizing God's Voice

In this insight, Katia reminds us that God wants to speak to all of his children, but this can look different for each person - there is no formula for it. This video is an episode of Vineyard Insights , by Vineyard Churches, UK and Ireland.

It's Time for An Eye Test

Fri, 29 Nov 2019 18:08:09 GMT

Adjusting Our Vision to See Scripture, God, and the World Rightly

What you see and how you see it is critical to how you live and how you behave. In this teaching, Katia Adams calls us to adjust our vision. She reminds us that in order to see the world rightly, we need to see ourselves and God through a correct lens first.

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PODCAST: How to Find Your Calling

Tue, 26 Nov 2019 16:28:45 GMT

Frequentsee Conversations Episode 10

Have you ever asked yourself, "What is my calling? How do I pursue it? Is God in this? In this episode, Julian and Katia address many common questions about calling, and even talk about how to raise up your children into their own callings. Their message has powerful encouragement on how to pursue the mandates that has been placed on our lives.

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PODCAST: Union with God, and Demystifying the Gift of Tongues

Tue, 19 Nov 2019 17:26:44 GMT

We can learn a lot from the story of Jacob in Genesis. The journey that he goes on with God is a powerful lesson, as God addresses his negative mindsets and fills him with the truth that will lead him into destiny. In this teaching, Katia points out four critical moments in the lifecycle of a faith journey and how to walk them out.

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PODCAST: How Young Prophets are Changing the World

Tue, 08 Oct 2019 16:06:42 GMT

Frequentsee Conversations: Episode 3

What is a prophet? In this episode of Frequentsee Conversations, Julian de-mystifies the prophetic into terms average people can understand. He shares his story about how he discovered he was a prophet, and Katia shares what it's like to be married to a prophet. We talk about the 5-fold gifts, as described in Ephesians, and how the movement of the prophetic is changing.

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PODCAST: Prosperity, Generosity, and the Upside-Down Kingdom of God

Tue, 01 Oct 2019 16:27:44 GMT

Frequentsee Conversations: Episode 2

Gratitude and generosity are some of Julian and Katia's highest core values. In this episode of Frequentsee Conversations, we discuss practical generosity in the context of the Kingdom of God. We cover topics like prosperity preachers, engaging faith while giving, and generosity in marriage.

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Living an Impossible Life

Thu, 26 Sep 2019 16:32:58 GMT

How God is Setting You Up for Something Good

In every moment, in every setting, God is setting you up for the impossible. He's setting you up in the ordinary moments and in the hopeless moments. Why? Because He is an over-the-top God, who desires to adventure with you throughout life.

In this teaching, Katia ventures through the Gospels, and points out moments where Jesus reveals this over-the-top goodness and invites us to live an impossible life.

This teaching was originally recorded at Kerith Community Church.

PODCAST: How to Reimagine Your World

Tue, 24 Sep 2019 15:58:00 GMT

Frequentsee Conversations: Episode 1

In the very first Frequentsee Conversations podcast, we introduce Julian and Katia Adams, the directors of Frequentsee. The couple share their hearts for ministry, give background to why they do what they do, and encourage us to stop living small and insignificant lives.

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The Dance of the Trinity

Mon, 16 Sep 2019 19:25:26 GMT

What the Trinity Teaches Us about the Body of Christ

I love the Trinity, and I love the Body of Christ.

Throughout the book of Ephesians, I have noticed this beautiful "dance" between the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The Father prefers the Son. The Son prefers the Spirit. The Spirit prefers the Father.

I believe this is a model for how we, as the Body of Christ, should prefer one another.

Hope you enjoy this short clip from my Ephesians Bible Study.

Want to hear more? Get the full series, Everyday Jesus Ephesians Devotional.

Practical Faith: Walking Before Talking

Thu, 05 Sep 2019 15:36:43 GMT

5 Ways to Walk Out Your Faith in Today’s Culture

Living by faith is more about walking than it is about talking. In today's culture, we can learn a few lessons from Paul, in Ephesians 5, about how to walk out faith practically.

In this teaching, Katia walks us through the 5 keys to walking out faith.

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God is the Ultimate Party-Thrower

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 16:35:08 GMT

Entering the Father's Joy

The Father is the ultimate party-thrower. The story of the Prodigal Son is meant to give us a window into God's heart for us. In this teaching, Katia invites us to "come, and enter the Master's joy".

This teaching was originally recorded at Garden Church, in Long Beach.

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Tenacious Leadership

Thu, 11 Jul 2019 21:29:02 GMT

Keys to Christian Leadership

Being a leader in the Kingdom of God requires a lifestyle of risk. But how can we cultivate this? In this teaching, Katia Adams takes us through the life of David to discover keys to tenacious leadership.

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A Different Kind of Fire

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 03:07:46 GMT

The book of Acts introduces us to the fire of the Holy Spirit. This fire is unlike any other type of fire; it’s not a new-age fire, and it’s not a fire of judgement. In this teaching, Katia brings new understanding about what this fire really is about.

– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: This morning, I’m going to preach a message entitled “A Different Kind of Fire.” When you entitle a message that, you better be ready for a different kind of fire. And so I hope that you haven’t come to church this morning thinking that it’s going to be neat and tidy. Those aren’t words that generally describe my preaching.

And so I just really want to encourage you this morning, if you’ve been here for 20 years, if this is your first Sunday, let’s just start on this platform that God is real and He loves to speak to people. He loves to meet with people. He loves to show people His face. He loves to show people His goodness. And what that means is that when He is present in the room in an electrifying way… He’s always present in the room because God is always everywhere at all times.

But there are moments where He makes His presence known to us, and when that happens, it’s impossible to stay neat and tidy. It’s like putting your fingers in an electric socket and wondering why you’re shaking. You encounter power and something happens. And isn’t it beautiful that the power that we encounter is not just an unnamed God, an unknowable force, but a person, a God who is so real and wants to meet with us as people so that we would know Him, really know Him?

And so I’m expectant. I can’t preach you into the power of God. I can’t do that. I can show you truth, but actually, He’s the one who makes Himself manifest and everything changes. And so I’m trusting that He’ll show off this morning and I’m going to ask you to trust that with me because we haven’t come just to tick a box.

We haven’t come just as our religious duty. You may have come for that, but I hope you leave with a different understanding of what church is about because coming to church isn’t just about fulfilling the religious requirement for the week. It’s about meeting with a very, very real God and having our hearts transformed.

So we’re going to look at Acts 8 this morning and Marilyn did an awesome, awesome job last week on preaching on Acts 5. I’m really grateful that I didn’t have to do that preach. And so if you’re a part of this family, you’ll know that we’ve been going through a series on The Unstoppable Church through the Book of Acts and I’m just following on in that series.

And from where Marilyn left off last week, a little bit has happened in the life of the Early Church. After Ananias and Sapphira and that whole thing happened, then… And if you didn’t hear the message, listen to the message. It was awesome and that will fill in some of the blanks on that for you.

But after that, the church begins to grow in such a way that they start thinking we need to put in some leaders into place, they call them deacons, who will be very practical hands-on in ministering to the Church, in serving the Church. What happens is as leadership is put in place, because the honor of God-given leadership always brings growth…

So what happens in that moment is yet again, the Church explodes in growth and it makes people take notice of the Church more and more so. And the apostles at the same time are preaching and performing all sorts of miracles and the kind of law enforcement of the city don’t like that very much. So they imprison the apostles, the apostles get set free from prison miraculously, an angel sets them free from the prison. It’s all go in the city. It’s all crazy in the city.

And what that leads to is persecution. And what happens is one of the deacons, a man named Stephen, gets dragged before the court on false charges because in reality, what’s happening is that there’s some jealousy at play because we all know that when God starts doing things in a city, jealousy comes up in people’s hearts because we like to own the power of God rather than partner with the power of God. And so what happens is when we don’t own the power of God, we start getting cross. Anyway, that’s a side note.

So they start bringing persecution against the Church because they don’t get to control what’s happening and it’s not reflecting well on the officials in the city. And they bring Stephen before everyone on false charges and they stone him to death. The first martyr of the Church. Everyone’s thinking, “Wow, this isn’t what I came for this morning. Now I’m really not hoping that that’s what is going to be our experience.”

But that is the reality of many Christians in the world. And I just want to say this, as someone who was born in the Middle East, who knows many people who’ve been put to death and imprisoned for Christ, we get to live a very, very comfortable Christianity. But that shouldn’t mean that our Christianity becomes comfortable.

And what happens in the Church in the West particularly, because we’re not being persecuted in the same way, we kind of make Christianity become incredibly comfortable and it’s all about my comfort and we misunderstand the message of Jesus because Jesus is not comfortable, he’s inconvenient. He’s wonderful and kind, but he is inconvenient. And just because you’re not being put into prison for the sake of Christ, it doesn’t mean that your Christianity should get so comfortable and familiar that you kind of feel like you’re lying down permanently because nothing’s ever happening. I just want to put that out there.

So Stephen becomes the first martyr of the Church. The awesome thing about that moment… This is all introduction. I hope you’re okay with this. The awesome thing about that moment is that Stephen looks up and he says, “I see the heavens opened.” He’s not seeing the heavens opening. He’s not seeing the heavens opened for a moment. The word is thoroughly opened. It’s a permanent opening that’s happened.

And sometimes we go to Open Heavens conferences or we talk about thin spaces in the spirit or… And I’m not knocking those things, but what I’m saying to you is the truth. The ultimate truth for every single person on the planet is that Jesus, in dying on a cross and rising from the dead, what he did was he tore open the heavens for all time because what the cross and resurrection does is that it allows us to meet with God face to face. No longer are we praying to a metal ceiling with our prayers bouncing off. No, the heavens have been torn open.

Stephen saw it and he announced it. Guys, what I’m seeing is not just a little bit of something open, maybe it’ll close again. No, something that has been thoroughly torn for all time. You live under an open heaven, which means you get to know God face to face for yourself. You don’t need to do anything to make that happen. You don’t need to fast some more or pray some more or be better in your morality. God has torn the heavens open and He’s not going to put it back together again.

And so Stephen, even as he’s dying proclaims, “I see the heavens that have been torn open. It is done.” And then the Church gets scattered and this is where things get really exciting for the Church because up to this point, they’ve been living in their Christian ghetto and they’ve been thinking, “Okay, let’s just kind of keep in,” and sure, they’re preaching, and sure, they’re healing the sick, but they’re all together because isn’t it nice when we all stay together? It really is. It’s really lovely.

But you know what? The world needs to hear the message of Jesus, good grace, good God. The world needs that message and it’s not going to happen when we all live inside of our churches together holding hands. It’s going to happen when we get outside of the building. A friend of mine, Alan Scott, said, “Our cities aren’t hard to reach. They’re just hard to reach if we’re sitting in our churches.” It’s true.

And so what happens, even in this horrible moment where on paper, you think, “Oh, gosh, surely that’s a defeat,” we see God doing what He does best, which is using a terrible scenario to display His goodness in greater measure. And so what happens is the first martyr leads to the scattering of the Church and many people are thinking, “Surely this is over,” because they’ve all been blown about all over the place. No, what happens is we’re told that they went about preaching the Gospel.

And so one of the biggest moments of Church mission happens right after persecution of the Church, and this is where we’re going to pick up. So in Acts 8:4 Open in Logos Bible Software (if available)… I’m going to read from the ESV. We’re going to read a few verses, so just track with me if you can. “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip…”

Now, Philip was one of the deacons of the church. I just also want to say this, those of you who know the word “deacon,” who are familiar with that word, we can make that word so boring. It’s not boring when you read Acts because the deacons did some pretty insane things.

And so I just want to say being a leader in a church, being part of a church should never be reduced to boring anything because if you’re part of the family of God, your life is mental. Take it from me. Verse 4, “Those who had been scattered preached the word wherever they went. Philip went down to a city in Samaria.”

Now, the Samaritans, the place, the area of Samaria, it’s a big city, if you’re going to call it that. They thought of themselves as a nation, really. The Samaritans and the Jews were sworn enemies. The Samaritans were seen as dirty by the Jews.

They’d kind of compromised on what God had done. They didn’t really believe in lots of the stuff that the Jews believed. In fact, they believe that they owned what God was doing and that the Jews were wrong. And so there was real animosity between the two.

Don’t you love it that God doesn’t care about human animosity and human factions? He’s like, “I’m just going to mess this all up for you guys because your sworn enemies are about to become your brothers and sisters.”

So he went to the city in Samaria and proclaimed the Messiah there. “When the crowds heard Philip and saw the signs he performed…” He’s a man of both word and spirit. Notice that doesn’t mean he’s mediocre on the word and the spirit finding some kind of boring middle ground between the two, which really achieves nothing. No, he’s a man of extreme word and extreme spirit.

“When they heard his words and saw the signs he performed, they all paid close attention to what he said. For with shrieks, impure spirits came out of many, and many who were paralyzed or lame were healed. So there was great joy in that city.

Now, for some time, a man named Simon had practiced sorcery in the city and amazed all the people of Samaria. He boasted that he was someone great and all the people, both high and low, gave him their attention and exclaimed, ‘This man is rightly called the Great Power of God.’

They followed him because he’d amazed them for a long time with his sorcery. But when they believed Phillip as he had proclaimed the good news of the kingdom of God and the name of Jesus Christ, they were baptized, both men and women. Simon himself believed and was baptized. And he followed Philip everywhere, astonished by the great signs and miracles he saw.

When the apostles in Jerusalem heard that Samaria had accepted the word of God, they sent Peter and John to Samaria. And when they arrived, they prayed for the new believers there that they might receive the Holy Spirit because the Holy Spirit had not yet come on any of them, they had simply been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus. Then Peter and John placed their hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

When Simon saw that the Spirit was given at the laying on of the apostles’ hands, he offered them money and said, ‘Give me also this ability or more exact as the authority so that everyone on whom I lay my hands may receive the Holy Spirit.’

Peter answered, ‘May your money perish with you because you thought you could buy the gift of God with money. You have no part or share in this ministry because your heart is not right before God. Repent of this wickedness and pray to the Lord in the hope that He may forgive you for having such a thought in your heart. For I see that you are full of bitterness and captive to sin.’

Then Simon answered, ‘Pray to the Lord for me so that nothing you have said may happen to me.’ After they had further proclaimed the word of the Lord and testified about Jesus, Peter and John returned to Jerusalem, preaching the Gospel in many Samaritan villages.”

I love this chapter. It’s a chapter full of comparisons, and sometimes if we read it quickly, we’ll miss the treasures that God has put. Do you know, I love the way God hides things for us to find. God never hides things from us because He doesn’t want to tell us. He hides things from us because He understands the joy of discovery.

Yesterday afternoon, I was playing with my two kids. I’ve got a three-year-old and a one-year-old at home, and we created a ginormous den and they had both hid in the middle of that den and they’re giggling all the way as they’re shouting, “Mommy, come find us.”

And now I’m looking under every cushion and behind every door and they’re just so excited and I can hear my boys, each will say, “Mommy, we’re here. Mommy, we’re here.” I’m like, “Yeah, you don’t really understand the point of hiding. That’s okay.”

It’s because the joy of discovery is what’s so exciting about that game. He’s not hiding hoping that I’ll never find him. He’s hiding knowing that I will, and that’s the point. And when Jesus hides things in the Bible, it’s not because he’s trying to be annoying or secretive or it’s only for the special few. No, no. He’s hiding things in plain sight because if we will find those treasures by discovery, he knows that it will make our hearts so excited with the thrill of finding him.

And so I love this chapter because there’s hidden gems. It is a chapter of contrast. The Holy Spirit is a different kind of fire to what the world brings, what magic offers, what the new age realm may be able to present because he’s entirely different, and this passage shows us some of the differences.

The first is a difference in amazement. We’re told that Simon, the magician, amazed the people for a long time. This was not just kind of some random man on the outskirts. This is a man who had gripped the city with his magic and had amazed them. They didn’t know very much. In fact, they knew nothing except the name he gave himself, which was Great.

It’s a lovely, secretive, mysterious message. All he had for them was this message of “I am Great.” In fact, the NIV that I read… I should have read the ESV. But anyway, the NIV translation that I read makes it sound like they’re just saying a descriptive thing, “He is Great. He is the greatness of God.” In fact, it’s a title, “Great.” That was his title. “What’s your name?” “Just call me Great. That’s what I go by.”

He’d amazed the people. Now, there’s nothing wrong with amazement. In fact, we see in many, many, many verses in the Bible, and including this chapter, that when people saw the signs performed by Jesus, when people saw the signs performed by the apostles, when they heard the messages, they were amazed. So I’m not knocking being amazed. In fact, my own experience is that I have stood in awe and been amazed by God many, many, many times. So hear me. Okay?

Amazement is not a problem. The problem is where it leads to. And I want to be really careful as I’m saying this so we don’t misunderstand my message today. But we don’t want to create a culture of amazement, we want to create a culture of encounter. They start in a similar place, but one abruptly ends. The other one enters into revelation. They’re two very different things.

And in this church, in this family, we’ve had the privilege of journeying in a season of greater encounter, of pursuing the presence of God, of saying, we don’t want to go anywhere until we know your manifest presence.

And if you know me, you’ll know I’m 100% on board with that. In fact, when I’m off duty, if you like, and sometimes when I’m on duty, let’s be honest, I may well be the person going crazy at the front. But the point is this, that we cannot settle for just goosebumps. Right?

We love the moments of goosebumps with God. I love those moments where I can physically feel Him because, hey, He created and designed your body to be able to physically feel Him. But that’s not the sum of encounter with God and neither is it the proof of encounter with God. And I really want to charge this church if I can. Go after amazement for sure, but don’t stop there. Pursue encounter.

And often, there’s encounter in the amazement, but if we reduce everything to what our goosebumps are telling us, we will end up coming into a place where we are religious about our goosebumps and we miss fresh encounter with Jesus.

You’re hearing me. I’m saying fall down in his presence, yes, I’m saying you’re feeling the touch of Holy Spirit and you’re shaking and you’re crying and you’re laughing, yes, but often, the beautiful thing, the moment of encounter, comes a few minutes into that.

And I’ve walked this journey, so I’m saying this from personal experience. This isn’t a knock on anyone else. But sometimes we can go, “The meeting was great. I was shaking for a long time,” but all we’ve done is settle for just the doorway. We’ve just dipped our toe in and we think that’s the point.

And he’s saying, “No, I’ve got so much more for you. Keep coming. Keep coming. Don’t grow familiar with the doorway.” And I’ve been around in charismatic circles enough to know that we can get so familiar and enamored with the doorway that we start building monuments around that rather than continuing the pursuits that we started with.

Simon was great at amazing the people. He had nothing to offer of encounter. We are created to be a people of encounter, where we are amazed, where we feel His physical presence, where it’s beautiful, where we’re laughing and crying and got every goosebump. And I think it’s Richard who says that our goosebumps have babies and have more goosebumps. But the point is this, that we’re drawn to Jesus.

What’s really interesting about the amazement in the city toward Simon is that where it said they paid attention to him. They were drawn to him. They saw his signs and they were so amazed by what he did, they gave him their attention.

But what’s interesting is that in verse 6, we see that Phillip came with a message and a different kind of fire and he also amazed them with signs and wonders and deliverance. But what did they do? They paid attention to what he said.

Because what happens is the amazement is beautiful, the revelation and encounter is gold. And so what’s happening is they’re not stopping short of just what they see of Philip and going, “Wow, what you do is awesome.” They’re hearing the proclamation of who Jesus is and they’re drawn to Jesus.

I want to say our moments of amazement are only so beautiful if we get to see Jesus, if we get to know him more. You’re seeing angels? That is awesome. I see them too. Let’s talk sometime. That’s not unbiblical. Lots of people see angels in the Bible. But I don’t want to see angels if I don’t fall in love with Jesus more. Right? What is it that’s winning our attention in the moment of amazement? Because that’s a really good moment for us to weigh up what’s going on.

And there’s two extremes that we can get to. We can get onto the extreme of, “Oh, I’m too spiritual for needing to be amazed. That’s just for the emotional people who just don’t have an understanding of who God is. I’m a word person. You need to win my mind.”

Listen, I’m saying this because I was this person in many, many ways. Okay? Win my mind, you didn’t need to win my heart. I want to see the face of God, not the hand of God. Sounds so spiritual. I don’t need the goosebumps, I know what the Bible says. The problem is He designed you for the goosebumps. The problem is His hand and His face are connected. We start trying to sound more spiritual than God wants us to be, and that’s a problem.

So that’s the one extreme. Let’s throw amazement out completely because we’re bigger than that. The other extreme is amazement is the proof of everything that’s happening. So we stop believing what the Bible says about God being with me because I’m not feeling any goosebumps right now. Has He left me?

We stop believing the power of Ephesians 5, “Be filled with the Spirit,” where it’s actually a passive action. Allow yourself to be filled because he’s the one who does the action. It’s a passive moment. We stop believing that that’s true. When we ask him to fill us and we’re not getting goosebumps, he can’t have filled me today. Not true. The Bible is true all of the time.

So we don’t want to either extreme. We don’t want to be in the camp of I’m bigger than amazement because that’s just silly. He wants to amaze you. It’s fun and it’s a doorway into revelation. But we don’t want to be governed by amazement where we disbelieve the words of the Bible because we didn’t have our goosebumps that day. Right? We want to walk in amazement and walk in truth. We want to say…

I’ve been really practicing this, if I can say, the last few weeks, where I just keep saying, “Jesus, thank you every day. Please fill me,” and I’m really kind of in that moment engaging with the words of Ephesians 5. That’s what I’m kind of meditating on in that moment.

Sometimes I feel like, boom, like someone threw hot water all over me in that moment. Some mornings I feel nothing at all. But in both of those moments, I know that power from the presence of God is filling me and I know the empowerment in my day. I want to tell you, your goosebumps do not dictate what is happening in the spirit realm. But it’s really fun to have goosebumps too. Amazement.

The second thing, different kind of fire that the Holy Spirit is, is who’s at the center of the story? And we’ve alluded to this. Simon, the Great, draws everyone to him as the center of the story. This man who is proving his might with all his demonic works has himself in the spotlight of the story, and yet, with a different kind of fire, Phillip is drawing people to Jesus. You and I are part of his story. He has not come to join you on yours. You’re not the central character in your story. You’re not the hero of your story. He’s the hero of your story.

You know… And this is a scary thing for a preacher to say because it’s sobering. But if people walk out of meetings where I minister amazed at the eloquence of Katia Adams or whatever it is that I’d love them to be amazed at it, but not more in love with Jesus, then something’s wrong with my ministry. I need more presence in my ministry.

And hear me. Honor is really important. The Bible says honor is linked to blessing in life. “Honor your parents so that you will live a long life.” There’s a connection. There’s a beautiful thing about honor in the Bible.

So I’m not talking about dishonoring those amongst us because Jesus is great and you’re not. If you’ve heard me preach before, you’ll know that I preach a message that says you are great, and you are, because guess what? Your Father is the king of the universe and His DNA is inside of you. That makes you, by extension, great, but it’s by extension.

And so if the purpose, if the spotlight, if the centrality of everything we do makes other people look at us, then we’re not carrying a different kind of fire, we’re carrying the world’s fire and we need that to change.

That’s why I kind of get a little bit nervous with titles. I think it’s important to honor people as apostles and prophets. I honor my husband… He’s not in the room at the moment, but I honor him as a prophet. He’s not prophetic. He is a prophet and that’s biblical. Read Ephesians 4. It’s entirely biblical.

But I kind of get a little bit nervous if I’m entirely honest. This is just me. This isn’t a word of judgment. But I get nervous when we have official titles that people must call us because I start thinking, “I don’t know. I don’t know if I want that for me.”

I mean, it’d be really fun if you could all call me Prophet, Apostle, Teacher, Evangelist, Pastor Katia Adams whenever you saw me and that was my official title and I wouldn’t respond if you didn’t call me all of those things.

It’d be fun for me, but what it would do would be to relegate everyone to a second tier of Christianity when they’re around me. That’s not what the fivefold gifts are for. The Bible tells us that the fivefold gift in Ephesians 4 is to raise the entire body into maturity so what you see will be multiplied in you so that you can do it.

When you have a prophet in your midst, if he’s a genuine prophet, what will happen is he will raise the bar of prophecy across the board, so when we have Julian as a prophet in our midst, all of us prophesy better. The gift is an invitation for what we’re all meant to walk into. Do you see what I’m saying?

So honor the gift. But I’m not sure the gift is meant to be a title that we load over everybody else. I think the gift is meant to be an invitation for everyone else to walk in what they see. So it’s awesome because when you hear someone give you a testimony that’s insane, you don’t need to feel jealous about it because when you hear it, you know that God is inviting you into the same experience.

I’m going a little bit off my notes here, but just for a second, I feel to press this. When you hear a prophet tell you about visions and experiences, if your heart goes, “Well, that’s not fair…” Which my heart used to do, so I’m not saying something against you. This is a reality of what I felt.

When Julian, when we first got married, would tell me things, I’d be like, “This is so annoying. Well, of course, you’re a prophet, so you get to do that. I don’t get those dreams. I don’t get those visions.” I was missing the point because when someone tells you what they’re experiencing, what God is doing in that moment is giving you a handwritten invitation of encounter and experience that He has for you.

When an apostle tells you of raising the dead, you’re not meant to roll your eyes and go, “Well, it’s all right for you. You’re an apostle.” You’re meant to go, “I heard you say it, and if Ephesians 4 is actually true…” Which either it is or it’s not, and if it’s not true, then the rest of the Bible isn’t and let’s all go home.

But if Ephesians 4 is actually true, when you hear of someone raising the dead, the point isn’t to go, “Well, it’s all right for you because you’re gifted.” The point is to go, “I get to enter into that same maturity. I get to enter into that same experience,” because what you see the gifts do, all of that is intended to multiply into all of us.

So every time you see a gift operate, every time you hear a crazy, insane testimony, don’t let the enemy put jealousy in your heart or passive aggression or apathy because I’m not going to do anything now because I can’t possibly do that. That’s a lie of the enemy.

Every time you hear something awesome, think, “That’s for me,” because it is. That’s why you’re hearing it. That’s why we share testimonies on Sundays, not because we want to go, “I saw this in England and none of you have seen it.” No, we’re saying those testimonies because if I saw it, you can have it. That’s the point.

What you hear is meant to be multiplied in your own life. It’s not for the special few. It’s not “I’m Simon the Great and I have a secret power that none of you can know.” It’s “I’m Philip the evangelist. I bring a different kind of fire that every single one of you can know because his name is Jesus and I will tell you about him.” It’s a completely different experience.

Third contrast. Simon believed that the Holy Spirit could be bought. It’s a different kind of fire. You know, magicians in the day, those who practiced witchcraft, and we have many in our day who do the same, they pay for the power. They pay either in money or in life. They pay for it because it’s demonic. There has to be a transaction that costs the person something. But Holy Spirit is a different kind of fire and he’s not for sale. He’s free, but he’s not cheap. There’s a difference.

And so Simon, though he’s believed the message, hasn’t been fully transformed by the message, which is okay, we’re all on a journey, okay? So let’s not be rude about Simon entirely here. But he was on a journey and he didn’t get it and he went back to what he knew, the formula he was aware of, which was, “Let me buy what I see.” And the apostle, they… I mean, they come down strong on him because there’s something about recognizing that you will never ever be able to purchase the Holy Spirit.

Now, all of us read this and go, “Clearly, you can’t pay for the Holy Spirit. Clearly, you can’t put in your money and out comes Holy Spirit out of the ginormous machine that you put your coins into and out he comes. That’s not how it works.”

But how many of us are trying to buy him with how often we fast or how often we’re good or how often we pray or whether we did something good this week? How many of us come into a meeting and immediately think through, “What did I do this week? Was it good enough?” And when we don’t feel goosebumps, start thinking, “It’s because I wasn’t good enough.”

How many of us fall into sin… And I’m not saying is okay. It’s not because you a believer. Sin doesn’t become you because the reality is everything about you has changed. So if you’re in sin, stop it because it’s unnatural for you to sin.

But anyway, how many us, if we have given in to temptation, start feeling like, “Now I’m really far away from God and now I have to start the journey of walking towards Him again?” It’s called purchasing the presence of the Spirit and he’s not for sale.

He’s free, whether you’ve been good or bad. He’s free, not cheap, because Jesus died to make the heavens open. But he’s free. Let’s not live a Christianity that may not try to purchase him with money, but may try to purchase him with our works.

And you’ll know if you have this in you, if you get annoyed when the person sitting next to you, not right now, you understand, I’m sure we’re all perfect, but sometimes sitting next to you who’s just walked in the building for about 30 seconds, gets, boom, the power of God and suddenly, they’re giving testimonies of seeing healings every 30 seconds in the week and you’re sitting there annoyed because I’ve been a believer for 20 years and I’ve never seen a miracle.

And rather than be celebrating of what they’re seeing, you’re starting to get frustrated because I’ve put my time in. You don’t get to purchase the power and authority and the presence of Holy Spirit with your time.

And I’m saying this because when I was seven… I’m being so honest with all my mistakes this morning, but it’s because Jesus gets glory when we’re real about the stuff we’ve messed up on. I love that. There’s no shame in the stuff you’ve messed up on because he turns all of it to a glorious expression of how good he is.

When I was seven, or maybe a little bit younger, probably about six, for about a year, I’d been praying to be filled with the presence of the Spirit and speak in tongues and I had all sorts of misunderstandings about what God is like. But anyway, that’s not the point. I really loved Him and I knew He loved me.

And for about a year, I’d been praying, but I never really felt His presence strongly or I’d never started speaking in tongues. And then another family joined our church and one of the girls was nine and she within a week started speaking in tongues.

And I was really cross because I was like, “I’ve put my time in. I’ve put my time in. I’ve been praying for my healing for the last 20 years and Joe comes in and is healed of cancer in the second. Where the heck is God?” You don’t purchase him. You don’t purchase him. He’s free for all of us.

And you know what? Other people’s breakthrough, celebrating that often leads us into greater revelation and encounter. I can’t tell you why things don’t happen immediately all of the time. I can’t tell you that, but I do know that he’s not for sale and we need to do some work in our hearts if that’s where we’re at.

Last one, and this one’s not in the passage. Well, it kind of is. It’s half in the passage. You know the beauty of Acts 8 is actually in Luke 9. Flick to Luke 9. Oh, you don’t have to. I’m going to read it, so it’s fine. Last comparison, a different kind of fire. This is what makes Acts 8 one of my favorite passages in the Bible.

Luke 9:51 Open in Logos Bible Software (if available), “As the time approached for Jesus to be taken up to heaven, Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem. And he sent messengers on ahead, who went into Samaritan villages to get things ready for him, but the people there, who hated the Jews, did not welcome him because he was heading for Jerusalem. When the disciples James and John saw this, they asked, ‘Lord, do you want us to call fire down from heaven to destroy them?'”

Can I just stop here for a second because I think this is hilarious? They’re with Jesus and they have no power. They don’t even know what’s going on most of the time and yet they suggest to Jesus, “We’ll help you out here because you obviously don’t have the power to do whatever you want to do.”

Shall we call down fire? What would they have done if he said yes? Like, “What do we do now?” Never ask Jesus a question where you’re not prepared for all the answers. Okay? It’s a dangerous thing to do. Anyway, I just think it’s so funny. “But Jesus turned and rebuked them.” I love it.

The Book of Luke and the Book of Acts are written by the same author, which is the Dr. Luke. They are a two-part volume. In the Early Church, they came together. They were Part 1 and Part 2. It’s like “Lord of the Rings” trilogy. Well, you don’t obviously read one without reading two and three. If not, you don’t know what happens. They came together.

The author Luke is being incredibly, incredibly strategic and intentional with what he’s writing. Luke 9 and Acts 8 go together because it’s interesting that one of the disciples who wanted to call down one kind of fire on the Samaritans in Luke 9 goes to call down an entirely different kind of fire in Acts 8.

Can you imagine being the Apostle John? Can you imagine standing in the same place where just a little while before you fully understood the kindness of God, you were saying, “These people deserve nothing. Bring judgment on them?” And he goes and he says, “Please let me lay hands on you because I’m going to call down a different kind of fire.”

I want to tell you, Holy Spirit is a different kind of fire to what many imagine God to be bringing from heaven. I read Facebook and it sickens me because so-called Christians are saying that earthquake was yet another moment of judgment from the heart of God, and I think, “What kind of fire have we been understanding?”

It’s like we got stuck in Luke 9, didn’t even read Jesus’ response, which was a rebuke to that crazy way of thinking. We never got to Acts 8 and we still think that God’s the one sending fire of judgment from heaven. What do you think the cross and resurrection were for in the first place?

I want to tell you for your life Holy Spirit is a different kind of fire, a fire of mercy, a fire of grace, a fire of kindness and goodness that will take your breath away. He’s a fire who empowers you, not because you earned his empowerment, but because he is just that greatest. And I want to tell you once he’s transformed you with everything in him, he wants to bring you to a place where you are empowered to lay hands on others and bring a different kind of fire.

We are agents of a different kind of fire, you and me. A kind of fire that isn’t stuck in amazement without encounter. A kind of fire that doesn’t lead people to say, “Wow, you’re great,” but leads people to say, “Wow, Jesus is alive.”

A kind of fire that is not for sale. If he’s not for sale, neither should we be. And a kind of fire that is so full of mercy that it astonishes and that it leaves lives transformed. Why don’t you stand with me for a moment?

He’s here in this room. We don’t need goosebumps, although goosebumps are awesome. So, Holy Spirit, come and impact us to such a way that we feel you physically because that’s what we were designed for. We don’t need soft playing music because, Holy Spirit, you are the power of God.

In the name of Jesus, we invite the fire of the Spirit to come and rest on us, to come and lead us to fall in love with Jesus more, to come and overwhelm us with his mercy, to come and empower us not to put our Christianity and our values for sale for the highest bidder.

Holy Spirit, fall amongst us. In this moment, Holy Spirit, fire of God, hey, we honor your presence. Where you are, freedom comes. So in the name of Jesus, I speak. I speak to depression and I speak to anxiety and I speak to demonic oppression and I say go in the name of Jesus because where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom and he is here right now.

And so I speak just a few months ago, someone got healed of depression instantaneously in one of the meetings that I preached at. That’s because God is kind. And so in the name of Jesus, the same Spirit that broke the back of depression in that meeting, right now, I speak healing for those who are depressed, for those who desperately need the peace of God to quiet the storm of anxiety in their lives. I speak freedom in this place. Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is much joy.

And so in the name of Jesus, Holy Spirit of a different kind of fire than what we may have understood, I speak joy in lives. I ask you, Holy Spirit, that people will get in their cars and they just won’t stop being able to… They’ll just laugh and laugh and laugh. That’s why giving becomes hilarious in the body because giving anywhere else isn’t hilarious and isn’t fun. But with the Spirit of God inside of you, even giving becomes so joy-filled because joy has ignited everything in your life.

And so in the name of Jesus, we honor you, a different kind of fire, who is neither nameless nor secretive, but is very much known in the person of Jesus Christ. And even in this moment, I want to say if you are someone who wouldn’t call yourself a Christian, maybe you’re just new to the building and everything I’ve talked about, you’re like, “I’ve never understood that this is who Jesus is,” I want to give you an opportunity because Jesus loves you and he died for you. God is not a secret. God has put Himself on display in the person of Jesus and is inviting you to know Him. And so if you want to know Him today, I want to pray with you that you would come to an encounter with Jesus.

And if you’ve been in this church for 30 years and you would call yourself a Christian and yet you’re suddenly thinking, “I don’t even know if I’ve encountered Jesus and I don’t even know if I’ve ever been baptized in a different kind of fire of the Holy Spirit,” then today’s a really good day to come forward and encounter the person of God because I’m want to tell you Jesus is very much alive and he’s here in this room in the person of his Spirit.

So, Father, we honor you. We say keep doing this stuff in our lives because it’s not meant to be about a church building. So keep ministering to us as we go home, as we have our lunch, as we try to have a nap. Give us dreams and visions to shake us up and to change our lives. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen.

Man: Thank you for listening to this teaching from Frequency. In order to keep this teaching and our other resources for you, we rely on donations from people like you. If you feel led to give, head over to our website, frequency.org, and click the give button. You can find our other resources, like blogs and videos, on our website or sign up for our mailing list, where you’ll receive exclusive content from us.

Blessed are Those…

Tue, 22 Jan 2019 18:00:00 GMT

Our lives are not supposed to make sense. Too often we’ve made Christianity about going to church and getting goosebumps, and then going home to our lives that look no different from those of our unbelieving neighbours. But to live in the Kingdom is to be about transformation that goes beyond the four walls of a church building. In this teaching, Katia takes us through one of the most radical teachings of Jesus, the Beatitudes, and empowers us to live beyond what makes sense to the world around us.

Subscribe to Frequentsee teachings on Apple Podcasts.

Do You Know Where You Are?

Sat, 12 Jan 2019 18:37:26 GMT

I don’t know about you, but sometimes I find it all too easy to forget where I am.

I can go through days overlooking the fact that, although what I see of my surroundings with my human eyes is earthbound, in actual fact I’m sitting joined entirely with Jesus in Heavenly places. Totally joined with Him. So intertwined that there is not a single moment of my day where it’s possible to untangle myself from Him . If He’s on a throne, then so am I. If He’s sitting at the right hand of the Father (Ephesians 1), then so am I.

I’ve been musing over what it actually means to be seated at the Father’s right hand. When scripture mentions the words ‘right hand’, what is it that the Word is trying to communicate? Doing a search through the Bible to open up the significance of ‘right hand’ is a seriously encouraging read. Ephesians isn’t simply trying to tell us our direction from the Father but rather trying to open our eyes to the overwhelming Kingdom resource that we’re sitting in.

Take Genesis 48 for example, when we read of Jacob blessing Joseph’s children, his right hand was so significant that where he placed it was where the lion’s share of blessing, birthright and inheritance would go. Then look at Exodus 15 – from His right hand comes so much power that the enemy is shattered & wiped out. At His right handare pleasures evermore (Psalm 16), a place of refuge (Psalm 17) and source of support (Psalm 18). His right hand is filled with righteousness (Psalm 48) and brings deliverance and salvation (Psalm 60, Psalm 98). From His right hand comes creative power (Isaiah 48). The Son of His right hand is one who He makes strong (Psalm 80).

We are the sons and daughters of His right hand.

We are literally sitting in the wild and uncontainable current of His blessing, favour and inheritance, His power and deliverance and covering of refuge, His spine-strengthening joy and life-giving pleasure, His heart-cleansing righteousness, His ability to create all things from nothing and to bring forth what is seen from the unseen.

Whatever your earthly world looks like today, know this: His enemy-shattering power is all over you. His favour and blessing of birthright rest on you. His arms of comfort and support and refuge surround you. The power to create hovers expectantly over you. You are the sons and daughters of His right hand, and He will bring you strength.

Stop Trying to be Awesome

Wed, 24 Oct 2018 18:47:14 GMT

‘Stop trying to be profound and awesome – it will get in the way of love’ – Shawn Bolz

I’m going to be honest with you – sometimes I find writing a blog really difficult. The trouble I have is that with each new week and hopefully new blog post I feel pressure to come up with something amazing and profound. Something world changing. Something awesome. And as it turns out, coming up with something like that is not so easy. And so I end up spending quite a lot of time staring at the computer screen hoping for some heavenly inspiration to hit me, writing occasionally and all in all wasting a lot of time.

Thankfully though, somewhere in between staring at the screen and practicing my typing skills, I start remembering the advice I heard Shawn Bolz give at a gathering for young leaders and slowly the pressure comes off and I can get back to focussing on what is really important – listening to what Heavenly Papa is saying, being undone by His love again (because everything He communicates is an overflow of who He is: Love) and learning how to overflow with that myself, to other people.

The thing about trying to be awesome is that at its root, it’s a self-serving motivation. Love, on the other hand, is other-centred. Sometimes, what I have to bring may not seem like much – it may not be the most witty or clever. It may not be the most profound. But what matters is this: whatever I do overflows with love .

Of course, this is not just about writing a blog. This is about how we live our lives, how we approach other people, how we think about people’s perceptions of us. When we’re sharing the good news of Jesus with people – what is our motivation? To come up with something clever? To win the argument? To have a story to tell our friends later? Or to pour out all of Heaven’s love on that person? When we pray for the sick and command healing to their bodies, what is our motivation? Are our hearts moved by a desire for Heaven’s fireworks, or are our hearts moved by compassion for the broken? Sometimes I know my heart can be motivated by me wanting to look or sound really awesome, rather than by wanting to love the person in front of me really well.

The incredible thing is that when I read the Gospels, I encounter a God who is consistently motivated by love. Not a weak, romanticised version but the real deal – powerful, passionate and selfless. Jesus healed the sick as an overflow of compassion, not a show of power (see Matthew 14:14 , Mark 1:41 , Matthew 20:34 ). He multiplied food, not because it would make Him look good, but because He was too full of love to send the hungry away ( Matthew 15:32 ). He gave Himself upon the cross as the ultimate expression of Father’s love – not at its root an expression of justice, or an expression of God’s hatred for sin – no, the root motivation of the cross is unstoppable, irrepressible love.

I want to be undone all over again by the raw love of God for me, and want to be a channel of that to those I meet today. Not trying to be awesome – too aware that often that comes at the cost of love – but really seeing the person in front of me and asking, what does it look like to unleash Heaven’s affection on this person right now? It may be something small, i t may be something simple, it may be something inconvenient – but whatever it looks like, it will be love.

God is Healing Skin Conditions

Mon, 08 Oct 2018 18:00:00 GMT

God is in the business of healing! Julian and I were recently comparing stories of some miracles that have broken out in our meetings, we noticed a trend in the miraculous healing of skin diseases. If you or someone you love has a skin condition, watch and be encouraged as we pray for God’s healing power to break out in your life.

– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: Hey, guys. So Julian and I have recently been sharing some stories together about what God has been doing in terms of the miraculous in some of the meetings that we’ve been in. And we just wanted to share some stories around a theme today with you. Just believing that God is gonna do something, bring some breakthrough, even as we share these stories.

My story is from a few years ago when I was in a meeting in South Africa, and at the end of the preaching time, I just felt led to go after skin diseases. And just, it was a super simple prayer. It wasn’t anything dramatic but just prayed that God would bring healing to any skin diseases present in the room. Didn’t hear anything, any feedback after that meeting, but actually a few months after that meeting I met a lady who came to me. She had beautiful flawless skin on her face.

And she said she was in that meeting and she had had chronic acne throughout her adult life and had super scarred skin all over her face. And in that meeting she just turned to a friend and said, “I’m taking that. That’s for me. I want new skin on my face.” And when I saw her just a few months later, literally within the week after the meeting that I’d been out with her, God gave her a brand new skin on her face. And so when I met her she had beautiful flawless skin. And I just love that. It’s not a necessary miracle in so many ways, but it was meaningful to that woman. She didn’t want the chronic scarring and God gave her a brand new skin in place of that scarring.

Julian: I’ve just come back from a trip to the states where I was speaking at a church in Columbus, Ohio. And we were praying for the sick and just saw God do some amazing things. On my way out of the meeting, there was a couple waiting outside, an older gentleman who had severe psoriasis of the skin all over his arms. And he showed me his arms and said, “Hey, look, look, look what’s happened.” And I was, like, “Well, what’s wrong with your arms?” And he said, “I’ve got brand-new skin. All of the psoriasis that I have been struggling with for many years has completely gone, and my skin is returned to normal.”

God’s doing some amazing things, and we really wanted to trust God for you. If you have any condition, particularly to do with skin conditions, whether it’s in long-term, short-term, whether you’re on medication or not, we wanna trust God for some healing to break up where you are. So I’m gonna ask Katia [SP] just to pray and very simple short pray, and we can trust that God will do amazing things. Please e-mail us, text me of what God’s done. We wanna hear about the breakthroughs that God’s doing, particularly in the area of skin healing. Go for it, love.

Katia: Testimony is prophetic in nature, and so what you’ve just heard us share with you is a prophetic word for something that you may need. And so, yeah, we’re engaging our faith in this moment. And I just declare over each and every person who’s watching this video, in the name of Jesus, we speak healing over skin conditions right now. Whatever it is, chronic scarring, eczema, psoriasis, any diseases of the skin, in the name of Jesus, go now. A new, brand-new flawless skin appear in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Julian: Amen

Game-Changing Words

Wed, 03 Oct 2018 18:53:09 GMT

Ever notice how words can totally change how you feel? One minute you’re walking along with a spring in your step and the next minute someone says something to you that makes your stomach drop and your heart sink. I just had one of those moments. I went from happy to deflated in approximately twenty seconds. Funny timing given the fact that I was thinking of writing a blog on this topic.

God really knows what He’s talking about when He says, ‘the power of life and death is in the tongue’. Makes me want to use my words more carefully.

The wonderful thing of course, is that just as much as we have the ability to destroy someone’s confidence with what we say, we’ve got the power to catapult them into greatness as we call out gold from them. We have the power to speak game-changing words over one another.

The Bible records many game-changing conversations and one of my absolute favourites is the conversation between Queen Esther and her uncle Mordecai (Esther 4). In ancient times women were valued for only one thing – their beauty. There really was no expectation of, or use for a woman other than this. And Esther had fully bought into the world’s estimation and expectation of her. When her uncle came to her and told her of the trouble that the Jews faced and told her to go to the King for their rescue, Esther’s response was (I paraphrase) ‘Are you kidding? Don’t you know just how insignificant I am?’ And in response Mordecai began to speak words that shifted her thinking.

Game-changing words. Words of courage and destiny.

He spoke now all too familiar words quoted by many a christian: ‘Who knows whether you were brought into the kingdom for such a time as this?’ In that moment everything changed for Esther. A woman who thought very little of herself suddenly got revelation that she was created for more than just to sit and look pretty, that she was created with greatness in mind, that she was created for incredible destiny. And because she got fresh revelation of who she was, the course of a nation was changed.

I want to be like Mordecai to those around me. I want to be a woman who speaks words that are game-changing for my hearers. A woman who points people to their destiny and pours courage into them to do the seemingly impossible. I love how reading of Mordecai provokes me to speak words of life over others. But there’s more in this story than just inspiration for how I am to live.

Incredibly, Mordecai is not just a model for us, but is a picture to us of what the Holy Spirit is like. Contrary to popular belief, the Holy Spirit is not busy running around convicting christians of their sin (John 16 is quite clear that this is one of His roles towards the unbeliever) but rather, as we see in Romans 8, the Spirit is busy speaking new identity and greatness over the believer. He loves telling us of our new-creation identity. He loves pouring courage into us to empower us to live lives of great adventure and influence. If we tune in our ears to listen, we’ll hear Him speaking game-changing words over us.

I wonder whether the course of nations will change as we draw in to listen?

Finding Joy In Generosity

Mon, 20 Aug 2018 19:39:56 GMT

I’ve been thinking about Kingdom generosity and abundance a lot in the last few days. I love the invitation in 2 Corinthians 9:7 to enter into cheerful giving – that means it is possible for generosity to be attached to a whole lot of fun and joy. Many of us may not feel the words fun and generosity belong in the same sentence, but the more I enter heaven’s invitation to live generously, the more I’m convinced that it has the power to inject unreasonable levels of joy into our lives.

Here are my favourite reasons why:

Generosity Opens the Heavens

Firstly, as we give generously, stretching ourselves and our means, we get to let go of the reality of the seen realm and tap into the greater reality of the unseen realm where there are limitless resources and storehouses that never run dry. The fact is that if we allow our bank balances to have the final word on how we live and give, then they will have just that, the final word. We will have tied ourselves to them for our provision, for our adventure, for our blessing. But if we allow heavenly storehouses the final word on how we live, on how we give, then our bank balances will not have a defining hold on us and we’ll be allowing a far greater, richer reality to resource our lives.

Generosity Makes Me Look More Like Him

Secondly, when we give generously it is one of the moments when the expression ‘Like Father, like daughter (or son)’ shines most brightly, for our heavenly Papa is the most lavishly generous being in existence – He is the prodigal Father – and we can never out-give Him, but we certainly can look like Him as we live open-handedly. Everything He does is an overflow of abundant generosity. It makes me smile to think I can look a whole lot like Him as I enter into the adventure of giving.

Is God inviting you to give in a certain area today? Lean into that voice, and take a step towards radical generosity. It’s worth it.

Can Women Be Elders?

Sun, 05 Aug 2018 18:00:00 GMT

Does 1 Timothy 3 restrict women from leadership? In this teaching, Katia takes a look at what this passage means for Women in the church.

This video includes content from Katia's book, Equal. Get the book HERE .

– TRANSCRIPT

Hi everyone. Today, we’re gonna be doing a video on 1 Timothy 3 and specifically focusing in on the topic of eldership. In this video, I’ll be using the word, “Eldership,” or, “Elder” interchangeably with the word, “Overseer,” which is the technical word that is used in 1 Timothy 3. But most scholars would agree that the word overseer and the word elder are interchangeable. And because eldership makes more sense for most churches today, that’s the word I’ll use. I wanna say, right from the beginning, that many scholars wouldn’t use 1 Timothy 3 as their argument against eldership. A lot of complementarian scholars would rather point to 1 Timothy 2:12 where they find the stronger argument rather than looking at 1 Timothy 3. But today, we will focus on 1 Timothy 3. What’s important is, I’m just gonna quote, an influential complementation, scholar Susan Foh, and she says, “There’s only one valid argument against women being ordained, that’s a scriptural prohibition and that scriptural prohibition is found in 1 Timothy 2:12. ” And really, she explicitly states what many believe, that if you want to have an argument against eldership for women, really you need to be looking at 1 Timothy 2 rather than 1 Timothy 3 because it’s never explicitly stated in 1 Timothy 3 at all.

But we’re gonna leave that to one side and we’ll just look at 1 Timothy 3 together. Well, first thing to note is that the language used in 1 Timothy 3 can sometimes make us feel that it’s obvious, elders should be male because the language is masculine. And if we conclude that then we’ve not really understood how Greek works as a language. Greek is an androcentric language, it means that when it uses masculine language that’s not necessarily a comment on gender at all. In fact it’s very common, in the Greek, for writers to use masculine language when they’re referring to both men and to women. So some examples for us John 3:16, “Whosoever believes.” Well, the whosoever is masculine, that doesn’t mean…no one is interpreting that as only men who believe will be saved but rather that we understand, from the androcentric nature of Greek language, that, though it’s a masculine word, whosoever, that includes both men and women. Another example is Acts 1 where it says that there were…it’s very clear there were both men and women in the upper room. And then we’re told that Peter stands up and he addresses, “The brothers.” Does that mean that he was ignoring the women in the room? No, it’s an androcentric language, it means when Peter gets up and says, “Brothers,” we understand him to be including the sisters in the room as well. And so, it’s simply not good interpretive skills to look at 1 Timothy 3 and say, “Oh, the word for elder, the word for overseer, that’s used is masculine, therefore that must be a comment on the gender of the elder.” That’s just not accurate, that’s not how Greek works. And not many scholars would point to that as proof of the exclusion of women from eldership. It’s important to note also that there are no masculine pronouns in the Greek. There are in English because we have to make sense of the text but, in Greek, there are no he or his involved in the text, we’ve inserted that in the English because we’re trying to maintain some flow in the text. But it’s important to see that because, if not, we’ll read the text as more masculine than it was written in the original in the first place.

I wanna quote a scholar, a well-respected scholar, N.T. Wright, I’m gonna read this because I don’t wanna get it wrong but it’s a very important quote. N.T. Wright comments how Paul refers to the bishop to the overseer as a man. And oh, how much confusion we could bring if we cut the quote there. But he crucially goes on, and this is the important part for us to see. He says his reading of the rest of the New Testament inclines him to think that this is more because that’s how Greek grammar normally refers to both genders together and because, in the very early days of the church, the leaders of most communities were probably men. He goes on to say, “I don’t see it as debarring women from this particular ministry and vocation.” So it’s really important to see that that masculine language used in 1 Timothy 3 is not in and of itself a good argument for excluding women from eldership. If the Greek writer, if the writer in the Greek wanted to put an exclusion for women, they would explicitly need to write, “Women are not included.” And that’s the one thing that’s missing from the text, in 1 Timothy 3, there is no explicit prohibition of a woman being an elder.

But complementarians do point to a couple of other things in the text to argue that this is for men only, and we’ll look at that together. One of the arguments is the phrase, “One-woman man,” or, in the English, it’s, “the husband of one wife.” Again, not many complementarians point to this, some really influential complementarians, Douglas Moo, Tomas Schreiner would not oppose this argument. But anyway, we’ll look at the argument. So when we look at one-woman man, some complementarians would say, “Obviously, only men can fulfill that requirement. And so, obviously, eldership must be male.” There’s a couple of problems with that and Philip 10 is really helpful in setting out all of the problems that you would have if you wanted to interpret that phrase in that way. Firstly, one-woman man is a set phrase, it’s an idiom. It was a recognized set phrase in the day, there’s evidence of gravesites of the day having the phrase one-woman man. And really, it’s not a comment on gender, it’s a comment on faithfulness in marriage. It’s very clearly associated with that, meaning it’s not only excluding polygamy, although, obviously, that would be included, but it is actually commenting on being faithful to your spouse. And that’s why Paul puts it here, it’s a comment that the person was faithful to their spouse in marriage, it’s not a comment on gender. Philip Payne points out that it’s poor hermeneutics, it’s poor scholarship to take one word from a set phrase and elevate it above the phrase so that it becomes a requirement on top of what the phrase already means. This is what he means, “It’s unhelpful, it would be inaccurate to take out man from one-woman man, elevate it as a requirement that elders must be male, as well as the obvious meaning of the set phrase which is faithfulness to your spouse.” That’s simply not done, that’s not a good way of interpreting scriptures, similar to taking the phrase, “Govern one’s household,” or, “manage one’s household,” which is later on in the text, and taking out, “one’s household,” and saying, “oh, this proves that elders must be homeowners. That’s a requirement.” Well, that’s twisting the meaning of that phrase, and that would be doing the same in this phrase, one-woman man is a phrase about faithfulness to a spouse, it’s not a comment on gender.

Another issue with using it as a requirement for male eldership is that it actually isn’t seen as a requirement but rather an exclusion. So scholars, and this would be complementarians as well as egalitarians, most would agree on this that this isn’t saying that it is a requirement for the elder to be married but it is a comment of exclusion. So it is excluding those who are unfaithful to their spouse. If you make it a requirement, particularly highlighting the man part, you have to make the whole original meaning a requirement which would mean that marriage is a requirement. Well, that’s difficult to argue. Paul was the one writing this, he wasn’t married. Paul who wrote this also argues, in 1 Corinthians, that he advises people not to get married. Does that mean he’s advising people to do something that will then exclude them from leadership? That certainly seems difficult to argue. And obviously, Jesus wasn’t married, and I’m pretty sure that Paul wasn’t putting about a list of requirements and exclusions which would even exclude Jesus, theoretically, from fulfilling that office. It doesn’t seem to make sense to make one-woman man a requirement. And if it’s not a requirement, that is not a comment on the gender of the person holding that office.

The other thing that complementarians would point to in an argument that this must be a man who fulfills the role of elder is to point to the requirement for a man to manage or govern his household well. And when Grudem says this, he points out how he suggests how the word for manage there is a word that only is used in the New Testament to reference men and, therefore, it must mean that elders must be men. It’s a strange assertion because, in Romans 12, verses 6 to 8, that word is used there again but, in Romans 12, 6 to 8, there is no masculine language in the English. There are some male pronouns that are put there but, if we look at the Greek text, there are no male pronouns. And so, Romans 12, 6 to 8, is not specifically speaking to men, or about men, but does use the same word in the Greek that we see here for managing their own households. Also, the noun associated with the verb used here for managing is used once in the New Testament, and that one time is used over woman Phoebe in Romans 16. And so, again, it seems strange to start arguing that that is a word only referencing men when we’ve got good examples, in the New Testament, that would argue otherwise. The other thing about this is that, in 1 Timothy 5, Paul speaks to the women and speaks to them to rule their households using a much stronger word, in fact, than the managing households used in, 1 Timothy 3, for elders. And so, again, the argument to say that word managing specifically points to men is a very strange argument to use.

There are some other considerations that we’ve got to put in at this point. The book of Titus has a list for eldership, it’s helpful to note that, in that list, there are no male pronouns as there are no male pronouns here. It’s also helpful to note that, in Titus, it does the same thing as the text here, in 1 Timothy, does, which is opens it up saying, “If anyone aspires to the office of overseer, it’s important to note that the anyone that’s used is not an any man in the Greek but is any human.” In 1 Timothy 3:1 , that’s the word that’s used, the first verse, “If anyone, if any human desires or aspires to this office of overseer, they desire a noble task.” If any of us are still stuck on the masculine word that’s used for overseer, well, we’ll have a problem with verse 1 in 1 Timothy because the office of overseer that’s used in verse 1 is actually a female word. And so, we really need to steer clear from using the argument that masculine language means that only men can be elders.

Another point to raise, which Philip Payne does, he does some extensive work on the statistics involved in the requirements for eldership. And he points out that the requirements for eldership used in 1 Timothy 3, there are so many that are, in fact, all of them are used of the teaching specifically towards women later on in Timothy. And he points out that there are about half of the requirements that are used virtually identically, word-for-word, for the teaching that then is specifically for women. And the other half that aren’t identical word-for-word are conceptually parallel. For example, where the requirement might be to not drink too much wine, the teaching for women is that they should be sober. And so, there’s a conceptual parallel that is the same.

And Philip Payne does some statistical work here. He works out the statistical probability of the phrases being used both for eldership and for women. And it’s really interesting, from the statistics of using just the pastoral epistles alone, the statistics of both of those being the same is six in one million. If you look wider at the whole of the Pauline corpus, the statistics of the teaching being the same for elders as it is for women becomes five in one trillion. That’s quite significant statistics and, obviously, gives us an indicator that this wasn’t just random that Paul happened to use the same phrases when he speaks of eldership requirements and then when he speaks to the women, but rather that he was using the same words intentionally. It certainly seems the probable option that he was using those words intentionally to show that what he was requiring of the women would be able to fulfill eldership functions.

We don’t know how many women elders there were in the early church, we don’t know how many men elders there were because none of them, neither men nor women, are specifically named in the New Testament. But what we do know, what is clear, is that from 1 Timothy 3 we cannot make an argument to exclude women from eldership. If we want to do that, we’ve got to use 1 Timothy 2:12 . And if we do that, then we’ve gotta see 1 Timothy 2:12 as a universal prohibition which would mean, in our churches, not only must we exclude women from eldership but we must stop them from teaching and having authority over even one man. It’s very simple, we’ve got to decide, we cannot have it both ways. Either women are allowed to teach and have authority in our context, in which case, the subject of the eldership should be open, or both should be restricted completely in our churches.

Women in Church Leadership: Understanding 1 Timothy 2

Sun, 05 Aug 2018 18:00:00 GMT

In this four-part teaching series, Katia explains the context of 1 Timothy 2, which is commonly used to restrict women in the Church.

This video includes content from Katia's book, Equal. Get the book HERE.

Part 1: Context

9 Minutes

Part 2: Two Keys

13 Minutes

P art 3: Learning, Teaching, Authority

12 Minutes

Part 4: Genesis Story

12 Minutes

Supernatural DNA

Tue, 24 Jul 2018 19:50:08 GMT

Sometimes I’m a bit too hard on myself. In my attempts to live a ‘supernatural lifestyle’ (whatever that looks like), I often beat myself up when I don’t get something right the first time around. Or I assume that I must have made a mistake if whatever I’ve stepped out to do doesn’t quite go as I had hoped or planned.

I remember going out onto the streets of London a few years ago with my wonderful friend Toni and praying for the sick (or anybody we could find who would let us pray for them!) and wondering what I was doing wrong when we didn’t seem to be seeing any miracles happening as we prayed. I remember walking away disappointed as time-and-again we weren’t seeing any ‘success’, wondering if I was really built for supernatural life after all. Maybe the promise of the miraculous was meant for ‘special’ Christians who were more anointed than I was?

More recently though, I’ve started wondering if my only mistake at that time was to underestimate the beauty and the nature of process. When a child learns to walk or talk no one with any sense is assuming that they’ll be able to do it successfully on the first attempt. In fact, no one with any sense assumes that they’ll be able to do it successfully on the hundredth attempt either! It takes countless attempts for a child to step out until eventually, their stumbles look more like walking rather than falling, and their words become intelligible instead of baby babble. But if you look at their parents during this process, they never once punish the child for falling instead of taking a successful step, or for mispronouncing a word for the hundredth time even though dad has taken great pains to sound the word out correctly for the child to follow.

As we see stumbles and hear nonsensical sounds from the child, no one comes to the conclusion that the child wasn’t actually created to walk or talk. That somehow those are gifts reserved for ‘special’ or ‘super’ children – which as evidenced by their failed attempts, our children do not possess.

In the natural, we understand the beauty and nature of process well. Why then, do we not apply this same principle to our attempts at stepping out in supernatural, Kingdom life? Why do we set up such impossibly high standards for ourselves as if our heavenly Papa is growing impatient with us as He watches us stumble, wondering if we’ll ever get it right?

He has grace for the process, and so should we.

Every time we fall instead of walk, our heavenly Papa is there to pick us up, dust us off and say, ‘That’s ok, we’ll try again tomorrow, you’ll get it eventually – I made you to!’ No amount of stumbling and failure is proof that we were not made for the miraculous or that signs and wonders are reserved for someone other than us. Each and every one of us carries DNA aglow with supernatural life, which means we were created with the miraculous in mind.

If you’re someone like me, who still often finds herself stumbling – resembling more a fall than a walk in the supernatural, take heart. Your heavenly Papa is right there with you with a big smile on His face – attracted much more to your faith than your performance – and is saying, ‘That’s ok my love. We’ll try again tomorrow’.

How To Disciple Well

Mon, 23 Jul 2018 18:00:00 GMT

Much of the Church places a high value on discipleship, but it’s not always done well. In this video, I share two keys which will help you disciple people with intentionality and effectiveness.

– Transcript

Hi guys. I just wanted to share two thoughts around discipling and mentoring with you. This is something I get asked about quite a lot. So I wanted to share the two keys that I found most helpful in discipling and mentoring other people. And the first is around being family together and the second is about keeping people accountable for their destiny. So firstly, family. I think historically, in the church we’ve done a lot of discipleship that’s been meeting-based, organizing time to do Bible studies together or I don’t know, prayer meetings together and it’s not that that’s bad.

It’s just that there’s a lot of fruitfulness that comes from inviting people into family and into life with us. I find it incredibly empowering where I’ve invited people into my space, into my life and they can see the good and the bad. They can see the weaknesses and the successes and when we see in the Gospels that’s how Jesus did discipleship. He invited people in to life with him and to journey with him so that they could learn from his everyday circumstances. And so I wanna encourage you if you’re doing discipling, invite people into life with you, into family with you where they can see you with your kids maybe, and your spouse, and just journey together in everyday life moments, dropping grace moments, lots of empowering conversation in your everyday life. And the second thing is accountability.

I think in the past, maybe, we’ve done a lot of accountability around sin and around weakness, getting together on a weekly basis talking about the things we’ve gone wrong with and asking for prayer about our sins, and I think that puts the focus on the negative rather than putting the focus on the destiny that God has spoken over us. And Graham Cooke talks about Ephesians 4, where it says speaking the truth in love to one another and he makes the point that truth isn’t an idea. He’s a person and He lives inside of you and me.

Jesus lives inside of you and me, and so that verse in Ephesians isn’t about getting to criticize one another and then saying, “Oh, I was doing it out of love.” But is rather about speaking Christ-likeness into one another, reminding one another who we are and who we’ve been made to be. And so I want to encourage you in your discipling, create accountability around destiny, not around sin. Create accountability around greatness, not around weakness. And as we remind one another who God has made us to be and who lives inside of us, then actually sin and weakness fade away because we’re focusing on the glory that God has put on us, the glory that He’s put in us for the transformation of everything around us. And so do family, do accountability around destiny. That’s the most exciting way to do discipling.

Women in Church Leadership: Rebuilding Ruins

Mon, 16 Jul 2018 18:00:00 GMT

Gender equality will be key to seeing Renaissance in the Church and in the world. In session 6 of Renaissance Conference, Katia shares her heart on equality for women in ministry. For more on gender equality in the Church, read her blog on the subject, Is God Sexist?

For more videos from the Renaissance Conference 2018, subscribe to Harvest Church on Youtube.

This video includes content from Katia's book, Equal. Get the book HERE.

– Transcript

Katia: You know, the word renaissance is such a fun one. We’ve talked about it loads and loads already. I wanna bring a little different angle and definition of it. It does mean reawakening, it means rebirth, it also means a recovery of interest in something that has been lost or forgotten. And that’s the angle I wanna look at this morning. I wanna give you a little bit of a warning here. What I’m gonna speak on today is something that I’ve never spoken of before. It is a topic that I’ve been asked to speak on and have actively avoided throughout my ministry time. It is a topic that I’ve told Jesus that I really never wanted to speak on. It is something that I am trying to model with Julian in everything that we do in life, but it is something that I’ve never wanted to preach on.

And yet, here I am. And I felt Jesus speaking to me in the run-up to this conference, speaking to me about a shift in my own mandate, and the shift that’s coming to the body of Christ. And so today is maybe not gonna be the stereotypical revival conference preach. I hope it will bring revival because I believe that it can and it should. But I wanna ask you to extend faith with me this morning because me being up here right now is stretching my faith beyond what you would believe. But I’m gonna ask you to partner your faith with mine. And we’re gonna do something that could be really crazy, but it’s fun if we do it together with Holy Spirit.

I’m gonna start in Isaiah 61. And this is just gonna set the scene for us. It’s already been read part of the passage that I’m gonna read. “The spirit of the Lord God is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.” The spirit of the Lord is power, and sometimes He pounces on us in a way that we don’t expect. That’s okay.

“He’s anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound. To proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God. To comfort all who mourn. To grant to those who mourn in Zion, to give them a beautiful headdress instead of ashes. The oil of gladness instead of mourning. The garment of praise instead of a faint spirit.” Jesus fulfilled all of that. “That they may be called oaks of righteousness.” Who’s the they? It’s us. It’s those who are in Christ. It’s those who have been set free by Jesus that they may be called oaks of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified. You were planted to glorify Jesus wherever you go. They, not Jesus, they, shall build up the ancient ruins. They shall raise up the former devastations. They, you and I, shall repair the ruined cities, the devastations of many generations.

When I was praying about this conference, I felt God speak to me that He wanted to do something that would shift ancient strongholds. He wanted to do something that would deal with something that has been taking root for many, many, many generations. I felt Him speak to me that the time is now in the body of Christ to bring a shift, to rebuild ancient ruins, to rebuild devastations of many, many, many generations. It’s not because we, as a generation, are special, it’s because God, in His wisdom, is so gracious to us that He is giving us the privilege in this day, in this time, in this season, to rebuild some of that which has been destroyed.

I wanna tell you, if you’re living for revival and when you say that word what you mean is goosebumps, you’re living for too little. If you come to conferences so that you can go, “Ooh, ah,” at all the beautiful things Holy Spirit does and then go home and live your ordinary existence, you are settling for far too little. I wanna tell you, revival is not about your goosebumps. Revival is about God coming and birthing something new in you that will shape the culture of the generation that you live in and the generations to come.

And so, we’re gonna look together at some of the ancient truths that have been built and then destroyed. And we’re gonna adventure together this morning of what it looks like, what it means for you and I to start rebuilding cities that have long stood in devastation. We’re not talking about building with bricks. This is a picture here, a picture of a blueprint that was created that was beautiful, that then was destroyed. This is a picture of truth, of a reality, of an experience that God purposed that was destroyed and tragically, some aspects of that still lie dormant in brokenness today. And it’s up to you and I as the people of God to stand up and say, “I will not accept to live in ruins anymore. I will not stand to see the beauty that God created, the beauty that God purposed lie in destruction anymore. I will give myself to see that beautiful city restored to even greater glory than what was originally built.”

Because as Eric said so beautifully, Genesis 1 is our blueprint, Revelation 21 is our trajectory. And so what God is wanting to do is not rebuild Genesis 1, just there, but actually to build on Genesis 1 in so much glory into the trajectory of where we’re going for Revelation 21. And that is the privilege that you and I have. You are living for too little if goosebumps is the high point of your Christianity.

You know, we talk about changing the world and that’s become such a phrase that’s used so often that it loses its power because we think it’s just a catchphrase, it’s just when people wanna have prophesy over you something nice, they say, “You were created to change the world” And we kind of… It’s lost its meaning. But you were created to change the world. That’s why you are on planet earth. Everything about you was designed so that you would shape the reality around you so that it would look like heaven. That’s why you’re here. If you wanna ask me about what your destiny is, if you wanna ask me about what your calling is, I’m gonna tell you it’s simply this, “Go and change the world.” That’s what you were made for. We were made to rebuild the ancient ruins.

Hmm. Okay, we’re gonna base ourselves in Acts 2 to help us figure out what it looks like to rebuild. Acts 2 is a section of Scripture that we…we’re so familiar with. A revival breaks out, a rebirthing of the people of God, if you like. A reawakening of a picture of what God purposed when He made humanity. It’s actually building on Genesis 1 and leading us into a trajectory at the same time, and we’re gonna pick up. So, we’ve had the moment where 120 people, both men and women, are in an upper room waiting for the Holy Spirit because Jesus told them to wait. And then they get so radically pounced on that they all look drunk. When was the last time we will looked drunk so badly that the world had to ask us “What on earth is going on? What are you taking?” But they did. They all looked drunk.

And then Peter gets up suddenly boldened by the power of the Spirit and he gives the explanation of what’s going on. And he describes what’s happening in this reawakening. He gives a picture of the purpose of what God is doing and, in fact, he uses an ancient prophecy to point out that this has been something God is intending for a long time. And in verse 17, he says…he quotes from the prophecy in the book of Joel, “And in the last days it shall be, God declares, that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh. Your sons and your daughters shall prophesy. Your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams. Even on my male servants and my female servants. In those days, I will pour out my spirit and they shall prophesy. I will show wonders in the heavens above and signs on the earth below, blood and fire and vapor of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day. And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.” It’s a picture of an ancient truth that was purposed. It’s a revelation of what Kingdom is to look like. It’s an exposing of what we should expect when we talk about revival, and rebirth, and reawakening.

And there’s four things that I see in these verses that marks out what kingdom life, kingdom revival, kingdom renaissance looks like, and it’s these four things. And we’ll only focus really on one. But firstly, kingdom life looks like being marked by the Spirit. Holy Spirit is poured out. That is the promise of God on all flesh.

Secondly, it’s marked by equality. And we will spend most of our time on that today. It is a Holy Spirit outbreak on every man and every woman on the old and young, on servants and free. It’s Holy Spirit breaking out everywhere because kingdom life is about equality, and we’re gonna look at why in just a moment. It’s a kingdom marked by signs and wonders. You know you were created for the impossible. If our lives look to possible, we’re not living in the fullness of what God intended for us. You were created to play in the impossible realm. Everything about kingdom life is touched by signs and wonders.

And lastly, it’s a kingdom marked by salvation. If we settle for feeling all gooey inside and pat ourselves on the back because we’re part of this kingdom, oh, shame other people didn’t get in. We don’t understand our Father’s heart at all if that’s our heart. If your salvation is enough for you, you don’t understand your Father’s heart. I have a wonderful boy and a wonderful girl, and if I lost my boy and my girl said to me, “Oh, shame. He’s lost, but you’ve got me. Isn’t it great that I’m here?” She would not understand my heart at all. That’s part of the point of the story of The Lost Son in Luke 15. The older brother isn’t first. If he truly was marked by the heart of the father, that older son would be scouring every neighborhood on planet earth to bring back his younger brother, but he didn’t have the father’s heart. It’s a kingdom marked by the Spirit, a kingdom marked by equality, a kingdom marked by signs and wonders, and a kingdom marked by salvation.

Let’s look at the equality. You know, we read this prophecy and we so often focus on the mode of revelation that it’s talking about, “Oh, there’s gonna be prophecies. There’s gonna be dreams, there’s gonna be visions. It’s awesome. And that’s what we focus on. I can promise you that’s not what the hearers of the day we’re focusing on. They weren’t focusing on the mode of revelation, they were focusing on the people who were allowed to have the revelation because it was scandalous and it was offensive in the day. Even when Joel prophesied it, and in Acts 2, the hearers would be thinking, “What on earth are you talking about? This does not fit my worldview.” Because Peter is talking to primarily Jews. And he starts off saying, “This is what God promised, I will pour out my spirit on all flesh.”

It’s a kingdom of equality where racism and nationalism have no part to play. I wanna say, just as a caveat before this, God loves diversity. No part of what I’m saying today denies the beauty of diversity, but what the kingdom is about is celebrating diversity whilst totally allowing for the rights, the worth, the equality of authority of every single person, whatever camp of diversity they come from within the kingdom. And so, when God says, “I will pour out my spirit on all flesh,” the Jews who were listening, that nationalistic pride of the Jews is saying, “Wait a second, God belongs to me. I’m a Jew. The Holy Spirit is my portion.” They weren’t thinking, “Oh, wow. We all get to prophesy.” They’re thinking, “Am I hearing you correctly? That you’re trying to include gentiles into this promise?” And they’re offended immediately. But racism and nationalism have no part in the kingdom. I’m an Armenian ethnically.

Armenians have so much nationalism, it’s hilarious. There’s so much pride. You meet an Armenian and they’ll tell you their ancestry, and they’ll tell you how we really are the original Christians because Noah’s Ark landed on Mount Ararat, which is in Armenia. “Don’t you know we’re the real people of God? Everyone else is secondary.” Some of their oldest manuscripts of the Bible are in Armenian. “So, there you go. I’m superior to all of you. I hope you know that.” There’s such a sense… I make light of it. I love being Armenian, by the way, but I do make light of it. But there is a real sense when you meet Armenians that there’s something just…we have an edge on the rest of humanity. You laugh, but I notice it in almost every nation when a move of God comes. Revival’s gonna come to South Africa and it’s gonna come through South Africa and the world will wake up and notice South Africa. I love South Africa, but what I wanna tell you, if revival breaks out here, it has nothing to do with South Africans. It has everything to do with the grace of God.

Racism and nationalism have no part in the kingdom. God loves the nations. He loves the different colors. He made it so, so beautifully like a tapestry showing His manifold, His multicolored, His multifaceted wisdom but I wanna tell you, primarily, you and I belong to the Kingdom of God, not to the nation that we’re born in. And we’ve gotta be really, really careful that our Christianity, and our Christian experience, and our revival experience doesn’t tip into a national sense of pride as if our nation is the hope of all of the world, rather than understanding that it is the grace of God and the goodness of Jesus, that is what’s gonna transform the nations. Spirit will be poured out on all flesh. We’re gonna skip the next sentence because that’s where we’re gonna spend most of our time. “But your young men will see visions. Your old men will dream dreams.” I’ve heard so many sermons on why the young men see the visions and the old men see the dreams, and honestly, I think it’s irrelevant. We’re missing the point. The point is that ageism has no part in this kingdom.

We talk about, and you’ll probably have heard this phrase, that children don’t have a junior Holy Spirit. Absolutely right. And the elderly don’t have an elderly Holy Spirit. Sometimes we relegate the old and the young in our communities like they’re either too immature or past their sell-by-date. Listen, if you’re still on planet earth, there is still ruins for you to rebuild. There’s still effect that you are created to bring in the nations. As a community of God, we’ve gotta stop treating the older community like, “Oh, sweet. Okay, let’s get on with the real stuff.” If you have a pulse, you better be getting on with the real stuff. Yes, doctor. “Even on my male servants and female servants.” Do you know how offensive that would be in the day? It’s talking about the slaves. It’s talking about the lowest in the class. It’s talking about the people who were ignored, the people no one would say hello to because they didn’t need hellos. They just needed instructions for work they needed to do.

Classism has no part in this kingdom. No part. And these verses are a renaissance, a reawakening of original purpose laid out in Genesis 1. And we’ll look at that in a moment. Where it’s telling us about the equality of worth and value and authority in the kingdom. And asking us how you and I, we will rebuild that ancient ruin. Because it’s the purpose of God that’s long laid dormant. And I know there are so many in this room… And I’ve been in South Africa for three years and I believe this is a timely word for this nation. This isn’t the part I’m gonna focus on, but just let’s stay here for a second.

There are so many people in this room who do so much to rebuild this ancient ruin. Who are giving themselves, and I honor you. But I wanna ask us as a community, as a people, to keep giving ourselves to this end that all men and women, no matter what class, no matter what color, no matter what age, would find themselves in a kingdom where they are honored for worth, and value, and kingdom authority. Because that is the intention of God. And if we’re not building that, then we’re settling for too little because that’s what we were made to build.

I didn’t give you the title of this sermon. I should have, I suppose. The title of this sermon is Rebuild the Ruins, stop picnicking on them. I feel like too many of us have got so comfortable with our picnic blankets amongst ruins because as long as we’re eating, and as long as we’re fine, and as long as we’ve kind of made a makeshift settlement on those ruins that serves us, it feels okay. But there is an ancient ruin that was created to be glorious and magnificent. An ancient ruin that when it is built, in its full beauty, will radiate the glorious purposes of God. And so, you’re settling for too little for yourself as well as everyone else when you picnic on a ruin.

Let’s focus on the bit that I’m most excited about. A bit that makes me just a little bit nervous. “And your sons and your daughters shall prophesy.” You know, the Jews who we’re listening we’re used to the idea of men prophesying. If you kind of do a ratio of male prophets to female prophets in the Old Testament, it will tell you that the male was to be expected, the female was more rare. And so, they didn’t really have so much of an understanding that women were to be caught up in this same thing until Jesus came on the scene and radically changed perceptions.

But at this verse, “Your sons and your daughters prophesying,” is reawakening in us, is bringing a renaissance of a tree that was planted right at the beginning of time in a garden where God made male and female in beautiful equality. And this verse is telling us there is something beautiful that has long since laid dormant for generations, that has been a ruin for generations. But it’s time. It’s time to start rebuilding. It’s time. It’s time to put the walls of this ancient ruin back together again. Because until we do, until the nations see the sons and the daughters of God rising up in full authority, we will not manifest all of kingdom glory on the earth. It is must, it is a necessity. This isn’t an optional extra. And I wanna tell you, this is not a women’s issue. This is a church kingdom mandate, and we have to listen to what Scripture is saying. We’re gonna look at Genesis 1 because some of you were looking terrified, more terrified than I feel inside. That’s okay. But we’re gonna look at Genesis 1 together. Feel free to flick there.

Goosebumps is aiming far too low, guys. Let’s start rebuilding. Genesis 1. We’re gonna look at verse 26. “And then God said, let us make man in our image.” The word man is actually Adam because Adam is both a name in Hebrew, depending on how it’s written, but it actually is primarily firstly the word for mankind. “Let us make mankind. Let us make humanity in our image, after our likeness. Let us give them dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the heavens, over the livestock, over all the earth, over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” You were given authority over creepy crawlies. That makes me feel super happy right now.

And so, God created man in His own image. He created mankind. He created humanity in His own image. In the image of God, He created him. Male and female, He created them. We’re gonna look at lots of different things here.

Firstly, I want you to notice everything that God creates up until this point, He creates according to their kind. The fish of the sea, He created according to their kind, the animals He created according to their kind. Everything He creates, everything that’s living and breathing, He creates according to its kind. But the poem in Genesis changes when He creates mankind. Because for the first time in creation, God doesn’t create according to their kind, He creates according to His kind. You were created according to His kind. You were created supernaturally with the DNA of God in you. And when you come into believing in Jesus, and when you allow yourself to fall on His beautiful grace, and when Jesus sets up home in you, everything of the kind you were created to be wakes up in you. There’s rebirth of the supernatural DNA that is in you. I wanna tell you, you were created according to the God kind and so we get to live according to the God kind. Male and female, He created them.

You know, God is so meticulous in how He creates. It’s quite fascinating. And in each moment, in each step, He creates part of the world and then fills it with whatever is allowed to fill that space. And He creates somewhat of a hierarchy in that. Who creates the oceans and fills it with the fish? And the fish, have given this kind of space. That’s their area. And He creates the ground, and the earth, and the plants. And He creates livestock and animals to fill that space. And He’s kind of meticulously orderly creating a space, filling it, creating a space, filling it.

And then, of course, it culminates in this beautiful moment where He creates mankind, male and female in His image. And He gives them rulership over all things. And He says, “This is the earth, fill it. And Eden was this perfect little pocket on the planet, but the mandate of a man and woman was to fill the entire earth, was to subdue the entire earth so that the glory of God would cover all things. It was the mandate to bring the dominion of God everywhere, not just this pocket in Eden. Sometimes our churches are like our little pocket of Eden. We’re settling for far too little. Your mandate is the whole world.

But as He’s been so meticulous, meticulous to the point, and we’re gonna get a little bit technical here. But He was meticulous to the point of, “You have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over the livestock, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” It seemed so random. Why didn’t He just say like, “You have dominion over everything.” It’s like so over the top, meticulous. But He is being meticulous on purpose because He doesn’t want there to be a misunderstanding. Funny though that there’s been a misunderstanding for so many generations. Because what’s happened is even though He was so meticulous in stating every single place of hierarchy and dominion, what we’ve done is we’ve entered in our new version of hierarchy because God must’ve forgotten, which is the moment where He told Adam and Eve, “But Adam, you’re the one really in charge, and Eve, you’re the one to follow.” As if God was interested in pointing out authority over the creepy crawlies, but He forgot to mention how one half of humanity would have authority over the other half.

How have we done this? How is it possible that we have allowed ourselves reading into this passage, something that is never mentioned, something that is, in fact, explicitly refuted in the mandate where God speaks to both men and women telling them to rule over all things. I tell you, it’s an enemy ploy, and it’s a genius one. “How to incapacitate half the body of Christ overnight.” Tell them they weren’t really made to rule. Tell them they weren’t really made to be leaders. Tell them that actually they were meant to be the followers and it was someone else to rule. And I wanna tell you, this is not about feminism because feminism doesn’t have its roots here. This is about being deeply biblical. This is about ancient ruins that come far before feminism. Sometimes people tell me that I’d been won over by culture, not so. I’ve been won over by the Bible. Should we keep going? Are you okay?

Together: Yes.

Katia: You know, women, you and I have a responsibility to hear the voice of God and do what He tells us. No excuses. I wanna stop hearing that, “Oh, I didn’t get my chance,” and “Oh, nobody told me to do this,” and “Oh, poor me.” God said to you, let’s look at it again. “Rule.” Okay, let’s look at verse 28. God said to them, plural, presumably, that means Adam and Eve. “Be fruitful and multiply.” Okay, how was Adam to do that exactly without Eve? “Fill the earth and subdue it.” Men and women have dominion, have rulership, have authority over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the heavens, over every living thing that moves on the earth. No excuses, ladies. It’s not okay to say, “Someone told me that I wasn’t allowed to rule, so I gave up on the destiny that God put on me. So I didn’t listen to the word of God spoken to over me. So I ignored the mandate that was over my life because someone else other than God told me that I wasn’t to rule.”

It’s right here. It’s in black and white. You were created to rule. And I wanna say this again, this is not a women’s issue and the reason is this. When God creates Eve, and we’ll look at beautiful way, He does it, because it’s so profound, but when God creates Eve, He’s looking for a helper, a helpmate. It’s such an unhelpful word, but it’s the word “ezer” in the Hebrew. It’s a word that is used most often throughout the Old Testament of God. It’s a word that is not at all someone who is secondary or someone who is an assistant, unless you feel that way about God, in which case, we’ve got more issues than male, female equality, but it is not about someone who just doesn’t have as much authority, but might be able to be like a substandard, “Come alongside me and given me something sometime.” No, that’s not what it was. The word ezer is someone who is much needed, an the absolute necessity, if not, your destiny will not come to pass. It is a word of strength, it is a word of power, and it is a word of absolute necessity. Listen here, men in the room. You need women to fulfill your destiny. You need women to be all that they were created to be if you are going be all that you were created to be.

This is why I say, this is not a women’s issue. This has so long been relegated to, “Oh, that’s that feminist group in the corner who just can’t be quiet and just can’t have their place in the back.” No. This is why this is an enemy ploy. Not only has it incapacitated half the body of Christ, but it’s taken the legs out from the other half too. Because Adam needed Eve. He couldn’t do his mandate without her. Not without an Eve who didn’t understand who she was, which is actually how we got the fall in the first place, so let’s not go there. But he needed an Eve who knew who she was. An Eve who was fulfilling her destiny.

And women, we need the same from our men. We need men who know who they are, who are not making apologies for being men for too long. And this is why I would wholeheartedly say I am not a feminist for too long. The feminist movement has emasculated our men, has made them feel like somehow, they need to apologize for being men. That somehow, they need to go lower so that women can be elevated. That is not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about equal value and equal authority. I’m talking about men and women rising up to see the glory of God cover the Earth. I’m talking about nothing short of that. But I wanna say this. If we hadn’t let this become ruins for so long, feminism would have been unnecessary.

And the church, rather than looking down on women who are desperate to prove that they were made for more than something that the world has told them… We’ve got to start owning up to our responsibilities, the people of God, and saying, “We’ve done something so wrong. We celebrated the ruins rather than rebuild from them. We have sat and picnicked on them and make theological reasons for why God’s word isn’t really telling us what it’s telling us. And we wonder why the world is in such disrepair. And I’m speaking to both men and women here because, girls, we’ve got just as much responsibility as the men do. Male and female, He created them. He created them together to change the world. You know, so beautiful the way God presses home, how man and woman need each other. We’ve made Genesis 2 a story about male authority. So, it’s really sad because we’ve lost the beauty of what God is doing. God creates Adam first, and it’s cool. The Hebrew is playing on words all along. So, Adam, mankind, gets his name from the dust of the earth, which is adamah in Hebrew. So, there’s a play of words. Adam was made from the ground. Adam was made from the adamah.

And then there’s this kind of community-finding expedition. And God brings all the plants to Adam. Not so much all the plants. Brings all the animals to Adam and He says, “Name them” And Adam starts naming them and starts seeing what the living creatures are. And we’re told in verse 20 of Chapter 2, “The man gave names to all the livestock, to the birds, to every beast.” And we say that was Adam’s authority being proven, and, of course, because Eve wasn’t there, she’s lower in authority. It’s a little bit odd because there’s nothing in the context that talks about authority, but then very next sentence helps us what the point of that moment was. But, for Adam, there was not found a helper fit for him. The whole point of that introduction to animals and naming them wasn’t about because, listen, naming in the Bible again and again is about understanding what the purpose of that creature is. If you look throughout, there’s this naming that is a recognition a of what that thing was for.

And so, Adam sees again and again animal and he recognizes what they’re for, and he gives them names according to their purpose, and yet at the end of it, which was God’s point all along, Adam’s still left standing alone because there wasn’t a single thing in all the world that would fit the purpose of standing alongside him. It was a community-finding expedition. And why did God do it in that way? Because He was trying to show to all of humanity “You were made for each other and you need each other because you will never fulfill your destiny without one another.” And so… Then He does this beautiful thing when hunger is created in Adam’s heart, when suddenly the revelation comes to Adam, there is nothing in all of creation as beautiful as it is that is fit for me.

God puts him to sleep, and for the first time in the creation, He doesn’t build living creatures from the ground, He builds it from the man. Why? Same substance. Equal substance. If God had made from the dust, there could have been confusion. Not that there isn’t now, but there could have been confusion. Oh, maybe it was a different substance. Maybe Eve had substance akin to the livestock, not substance akin to Adam, not so. God did it in a way that would not bring confusion.

He made them of one substance. And He brings the woman to Adam. Oh, now Adam is overwhelmed because he’d seen creature after creature, after creature that was not fit to fulfill destiny with him, and suddenly he sees her and he goes, “Oh my goodness. At last. At last. After all of that searching through every creature, at last, here she is. Flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone, absolute equality of essence, and substance, and authority, and worth, here she is. She shall be called woman.” And he didn’t name her because he had authority over her, it’s wordplay in the Hebrew. Ish is man isha is woman. It wouldn’t have worked to say Adam and Adamah because that would make her ground. It’s not an authoritative naming. It’s saying, “She’s of my substance. She’s of my substance. At last here she is, of my substance.”

We are created of equal substance, you and I, young and old, black and white, male and female, slave and free, we’re created of equal substance. I’ve heard it so many times, “Oh, no, no. We’re equal in value, not equal in authority.” Not So. He gave them both rulership. We have to rewrite the Bible if we want that to start making sense. But do you? So many are trying so hard to do it. You know, women are the single-most oppressed people group on the planet. It’s not people of color, it’s women. You know, in India and China, there’s a generation of girls that are literally missing. They don’t know what to do with the stats because the birth rate isn’t correct. It doesn’t make sense. There’s a generation of girls that have gone missing and the Church has got to own up and say, “We have preached from the ruins rather than we building them.” And we’ve got to a point where the world believes that women are worthless, women are of less substance, women are not worthy of even taking their first breaths. And you and I have got to take responsibility for that because Isaiah 61 makes it clear, it was our responsibility to rebuild the ancient ruins.

We can’t say, “Oh, but culture has done this. Oh, but it’s the principalities. Oh, but someone else did this.” No. You and I have done it. And I wanna ask you today, will we let it continue on our watch? Or will we stand up in the true essence of revival, marked by the Holy Spirit, marked by signs and wonders, marked by salvation, allowing equality to mark us so that we give the world at picture of what God intended, so we start rebuilding the ancient reality, the experience, the truth that God created? Or will we still sit on our picnic blankets and hide our heads in the sand? It’s time. It’s time.

And some of you are asking, “What about 1 Timothy 2 and Ephesians 5?” I’m so glad you asked. I’m gonna take 10 minutes to tell you why we’ve got it wrong. 1 Timothy 2. Feel free to flick there, you don’t have to. I’m gonna read not really too much of it. I wanna set the setting for you. 1 Timothy 2 is to a church in Ephesus, a church that is in big trouble. Oh, man. You read that book, and if the false teaching that was there doesn’t smack you in the face, you’re not reading it right. There was false teaching about genealogies. There was false teaching about the law. There was false teaching about marriage and food and to need to abstain from them, which really actually explains 1 Timothy 2:15 . Anyway, there was false teaching everywhere. We’re told that the false teaching didn’t come from the fringes, but if you read Acts 20, it tells you that it came from the eldership, not a healthy church. Who wants to sign up to a church where the elders are heretics? Anyone?

Everyone’s like, “Why are you looking at me?” No. No, none of us. That’s the point. None of us wants to sign up to this church. Not a single person wants to be part of this church, and yet we’re told, “Oh, into this context, Paul wrote his thesis of Theology.” What rubbish. It is. It’s nonsense because no church leader on the planet would do that. No one would go into a hot, crazy, messy church where the elders were heretics, where there was false teaching everywhere and start going, “Oh, but let’s just talk about a church order and basic theology.” That’s not what church leaders do. That’s not what Luis and Edna do when they go into a church that’s in trouble. They start talking about where the trouble’s coming from. They start addressing the issues. And we know that Paul did that because in 1 Timothy 2:2, and I really don’t have time to do this fully, so you feel free to read some really good books. Should I tell you some good books to read on this in case you want? Gilbert Bilezikian, “Beyond Sex Roles.” It’s a good book. Read it. Philip B. Payne, “One in Christ,” read it. It’s a really good book. Those are two, those will keep you busy.

Man: And your book.

Woman: And your book.

Katia: And my book, I’m reading a book…writing a book on this that I will be out hopefully by the end of the year. But the point is this, it’s not about that. There’s lots of really good material. I’m not making it up, but I’m gonna do a quick summary.

1 Timothy 1 talks about all of the false teaching. And Paul’s telling Timothy, “I told you to stay in Ephesus because this church is in trouble. And I told you to stay there to combat the false teaching and to combat the false teachers. And then he says, 1 Timothy 2, “To that end, first of all, then,” the point being, if you understand the Greek, 1 Timothy 2 is talking about the false teaching from 1 Timothy 1. This is not generic teaching. He’s saying, “This is all the issues that this church have, therefore, these are the things that you need to put in practice to combat that.” Notice none of this is theology. He’s not saying these are the beliefs that you need to follow, he’s saying these are the practices that will combat the spread of false teaching. Very important distinction.

And he says, “These are the practice changes that need to happen.” Pray for all authority. Why? Because part of the false teaching was bucking authoritative figures, were saying, “I know more than you.” How do I know that? Well, 1 Timothy in the Chapter 1 talks about some of the false teachers. If I can find the verse, I might not be able to, but they wanted to teach the law without knowing what they were speaking about. So, there was people in this community who thought they knew more than they did, and they were talking about it. And they were pushing forward to teach their views.

They didn’t respect authority. And so, he says, “First of all, buck that trend by praying for those in authority. Not for those in authority in the church, in fact, for kings, for rulers. Take it wider. Give these people an understanding of how to respect authority. Then he talks about the men and he says, “Give them men this instruction that they shouldn’t fight every time they pray.” Who wants to go to that prayer meeting that keeps ending up in a brawl? This was not a healthy church. And he says to the women, “Women should start learning quietly”. Oh, the translators haven’t helped us here. It’s three times in this chapter Paul uses the word that we translate quietly. It’s strange because it’s not a word about volume, it’s a word about peace. And if you understand the false teaching that repeatedly we’re told in the six chapters brought quarrelling, division, disunity, you’ll understand that what this community needed more than anything else was a restoration of peace. And it’s translated more accurately at the beginning of the chapter where it talks about living a peaceful and quiet life. It’s the same word. It’s not about volume. Paul isn’t saying, “Don’t go and make noise as you live,” he’s saying, “Don’t bring division as you live.” And then he says, “Women should learn quietly.”

He’s not saying don’t talk, he’s saying, don’t be divisive as you learn. Why? Because in this community, women were learning divisively. They thought they knew more than they did. They were attacking their teachers. They were saying, “Let me give you my idea.” How do I know that? Because the whole context of the book is people who thought they knew more than they did. And he uses… So that’s verse 11. “Women should learn quietly.”

Incidentally, in Jewish culture, if you learnt, it was setting you up to teach. That’s why it was so scandalous when Mary… Some of you are like, “What the heck just happened?” That was why it was so scandalous when Mary sat at the feet of Jesus and learnt. She took the posture of a disciple. Disciples existed to learn from the rabbi until they were able to do what the rabbi did. And what does Jesus do when everyone is having an absolute crazy moment? “She can’t be doing that. Get back to where women were intended to be, in the kitchen, Mary. Know your place.” And Jesus says, “Not so.”

She’s chosen the thing that was intended for her. And so, when Paul here says, “Women should learn and do it peacefully,” he’s being countercultural because he’s saying something. Do you know in Ephesus at that time, we had not a single record of a female student? Do you know that? All the ancient lists of students, not a single female name. Paul was being incredibly pro-women. In a culture where women did not learn, in a culture where there was no context for a woman to learn, Paul says, “Let them learn, but let them do it peacefully because they’re not doing that right now.” They’ve suddenly come into freedom in the body of Christ and they don’t know what to do with that freedom. And they’re being deceived by false teachers. How do I know that? It says it in 1 Timothy 5, it says it in the book of 2 Timothy, where it pinpoints how it was the women who were being so easily deceived. And, in fact, right here it says it in 1 Timothy 13 and 14 where it talks about Adam being formed first, then Eve, for it was the woman deceived, not the man. That’s not anchoring the point on women not teaching, it’s anchoring the point on women learning well. Because let me ask you this, is deception a problem about you teaching or is it a problem about your learning?

You’re only vulnerable to deception, not when you’re speaking. I’m not vulnerable to deception right now. I was vulnerable to deception when I started learning this if I wasn’t learning it well. If you don’t know the truth well, you will be vulnerable to deception. What happened in Genesis? What happened when the serpent came to speak to Eve? She misquotes God. Why is it significant that Adam was made first then Eve? It’s significant because the instruction about not eating from the tree was given to Adam, not to Eve. It’s actually the only instruction that we read of the things that God said to mankind that was given to Adam only. It was the part she needed to learn. Unfortunately, it was a part that she didn’t well.

So, the significance of Adam coming first then Eve is not a significance of authority hierarchy. It’s a significance of, Paul is saying right here to this community, “You men have come first in education. You men have come first in understanding Scripture. Women, understand this, you need to learn well. You need to buy your time. You need to understand this truth. Get it into you, get it through you so that when you speak it, you’ll speak it accurately.” He says, “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man.” It’s not actually, “I do not permit.” It is the words, “I am not permitting.” It is not a universal command.

If you understand the Greek, it is the time where Paul uses something, a phrase that is his advice in a moment, not a universal teaching. It’s the same structure that he uses when he talks about singleness. He’s not saying a universal instruction of everyone must be single. He’s saying, “It seems good to me in this moment.” And he is saying to Timothy right here, who incidentally is the only reader of this letter, it was not a book written to an entire Church. He’s giving it to Timothy who doesn’t know what to do with these guys. And he is saying to them, “Let your women learn. Let them learn in submission to truth and to authority, because if not, they’ll do exactly what Eve did because she didn’t know the truth properly.”

One more minute in 1 Timothy and then we’ll go to Ephesians 5. 1 Timothy 3, section on eldership. I’m just trying to anticipate what questions are coming. You know, this is where the English doesn’t help because in our Bibles today, there are loads of male pronouns. He, he must this, he must that, that don’t exist in the Greek. Not a single one of them exists in the Greek. We borrowed them because the word for elder is a male word. And so, we’ve used it based on our assumptions from 1 Timothy 2 to prove that eldership must be male. Here’s the problem, John 3:16 , “Whosoever believes, though whosoever is male.”

Greek is a language where words are male, female, or neutral, but the reality is every academic under the sun will tell you this. The gender of the word is not necessarily a comment on the gender of the person required to do it. If we read the Bible like that, us girls, better pray for something miraculous because we ain’t saved. I’m not being funny. I’m being truthful. You know, so many sections of the Bible are male-orientated. That’s not a comment on gender. That’s just the reality of the culture. But we can’t do something here that we don’t do anywhere else. We’re not allowed to do that, but we’re doing that based on assumptions based on hierarchy that we’ve implanted into Genesis 1, based on trying to make 1 Timothy 2 say something it’s not saying because I forgot to follow through of my teaching about peace, that women should learn in peace.

And women, “I am not permitting a woman to teach or have authority over a man, but she must be quiet,” which is the word peace again. Seeing as teaching or authority are not in and of themselves mutually exclusive with peacefulness, it’s telling us that something was going on in this community. When women were teaching or having authority in this community, it was at odds with peacefulness. Do you know what’s happened? Paul proclaimed martial law in this community. There was so much unrest and peace needed to be established. He declared martial law.

You know what the problem is in the church? In a season of peace, we’re still proclaiming martial law. But what happens if you deploy your army in a season of peace? You do not maintain peace, you oppress your people. Why do we wonder that feminism is springing up everywhere? I’ll tell you why. The church, for generations, has declared martial law in an attempt to uphold peace, but all we’ve done is brought oppression. It is time to change what the Church is doing. It is time to rebuild ancient ruins. And it’s time to reawaken the purpose of God through men and women on this planet so that the destiny that is on us will be fulfilled in all the world.

I’m just aware of time. Can I do Ephesians 5 really quickly? Okay. let’s really quickly flick to Ephesians 5. We’ll try to do this quick. Guys, I’m giving you summaries. If you’re not convinced, if you’re worried about my theology, feel free to come and speak to me. I’ll give you the 30 books I’ve been reading over the last few months. I’m not being cheeky. I’m being truthful. If you wonder what I do all day, that’s what I do.

Woman: You do it brilliantly, though.

Katia: Thank you. Ephesians 5. Oh, I love this passage so much. Where should we read from, Lord? Okay, let’s read from verse 15. “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise, but as wise, making the best use of the time because the days are evil. Start rebuilding the ancient ruins. Therefore, don’t be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Don’t get drunk with wine because that’s settling for far too little but be filled with the spirit. Be a people marked by the spirit, addressing one another in psalms, and hymns, and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your hearts, giving thanks always for everyone to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ. Submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

I’m sorry, I didn’t see the brackets part that said, “Except for husbands.” I’m being cheeky now. But it’s because of theology has got so deep into the church and the intellectual superiority at the hands of those who would want to say that God did not create men and women equal. And I’m frustrated by it, and I’m tired by it, and I love those people with all my hearts because I know all of us from wanting to be true to Scripture, but it’s enough. It’s enough. You know what, you and I are called to rebuild the ancient ruins of marriage, and we will not be able to do it in marriages that tell women that they’re somehow less, that they’re the follower, that they need to obey, that that’s what submission looks like, because it’s not so. Submit one to another. That includes husbands. Out of reverence for Christ.

And then Paul begins his teaching to wives and husbands. And what is he doing? He actually starts teaching wives and husbands, children and parents, bondservants and masters. He builds it on this one verse of submitting one to another out of reverence for Christ. How do I know that? It’s one sentence from verse 21-22. In fact, when he says, “Wives submit to your husbands,” the word “submit” doesn’t exist in the Greek, he borrows it from the first half of that sentence. Submit one to another out of reverence for Christ, wives you’re… This is how you should do that. And the husbands, the manner of your submission must be loving.

You know, the three groups that Paul talks to were groups that were very common in Roman and Greek ethical conversations. He doesn’t just randomly pick these three groups. He’s being incredibly subversive. He’s doing what Eric was talking about, he’s staying in the game. He’s understanding the structure of the world around him. And he’s saying, “You wanna have those conversations. I’m so happy to have those conversations with you. Let’s put those conversations on the basis of mutual submission.”

Whew, see that didn’t make sense in that context because husbands were the absolute authority of the home. Husbands weren’t required to love their wives. Wives were nothing. Husbands could treat them as their possession. Fathers didn’t need to worry about exasperating their children, fathers were the absolute controller of the home and children were nothing. They had to obey without question. Masters never had to think about the rights or the quality of their slaves because slaves were objects to be used, not people to be valued.

So, when Paul enters the conversation that was the structure of the day and then start saying crazy things like, “Masters respect your servants because at the end of the day you serve the same God,” something was happening that we don’t understand because we don’t understand the culture of the day. He was blowing their minds. He was doing it all on the foundation of mutual submission. Do you know what that was doing to that community? Why did he say mutual submission and then start talking about slaves and masters? What the heck? And he talks to husbands and wives and he says, “Wives, submit as if you would to the Lord.” Why? Because wives were totally begrudging in that context of their submission because they were possessions. It was unquestioning. They had to obey in that culture. And they never did it rooted in respect, they did it because that’s just the way things are.

And Paul says, “Guys, you’re gonna start mutually submitting, but I wanna tell you, wives, your submission needs to be respectful. You need to understand the worth and honor in the man that is in front of you. Submit to him, not because you have to submit him, because you respect him.” And then he looks at the husbands and he says, “Ah, you too, mutual submission.” It’s still there. That’s the foundational verse. But he says, “You don’t want husbands. Your submission needs to be loving. Your submission needs to be laying down your life for your wife.” It’s not begrudging, it’s not like, “Oh, Jesus is so annoying now I have to do this.” No, fall in love with your wife as if she’s your very own body, because guess what she is, they became one flesh and lover in that way. Give yourself for her. That’s what your mutual submission should look like.

And before you start saying to me that it talks about Jesus being the head of the church, and husbands are the head of the wife, absolutely right. But what does Paul say about the head, Jesus being the head and the church being the body? In every reference he makes to it. He doesn’t talk about it as an authoritative hierarchy. He talks about a reality of unity and empowerment. Not once does Paul use that picture in Ephesians about Jesus being the head of the body, the church as if he’s saying, “God is in charge and you’re not, so listen up.”

No, he’s saying, “You’ve been united with Jesus.” The same power that is in Jesus is in you. You are equal. He has made you a co-heir. That is the point. I wanna tell you, husbands, you are the head of the house, and wives, you’re like his body. That doesn’t mean a hierarchy of authority. That means sameness, equal essence. That means one flesh. That’s why he talks about genesis. He says, “One flesh.” That’s all the whole point. I wonder if you’d stand with me.

Let Love Be Your Experience

Tue, 19 Jun 2018 18:00:00 GMT

Ephesians 3 invites us to let love be our foundation, our comprehension and our experience. In this talk, Katia Adams and Kelly Notcutt share how they have experienced the love of God in their day-to-day lives, and encourage us to press into that very same love.

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– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: We’re going to be speaking from Ephesians 3, tonight. If you have your bibles, feel free to flick there. But we’re going to read the verses anyway, and actually, we’re going to zoom in on just one verse, from Ephesians. Ephesians 3:19 , is going to be where we really plug ourselves into. But, you know, it felt really funny this morning, I don’t know if any of you were here this morning, to hear Richard’s amazing preach.

But he finished his preach reading these verses that we’re about to read from Ephesians 3. And so, yet again, I felt a real sense of, you know, God is leading us to this passage. But, you’ll see as we talk, that this will be the most ironic preach in all the world, if all we did was speak, and then everyone go home.

Because this preach is centered around encounter, it’s centered around experience. And so, we’re gonna make sure that we don’t talk too long because we’re gonna leave plenty of time for Holy Spirit to meet with us, and do what only He can do. Listen, I cannot push really hard to conjure up an encounter for you, that’s not the way it works. But, we trust that God is a good God, who loves us enough to meet with us, right?

That’s where we’re entering in tonight. That God doesn’t just want us to speak about Him, but God wants us to know Him, in His closeness, to know Him relationally. And so, we’re going to press in, to that aspect of Him tonight. Knowing that He’s good, He’s kind, and He is eager to meet with us. I can see a few of you just with quizzical expressions.

So I just want to explain something, I had a chest infection, and I’ve been preaching a lot recently. So if you are wondering whether I’m trying to channel Barry White, it’s true. There’s a closeness of my voice to him, but I’m hoping, maybe even in this preach, that my voice will get stronger as we go.

Anyway, let’s read Ephesians 3, from verse 14. “For this reason, I bow my knees before the Father. From Him, every family, in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of His glory, He may grant you to be strengthened with power, through His spirit in your inner being so that Christ may dwell in your hearts, through faith, that you being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and the length and the height and depth, and to know the love of God that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”

What I’m going to do is just set the scene. And I’m going to set the scene with three invitations that I believe God is extending to us. And then, Kelly is going to bring life to the third invitation for us. The first is, I believe God is inviting us to let love be our foundation. I love these verses right here. “You being rooted and grounded in love.”

I want to tell you, the gospel starts and ends with love. There is no other motivation in the heart of God toward us than ridiculous, overwhelming, immeasurable love for you and me. I feel, sometimes, we can make the cross and resurrection of Jesus something that’s more about our sin.

God hates sin so much that He sent His Son to die for us. Or no, no, God wants justice so much that He sent His Son to die for us. Or God is a God who is angry, and needs to bring punishment. So He sent His Son to die to take the penalty of sin.

And all of that pales in comparison to the true motivation of the heart of God, which is, John 3:16 . God so loved the world that He gave His Son. He loved the world. It wasn’t your sin that was his focus. It wasn’t the penalty of sin that was his focus. It wasn’t the shame on you that was his focus. It wasn’t him needing to bring justice that was his focus. No, it was his scandalous affection for you and me that was his focus, that was his motivation in sending Jesus.

When Jesus said, “Yes, I’m going to go and I’m going to give myself for people,” it wasn’t about bringing judgment, it was about showing the affection of the Father’s heart. You being rooted and grounded in love. The invitation of the Father, to you and me tonight, firstly, is let love be your foundation, know where your journey starts.

Some of you in this room, you’ll be thinking, “This isn’t actually what I thought I signed up for when I became a Christian. I thought I was signing up for being good, or learning how to behave better, or learning how to please God.” That’s not what Christianity is about.

And some of you maybe you’ve been sitting in church for decades, and that’s what you thought Christianity was about. I want to show you tonight, love is your foundation. It’s not about your morality. It’s not about learning how to be good. God so loves you that He gave Himself for you. Because He wants to set you free so that you can be truly yourself in freedom.

Let love be your foundation, you being rooted and grounded in love. The second invitation, just to set the scene, let love be your comprehension. It’s beautiful words, verse 18, “I’m praying that you may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth, the length, the height, and depth of His affection.”

God is inviting us to get to grips in our minds with the dimensions of His love. It’s an invitation which is slightly tongue in cheek, because He’s saying, “Come on now. Come on, I want to invite you to study this. I want to invite you to push the depths of this. I want to invite you to run as far as you can, in any direction in your mind to see if you can touch the walls, touch the edges, touch the boundary lines of my love.”

He’s saying, “Fill your mind with my affection. Let love be your study. Let love be your mental pursuit. Spend your time grappling with my affection for you.” Gosh, it’s an amazing thing to study. It’s an amazing thing to spend time in the word of. It’s amazing thing to allow our minds to be flooded with the dimensions of His love. Its height, its depth, how deep does His affection go for you?

Is it deeper than your sin? Is it deeper than your last failure? How wide does His love go for you? He’s inviting you, “Come and grapple with the boundaries of my love.” But my favorite thing about verse 18, is verse 19. “And to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge.” Make it your pursuit, by all means, to understand His love.

But His third invitation to us this evening, the one that we’re going to spend our time on, the one that we’re going to take Him seriously on, is let love be your experience. It’s your foundation. He’s inviting us to allow it to become our comprehension. But ultimately, He’s leading us to let it be our experience.

And I don’t know when the last time, you or I, had an experience of His love, but He’s inviting us into it tonight. I was saying to Kelly, and I’m going to finish with this, so Kelly can preach. I was saying to Kelly tonight…I was reading a book before I got here tonight called “God’s Best Friend” by a friend of mine called Gabriel Lopez. It’s a great book, read it. The more I read it, the more I kept thinking to myself, am I even a Christian?

He tells story, after story, after story of encounters. He’s a seemingly normal guy, and you read his encounters and you think, “What am I doing with my time?” Let love be your experience.

Kelly: Hi, thank you so much, Katia. Well, I just want to invite you to continue having an encounter with God’s love. We started in worship and continued when Katia was speaking now, but I just invite you that this is a time to encounter His love. I’m going to be going a little bit deeper into what His love means and…but yeah, just feel free to sit back and receive His beautiful, beautiful love.

So I’m just going to recap that verse 19, which is where I’m going to spend some time. It says, “And to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled up to the fullness of God, to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge.” The word “love” here, is the Greek word, “Agape.” You may have heard that before. And it’s the highest form of love in the Bible.

And whenever the New Testament talks about Agape love, it’s referring to the definition that we can find in 1st John 3:16 , which says, “This is how we know what love is. That Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers and sisters.” This is how we know what love is that Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.

Jesus is the ultimate expression of love. The Son of God came to earth, who died for our sins, who died for a people who never, ever could have earned it or deserved it, so that we can be redeemed and have a relationship with Him.

That is, it’s the simple gospel act. That is love. Love looks like Jesus. And it’s not a flaky kind of love. It’s not a love that’s based on feelings. It’s not a love that says, “Yes,” today and, “No,” tomorrow, but it’s a cross-bearing love. It’s a love that died for its enemies. It’s a love that was poured out and expected nothing in return. It’s all consuming, it’s never-ending, it’s outrageous, and it’s extravagant.

That is the love of Jesus. That is Jesus. So I don’t remember, when I became a Christian, I would go to a youth group on a Friday night. My parents would drop me off at, conveniently, happened to be located next to a pub. So my parents enjoyed some free babysitting. And I kind of just, I guess, grew in my knowledge that God loved me, that He was savior.

That He sent His Son Jesus to die for me. And I never went up to say a sinner’s prayer or answer an article, but I just knew, that I knew, that I knew, from a young age, that God loved me, that He really, really loved me. And somewhere, in those young years, I learned about the omnipresence of God, that God transcended space and time, and that he was everywhere, all at one time, which, for my little brain, really confused me.

And so, what I would do is, I would imagine that God was in the room. That I’d see an empty space and go, “Okay, that’s where God is, He’s in the corner over there.” And what I would think is, if God saw me now, would He be happy with what I’m doing? Would He approve of what I’m doing? Or would He be really heartbroken that I’m doing something naughty?

And as a kid, that’s what I was thinking all the time. And what that looked like, for me and my life, is that I went through my childhood and my teenage years as a really good kid, so scared to misbehave. Because what if the God that’s in the room, right over there, sees what I’m doing? What is He going to say? Is He going to come down and crack the whip and disapprove?

I believed the lie that I had to behave in order to be worthy of God’s love. And the truth is that God is not a punisher, but God is an extravagant lover. It says in 1st John 4:8 that, “God is love.” He is that very Agape love that we just spoke about. He is the love that we see demonstrated on the cross. He’s not waiting for you to step out of line. And if you do, He will take His love away, that’s not God. God is love.

That means that the very nature, the very essence of who God is, is the love that we see on the cross. He’s an extravagant lover. And today if you’ve lived your whole life believing that God is angry, that as soon as you misbehave, He’s going to crack the whip, I’m here, we’re here tonight to tell you that that’s not who God is. He’s not a lover, and He does not extend His love to us based on our behavior.

So just back to that verse 19 in Ephesians 3, which says, “That we would know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge. That we would know the love that compelled Jesus to the cross, that we would know the very nature and the very essence of God.” And now that word, “know,” in the beginning of that scripture, is that…it means that something that we know from experience.

It’s an experience that we had, that we know, that we know, that we know that something is true. And the word “knowledge” there is head knowledge, it’s something that comes from understanding. It’s an understanding that you can have in your mind. So know experience, knowledge, and understanding.

So to rephrase a little bit, give me the liberty, I believe Paul would be saying something like, “That we would know from experience the love of Christ that surpasses the understanding of love that we have in our mind.” Now, there’s a big difference between knowing something in your head, right? And knowing something through experience.

When I was learning to drive, I got hold of…I think it’s called a K53 book or K52, I can’t remember. But, it teaches you the rules of the road, right? And I studied this thing, I still failed in my learner’s twice. But I studied this thing, and so, technically, I knew how to drive, right? But it was only until I sat in front of the steering wheel, turned the car on, dropped the clutch and stalled, did I begin to understand a little bit of what driving actually was.

And I feel like that’s exactly what Paul is hitting home in the scriptures. That we can understand, to a certain extent, what God’s love is like, based on our mind and what we can cognitively understand, but there’s so much more that’s just the starting point of the revelation of the magnitude of God’s love.

And this, to me, man, it’s so exciting because it means that what we understand, there’s so much more to that. He says, “It surpasses our knowledge.” So there’s more. So when we think we understand, when we think we’ve come to a final…this is what God’s love means, no, there’s more.

And then, when you think there’s…you’re done, no, there’s more. And there’s still more, and more, and more, and more. Like that is the extent, that’s the magnitude of God’s love. It’s just amazing, and that’s what’s available to us.

And Paul’s not saying here that our head knowledge is futile. That we shouldn’t, yeah, learn at all about God’s love, or read about God’s love, but it’s got to be more than a theological concept. There’s so much more. There’s so much more, we’re invited in this verse to experience His love. And throughout the Bible, we see countless stories of people who encounter the love of God and their lives are forever changed.

One of my favorite stories and that I always think of when I think of the power of God’s love, is the woman with the issue of blood, in Matthew 9. Now, this woman, she extends her hand through the crowd, she pushes through, and she touches the hem of Jesus’ cloak, and her life forever changes.

She receives radical healing. And now, she must have heard about this Jesus. Something must have compelled her, some kind of knowledge about Jesus must have compelled her, to stretch through the crowd, to touch the hem of His garment.

Our head knowledge, what we know about God’s love, what we read about his love, it has to compel us to experience Jesus, to experience that love, it’s got to compel us. It can’t just be theology. So just in wrapping up, and I’ll invite Katia back up, Paul’s prayer in this passage, and my prayer for you tonight is that you would encounter the love of God that surpasses your understanding. That what you’ve read about Him, what you’ve heard about Him, what you believe about Him, that you would begin to experience, that it would be…go beyond just theology.

Katia: You know, the challenge for us is that heart knowledge has a way of creeping back to become a head knowledge unless you steward it, and unless you press into it, and unless you keep pursuing it. And so, for some of us, I know this is the case for me, that there has been historical experiences of encounter with Jesus that has overwhelmed us.

But unless we live in the good of that, unless we keep saying, “And how are we going to encounter each other afresh today, Jesus,” what can happen is that beautiful moment of encounter can creep back up into your head so that it becomes theory once again.

And you’ll know if this is true of you, if you can listen to words about the love of God, or if you can read words about the love of God, and you’re kind of like, “Me? Okay.” And I don’t say that to be rude, or cheeky or funny, because I’ve been there.

And actually, sometimes, as leaders or preachers, you can get into this place in very dangerous territory, because you talk about something so often that you can kind of go, “Yeah.” It’s my job to tell you about the love of God.

But the love of God, if we’re living in the experience of it, should be so overwhelming that we’re undone when we talk about it, because it is scandalous. My husband, Julian, loves to say, “If the grace you’re experiencing isn’t amazing, then it’s not grace.”

Because it should amaze you. You should be blown away. It’s like talking to someone who’s claiming to have completely fallen in love with a person of their dreams. And when you talk to them, they’re like, “Yeah, they were kind of cool. Like, okay, you don’t know what it means to have fallen in love.”

Because once someone has fallen in love, you know when you talk to that person, because they just can’t, “Oh, let me tell you one more cute thing that he did.” And you’re like, “Oh, my gosh, this is the 10th story.” Or it’s like when someone has had a child. Listen, before I had kids, I knew the theory of what it meant to have unconditional love for a child.

But when I held Ezekiel for the first time, oh, my gosh, there was no book that could have explained what I felt. And if you just give me a few minutes to talk to you about my kids, well, the photos are going to come out and you’ll be thinking, “Oh, my gosh, make her stop.” But it’s because I’m living in the experience of that love, and it’s a daily encounter at 6:00 a.m., 5:00 a.m. It’s a daily encounter.

And so, this isn’t just for people, this isn’t for the person next to you, is what I’m trying to say. This is for you. You, who maybe have never encountered the love of God, and you’re thinking, I genuinely have no idea what you’re talking about when you talk about encounter. And this is for you who has had multiple encounters, but who are hungry today.

Because as Richard said so well today, in the spirit, in the supernatural, everything you eat makes you more hungry. And so, yesterday’s experience should be making a starving today for more. And God is never blasé about meeting with us. Oh, He loves to meet with us. Isaiah says, “He rises from His throne to show us compassion.”

He is eager to meet with you and I. And I love it because the sentence ends with, “So that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.” You know, the point of Christianity, like I said, isn’t your morality, that’s not God’s endpoint. God’s endpoint is to stuff you to the brim with the fullness of who He is.

With His glory, with His Majesty, think of the biggest words that you can think about who God is, and then understand this, that He has not reserved that simply for Himself, but He wants to stuff you to the full with that reality. You want to talk about His power, you want to talk about His creative ability, you want to talk about how He is worthy of all honor, you want to talk about His glory that shakes the nations.

And He’s saying, “Yes, that’s why I brought you home so that I could fill you with the fullness of all of that.” There’s not a single part of Him that He has held back from you, or reserved just for Himself. But in His incredible, ridiculous, scandalous grace, He said, “I want to stuff you to overflowing with that very same reality.

I wanna say to you, if you are living for your Monday to Friday, just to get through your week, if you think your Christianity is just about not gossiping at work, if you think your Christianity is just about saving time until one day, finally, you’ll die, or maybe be raptured and go to heaven. I don’t believe in the rapture, anyway, but that’s another story for a different time.

But the point is this, if you’re waiting for one day when it will be okay, I want to tell you, you haven’t scratched the surface of what it means to be a Christian. Because what it means to be a Christian today, not one day when you die, what it means to be a Christian it’s to so encounter His love that He’ll so transform you and I, that every part of His fullness will be stuffed into you and I, so that everywhere we go, we will be overflowing with the fullness of God Himself.

That’s why He saved us. It wasn’t to make your behavior good. It wasn’t so that you’d have to go through a charade of a life on earth so that you’ll get to heaven one day. It was so that you’d so encounter Him and you’d live in the fullness of who He is.

Kells, why don’t come up? We’re gonna do some ministry time. And maybe just you want to come and play keys. Guys, we don’t have a script for this part. And if you want it to be neat and tidy, I’m really sorry, it’s not going to be. But I believe God wants to meet with us.

Because if not, this word isn’t trustworthy. And we really need to stop wasting our time, if that’s the case. But if He is to be believed, then He’s to be believed completely, which means He wants to meet with you and me tonight, which means He wants to journey us from head knowledge to heart knowledge. And so, why don’t you stand with us tonight?

All You Need Is Love

Mon, 11 Jun 2018 20:05:11 GMT

This last month I was one of the millions of people who sat and watched as Prince Harry wed Meghan Markle. I love weddings in general, and this one certainly didn’t disappoint with all the pomp and ceremony and glamour, not to mention the incredible promises of covenant to one another.

I’ve been intrigued by the social media frenzy stirred up by Bishop Michael Curry’s passionate preaching. Voices of admiration rang out almost as loudly as some in the Christian camp booing him for not giving a full enough rendition of sin and its penalty. Whilst I can understand where some are coming from, I’ve got to say I thought his message was timely, beautiful and profound. As I understand from scripture, God is love – and so I’m not convinced that we can ever overemphasise the incredible world-transforming nature of it.

Listening to him preach and reading over some of what’s been commented has led me to scripture again to look at love. I’ve been musing over Paul’s words in Ephesians 3 and am more convinced than ever that God’s heart for the world and for His people is to be totally and utterly overwhelmed and immersed in His love.

Here’s Paul’s prayer in Ephesians 3 –

14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (NKJV)

A few thoughts on these verses:

Let love be your foundation

Our roots are in love – that’s where everything starts in our journey with Jesus. Sometimes I think we’ve tried to rewrite the Gospel so that God’s motivation toward us becomes more sin and judgement focussed, but the best-known verse in the world remains true in direct opposition to this sort of thinking – it was because God so LOVED the world that He gave His son. Let’s not muddy the waters by trying to get theologically clever. Let’s be clear – the Gospel story is rooted in one emotion and Paul’s prayer springboards from that place of rooting and grounding: Love. It’s not a flimsy fickle sort of love. It’s not a here today, gone tomorrow kind of love. It’s a world-transforming, cross-bearing, death-defying sort of love. And it’s on offer to you and me.

Let love be your comprehension

Starting in love, Paul prays that we would be able to comprehend it. That our minds will be stretched to understanding the incredible proportions of it. That our thinking would be inundated with this emotion from the heart of the Father. The gospel has you rooted in love, now let’s journey in understanding it, in filling our minds with the truth of it, in trying to grasp the extent of love that our Papa has for us. It’s a study that is so vast that it blows our minds (and boxes of thinking) wide open.

Let love be your experience

Paul’s words are provoking because though he prays that we comprehend the love of God in verse 18, he’s clear in verse 19 that it goes beyond comprehension. No matter how much we study and learn about the love of God it will never be enough because it is so much greater than our minds can fathom. Comprehending His love is a worthy and important pursuit, but it’s an insufficient one. God wants to journey us so that the love that we start in and work to understand is a love that we enter into an experience of. He wants to take us from being merely students to the wonderful privilege of being sons – the first focusses on learning, the second on relational experience.

Where are you in your journey with Jesus? You may be someone who is trying to grapple with the idea of whether God really cares about you, or you may be just starting out on getting to know Jesus and are getting your feet planted firmly into His awesome love. Wherever you are, let me encourage you today – His love is so beautiful to read about and think about, but was never intended to be just a theological concept . He is inviting us to experience Him and His heart, to meet His affection which is beyond any box we’ll ever be able to hold in our minds, so vast that it is breath-taking in wonder and depth.

Let’s step in a little deeper today and invite Him to come and do what He has always intended – to show off with His love so that we come face to face with His affection and are undone in His presence once again.

Prophetic Preaching

Wed, 30 May 2018 18:00:00 GMT

I never want sermon prep to become a routine that doesn’t involve the Holy Spirit. My aim is to help you feel comfortable speaking in step with what He is saying in any given moment. After years of practicing, here are a few of my tips which have helped me prepare preaches that are breathed on by the Holy Spirit.

– TRANSCRIPT

Hi guys, I want to talk to you a little bit today about something I’m really passionate about which is preaching but not just a kind of dry preaching but prophetic preaching if you like. Preaching that’s been breathed on by Holy Spirit and where we feel confident and comfortable to speak and step with what he’s saying in the moment. So, just a few basics about how I approach preaching and how I approach preparing for sermons that I bring. I think every good sermon has to have three good, strong elements and these three elements I’d say are, firstly, revelation, secondly, crafting and thirdly, good delivery. So what do I mean by them? Well, the revelation is the moment where you get an aha moment, where you’re reading the Bible, where you’re reading something, and suddenly Holy Spirit lands on that in a way that it comes alive or fresh to you in that moment.

Where I’m preaching that’s where I start, I’m looking for that aha moment, I’m looking for that revelation moment where the word has come alive to me in a fresh way. Because if I can find that, then I know I’ve got kind of fresh bread to offer, a fresh treasure to show people. So, I think every good sermon starts with that where the person preparing has found that piece of revelation that comes alive to them. And then secondly, there’s the crafting, and this is, I think, where a lot of people fall down in preparing sermons. Sometimes we feel like the revelation in and of itself is enough and whilst it’s so important, unless we do some work in crafting a sermon, from that moment of revelation, we’ll struggle to take people on the journey in order for them to have their own aha moments.

So the second process part of preaching prep, if you like, is crafting, is taking that revelation that you have, and then intentionally building a sermon around that, that is clear, that is concise, that has illustrations that will bring life to that point. A sermon that really builds towards that one area of revelation that you had, and that crafting is so crucial. So that when you stand up to deliver what you’ve prepared, it’s not just your aha moment and then you’re hoping everyone else will catch on, but actually is something that you’ve crafted very deliberately to allow people to walk alongside you so that they can get to a moment of revelation for themselves. And then there’s the delivery, there’s the clear communication, there’s all the helpful kind of communication tools in terms of keeping eye contact and not using your hands too much that I often do. And on the delivery side, there’s the part where the prophetic comes in.

See, when I prepare my sermons it’s not so much that I write a script, but my crafting is very intentional. So, I will have a sermon structure that I’ll be able to use again and again in different settings. But in reality, whenever I preach the same sermon in different contexts, it can come out very differently. And that’s because when I’m speaking in the delivery part of the sermon, in all honesty, I’ve got two conversations going on in my head, even as I’m speaking the sermon. The one is focused on the preach, the one is focused on the thing that I’ve crafted so carefully, but the second conversation that is going on in my head is with Holy Spirit. And even as I am carefully preaching my sermon, I’m asking Holy Spirit, “Where are you landing on today? Which points that I carefully put together are really important to spend some time on today? And which points that I carefully put together are irrelevant for this congregation?”

And so, there’s this dual conversation going on in my head and it’s so important as preachers that we have those two conversations as we’re preaching. It’s so important that we don’t just rely on what we very carefully crafted but we understand that delivery is more than just being able to speak eloquently. But it’s actually about taking all that we’ve got, and then putting it at the feet of Jesus and leaning on him and saying, “Holy Spirit, now that I’ve got all of this that I’ve created so diligently, which part of it should I use and which part of it should I put aside for today?” Sometimes being a preacher can mean that you become scared to take risks, it becomes safer to lean on what you created rather than to lean on the quiet voice of Holy Spirit. But I wanna encourage you, all you preachers out there, do your work, do the crafting carefully, steward your gift really well and put the time in to create great preachings.

But don’t just rely on the work that you’ve done. In the moment when you’re standing on a platform and when you’re delivering to a congregation be asking Holy Spirit, what are you saying, and don’t be afraid to go off script, don’t be afraid to do whatever you feel Holy Spirit leading you to. Because at the end of the day no matter how incredible the preaches are that we prepare, they become powerless unless Holy Spirit breaths through our words. And so, that’s where the prophetic element comes in. That’s where the risk element comes in for us as preachers. We’ve done the work at home but when we’re on that platform, really it’s us with Holy Spirit partnering together, to deliver something that will bring life to people, that will bring transformation, and you can’t do that in and of yourself. No amount of work at home will be able to do that in and of itself. We need Holy Spirit inspired moment.

So, don’t be afraid to listen to him and to do what he’s telling you, even though it might not be in your notes. You never know, that might be the most life-giving element of your sermon. So, follow him, go where he’s leading and that’s where the adventure is at. And that’s where you really see that’s transformed.

Fear vs. Faith

Mon, 21 May 2018 18:00:00 GMT

David lived a challenging life, but his moments of breakthrough were marked by his faith. Listen as Katia gives us keys to conquering fear and stepping into our own breakthrough. This teaching was originally recorded at Harvest Church in Durban, South Africa.

– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: It’s such a privilege to be here, so exciting that I get to share. You know, the problem with being a prophetic movement and listening to God for His theme for the year is that it really gives the speakers a lot of problems. So, when Dave was speaking about the book writing and then he sees in the bookshop a book on favor and another book on favor, I’m thinking, “I feel your pain, because every single one of you have taken my topic and used my examples too.”

So, in the break, I went upstairs and I thought, ” Okay, let’s quickly change the topic,” and I decided I would preach an incredible sermon on the difference between fear and faith. And then I felt God speaking to me, just a gentle whisper as He does, saying, “Isn’t it ironic that you want to speak on fear and faith but you came up here to change your talk out of fear, not faith?” So, I quickly went back to the original plan.

See, the fear is that I’ll stand up here and I’ll say what you’ve already heard and I’ll look insignificant. Because so often we, as leaders, as much as we know it’s not about us, we feel it’s about us. And so we want to avoid the circumstances where we feel silly, where we feel like we’ve not got something profound to bring because so many other people have brought that profound message.

But what we do in that moment is we deny what God is doing, and what God is messaging, and what God wants to bring, and I really do feel like there is an acceleration even in this conference where God is building to a moment where the balloon is gonna pop as it were, and glory is gonna be manifested. And am I gonna be courageous enough to say to Jesus, “Okay, I don’t mind if I don’t look significant as long as that moment manifests?”

And so I’m gonna speak on things that have been addressed again and again and again. But I really wanna invite Holy Spirit to come and breathe afresh on these words as he’s been doing so far to this point. Because, I feel like there is something that God wants to bring of a transformation in our hearts and minds, where truth goes from our heads and settles in on our hearts. Because I don’t know about you, no matter how many times I hear about identity, there’s things about my identity that need transformed.

So, we’re gonna look at the life of David. Go with it. I’m just gonna settle on a couple of verses from 1 Samuel 22. We’re told, “David left Gath and escaped to the cave of Adullam. When his brothers and his father’s household heard about it, they went down to him there. All those who were in distress or in debt or discontented,” wow, what a congregation, “gathered around him, and he became their commander. About 400 men were with him.”

I just wanna use the life of David to signpost some things that can be a hindrance or a pitfall in the season of acceleration. And I think David is such an amazing example of how he navigates through this and sees victory in it. And so the first thing I feel like David is an incredible example is that he was undeterred by brokenness. Both his own brokenness and the brokenness of those around him.

See, in a season of acceleration, we can feel like the cost gets higher and higher and higher, so we raise the standard of who is allowed to work with us. We raise the standard as leaders of what we should look like, we get into a place where, as leaders, we can veneer our CV. We wanna tidy it up, those moments of failure or weakness, we don’t want them on display. Because as much as we hear and as much as we know that it’s about God, we still have this urge within us to maintain by our works what He allowed in the first place by His grace.

I love the life of David. He’s hiding in a cave, for goodness’s sake. And not hiding so well because his whole family hear about it. So, it’s not even, like, a good escape plan. It’s his weakest point, it’s not a moment that he would like someone to shine a spotlight on. And yet, all these guys come around him and what I love about David is he’s not, first of all, putting the leadership veneer on it, trying to explain that low point with some kind of razzmatazz, so the guys think he’s better than he is. “No, oh, guys, this cave is actually super strategic for where we’re going.” Because we can do that. We can take weak moments and feel like we need to manipulate them somehow so that we earn something in the eyes of those who are following us.

But David is undeterred by his brokenness. You know, when seven is the perfect number in your culture, being the eighth child isn’t a great thing. You’re unnecessary, you are surplus. And that’s how he was treated, he was rejected in the greatest moment that his family ever experienced. A family of nobodies who gets the prophets to come to their house, that’s a big moment. That’s the pinnacle of that family’s experience, it wasn’t like an everyday occurrence, it was the feast of all feasts. They would never have that moment again and David was unnecessary.

His whole background, everything that he’d experienced up to this point, was rejection and weakness. He goes to the battleground and starts asking questions of faith and his brothers, “Just what are you doing? We see the evil in your heart, get away from here.” Rejection is his middle name. Even when he does something amazing for the kingdom, he’s rejected by the king. So, he’s hiding in a cave and all these guys come around him, but David’s not trying to tidy up his CV. I wonder how many of us are trying to do that.

You know, I love the genealogy of Jesus in Matthew one and this is stuff that we know. I know that. I’m speaking to a room of leaders. You know, it’s so funny for me the way Jesus puts a spotlight on the weakest moments in his history. There is no part of Jesus that wants to tidy up his resume. There’s no part of him that wants to call Bathsheba anything other than Uriah’s wife. Because he’s trying to say, “Adulterer, adulterer, adulterer,” that’s what he’s doing.

There’s no part of the genealogy that hides the fact that there’s the product of incest in his story. There’s the product of prostitutes, there’s the product of outsiders, but Jesus has no problem with the weakness of his story. Because the Bible says that the power of God is made manifest in weakness. And so often we’re trying to bring some kind of tidy up so that we can boost our power in the story, when God is saying, “Please leave it alone, because this is a moment for My glory to be made manifest, don’t tamper with that.”

And so David is amazing. He’s not deterred by his brokenness. These guys come and he’s heard what God has said over him. He knows that he is intended for King and so he just goes with what God has said. He’s not hiding his brokenness, but he’s not put off by it. He’s choosing to agree with what God has declared over him. It’s about time that we choose to agree with what God has said. At some point, we’re gonna to have to agree, right?

I loved what Pastor Louis was saying last night, wavering between two opinions. At some point, we have to decide, at some point, we have to agree. And I love that David, just even in that cave, these guys come to him and he says, “Yep, I’m the right man for the job, you want a commander, I’ll do it.” The cave is no deterrence. You know, we have to understand that when words of destiny are spoken over us, they attract conflict in the spirit realm. And the enemy is gonna come right at the heart of what God has spoken. And so when you think you’re about to be launched, something often comes in direct opposition but that’s just the precursor to the launching if we understand it correctly.

You see it when God the Father proclaims over Jesus, “This is My son.” And then the enemy doesn’t skip a beat, but picks up exactly where God left off, “If you are the son.” It’s like there’s a continuous sentence happening. He sees the destiny word, there’s conflict attracted right there and the enemy comes where God left off. But we’ve gotta understand that the enemy is playing a game of spiritual chicken with each of us. We’ve gotta understand that what God has proclaimed is like a platform, is ground that has already been won that God is inviting us to stand on.

You know, spiritual warfare in Ephesians 6 is not about running around. It’s about standing. You wanna know what warfare is? That’s it. Stand, stand, keep standing, stand again, keep standing and once you’ve stood, you’ll be standing at the end, right? Because God has spoken, he’s spoken who you and I are, and he’s inviting us to stand on that very ground and not lose heart and not give way. Because the enemy is playing spiritual chicken with that very word and he’s running at us, head on betting that you and I will move before he does.

But what if we don’t? What if you called the bluff? What if we say, “Uh-uh, I’ve heard the word of God and I’m standing.” Because, David here, despite everything in his circumstance, everything that was saying to him, “You are no king,” he found that word and he stood on that ground and he refused to move. Don’t move, keep your ground, stand, stand and stand again.

And he’s not only undeterred by his own brokenness, but by those around him. This is a moment where he needs help, this is like when we’re needing help as congregations and we’re like, “Jesus, please bring the right people to us. Oh, God please, please bring the wealthy givers, the generous of heart, Lord, please just bring him to us.” And then we get the distressed, those who are in debt, the discontented. Wow, glory be, what an army.

But the thing is, when you become comfortable with your own weakness and have allowed the power of God to be made manifest through that very thing, you don’t mind the weakness of others. Because you’ve learned to see yourself through the lens of grace that God has supplied. You’ve learned to see the miraculous work out through you, even in the context of your own caves. And so when God sends around you people who are unlikely, you’re not freaking out, and you’re not looking above them going, “Oh, anyone else? Anyone else? It’s like someone is there like, “Pick me, pick me.” And you’re like, “No, no, not you, I don’t see that hand, I don’t see that hand.” Because you know in a season of acceleration, the cost is high.

And we can have a subtle shift in our paradigm that becomes a success-failure paradigm rather than a relationship obedience paradigm. And so we don’t want to pick the difficult people, because we’re going after success, rather than understanding that God has put us on a journey of relating to Him and being obedient with what He’s given us.

I wanna encourage you, as we step into greater acceleration, don’t lift the standard of who is allowed to play. Because the kingdom is for every single one of us, and the supernatural is for every single one of us. And if God wanted to raise the standard of who was allowed to do what, none of us would be in this room. And so no matter how fast we’re running and no matter how big we’re getting, we need to understand that everyone gets to play in the kingdom. Because entry into the kingdom requires one thing, which is the posture of childlikeness and faith, and everyone can do that.

And so David is undeterred, undeterred his brokenness, he is undeterred by others’ brokenness. I love the way Jesus steps out in the most pivotal moment of his ministry, where he’s just coming into his own season of acceleration. It’s been a quiet 30 years and then he’s on the season and he’s thinking, “I’ve gotta pick the best people for the job, the best people who are gonna come and do incredible things around me.” And so he goes to the wisest and the strongest and the guys who’d learned their scriptures the best. No, he goes to the guys who failed at Jewish school.

That’s the way Jewish school ran. If you were really good from one year to the next, you kept going until when you were in your mid-teens a rabbi would recognize just how awesome you were because by that point, you probably knew most of the Old Testament by heart. And then the rabbi would say to you, “Come, follow me,” which was basically their vote of confidence in you, because a disciple fully represented their rabbi. And so no rabbi in their right mind would pick a dumb disciple. Because it fully reflected on them. A rabbi saying, “Come follow me,” was basically them saying, “You can be everything that I am.”

And so Jesus goes to the ones who failed, Jesus goes to the lowest of the low, because, how do I know that? Because they were fishermen and they were tax collectors, which means they’d failed, no rabbi wanted them near them. And yet Jesus says, in the most profound moment where he’s speaking affirmation and confidence, “Come follow me.”

Do you know the shock that would have been in the disciples when they heard those words? “What? A rabbi wants me?” Jesus is undeterred by their brokenness but uses the unlikely in the moment of his acceleration. Who are we looking for around us? Because we might be missing, in our hastiness, to find the perfect for the task, the very people God has put in front of us to do the miraculous, right in front of our eyes.

Jackie Pullinger, who ministered in Hong Kong and really changed that nation, she says this, which I love, she says, “Our young people are unlikely dragon slayers. Most have failed society, school, and parents, but they have an unearthly courage. Teams have been formed from the broken to reach the broken, the limping help the limping, and so hundreds are touched not by me, but by those like me who are hardly healed themselves.” Who are you looking for? Because if you’re looking for the likely, you might be missing the treasure that God has right in front of you.

I need to end, but I’m just going to throw out a couple of other thoughts. I love that David was unintimidated by opposition, both the giant in your face kind of opposition and the years and years and years of waiting kind of opposition. And I loved what Andrew said this morning, “Warfare is identity.” In the moment of warfare, figure out your identity because that’s where David’s victory was rooted. The enemy is wanting to bring fear about, as he intimidates us and as he calls into question what God has said, but we get to stand on the promises of God for us.

David was uninterested in formula. Louis picked up on this last night, relationship was his aim, not formula. And in the moment of acceleration, this can become more and more costly, because again, our hearts are drawn towards the success of that moment. What worked last time will surely be applicable this time and it’s a little bit of a shortcut so we’re saving some time, rather than having to go back to Jesus and ask if it’s okay. Don’t save yourself some time, it’s a huge detour, it’s not saving you time at all. Because we’re not operating in a success-failure paradigm, we’re operating in a relationship obedience paradigm.

And David was unconcerned with his reputation and I’m gonna to finish with this. I love at the high point of victory, David decides that he’s gonna strip down and dance before the Lord. See, the further we get on in our season of acceleration, the more we can become interested in our reputations. The bigger the platforms, the bigger the congregations, it can become more and more costly to do something that seems stupid.

But, I love this moment where David is like, “I don’t care how big the crowds, I’ll worship Him because He’s worthy, because He’s worthy, because He’s worthy, whatever I look like, He is still worthy, no matter how big the crowd looking at me with mouths wide open, because what on Earth do I think I’m doing? I’m worshipping Him because He alone is worthy.” And no matter how big our platforms get, I wanna encourage you, worship Him because He’s worthy. It doesn’t matter what you look like. And you know, he was unconcerned with his reputation to the point of not building for his significance, but building towards legacy.

I love that at the high point of David’s career, where he defeated Goliath, he was not hoarding that moment, he was not wanting to be the famous giant slayer in the land. But, he takes the 400 losers that we see in the beginning of the story, and he raises them up so that we see in 2 Samuel, they become giant slayers themselves. And where David was able to kill one giant, they are able to kill multiple giants, because David is not concerned with protecting his significance, he’s interested in building Kingdom legacy. And so he wants his sons to run further and further and further than himself.

I love it because he has the idea for the temple that would be the central point of everything in the ancient glide. And what happens is God says to him, “No, that’s not gonna be yours to do.” And David doesn’t fight that, but he hands it over to his son who becomes the famous temple builder. He’s not building for significance, he’s building for legacy. I wanna encourage you in the season of acceleration where the enemy will try to pull us to looking internally, to becoming insular about what does this mean for me? I wanna encourage you that we be a people who consistently ask this question, “What will this mean for all those around me? Because if I can be their springboard then I’ve done my job correctly.”

And so I just wanna ask you, my time is over, there is a big zero being shown at the back, thank you. But I just wanna ask you to stand with me for one minute. Because God has been talking about taking shame away from our own weakness. He’s been talking about allowing acceleration to be something where we hear His words and we stick with what He said. He’s been talking about not being interested in formula, not going back to what we know works but about going back to Him. And I just want to invite Holy Spirit even in this moment, won’t you to raise your hands with me, one minute of ministry.

But Holy Spirit, I ask you to come and do in the hearts and minds what you’ve intended for this conference. And all of these words and all the words that have been said and all the words to come, we pray would be ignited in each and every heart so that the transformation that is on your heart would come to ours. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

Dream Interpretation: My 5 Keys

Sat, 19 May 2018 14:59:05 GMT

Exploring the Meaning of Your Dreams

Over the last few years, I’ve realized that God is using my dreams to speak to me. I’m sure He’s been trying to get my attention through them for a lot longer than that, but I’ve only just woken up to that reality! I’ve been asked a few times how I figure out if my dreams are from God or just the random workings of my subconscious? Also, if they are from God, how do I decipher what they mean?

So, I thought I’d jot down a few pointers from my own experience in understanding my dreams. Please bear in mind that this post is just me throwing out some things that I’ve found to be helpful and true for me, but is by no means a conclusive teaching on dream interpretation! None of this is an exact science (so be wary if anyone tries to tell you it is) and I have found that dream interpretation is more a journey of feeling out the way God speaks uniquely to you than a clear-cut method that you can memorize and then be good to go! Even so, I trust that this may prove helpful in teasing out how to interpret your own dreams.

1. Pay attention to vivid and lingering dreams

I’ve found that when God is speaking to me, the dreams are incredibly vivid and linger with me throughout the day. I wake up thinking about them and can’t shake them off. It’s almost like they get stuck in me. This is not 100% full-proof, but it is a signpost for me to weigh up the dream a bit more and see if it might be God.

2. Look for symbolic imagery

I’ve learned that there is imagery in my dreams – a specific dream-language if you will – that helps me tease out if there really is an intelligible meaning behind the often weird or jumbled up things I see. I’ve learned that the things I see in my dreams rarely have a literal meaning, but rather specific people or scenarios often represent something that I normally associate with them.

So, for example, houses or buildings tend to be about churches. Transportation vehicles tend to be about ministry. If things are repeated in my dreams, often it is an indication of things about to happen in an accelerated timeline. If there is a dream about my hair (strange I know!), often it is about my unique strength or gift. You can look up online dictionaries for dream interpretation or pointers from people like James Goll or John Paul Jackson . These can be helpful, but I want to reiterate – dream interpretation is in no way an exact science, and most importantly, you are going to need Holy Spirit to be speaking to you about what He’s trying to tell you!

3. Ask God about the people who show up in your dreams

From spending some time tracking my dreams now, I’ve realized that when people who are completely out of the blue (people who I haven’t talked about/thought about/seen in a while) pop up in my dreams, God may be using them to get my attention. Sometimes the dreams have significance for them and need to be shared or prayed over.

4. Recognize the emotions from your dreams

I’ve learned to pay attention to the emotions that are stirred up in me from the dream. If my dreams elicit fear or anxiety for me, then either they are demonic, and I can completely ignore or rebuke them, or they may be Godly warning dreams which I can pray into. What I know for sure is that dreams that bring fear, if they are from God, don’t want me to stay in that place of fear but are intended to move me on into faith.

5. Know when to share your dream with others

I’m coming to a place of understanding that not every God-dream I have is meant to be shared! Sometimes we are too quick to involve others (whether they are in the dream or not), but I’m realizing that often God is sharing something with me because He wants to mobilize me to pray, not necessarily to talk!

So there you have it, a few random thoughts from me on dream interpretation! In reality, the number one most important key for dream interpretation is to be walking in relationship with Jesus. The more we come to know Him, the more we will recognize His voice and decipher His heart through our dreams. He is not a tick-box list or formula that we can learn. He is living and breathing and wants to take us into a journey of knowing one another.

So next time you have a crazy dream, ask Jesus about it and then maybe think through some of the pointers I’ve suggested too. One thing I’m convinced of – He IS speaking , and He WILL teach us to recognize Him clearly, so we can rest assured that as we lean on Him faithfully, He’ll draw us deeper into all He has for us.

Cultivating Prophetic Encounters

Mon, 07 May 2018 18:00:00 GMT

We are the children of a Papa who loves us, and we have been wired with His supernatural DNA. So why is it sometimes difficult to experience supernatural encounters with him? Here are a few handles that have helped me personally cultivate those powerful, life-changing moments.

– TRANSCRIPT

Hi, guys. I just want to share something with you. It’s something that I get asked about a lot which is how I’ve developed experiencing supernatural encounters, and how I’ve grown in that area, both in the prophetic, but also just in meeting with God and getting to know him for myself. Often, people hear Julian’s story, and they kind of step back a little bit because Julian’s a prophet, so it makes sense that a prophet would have encounters. But I get asked this question as someone who isn’t a prophet, but someone who is able to prophesy because I’m a daughter of God, so I get to do that. Firstly, I wanna say I’ve developed this in God based on the foundation of knowing that he’s a good Poppa who wants to speak to me, and who is speaking to me. And that he’s designed me with everything inside of me to be able to hear it.

I think sometimes we can disqualify ourselves because we don’t feel like we have a special gift. But actually, the Bible tells us as children of God that we’ve been wired with supernatural DNA. He’s put his seed in us which means that we’re able to hear him because we are his children, and that’s how we’ve been designed. So first and foremost, I’d say if you’re on a journey in experiencing God, in having more encounters with him, I would want to encourage you to kind of put all that you grow on this foundation. That he’s a good Poppa who is speaking, and you are his child. And by nature of being his child, you’ve been designed with everything so that you can hear him. And the second thing I’d say is that just personally, I found that when people started talking to me about some of their own experiences, if I heard someone using big words or kind of impressive words, even words just like, “I had a vision” or “I had a trance,” those words would make me feel like somehow that I was disqualified or disempowered because those words seemed so big and my experiences at that point seemed so small.

And so I wanna encourage you, right from the outset, don’t allow yourself to be disempowered or disqualified by the use of spiritual sounding words. In reality, everyone’s experiences are different, but words like visions or trances, all they mean is that someone is seeing something in their mind’s eye. And so it’s like your imagination. It’s like what happens when you close your eyes, and you see images in front of you. That’s simply what a vision is too. So don’t be put off by spiritual sounding words. You can have encounters with God because you are His child, and that’s what he designed you to have. I wanna give you a few handy tools that I’ve learned. I used to have a lot of static pictures in my mind. So if I close my eyes, I could just see what almost look like a photo in front of my eyes. Sometimes, not even that clear, but a static image, a standstill image.

And I wanna encourage you, however, you’re starting off, whatever you have in your hands is a good place. It’s not just small. It’s not insignificant. Actually, whatever you have, whether it is that you might say to me, “Oh, I hear God with just like a little whisper in my mind. That’s all I hear. I don’t have any visions. I just get a whisper.” That’s a really great place to start because all of our first step experiences, if you like, like my pictures and maybe the whisper that you hear are a doorway into more. And so, this is the first tool and probably the most important tool that I can share with you. Something that has transformed my experiences with God is I recognize that my first step experience was a doorway into more. And God was asking me to engage my imagination, to press into the more.

Now, sometimes, we can get nervous about the use of our imagination because we think, “Oh, that means I’ll be making it up.” But actually, using our imaginations is incredibly biblical. And the reality is God gave us our imaginations as a setting, as a context to experience Him. If you don’t believe me, look into Ephesians 1. It talks about how in partnership with the Holy Spirit who brings wisdom and revelation, the eyes of our hearts should be enlightened. That basically means your imagination should be enlightened. It should be opened up so that you can grasp the hope that you’ve been called to. So that you can understand the riches of your inheritance so that you can understand the greatness of his power. Essentially, that means that your imagination is integral to experiencing God and to encountering the kingdom and so don’t discount your imagination.

Your imagination is not just you making things up, but is actually a context that God has given you so that you can press in for the more of encounter. And so I wanna encourage you with whatever is your first step experience, whether it’s a picture or whether it’s a still quiet whisper in your soul, whatever it is, I wanna encourage you, at that point, to close your eyes and to start engaging your imagination. And simply to start asking yourself if it’s a voice that you hear, what might the person who’s speaking to me look like? What might the heavenly room where God is look like? And start just pressing in by imagining those things or if it’s a static picture like I used to experience, I started asking myself if I saw a door or a garden that was static, I started imagining what that thing would become like if it came alive.

And as I started engaging my imagination, I suddenly found that what had started with me pressing in, soon became something that was drawing me in, in and of itself because it became a very real and vivid encounter. And those static images that I had in my mind’s eye actually became gateways to see God, experience Him, and know Him better. And so, I want to encourage you as you do this, this really is a journey with Jesus. It’s a way of experiencing him, so fix your eyes on Jesus, say, “Holy Spirit, I wanna know you more. I don’t wanna make things up. I don’t wanna imagine you in my image. I wanna see you for real. But I want the eyes of my heart to be enlightened by you, Holy Spirit so that I can experience you, so that I can engage with you the way that you intended for me to engage with you.”

And then allow him to breathe on your imagination, lean in on your imagination, and let him take you into experiences that you’ve only hoped for, that you’ve only imagined before, but now, you’ll actually get to experience. He’s a good Poppa. He is speaking to you. He designed you to hear Him. This isn’t only for special Christians somewhere, this is for every Christian, this is for every child of God. And whatever your first step experiences, don’t belittle it, don’t discount it because it isn’t a vision or a trance. That is an invitation by God, your first step experience, and so lean into that invitation, engage your imagination, and then trust him to take you into experiences with Him.

Prophecy: Not Just for Prophets

Wed, 02 May 2018 15:22:45 GMT

Can Anyone Prophesy?

Being married to a prophet has provoked me into a bit of a crazy wild journey with Jesus. When I first started getting to know Julian, he would often tell me of the unbelievable encounters with God that He was having. If I’m completely honest, I would find it a bit annoying, because I wanted to experience similar crazy encounters too but I thought that they were somehow only ‘reserved’ for those who are prophets. As if being a prophet meant that Julian could enter into a realm that was out of bounds for me – just an ordinary Christian (is there any such thing?!).

Over the last few years, I’ve realized just how wrong that kind of thinking is. Firstly, as children of God we are ALL created to know Him and hear Him and experience Him – that’s not a privilege reserved for prophets, but a reality on offer for all believers. Secondly, the very reason Jesus gave gifts of prophets (alongside the other 5-fold gifts spoken of in Ephesians ) was not to create a kind of tiered system in the body, where some people are ‘super Christians’ and get to do the stuff and the rest of us just stand in awe of them, but rather so that those people could equip and empower the body to do the very same things they do. That’s the point of having grace gifts of apostles and prophets and teachers and evangelists and pastors. Not to have them on pedestals where they do the work of ministry, but instead where they multiply and reproduce the supernatural DNA that they carry to those around them, so that the whole body is raised up to do the work of ministry.

In other words, Julian’s experiences are not meant to make me feel left out and jealous of how he gets to do fun stuff and I don’t, but rather they are meant to invite me and provoke me and empower me into experiences of my own with God.

Realizing Jesus’ intention in giving gifts of people to the church has revolutionized how I anticipate what God wants to do with me. No longer do I hear a story from someone with an amazing gift and think ‘Oh I wish that I could do that!’ but rather now I think ‘Woohoo! That must mean that I get to do that!’.

Every testimony and story you hear of wild encounter and supernatural moments are not meant to make you feel left out, but are meant to draw you in.

What stories have you heard that make you yearn for more? They are not simply stories but are rather invitations whispered by your good, kind Papa, who is holding out His hand and inviting you into the more of who He is. Are you listening? Are you ready to dive in deeper? There is nothing that you have heard or seen in the Christian world that is reserved for someone else more gifted or more ‘chosen’ than you. We are all children of the same Papa who sees us all as His favorite.

What is He wanting to say to His favorite today?

Who Are You?

Thu, 15 Feb 2018 18:00:00 GMT

Everywhere Jesus went he was asked this one question, “Who are you?”. In this teaching, Katia Adams helps us understand how to live like Jesus by leaning on Him in every moment. You were made to play in the impossible, and the impossible only happens when you lean on Him.

– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: It is my privilege to be standing here this morning. I love this house. Julian and I, and our kids love being part of this family. And if you’d seen me at about 7:00 this morning after a sleepless night with our kids… We’ve got a two-year-old and a nine-month-old who both decided it was the perfect opportunity to wake up through the night. If you’d seen me at 7:00, you would have seen me a little bit worse, but over the last hour and a half, I’ve just felt God speaking to me so powerfully that, to be honest, within about two minutes of the worship time, I was saying to Julian, “I’m raring to go. I can’t wait, I can’t wait.”

So, I think God is gonna do something quite significant in us as a people this morning. And all through the worship time, I think, triggered by this song about his love awakening us, I had this story running through my mind. And it’s a true story. A lady who I’ve met a couple of times, don’t know her very well, this happened to her. She’s Welsh and living in the States, but she’s Welsh and she had gone on a mission trip to, somewhere in Wales, actually, with a whole group of people. And she felt God speak to her about going into this old beautiful church in Wales, and she felt God say to her… I mean, it was quite…if you can imagine with me one of those seriously traditional, beautiful, old stone buildings where it’s silent inside. And there’s such a sense of reverence and religion, and it’s all mixed together. But it’s not the sort of place you feel like shouting aloud or even talking aloud, you use your inside voice when you’re in that place.

And she felt God speak to her in that place and she felt God tell her to start shouting, “Wakey, wakey.” Not the sort of thing you would want to do, probably, anywhere in public, but certainly not in a place like that. But she’s a woman of faith and a woman of courage, and she felt God stir this inside of her again and again to the point that she just couldn’t deny that it was God speaking to her.

And so she started shouting, “Wakey, wakey, wakey, wakey,” into the silence. And suddenly, she began to see, in the supernatural, a mobilization of kingdom in that place and the angelic rising up and beginning to tell her how they’ve been asleep for a long time because no one had chosen to mobilize the supernatural power of God in that place. And suddenly, the atmosphere of that place was changed.

And as we were singing, “Your Love Awakens Me,” I thought to myself, “Wouldn’t it be a good thing to do this morning, to start shouting ‘wakey, wakey’ to ourselves, to our own spirits, and to the atmosphere in this place?” Seriously, God is moving in this place in a phenomenal way. If you’re a visitor today, this church is an awesome one. God is in this house.

But there is always more waking up that we can do, because his love is here afresh and wants to bring further realization to us of His goodness and His kindness, and further understanding of who he has made us to be.

And so, I wonder if you’d be very kind and do this with me, because if not, it’s kind of embarrassing me doing it all by myself. Would you stand with me for a moment?

And listen, you don’t have to shout, although I’d encourage you to. It’s quite releasing, really, because it’s such an odd thing to do. But I’d really like you to engage with this moment. This isn’t a gimmick. I feel like God has reminded me of this story for a reason because he wants to wake our hearts up.

And so, I just wanna encourage you, however is most engaging for you. I wanna ask you to say the words “Wake up. Wake up.” And I want you to speak that to yourself. I want you to speak it to your own heart and to your spirit. Wake up, wake up, wake up. And if you wanna shout it, shout it. And if you wanna whisper it, whisper it. But I’m asking you to engage with it. Can you do that with me?

Together: Yes.

Katia: So let’s go for it. Wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up, wake up. I speak to hearts in this room and I say, “Wake up.” I speak to minds in this room and I say, “Wake up.” I speak to spirits in this room and I say, “Wake up.” We speak to the supernatural power of God in this place and we say, “Wake up.” Kingdom rise up in this place, light dawn in this place that the world would never be the same again. In Jesus name, amen.

Right, take your seats. If you’re gonna fall asleep in this sermon now, it really will be a miracle. I don’t mind if you do, it’s fine. Okay, let’s go for it. So, today, I’m gonna be looking at a couple of scriptures in Song of Songs, so feel free to flip to that book, if you like. I’m gonna read the Scriptures, so if you’d rather just listen, that’s totally fine.

I’m gonna pick out two verses that are, I think, quite astonishing. One of them I used to read, thinking that it was talking about God, until I started doing a bit of research and realized, no, it’s not talking about God, it’s talking about us as the beloved. And the verses I’m gonna look at are verse 10 in Chapter 6, and verse 5 in Chapter 8.

And in Chapter 6, it says this, “Who is this, who appears like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?” That’s talking about you and me, that’s not talking about God. “Who is this, who appears like the dawn, beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners?” And in Chapter 8, it says, “Who is this coming up from the wilderness and leaning on her beloved?”

I believe God is taking the church further in her destiny in this season, where we would become a people who are so provoking, so startling, so astonishing with who we are and how we live that the world can’t help but say, “Who is this?”

And I think sometimes, we can shy away from what God wants to do in and through us because we’re saying, “No, no. No one must see me as a child of God. I must be invisible so they see God.” But what happens is, we actually squash the work of the Spirit because what he’s trying to do in us is do something so miraculous that people will see us, and then they’ll see the lover who we’re leaning on. And we’re trying to squash it. “No, no, no. I must be invisible. I’ll just remain small and quiet.” And if anyone notices anything that God has done, straight away we’re like, “No, no, no. It wasn’t me. No, let’s not talk about that,” because we’re embarrassed because we think that’s what humility is.

And God is saying, “No, I made you to be a people that the world will stand up and see and hear and go, “Who are you? How are you doing what you’re doing? How are you saying what you’re saying? How are you living this way?” And then we can just step to the side for a moment and show them our lover, and say, “This is the one I have been leaning on all along. This is the one who’s brought me from the wilderness into the place of promise.”

And so, I believe God is doing a switch for us in this season, where we would stand up and we would own who we are, not out of the place of pride but out of the place of understanding that is the Spirit working in us to make us signs and wonders that will point to his goodness and his greatness in all the world.

If you look at how Jesus lived, it’s amazing because people asked, “Who is this?” all the time when they were around Jesus. He calms a storm, and his disciples who’d been with him, who knew him, suddenly shrink back and go, “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him.” And they’re shocked and they’re astonished and they have no logical answer for who is standing in front of them because he is so otherworldly.

And he forgives the sick so that they’re healed and stand up. And the Pharisees are offended and angered and they say, “Who is this? He thinks he has the right to forgive sins.” They do not have a logical box for him. He’s completely different. And so they have to ask the question, “Who on earth is standing in front of us? He goes into cities, and straight away, the atmosphere changes in that place.” And people are stirred up just because Jesus is there and the crowds start asking, “Who is this?” He starts speaking in the synagogue and people don’t know what to do because they’ve never encountered tangible power when someone speaks in such a way. And so they start asking, “Who is this who speaks with such authority?”

I wonder what questions people are asking when they see you and me. I feel like we’re too logical, we’re too reasonable, we’re too respectable. We make too much sense. I feel like we walk outside and we give too logically, we love too logically, we judge too logically. And so we blend in too logically. And yet, we were created, everything in you and me is created to cause people to be stirred up in the right way, to cause people to start asking questions that their hearts have been screaming all of their lives but they just never knew how to voice them until they see us and suddenly, hunger rises up in them and they start saying, “Who are you? How are you doing what you do? Why are you giving so generously? Why do you love me when I don’t deserve it and I act the way I do? Why are you so non-judgmental when all I’ve known about Christianity or religion is that it judges the broken?” And suddenly, people are asking the question that we were created to provoke all along. “Who is this? Who is this?”

I love looking at these verses a bit deeper. We’re gonna look at Chapter 8 first. I think it kind of makes more sense that way. “Who is this leaning on her lover coming out of the wilderness?” Out of the wilderness. The wilderness is a barren place, it’s a place of wandering and it’s a place of brokenness. And God’s intention with you and me is not for us to stay there but to lead us out of that place, and notice there’s only one way out.

Christian books, even, helpful books, self-help books will tell you that you can find your way out of that wilderness. They’ll tell you lots of steps, lots of strategies to get out of that place. They’ll give you really, really helpful guides to walk your way out of the wilderness. I wanna tell you that’s a bunch of nonsense. You can’t get out. There is only one way out of the wilderness, and it’s leaning on the beloved. There’s no other way out. It is leaning on who he is, wholeheartedly putting our weight on who he is that leads us out of that wilderness.

And look, this verse isn’t just about salvation, but it is also. So, if you’re in this place and you’re not a Christian, maybe, or you’re questioning or you’re just not sure, I wanna describe to you what being a Christian is, and it’s this. It’s recognizing that Jesus is God Himself, that Jesus came to die on a cross to wipe away all of the brokenness, all of the sin, all of the death and destruction that we have brought into this world. And then he rose again because he overcame all of that.

And now, as a Christian, what that means is to say, “I know who you are and I’m gonna put my full weight onto you. I’m gonna let you lead me out of my brokenness. So, I’m gonna let you lead me out of my sin. I’m gonna let you lead me out of all of the places where I feel like I’m dying inside because you can do it and I believe you for it.” That’s what it means to be a Christian.

And so, if you haven’t done that yet, I really wanna encourage you, today is a good day to do that. Today is a good day to say, “Jesus, I wanna lean on you to get out of the wilderness. I’m fed up of trying to find a map.”

But it’s not just about salvation, it’s not just about becoming a Christian. It’s the reality of the journey of being a Christian where we’re stepping further and further into the wholeness that God has intended for us, and you do that by continuing to lean on him.

The funny thing about leaning is that it’s actually not so easy because you lose all control. If you’ve ever had a kind of fracture or leg injury and you’ve had to lean on someone completely, for them to take all of your weight and lead you, it’s actually quite a difficult thing to do because we are innately wired and desire to have control of where we’re going. And so, even if you’ve broken your leg, you’re still trying to put some weight on that broken leg because it feels so completely crazy to lean entirely on someone else and let them lead 100%. It’s not an easy thing to do, but the Bible tells us in the Book of Proverbs, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your understanding.”

The thing about leaning is that it’s literally a place of resting yourself. It’s a way of supporting yourself. And we have a choice to make. Trust or understand. That’s our choice. Trust or understand.

You know, belief is still a choice, it’s still a system of faith, because we’re choosing our understanding. But the problem with understanding is that it will lead you only to a certain point and no further. But trusting takes you all the way, because we can’t lead ourselves to wholeness, we can’t lead ourselves to the promise. It’s only by trusting Him and allowing Him to lead us that we can go. Simply put, and I think Bill Johnson says this, “Our hearts will take us where our minds cannot go.” You will not understand all the places that Jesus wants to lead you.

It’s beyond us, because he’s taking us into impossibility, which means our minds are like, “Whoa, what is going on? I don’t get it. I don’t get it.” That’s a really good place to be. Stay in that place because that means you’re leaning, that means you’re going, “I don’t see where we’re going. I don’t know what we’re doing. Oh, you’re taking me beyond the point of comfort.” That’s the place of leaning. Stay there, because as you lean on him for the impossible, guess what? The impossible starts happening.

I wanna ask you, when was the last time you purposely, consciously took yourself out of the place of understanding because you were leaning so heavily on Him in the supernatural? I wanna ask you, when was the last time you took such a step of faith and risk that if he didn’t show up you would be falling over quite spectacularly?”

Do you know how we tend to do leaning? And I say this because I know it. I do it all the time. We kind of prepare for the leaning. We make sure our safety net is there to catch us, we ensure that there’s a harness on us in case, somehow, he steps a little bit too far and we would fall. So, we’ve got not only a plan B, but a plan C, D, E, and F already in place because our anticipation is not one of him coming through. We’ve prepared for him not coming through.

What are you anticipating? What are you preparing for? Are you preparing for the alternative plans if he doesn’t come through? Are you preparing, making away completely for him to shine as you lean on him?

It’s not easy. You know, it’s not easy because, sometimes, we misjudge where he’s going to step, and we do fall. And I was speaking to someone yesterday, who actually echoed some of my own journey, where she’d really believed God, where she’d put all of her trust and faith for a miracle to come because she really believed that was His will, where she’d felt like she’d heard him. And yet, a miracle didn’t come through. And now she’s saying, “I don’t even believe I can hear him, because I was so convinced I’d heard him, and it didn’t happen. How can I trust that I’d know who he is and I know what he says?”

It’s hard because that’s sometimes our experience. And it’s the reality of journeying and leaning on him, because sometimes we misjudge a step. But do you know what happens in those moments when we fall? He’s not moved any further or he’s not looking down on us, going, “What is wrong with you? When will you learn already?” He’s already crouched down with us, dusting us off, saying, “Let me heal your wounds. Come, stand with me again. Come, lean on me again. Don’t worry, we’ll learn how to do this together.” That’s his promise to you and me. He’s journeying with us, teaching us how to fully lean on him.

It’s worth doing because the adventure and the thrill is in the leaning on him. If not, you can, as a Christian, live a very safe, predictable life. You do that and you’ll miss your destiny, because you were made to play in the impossible, and the impossible only happens when you’re leaning on him.

A number of years ago… I think I might have told this story here, apologies if I have. But a number of years ago, God started speaking to me about my own plan Bs and how I needed to let them go. He showed me…I had an encounter with him where I saw myself as a small child, and I saw myself. I was clinging to his feet as he was walking, but he wasn’t really getting very far. I have a two-year-old, so this happens all of the time. He, like, comes and attaches himself to my legs and I’m like, “Ezekiel, let go of me.” And he’s like, “Go, Mommy go.” And I’m like, “Dude, I can’t move. You’re on my feet, you need to give me some space to walk.”

But God showed me that that’s exactly what I was doing with him. I was clinging to his feet. So I was so close. I was keeping him so very close, so tangible, but I was sitting on his feet, restricting his movement. I was controlling his movement but I was telling him to go. And he was saying to me, “You’re trying to control where we go, we won’t go very far.” And then I saw him in this encounter, pick me up and put me on his shoulders. I no longer had any control of where we were going. It was actually quite scary. I was holding on to his hands but there’s this kind of totally out-of-control feeling where you’re higher than you were before. And that’s scary in itself, and now you have no control over where this person is gonna take you and what this person is going to do.

But, suddenly, I saw I was moving with God in a way that I’d never been moving before. And we were going further and we were doing much wilder things than we would do if I was controlling the pace. I wanna ask you, are you sitting at his feet or are you sitting on his shoulders? The thrill is in the shoulders. It’s scary and it’s risky. But he’s inviting us today to be a people who lean wholeheartedly on him, and as we start doing that, the world is going to take notice because we will be astonishing in the things that we do and in the ways that we do them, and people will start asking, “Who are you?” And then they’ll see the one we’re leaning on.

Let’s look at Chapter 6. It says, “Who is this who looks down or appears like the dawn?” Do you know you were created to be the morning dawn of the kingdom into a broken world? That’s who you were made to be. You are the dawning of the light of the kingdom, into the kingdom of darkness. That’s who you are. You radiate the light of the kingdom of God unto this earth so that the kingdom of darkness begins to shrink back. And notice, the thing is, the light cannot help but overcome the darkness. Have you ever seen the dawn starts to dawn and then night just overtakes it and suddenly, we go back into night again? No, because that’s not how it works. How it works is, the light overcomes the darkness, the light goes ever stronger and the darkness gets ever dimmer. And that’s who you are.

And the enemy will tell you, “Oh, no. The darkness is the one dawning all over you.” And you’re on the back foot and you’re on the defensive, and oh, it’s just gonna get so much worse. You better watch out, you better get really ready, as Christians. And when he says that, he doesn’t mean you better get on the offensive. What he means is, you better hide out somewhere and just wait it out because the darkness is coming. But he’s a liar. You are the light of the kingdom dawning onto the kingdom of darkness. And you, your light overwhelms the darkness, your light overcomes the darkness. The light that is in you is so powerful that the dawn breaks and the darkness dims. That’s who we’re made to be. Who is this? Who is this who appears like the dawn?

It’s echoes of Isaiah 60. Isaiah 60 says, “Arise, shine, for your light has come, and the glory of the Lord has risen on you. For, behold, darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples. But the Lord will arise upon you, and his glory will be seen upon you. And nations shall come to your light, and kings to the brightness of your dawn.”

What I love about Isaiah 60 is it shows us that we’re not to arise and reflect, as many of us believe, but we are to arise and shine, which means, as the light of God dawns on us, it doesn’t only bathe us with his goodness and his light, but it actually changes who we are entirely, so that what was once his light becomes our light and we start shining in and of ourselves because he’s changed our very substance. It says, “Arise, your light has come.” And then it says, further on, “Nations and kings will come to your light.”

He’s changed your very substance. As you encounter him, everything changes about you. He’s not just giving himself over you and washing you with his goodness, he’s magnetizing every part of your being so now you become the very thing you have beheld. It’s amazing. I think Bill Johnson puts it this way, “Your capacity to see and taste changes your capacity to become.”

Are you seeing and tasting his light? Because that’s changing everything about who you are. And it’s time for the church to arise and shine, because God wants to bring kings and nations to us. You were created to be the light of the kingdom dawning so that kings and nations will see the light that you bring and will come to you. That is who you are. That is what you were made for. Nothing less than that. Nothing smaller than that. Do you recognize that everywhere you go, literally, there is the light of the kingdom dawning? Everywhere you go, every place you go into, there is kingdom light dawning. And sometimes we try to hide it, and sometimes we wanna cover it, and sometimes we don’t even recognize it, which means we don’t even partner with what we are created to do. But if we see it, and if we understand it, and if we choose to lean on Him, then we will engage with this very thing that is happening from us, which is light rising all around us.

You are created to change your world. That’s not just a gimmick, that’s not just a catchphrase, that’s not just a line that has become popular in the church. No, that’s what you were created to do. That’s why you’re here. If you wanna ask me about why you’re here, “What’s God’s purpose for my life? What’s my destiny? What am I called to?” this is what you’re called to. You’re the dawn of the kingdom on the earth. Be fully yourself and everything will change around you. That’s who you were made to be.

And what does that dawning light look like? Well, the following verses tell us. Firstly, they say, “Beautiful as the moon.” Do you know that God is interested in beauty? He really is. He’s not just a function God. He’s not just like, “How can we do things in the most efficient way?” Sometimes we make holiness that or righteousness that. We make it sterile. Sometimes our churches are sterile because we’ve forgotten that God is not just robotic and efficient. He’s lavish, and over the top, and fully created. And loves the beautiful.

I love it in Genesis 2, where it says God made the trees. It says, “He made them so that they were pleasing to the eye.” An old way of saying, “So that they were beautiful.” He made the trees so that they were beautiful and good for food. He could’ve made them so that they were ugly but efficient. But he values beauty. He thinks it’s cool.

It’s like, “Look at this flower.” I can just see him. Sometimes we make him too robotic. But I can see him, Father, Son, and Spirit making the world, making flowers and going, “Look how beautiful this one is. Isn’t it awesome?” Making creatures that are weird, and wonderful, and going, “Wow, look at that one. I came up with something even more amazing today, look at that.” Because that is who he is. If you make him less than that, you’re making Him robotic. That’s not who He is. He loves beauty.

And, you know, you and I were created to bring beauty on the earth. I think for too long creatives in the church have been somehow put down like what you’re doing is frivolous. What you’re doing is actually Kingdom. It’s the light of the kingdom dawning on the earth. I wanna honor you if you are a creative in this room. I wanna honor you if you are an artist in this room. I wanna honor you if you are a musician in this room. I wanna honor you if you are a designer in this room. I wanna honor you if you just like beauty, because that is the light of the kingdom dawning.

Wherever we go, we are created to make the world more beautiful. And it may look so tiny as seeing some litter and thinking, “That doesn’t belong there. I’m gonna pick it up.” It may be so tiny as consciously starting to think, “I wanna enter rooms and leave them making them look more beautiful. I’m just gonna fluff up this cushion over here.” Because that’s the light of the kingdom dawning. We laugh, but that’s us consciously engaging with something we were created to do, which is, wherever we go, making the world look more beautiful. And it’s seen in the tiny things that we feel like we can do. Because some of you will be looking at me going, “I’m not creative.” Well, I beg to differ, because we’re all creative, because we’re all made in the image of God. But that’s another sermon for another time.

But you may be saying, “I don’t draw. I don’t see in color. I don’t even know what to appreciate.” Well, there’s something that all of us can appreciate. Every one of us were made to see a room and think things, “How can I make this place more beautiful?” And it might simply be by being ourselves, breathing kindness, and goodness, and light into that room just by who we are. You might not even need to do anything. You know you are beautiful? That’s one of the lies that the enemy has loved to bring in because he doesn’t want us to see who we really have been made to be.

You were created to bring beauty on the earth. Beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun. I love this one. You can’t really look directly at the sun for too long because it makes your eyes go really funny, and you’re not meant to do it for very long because it can actually damage you because there is such radiance, such brilliance, such purity to the brightness of the sun that it’s difficult to look at. It’s called glorious. The sun is full of glory. And that’s who you and I were made to be. We were created to be…our light was created to be so brilliant, so radiant, so glorious that it’s like you can’t help but look but also can’t look for too long because it’s so powerful. That’s what your light looks like, bright as the sun. You are glorious. You are full of His glory.

I’m not making it up. John 17, Jesus is speaking to the Father and he says, “The glory that I have been given, I have given them.” Past tense. Them being Christians everywhere. It’s not like, “One day, when I get to heaven…” Heaven, by the way, isn’t a destination. So that’s odd because we’re already in heaven, because heaven is a reality, as well as Earth, and they’re touching each other even now. But we say this, “One day, when I get to heaven, as a destination after I die, then I’ll be glorious, then I’ll be full of His glory.” Not true. Not true.

You already have been given the fullness of His glory. The same glory that was on Jesus, where people encounter him in visions and fall over because he is so brilliant. His glory is so overwhelming that they literally cannot stand up in his presence. The same glory that we see at the Transfiguration when he’s on the top of a mountain with a few of his disciples who just knew him as Jesus, the man who did some awesome miracles. And suddenly, the veil is taken, and the shining, radiant brilliance that was the reality of the substance of Jesus is on show. And they don’t even know what to do but fall down because they’re so overwhelmed at the brightness of the sun. That’s what your light looks like. You are glorious, you are full of His glory.

And Exodus 33 gives us a glimpse as to, what is glory? It’s such a difficult word to put your finger on. But Moses said, “Show me your glory.” And then God does two things. He manifests his presence, and he allows Moses to encounter his goodness.

You are full of His glory, and your dawn is dawning on the Earth with His glory. What that means is you are overwhelming the darkness with the manifestation of His presence and an encounter with his goodness. Everywhere you go you are a gateway to people knowing his presence, suddenly feeling, “God is in this room.” They won’t know how to say it. They won’t be even able to say, “God is in this room,” but they’ll suddenly feel something overwhelming as we engage with what comes from us, which is glory. And we’ll be ushering in the presence of God and a tangible encounter with his goodness.

His goodness looks like something. It’s tangible for people. And sometimes we’re so quick to want to evangelize, out of a good heart. We want people to know Jesus, so we’re telling them about him, which is good. I’m not saying it’s not good. But I feel like, sometimes, what’s more awesome is for us to allow the light to dawn through us with his beauty, with the radiance of his presence and his goodness, and with his power, which we’re about to come on to. So that people go, “Who are you? I’ve never met someone who does good things like this. Good things that aren’t coated in sickly religion, but good things that are at home with the broken. I’ve never met someone who gets down in the dirt and sees me, actually sees me and engages with my brokenness. I’ve never met someone who does things that aren’t just lovely, humanitarian-aid type things to do but go beyond that to pulling out the value and the worth of that person. And so, who are you?”

And then we can say, “I’m the one leaning on my beloved. Come and look at him.” It’s an easier way to evangelize because you are stirring hunger, being fully yourself. And then the next logical conversation is, “Come and meet my Jesus, he’s so beautiful. He’s taken me out of the wilderness and he wants you to come out of the wilderness too.” “Beautiful as the moon, bright as the sun, awesome as an army with banners.”

You are so powerful because the same spirit who is full of tangible power, who raised Jesus from the dead is inside of you, has changed your very substance so you radiate with the power of God. It’s all over you and it’s in you. You can’t help but be powerful when you engage with what is true of you.

You are awesome as an army with banners. Imagine that, an army full of regalia. Imagine looking down at the horizon and seeing thousands, upon thousands, upon thousands of soldiers all dressed with banners everywhere saying who they are and where they’re coming from. Imagine the sound of thousands, and thousands, and thousands of soldiers marching. Imagine how overwhelming that would be for you as you stood there, all by yourself, with thousands coming towards you. And that’s what the enemy feels when he sees you. You are awesome as an army with banners.

The Bible tells us he trembles. He trembles. You have been made so powerful because God himself has made his home in you, and has charged every cell of your being with his glory, that you are awesome as an army with banners. So when the enemy tells you, you are small, and insignificant, and tiny and under your circumstances, and backed into a corner, just laugh because that’s ridiculous, because you’re the army with banners and he’s a trembling fool.

You’re not backed into a corner and you are not small. The power of God radiates from you. Do you know he sees Jesus in you more than we do, sometimes? I remember the first time…well, one of the first times, as a child, I had an encounter with someone who was demonized.

Look, if you’re not a Christian here and you’re now starting to freak out a little bit, the reality is, the Bible tells us God is real and the devil is real. And you just have to look around at the brokenness of the world to recognize there’s something really bad going on somewhere. And that’s called the devil and all his lies. We don’t need to be afraid of that as Christians because we’re the powerful army.

But I remember being a child. I was a Christian, I was in a Christian family and I was leaning on Jesus as best I knew how. And I walked into a room and there was a lady, a petite lady who was struggling with some oppression that the enemy had brought on her life. And it was an encounter between the kingdom of light and the kingdom of darkness. And I just remember that this woman who was, obviously, showing signs of a demonic manifestation. I was a child, at the time. She suddenly turned and the reality of the demonic came out of her and she said…the demons said in reality, “Get her,” meaning me, “Out of here.” And she was terrified looking at me.

And I remember thinking, as a child, like, I left the room. I’d just gone in to get something and kind of came upon this whole scene that I didn’t fully understand, but I remember leaving the room. I was a tiny little girl, and thinking, “That demon was scared of me.” Like, it was crazy, because in the natural, I was not scary. I was smaller even than I am now, which is quite difficult to imagine.

I was a child, but I saw the terror from this demon who was shouting, “Get her out of this room.” And I walked away with this understanding that Jesus lives inside of me. And even when I don’t know that, even when I don’t recognize it, even when I don’t partner, the enemy recognizes Jesus inside of me and trembles at his name.

You are an awesome army with banners. Jesus lives inside of you and His power radiates from you. You were created to bring the dawn of beauty, glory, and power, the manifestation of His goodness and presence here on the earth so that people will stop and look and say, “Who are you?” You were created to change the world with the light dawning from you. You were created to lean so heavily on your beloved so that you walk into the impossible and the unknown.

Let me finish with this quote. It’s from a friend of mine, Alan Scott, and he says, “We can’t impress our cities into life. We can immerse them in the life to come. We can bring life. We must bring life. It’s our assignment for which we will be held accountable. Developing life-giving churches at the center of the city involves more than creating irresistible environments marked by excellence and service. Any human industry can accomplish those goals. Life-giving churches are defined by the life of another world. They are steeped in the impossible.” You are steeped in the impossible. Everything about you was created to change the world.

I wanna encourage you. Family, let’s let the light of the kingdom dawn from us. We are dawn bringers. And let’s change the world as we go out of here. Our cities aren’t hard to reach, but they are hard to reach if we stay in this building. Let’s go and bring the light to where it needs to be brought most. Let’s go and provoke, “Who are you?” and show them our beautiful Jesus. Won’t you stand with me?

The God-kind

Wed, 17 Jan 2018 15:28:59 GMT

Just a quick confession at the start of this year: I started a ‘read the Bible in one year’ plan. I’m already behind.

BUT despite the fact that I’m finding it a challenge to get through all of the reading for each day (not really the point, is it?!) God’s been speaking to me wonderfully through the book of Genesis and has set me up with a thought that i’m trusting will shape this year.

I was reading the familiar creation story again and something exciting popped out at me. As you read the account of God making the world, you see that God creates everything that fills the earth according to its kind – plants and trees ‘according to their kinds’ (1:11) and fish and birds ‘according to their kinds’ (1:21) and beasts and livestock and creepy crawlies ‘according to their kinds’ (1:25). And then this recurring phrase suddenly changes when God makes man. He doesn’t make humanity ‘according to its kind’ as you would expect from everything He’s created so far. Rather, He creates humanity according to HIS kind – ‘in the image of God He created them’ (1:27).

You were created according to the God-kind. You are not ‘only human’ as the enemy would love you to believe, putting a lid over you of what you can and can’t achieve. There’s actually no such thing as being ‘only human’ in that sense, because humanity wasn’t created with the limitation of its kind – it was created with the impossibility of the God-kind.

At this time most years, I look ahead with both excitement and some sense of being overwhelmed as my diary is booked right until the end of the year already and there is so much that I’ve agreed to that feels far beyond me. But since reading Genesis 1, I’ve had this recurring thought in my head – I’m not ‘onlyhuman’. There is no such thing. I’ve been made according to His kind and right from the beginning He designed me to think outside the box and to disagree with seeming impossibilities. Yes, the fall broke that beautiful reality, but coming alive in Christ brings me right back to my original design and His original intention.

So, as you look ahead to this year, I want to encourage you to ignore the enemy’s condescending lies that you can’t possibly have what it takes because you are only human. What a lot of nonsense! You have been made according to the God-kind where His intention is for you to live outside the box of possibility and feasibility. Everything in your make-up was designed to touch the impossible and shine with His glory on the earth. Get ready 2018, you’re going to be the year of smashing impossibilities.

This post was originally published on KatiaAdams.me

Words From Another World

Tue, 28 Nov 2017 16:05:54 GMT

I think it’s Bill Johnson who said ‘The reality you’re most aware of, is the reality you will reflect’. It’s a statement that has stuck with me. It’s the statement that inspired me some years ago to spend a whole lot of time on youtube watching videos of Kathryn Kuhlman and David Hogan and other men and women of God who see God move in incredible signs and wonders, many of whom are completely eccentric, but who carry something incredible in terms of friendship with Holy Spirit (a lesson in not letting packaging offend us, but in looking further to see the gold in people).

I want Kingdom reality to be the one I reflect more than worldly reality. I want signs and wonders to be a norm in my life. I want the supernatural to be instinctive for me. And so my aim and desire is to immerse myself in the world of the Kingdom – whether by praying or reading or singing or watching videos of people who are ‘doing the stuff’ so that my time is spent plunging my head and heart and senses into a more wonderful world than I can ever imagine.

Recently I was reading through the book of Acts and was inspired in this journey of Kingdom experience again when I read these words –

‘… for we cannot but speak of what we have seen and heard…’ ( Acts 4:20 ). What I see and hear, is integral to what then comes out of me. In other words, the reality I’m most aware of, is the reality I will reflect. And so I’m provoked again to spend time seeing and hearing afresh. How can I expect to speak and live fresh bread if I’m not seeing and hearing it? I can’t pick at dry leftover breadcrumbs and expect to birth anything fresh. This isn’t just challenging for me as a preacher (although it certainly is provoking!), but this is about me as a woman, me as a mum, me as a friend and wife and daughter. If I want my words and life to carry life, I better spend time with the One who gives it.

So here’s my challenge to us all today. What are you spending your time seeing and hearing? Because whether or not you want to, you will be speaking it. So let us make sure what we see and hear is worthy for us to speak it. Let us immerse ourselves in the reality of another world. The world we were made for. The world we are joined to. And the world we have been given authority to reflect.

This post was originally published on KatiaAdams.me

Living the Victory… Before the Breakthrough

Wed, 11 Oct 2017 17:06:51 GMT

Have you ever had one of those moments where someone points something out from scripture and you think to yourself ‘How have I not seen this before?!’? On Sunday evening I was listening to an outstanding message from George Gourlay – ‘The King who is Victorious’ (i’d really recommend you have a listen – it’ll be up on the Harvest Church podcast soon) and he mentioned something about Jesus’ posture in victory that rocked me.

He pointed out the verse ‘ The Lord said to my Lord: “Sit at my right hand until I put your enemies under your feet.” ’ (Mark 12, quoting Psalm 110). Notice this – Jesus is sitting on His throne in the perfect rest of His victory even BEFORE the enemies are made His footstool. He is modelling what it looks like to live in Kingdom victory before the final expression of breakthrough. He is in complete and utter rest. No striving, no pacing around in worry, no begging the Father to come through as if we need to beg and plead to get Him to act… none of that. Rather He is seated in total confidence that the victory He has won is irreversible, unshakable and is being inevitably worked out . The footstool part is just a matter of time.

I’m so provoked by this. There are so many things that i’m trusting for and praying for and if i’m honest, pushing for. And it’s not that any of those things are bad, but on Sunday evening I was reminded that although I may not feel it at times, the most true reality is that i’m living in a seat of victory in Christ and the enemies that I see (suffering, injustice, sickness etc) and the breakthroughs that I long for are going to come about not from my pushing but from my understanding of what’s already been done and what’s been promised by a faithful Papa. I’m not saying we stop praying or fasting or anything else we feel faith to do. I’m just suggesting we do those things with the beautiful peace that comes from complete confidence. Rest doesn’t mean inactivity (we know that Jesus isn’t inactive even as He’s seated – He’s interceding for us) but rest does mean certainty.

I have a wonderful friend who is living out this truth in the most remarkable way. She is sick. Sick to the point of death. And while her body has been slowly but steadily ravaged by the horrible disease that is cancer, i’ve never seen a more inspiring and Jesus-pointing model of resting in victory even before her breakthrough. She’s not out of touch with what is happening in her body. She’s not living a super-spiritual denial of the facts. She’s well aware that this cancer will take her very soon should her breakthrough not come on this side of eternity. But even as I type this i’m overwhelmed as I think of the sheer confidence she’s living with. He is good. He WILL make the enemies a footstool. It’s only a matter of time.

But this isn’t a truth that’s only relevant for us if we’re trusting for a breakthrough of healing. This is a truth that is a gift for our everyday moments of life. Our good good Papa is offering us a perfectly peace-filled place to live from. Confident, certain and unshakable. Victory over pain and sickness and death and brokenness is irreversibly ours because we’re in Christ. And rest assured the footstool is being prepared even as you read this.

This post was originally published on KatiaAdams.me

Leading from a Clean Heart

Sun, 08 Oct 2017 18:00:00 GMT

What strongholds are holding you back from your God-given call to lead? In this teaching Katia teaches us how liberating it can be to break those strongholds, because Kingdom breakthrough exists only in the realm of grace.

TRANSCRIPT

Katia: I hope you’ve come ready to do most of the hard work yourselves because, really, what I’m gonna do is lead us a little bit in some training, and then get you to do some things as we go along. So, I hope you’re happy to do that and ready to do that.

You might find it helpful, if you’ve got something to keep notes, you might find that helpful because there’ll be some things that I recommend that you do you keep note of and then we’ll go through praying through those things. So, maybe get your phones out or pens and paper. If you’ve got a great memory, that’s totally fine, I won’t be offended if you’re not writing anything down, but you might find it helpful.

I just wanna say that a lot of what I teach tonight is stuff that I’ve learned, either from the Freedom in Christ Course, which is by a guy called Neil Anderson and Steve Goss, and also from Catch the Fire Leadership School of Ministry, and mostly by the honor, it’s taught there. So, I just wanna give credit to them because a lot of my thinking for tonight’s teaching has come from these guys.

What I’m gonna be speaking on is leading from a clean heart. Leading ourselves, leading our families, leading our communities. And so much of what we’ve been going through in the last few weeks, in terms of getting us to a place of recognizing who God is as our Father and getting to a place of recognizing what our own identity is. And what we’re gonna do tonight is really to get us to a place where we are sons and daughters, living out as sons and daughters of a good, kind papa, and free from some of the things that can entangle our hearts and hinder us from walking into breakthrough and seeing really the kingdom come in and through us.

So, that’s what I’m gonna be focusing on tonight where we’re gonna be looking at three specific areas. And we’ll get into that in a second, I just wanna read a verse from John 14:30 to give us a platform for this evening. But actually, before I do that, let’s just quickly pray because I really feel like tonight isn’t an information night. It really is a night where we need Holy Spirit to be speaking to each of us, to be highlighting stuff that maybe we’ve never even thought of or seen in our own lives. So, why don’t you just pray with me for a second?

Father, we ask you to keep us awake, to keep us alert, and to keep us sensitive this evening, that we would really be able to focus, even after long and tiring days maybe that we’d be able to hear your voice speaking to us. And Holy Spirit, you are the one who sets us free. And so I really I ask, tonight, as we just touch on areas that may seem like hard work for some of us if we’re honest, our prayer, Holy Spirit, that you would make us so sensitive to you that we would see what you are seeing in our hearts. And whatever it is that you want to deal with and help us work through tonight that we would be open to that and that, tonight, this would be a place of real freedom for many, that we would walk free of things that whether we’ve known or not known, but we would walk free, in this room, and we would leave things behind and never need to revisit them again.

So, Holy Spirit, we ask, we were singing it. Have your way in this room. We pray that, we hunger for that, Lord, knowing that information will not set us free but encounter with you will. So, we’re leaning in on your presence and we thank you that you are here. Keep us awake, keep us alert, keep us sensitive. In Jesus name. Amen.

Together: Amen. John 14:30 , Jesus is saying, “I will no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming.” The Devil is coming. “But he has no claim on me. I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us go from here.”

I love that phrase, “He has no claim on me.” And really, how Jesus lived is a model for how we are to live. We participate in what Jesus did and how Jesus lived. And so, when Jesus says the enemy has no claim on him, that is something that is a promise for us. If we are in Christ, the enemy has no claim on us.

And I wanna make something really clear tonight. What I’m talking about is not salvation, is not about earning some kind of merit with Jesus so that we go to heaven. If you are in Christ, you are a son and daughter of Jesus, full stop. Nothing can change your status and your position in him, nothing can separate you from the love of God. That’s what the Bible says, right?

Together: Yes.

Katia: So, what we’re talking about tonight is not about earning something with Jesus, is not about getting our way into heaven. That’s already safe and secure if you are in Christ. And if we are in Christ, then the Bible says, because of what Jesus says here, the enemy has no claim on us. That is a done deal. Except if we give him permission.

See, the Bible tells us that Jesus on the cross disarmed the enemy, he stripped the enemy of all of his authority. And we know it, we know the difference. There’s authority is the permission to act, power is the ability to act. So, on the cross, Jesus stripped the enemy of all authority, he does not have permission to act. But he still has the ability to act and if we give him the permission by our agreement, by our partnering with him, then he will have authority in our lives.

So when Jesus says, “The enemy has no claim over me,” that is our promise and that is our portion. But we have to learn to steward that and walk in that. Jesus has given us victorious ground, but it’s our choice whether we live on that ground or whether we give that ground away.

And so, some of what I’m gonna talk about tonight, I really wanna make it clear, I hope that it’s really clear, right from the beginning. This is not about salvation, this is not about earning something. This is about stewarding what God has already given us, which is that the enemy has no claim over us. We stand in a place of authority, he has no authority over us unless we give him permission. Clear?

Together: Yeah.

Katia: Everyone happy? Good. Okay.

But there are three main areas where if we choose not to follow what God has given for us, then we will end up in territory that we don’t wanna be in. And so, we’re just gonna really simply look at these areas. At the end of each area, I’m gonna lead us in a response time. And that’s where the hard work is gonna happen. So, I’m just gonna open up the three areas for us and then I’m gonna get you to do some work through it.

First area. Something that we can get free from is the area of unforgiveness. Jesus gives us three kind of reasons to forgive. The first is in Matthew 6, and it’s simply that he commands us to. He tells us when he’s teaching us to pray, “Father, forgive our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.” It’s a really simple thing. Jesus teaches us to forgive, he tells us to forgive. That’s a reason to forgive because we wanna obey him, because we trust him, and because we know his rules are good. Agreed? Simple.

Second reason to forgive is in light of the extent of our own debt. So, there’s this parable in Matthew 18 that Jesus says, which I think we’re all familiar with. Where there’s these two servants of a master, and one has a lot of debt, and he comes and he’s cleared of all of his debt because he begs the master for freedom, he begs the master to be freed of the debt. And then there’s another servant who owes this servant a very small debt, and this servant just won’t let it go. And the master is angered by this and he says to the first servant, “Look, I forgave you all of this debt. I forgave you a million rand debt, and then you go and you lock up this second servant for a 10-rand debt.”

And really, Jesus is there saying, “Guys, you need to understand the father forgives you a million rand.” When you’re holding on to your 10-rand debt from someone else, you don’t understand the extent of forgiveness towards yourself.

So, there’s an understanding. First, we forgive simply because Jesus tells us. He’s good, we trust him, we wanna follow his footsteps. Secondly, we do it because we recognize we’ve been forgiven so much. Who are we to stand against someone else when God Himself has forgiven us a greater debt than we could ever understand? But the third reason, I believe, is actually the most compelling, and it’s for our freedom. See, the thing about forgiveness is that it sets us free. If you forgive someone else, it actually does not impact them in the slightest, but it impacts you incredibly. It has life-transforming power.

And so, we’re just gonna walk through why I say this because there’s so much Biblical precedence for this. Firstly, it’s important for us to recognize that unforgiveness is a form of legalism. It’s legalism towards somebody else. When we withhold forgiveness from someone, what we’re saying is, “We want you to get the justice for what you did. We want you to get what you deserve.” Correct? We’re saying, “You did this thing against me. Richard, you were mean to me, and if I am not gonna forgive you, that means I want you to get what you deserve for your meanness, for your cruelty.” Whatever it is. Right?

Problem with that is what we’re saying is, “We want you to live in the realm of the law.” Because the realm of the law is where justice is served. The realm of the law is perfectly just, you get exactly what you deserve for every single action. The realm of the law has no mercy in it. The realm of the law is where you get repaid for all of the things that you’ve fallen short on, which is punishment and death. The problem really, is that you can’t insist that someone else lives in the realm of the law without yourself living in the realm of the law, too. You can’t live in two different realms, it doesn’t work.

And where Jesus comes in, he gives us the ability to live in the realm of grace. It’s a better realm, it’s a higher realm, it’s a beautiful realm where you’re not given what you deserve, you’re given mercy instead. It’s a realm where Jesus isn’t counting all of your shortcomings and then saying, “Right, for each of this, I’ve done the maths and this is what you need to pay up.” It’s a realm where the maths is incredibly…is just wiped out, the slate is clean. Two different realms. We can’t live here, in the realm of grace, towards ourselves, and live here in the realm of law towards other people. It’s simply impossible.

And that’s why Jesus tells us to forgive because he’s saying, “Guys, if you wanna live in the realm of grace, if you wanna live in the realm that’s free, you’ve got to let go of your unforgiveness. If you cling to unforgiveness, immediately, you get sucked down into this realm.”

Now, you can live in the realm of the law and be a Christian, but you’re not gonna be a very happy Christian. And the reason is the realm of the law is the place that the enemy loves. Because the realm of the law is a realm of accusation because you are justly accused. And the enemy’s name is “the accuser.” He loves the realm of the law. In fact, he loves to tempt us into unforgiveness because he knows if he can keep us in unforgiveness, he’ll keep us in the realm of law, and then always, we will justly stand open to his accusation. He loves it. He loves it because then he is able to justly tell us just how bad we are. He is then able to justly stake all of his hatred on us and stop us from walking in freedom because he knows we’re stuck in the realm of law until we let go of that unforgiveness, and then we can live in the realm of grace again.

It’s a profound thing because he lies to us and he tells us unforgiveness, really, is making us powerful. It makes you feel like you’ve got control. You’re like, “I’m withholding my forgiveness from you, huh.” Well, the person, first of all, is entirely unaware of that. So, it’s not a place of control at all or power. And actually, it’s a place where you submit yourself to the enemy’s power unwittingly often, unknowingly often, sometimes scaringly knowingly, but we prefer to hold on to that unforgiveness.

But I really wanna encourage you tonight, guys. Let’s let go of unforgiveness. And look, forgiveness is not about saying that that thing that happened wasn’t terrible. That’s not what forgiveness is. Forgiveness is not about belittling this thing done against you. But forgiveness is about looking at it square in the face, acknowledging the terrible pain that some of the things done against us have caused, but then saying, “I’m gonna choose to set me free. I’m gonna choose to put myself in the realm of grace because I don’t wanna live in a realm when I’m easily accused. I don’t wanna live in a realm where the enemy prowls around like a roaring lion. I wanna live in a realm that the enemy simply does not understand. Where the enemy is entirely paralyzed to move because he doesn’t know what to do in the realm of grace because none of his accusation makes sense. In the realm of grace when he comes to you, tells you you’re awful and you’re a sinner and you’re rubbish, you are so connected with Jesus in the realm of grace that it’s laughable because you are like, “Any accusation that even made sense before doesn’t make sense now because you’re talking about Jesus who died on the cross for me. It’s all gone, it’s all buried. You’re talking about a man who was dead and now I’ve been raised in Christ.”

And so, tonight, we’re gonna do some work on unforgiveness. And we’re gonna ask Holy Spirit to open up our eyes and to touch on our hearts any people who we may not have forgiven in the past. And you might be surprised by some of the people that come to mind. I wanna encourage you, even if you’re thinking, “Really? I don’t know, I’m not sure.” Work through the process of forgiving them because if there’s anything that the Holy Spirit is highlighting, then we wanna just quickly deal with it and let it go so that we can be in a place of freedom.

You know, in Galatians, it talks about falling from the realm of grace. And it says this, “For freedom, Christ set us free. Stand firm, therefore. Do not submit again to a yoke of slavery. Look I, Paul, say to you that if you accept circumcision, Christ will be of no advantage to you.” Circumcision was their main source of legalism in that day. “I testify again to every man who accepts circumcision, that he is obligated to keep the whole law. You are severed from Christ, you who would be justified by the law, you have fallen from grace.”

It’s a terrible description of what we’ve been talking about. Holding on to legalism will always mean that we fall from a realm that we want to be in. And unforgiveness is a major part of that. So, we get to choose which realm we wanna live in.

2nd Corinthians says, “Anyone whom you forgive, I also forgive. Indeed what I have forgiven, if I’ve forgiven anything, has been for your sake in the presence of Christ so that we would not be outwitted by Satan.” Forgiveness is a form of spiritual warfare. It’s a form of actually outwitting the enemy who’s trying to outwit us.

And so, tonight, we’re gonna do some spiritual warfare, you and I. And look, forgiveness, sometimes you forgive the same person 100 times, that’s okay, but it is us, consistently, coming to Jesus and saying, “Yet again Jesus, I set them free because I’m setting me free.” And yet again, we choose to submit ourselves to the realm of grace, rather than submitting ourselves to the yoke of the realm of the law.

Okay, so some warning signs…just before we do some of the work ourselves, some warning signs that you might be living in unforgiveness.

Firstly, you have loads of accusation in your head. If you’re someone who lives with accusing thoughts constantly, that is, you just can’t seem to shake it. All day, every day, you’ve got words about how rubbish you are, all the things that you’ve done wrong. If you’re someone like that, is probably a signal that there are some unforgiveness going on somewhere, because once you let go of that, you enter into the realm of grace and accusation really does stop. It actually, really, is as simple as that.

Secondly, you can’t seem to get into a level of breakthrough in terms of whether it’s healing, whether it’s…whatever it is, kingdom life, there seems to be a constant blockage. And sometimes I get asked to pray for people who come to me very simply and say, “I feel blocked. I can’t seem to enter into breakthrough, I can’t seem to run with grace, I don’t know what’s going on.” My number one question is, “Is there anyone you need to forgive?” And so often, people are like, “What does that have to do with anything?” Well, it’s got everything to do with the realm you’re living in. And kingdom breakthrough exists in the realm of grace. You can’t have kingdom breakthrough in the realm of law, it doesn’t work. That’s the whole story of the Israelites, it doesn’t work. Which is why Jesus came to bring grace.

And so, if you are someone who either lives with accusation or lives with a sense of, “I’m blocked, I can’t seem to get anywhere,” then that might be signals that you need to work through some forgiveness with some people.

So, let’s go for some work. Is this okay? You guys, happy, awake, alert?

Together: Yes.

Katia: Great.

So, why don’t we just all shut our eyes for a moment? We’re gonna do this personally, and then I’m gonna ask you to make a corporate response because I believe there’s power in community.

Together: Yes.

Katia: Listen, I wanna say this is a safe space. No one is watching, no one is taking notes. Every single one of us is gonna have to work through forgiveness and everything else that I talk through tonight, okay? It’s called “being human.”

And so, I really wanna make it open to you. Please, please, don’t be shy of responding tonight for fear of what that might mean or what people might think. Let’s go for freedom tonight, let’s not hold on to this stuff for fear of what our community might be saying, okay?

Together: Yes.

Katia: This is a safe place where we’re all gonna respond at different points, but first of all, I wanna lead you into a personal response. So, let’s just close our eyes. Holy Spirit, I just ask you to come and speak to us. Come and lead us. I pray that you would make our hearts sensitive. Now, I just wanna encourage you, in this space, why don’t you go ahead and ask Holy Spirit, you don’t have to do this out loud, ask Holy Spirit to bring to your mind any person who you need to forgive. And you might see their face in your mind or you might just, kind of, get a sense of who it is, and we’re just gonna wait for a few minutes for this. Holy Spirit be speaking to us

And as people come to your mind…and I’m gonna give a few minutes for this response time. As people come to your mind, I’m gonna encourage you to be specific about what you’re gonna forgive them for. General forgiveness tends to mean that we don’t engage with it fully because we’re trying to avoid the pain. To forgive, we’ve got to process the pain of that moment.

And so, I wanna encourage you, when someone comes to your mind, if the process of forgiveness is to be specific to say, “Jesus, I choose to forgive this person, for doing this to me, that made me feel this way.” That last bit is seriously important because it makes us engage with the wrong that we feel has happened to us. And then I want you to say, “Jesus, I set them free and I set me free to live in the realm of grace as you have allowed me to.”

And so, let’s just do this for a few minutes.

Father lead us in forgiveness. Give us hearts and minds that are sensitive to you.

And some of you are gonna need to process this in forgiving yourself.

Now, there may be things that you are holding against yourself. And in this moment, I wanna encourage you to set yourself free, to forgive yourself for the things that you just feel like you shouldn’t have done or you should have done and didn’t.

Father give us the courage to set ourselves free.

And some of us are gonna need to process forgiveness against God. Now, that doesn’t mean that he’s done something wrong because we know that he is good, but sometimes, we know that in our hearts but we hold offense against him for whatever it is, for things that we’re disappointed for, for breakthrough that we haven’t seen, for people who we lost rather than so healed, whatever it may be.

And so, in this moment, I want us to acknowledge if that’s you. Father, I forgive you for doing this that made me feel this way. I acknowledge that you weren’t in the wrong, but Lord, it made me feel this way, but I release that. I wanna set myself free from living in the realm of unforgiveness and the law.

Now, as we’re doing this, I wanna invite the power of community in this moment. And so, if you’re someone who’s responded in this, not everyone will have, but I know that a lot of us will have. So, I’m gonna wait because I know we will have.

If you’re someone who’s responded to this, I just wanna encourage you to stand. And what we’re gonna do is everyone else is gonna stand with you in a moment and we’re gonna lay hands on you, and we’re gonna pray blessing on you, and the grace of God to rush in where there has been accusation and where there has been lack of breakthrough, okay? So, if you’ve responded to this, if you’ve forgiven anyone in this time, I wanna ask you to stand up.

And most of us are standing, which is amazing, which is wonderful because freedom is coming. And so, if you’ve got anyone standing near you…now, if everyone is standing in your row, then maybe, just put your hand on the person on your right and a hand on the person to your left, and just bless them with the grace of God. Just speak blessing, breakthrough over them.

In Jesus’ name, we speak grace, we speak blessing, we speak breakthrough over each and every one of us in this room. I speak against the enemy’s accusations and the enemy’s lies, the enemy trying to pull us into the realm of law. And in Jesus’ name, we come against the enemy’s words and we say, “Be silenced because the realm of grace provides mercy and provides covering and you have no claim on us, in Jesus’ name, because we stand in Christ.”

And so I speak an onslaught of grace and mercy, of breakthrough and blessing on to each life that has walked into freedom tonight from unforgiveness, in the name of Jesus. Thank you, papa, for your goodness, thank you that this is the realm of grace that you enter us into. Ha, we acknowledge the power of that realm and we say, “Yes, Lord,” to the freedom that you hold to us. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Together: Amen.

Katia: Okay. Great stuff. Everyone doing okay?

Together: Yes.

Katia: Second thing that can entangle our hearts but God wants to bring us into freedom from, and it is judgments and inner vows. Now, I’m gonna talk through some spiritual laws, and then we’ll go on from there. I just wanna say there are three spiritual laws that I’m basing this on. The first is the spiritual law of judgment. And I’m gonna read some verses. Romans 2: 1 , “Therefore, you have no excuse, O man, every one of you who judges. For in passing judgment on another, you condemn yourself, because you, the judge, practice the very same things.” Matthew 7: 1-2, “Judge not, that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you pronounce, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you.”

Okay, first principle from that. You become like what you judge. It’s pretty simple, that’s what the Bible tells us. Don’t judge because you’re gonna do exactly the same thing that you judge, okay?

Together: Yes.

Katia: Law one, the law of judgment. Law two, the law of sowing and reaping. Galatians 6:7 , “Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap.”

So, the principle here is that you will reap, in kind, what you have sown. So, if we sow judgment, we will reap judgment that’s heaped on us in exactly the same measure.

So, law one was the law of judgment. Law two, the law of sowing and reaping. And the third law is the law of blessing and honor. And we read Deuteronomy 5:16 , “‘Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you.” And then Romans 12 extends that from honoring your mother and father to outdoing one another in honor, in all of the community.

And the law of blessing and honor is this, the principle is that honor which is the exact opposite of judgment, is life-giving. Honor looks for the good and lifts it up. Judgment looks for the bad and condemns it.

So, law of judgment, law of sowing and reaping, law of blessing and honor. Very simple laws that this is all rooted on.

And the thing is then if we live in judgment against people, we’re gonna walk in that same thing. And you see this so, so clearly with cycles and families. Ever wondered why abuse follows cycles in families? Well, it’s actually because this law is being worked out the entire time, from generation to generation. So, a son who is beaten judges his father for that beating. But actually, weirdly, crazily, the world doesn’t understand why, but the Bible tells us why. In that very same judgment, often, that repeats itself again and again from generation to generation. The same person who hated his father for doing that thing does the same thing to their own children, unless we see God come and break that cycle in grace. But if we live in the cycle of judgment, we serve it and we reap it in the same kind.

And the thing about judgment is that it often, it has two siblings, if you like. One is inner vows and one is bitter expectations. And inner vows go like this. We look at that thing that we judge and we say, “I judge that, I condemn that,” and internally, we go, “I will never be like that.” The problem is with that inner vow, first is rooted in pride, not in grace, because, “Me, in my strength, will never be like that.” Well, we don’t wanna go there because me in my strength can’t do anything. Frankly, I’m living by Jesus’ strength. And, of course, it’s rooted in judgment, which means you’re gonna reap exactly that which you don’t want to reap. The exact opposite of that vow comes into action.

So, in that abuse victim situation, the son who is abused who is saying, “I judge you. That’s terrible, that is a wrong thing to do,” is also saying, “I will never grow up to do this to my kids.” And then, in a strange turn of events, of course, that very same thing happens. So, that sibling number one is inner vows.

Sibling number two is bitter expectations. And it’s the person who judges and who, kind of, has that vow, then sees the world through that lens and expects that same behavior from everything. So, for example, the person who has a manipulative mother, let’s say. That person judges the mom, “I’m never gonna be like you,” but increasingly, start seeing people as manipulative. Have you ever seen how people who have one thing happen to them seem to be a magnet of that same thing again, and again, and again? Abuse victims. It’s a strange phenomenon, but it’s not strange because it’s Biblical, but it is a strange phenomenon where the same thing, people who get abused seem to be magnets for abuse and it seems to keep happening in their life. But it’s because of this law where they’re consistently expecting that which they’ve judged, they now see the world through that lens and it keeps coming back. Sowing and reaping, sowing and reaping that very same thing.

So, judgement stands with two siblings. Inner vows and bitter expectations. And I just wanna tell you a little bit of my own story in this, because this isn’t theory, this is life for me. So, much of the freedom that I walk in now is because I got the privilege of being in a conference where all of this was spoken about and I came into freedom.

Before Julian and I got together, I was in another relationship which wasn’t even, really, a relationship. It was a confusing two years of my life, let’s just put it that way. And it was one of those relationships that I like to call a pseudo-relationship where you’re in a relationship but you’re not, and no one clarifies anything. And both parties get strung along for a very long time, and it’s incredibly painful. And that’s exactly what happened to me. And during that two years, that was really painful for me, in my early 20s, I also had a couple of people who were very close to me who had got engaged to very well-respected, wonderful Christian guys. Two friends of mine, one in my family, one a friend. Both of them got dumped by their fiancées only a few weeks before their wedding.

And during that time, I started forming what I didn’t realize was a judgment against men in my heart. I didn’t realize it at the time, but really what happened was against the guy who I was in this weird relationship with, and against the guys who I saw broke my loved ones’ hearts, I started judging them. You know, “What kind of Christian are you? How can you do that?” All that kind of stuff. It was judgment. I wouldn’t have said it was, but it was, plain as day, judgment.

And then I started making some inner vows. You know, “I would never treat anybody like that. You know, that’s not a Christian thing to do.” All of that. The sibling of inner vows came out. And then, really, the sibling of bitter expectations, it always comes about, too. That route takes hold, whether you want it or not because you start seeing the world through that lens.

So, by the time I met Julian, I used to have this joke with my friends and we would just, kind of, go…anything that went wrong, we would roll our eyes and go, “Oh, men.” And it didn’t have to be anything to do with guys at all, but it just kind of became this running commentary of our lives. It became this thing where we belittled guys, where we expected guys to be at the foundation of all problems. And it was, externally, a joke, it was, internally, a bitter expectation. And Julian will tell you about our relationship. I made him work really hard. And he says that and he smiles because he’s like, “Wow, she was a great catch,” and he’s very kind about it. But really, some of it comes down to this, is because I had bitter expectations in my heart. When I met Julian, I hadn’t fully resolved what was going on in my heart against guys.

And I was very guarded from him, and I was very nervous that he was gonna do the same thing to me, string me along and then drop me and break my heart. And I was very, all throughout our relationship, really, until we got married, there was this wrestling in my heart of, “Is he being truthful?” And it made his life really difficult because I would be hard work for him and I would accuse him of things and I would say to him…we would have fights where he’s thinking, “What on earth is going wrong with this chick? I’ve told her I love her, I’ve now proposed to her and she’s still, kind of, in this place or wrestling.” But it was because of the bitter expectation.

And when I finally woke up to what was going on, when God was kind enough to show me the judgments, the inner vows, the bitter expectations, really, it came crumbling down very easily. Because once you repent, which basically means breaking agreement, breaking your partnership with what the enemy has lied to you about, with what the enemy has sown in your heart. And look, we like to blame things on the enemy because it’s actually much easier to say, “Oh, it was the enemy’s fault.” Well, the enemy lied but I said, “Yes.”

Man: Yeah

Katia: Okay?

Together: So, it’s a partnership there. And so, we’ve got to break agreement. We’ve got to say, “Lord, I repent for this judgement. Who am I putting myself in the judgment seat? I don’t know what’s going on, and thank God I don’t have to be the judge of everything. And so, Lord, I relinquish my feeling of a right to judge, and I break agreement with this inner vow. I know that I do not have the power to do anything different to any other human being. It’s by your grace alone that we stand.”

And so, when I started breaking these things, when I started repenting, when I started repenting of bitter expectations, of seeing the world through this faulty lens, I saw such beautiful freedom come. I made such beautiful relationships and friendships with guys where before, I’d kind of been a bit like, “Something is gonna happen. I don’t trust you, you’re gonna do something. If it’s not to me, you’re gonna break someone else’s heart.” It was that kind of negative view, and yet, there’s so much life where I’ve come from that now because I get to walk in friendships with guys and trust them fully and know that God, by His grace, is leading them as much as God, by His grace, is leading me. Does this make sense?

Together: Yes.

Kata: And so, I really wanna lead us now in doing some work on this because I can’t do this for you. And some of us will not ever have recognized some of the stuff that’s going on in our hearts because, often, we’re just not good at connecting with what’s going on internally.

And so, we’re gonna ask Holy Spirit to lead us in this moment, to lead us in showing us if we’ve judged anybody, if we’ve made inner vows against anybody, if we’ve got bitter expectations that have taken hold because of our judgment and inner vows. And then we’re gonna simply start repenting, breaking those things. It is breaking agreement with that judgment, releasing that person from that judgment, agreeing that grace should be on them as much as grace should be on you and walking free.

Sounds like something we can do?

Together: Yes.

Katia: Great. So, why don’t you close your eyes and start inviting Holy Spirit? Very simply the same as we did with forgiveness. Holy Spirit, will you show us any areas that we may have judged people?

Now, it might be a “legitimate thing,” and I say that in inverted commas. We’re not excusing people’s sin, but we don’t have to judge people’s sin. Jesus does that, we just walk away.

And so, Father, whatever it is that we’ve sinned, where we’ve kind of condemned someone for an action, I pray that you would bring that moment to our hearts. And Father, help us, give us courage to relinquish agreement with judgment, relinquish agreement with inner vows, and relinquish agreement with bitter expectations, in Jesus name. Come Holy Spirit.

And again, we invite the grace of God to rush in. Holy Spirit, where there have been judgments, where there have been inner vows, bitter expectations, I ask you, by your grace, that you would breathe those cobwebs, those toxic darts, even now, away from our hearts. That you would uproot bitter roots that have taken place in our hearts. And instead, that you would rush in with life, and grace, and freedom, in Jesus’ name. That Holy Spirit, we would come into places of deeper encounter with you.

And so, again, I wanna invite you, because I believe in the power of community. If you have responded to something about this section, would you just stand up? And we’re gonna pray for one another, we’re gonna speak grace and blessing over one another, we’re gonna pronounce freedom over one another.

I’m just gonna give you a few more moments because I’m sure there are more of us who’ve responded. This is not a moment to shy away, this is a moment to say, “Yes, I wanna step into the freedom of this. I do not wanna live in judgment anymore, I am not on the judgment throne, thank God for it. I live in the realm of grace and the realm of grace alone.”

And so, if you’ve got someone standing next to you, a lot of people are standing, so maybe, just put a arm to the person on your right, to your person on your left. But I would love every person who is standing to have a hand on them. We’re gonna speak blessing over you, in the name of Jesus, where there have been judgments, and inner vows, and bitter expectations. We thank you, Father, that you breathe freedom, that you come and your love, and your mercy, and your grace, and you break this cycle of these things. In the name of Jesus, we say that these cycles will not go round and round, that what we have judged will not come back on us, but in Jesus’ name, the wonderful grace of the Father steps in.

And so, cycles are broken now in the name of Jesus, not to be reaped, not to be seen again in our lives. And so, we speak grace, upon grace, upon grace, upon grace on every life in this room, every person standing, in Jesus’ name. I speak the grace, and the blessing, and the peace of the Father over you, in the name of Jesus. Amen.

Together: Amen.

Katia: Great stuff.

Everyone still happy?

Together: Yeah.

Katia: Last one.

So, last area that I wanna look at is demolishing strongholds.

Now, strongholds are habits and patterns of thinking that we often don’t even recognize. If you imagine a car stuck in some mud, the more that car tries to move, the more it gets stuck in that rut and the tire tracks get deeper, and deeper, and deeper. And no matter how hard that car tries to maneuver, there isn’t going anywhere else except for those tire tracks now because it’s really deep in the mud. Can you see that picture in your mind?

That’s what strongholds are like. Because it’s a pattern of thinking that gets reinforced again, and again, and again, and again. So the mud, those tire tracks get deeper, and deeper, and deeper ingrained in us. It becomes our natural habit of thinking about a certain thing, but in reality, it becomes the lens that we see the world through. Clear?

Together: Yes.

Katia: So the thing about strongholds is sometimes it can feel like they’re such a huge thing. And the enemy loves to reinforce strongholds with his lies. In fact, really, I believe the Bible teaches us that strongholds is where the enemy likes to sink his hooks. So, I’m just gonna sidetrack for a moment, just bear with me.

But I just wanna say this because I think we get this wrong, often, in churches when the Bible talks about demonization and never talks about demon possession. The enemy does not get to own any human being, at all, because God made every human being. And whether human beings are fallen or not, they belong to Jesus, full stop. The enemy doesn’t get to own them.

And there’s that story that is told in the New Testament of the man where the demons set up home. And we think about that as if that story is about that human being, that the home of that demon was the human being. That’s simply not true because the demon never gets to fully possess a human being, because demons don’t own us. Strongholds is where the enemy gets his hooks in. And when the Bible talks about demonization, it doesn’t mean that every person with strongholds is demonized, just to clarify, but I’m just saying this because I want us to get it right in church circles. No one is ever demon-possessed. Demons sometimes hook on to strongholds. Okay?

And so, when we’re praying for people for deliverance, let’s not make it a bigger thing than it is because no devil, no demon, gets to own a human being, ever, full stop.

Simply, what we’re doing is unhooking the enemy’s hooks from a stronghold. And the best way to do that, often, isn’t the power encounter of the moment, although we see that very biblically, where you cast out demons. But I like a more fun way of doing it, which is a truth encounter, because when we understand the lie of the stronghold, the stronghold comes crumbling down, and there simply is no home for the enemy to get his hooks in to. Makes sense?

Which is why truth sets us free, because when we come into an encounter with Jesus, who is the truth, and when he sheds his light on to the things, the wrong habits of thinking that we have, strongholds simply crumble. And honestly, it’s like they’re like puffs of smoke. Sometimes the enemy can make you feel like a stronghold is a brick cement castle that is a fortress that you can’t defeat. And then, when it comes to praying through it, repenting through it, you realize that castle, that fortress that you’ve always seen, was actually made of cardboard and a puff of wind of grace and it’s broken very quickly.

And so, strongholds or not, something for us to fear or something for us to be really worried about, but it is something for us to take authority over and walk in freedom from. 2nd Corinthians 10 says, “Though we walk in the flesh, we’re not waging war according to the flesh. For the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh but have divine power to destroy strongholds.” You already have everything you need to destroy any stronghold in your life and in anyone else’s. We’re already equipped with the armor. It’s ready to go, it’s simply done as we engage with what Jesus has already given us.

We destroy arguments, every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ. So, we don’t have to put up with strongholds. We don’t have to live with these habits of thinking. No matter how many years you’ve had that lens on, Jesus walks with us into freedom. And listen, from my experience, and I’ve done a fair amount of pastoral care and counseling in the last 15 years, from my experience, demolishing strongholds happens in two ways, and usually, both things happen for the people. One is that there’s a powerful moment and there’s an initial breaking, and the second is a process of stewarding a new habit and learning to walk in the truth of that.

And so, I’m gonna talk us through both things and I’m gonna encourage you, if any of this makes sense to you or hits home to you, to do both what we did tonight and to walk this through in stewardship when you get home, over the next few weeks.

I just wanna highlight, and you might wanna write these down, some common themes in strongholds. And often, these interlink. And when you look at, kind of, wonderful giants, spiritual giants in counseling, they repeat these themes again, and again. This seems to be what comes up most in people. Six strongholds. Rejection, abandonment, unworthiness, fear, shame, and control. Rejection, abandonment, unworthiness, fear, shame, and control.

And we need to recognize that a stronghold is formed by two things, and both things are necessary. One is enemy lies, two is our agreement. Those things come together. And when those things come together in agreement, then, a stronghold can form, over time, as we repeatedly, agree with that same lie of the enemy.

So, I wanna tell you a little bit of my story to bring this home, and I’ll give you another example as well.

Actually, let me tell you my friend’s story first. So, my friend, actually, he was talking about this, the first time I heard all about this. He was telling me his story, and it was about his story of being sent to boarding school when he was five. Lovely family, loved by his family, they thought they were doing the right thing. But when he was sent to boarding school, the enemy started whispering lies to him and telling him, “You’re here because, actually, your parents don’t really want you around.” And slowly, but surely, the more the enemy lied to him, the more he, kind of, allowed that lie to sink in. And it was a lie of utter rejection.

“Your parents don’t really love you, and that’s why they sent you here. And they don’t really want you back, and actually, they don’t really look forward to holidays because they don’t really want you.” And this thing kept being reinforced. And the more he heard the enemy lie, the more at the ripe old age of five, bless him, this thing took root as he continued to agree and think, “Yeah, that makes sense. They wouldn’t have sent me here otherwise.”

And so, this stronghold of rejection started to take root. But as I said, strongholds often interlink. And it’s pretty rare, actually, to see one stronghold working in isolation because it often has siblings that come up. And so, as this stronghold of rejection started to sink in his heart, a second stronghold of unworthiness started to be built up too. And a stronghold that said, “Oh, well, there’s obviously something wrong with me.” And the enemy is saying, “Yes, yes, you’re on to something, that’s exactly right, there’s something wrong with you. That’s why your family rejected you.”

And so, this then started being built. And this poor kid, by the time he’s six or seven, is living with a stronghold of rejection and a stronghold of unworthiness that is so strong in his heart he doesn’t know what to do with it, but his entire lens of the world now comes through a place of rejection and a place of unworthiness.

On top of unworthiness, then came fear, because now he started thinking, “Well, if my parents did this and there’s something wrong with me, then this is what my life is gonna be like. And my whole world is gonna be this horrible thing where no one likes me because I’m, obviously, unlovable.”

And so, this thing of fear started to be built in his heart, just as securely as rejection and unworthiness. And the enemy, of course, loving every minute of this, kept telling him, “Yes, the future is not gonna be good for you. There’s nothing to look forward to, you better be scared of what’s coming, boy.”

And so, this was his experience until he met Jesus. And Jesus starts speaking to him and telling him, “These are lies, these are lies. I have created you for a wonderful future. You don’t need to be afraid of what’s coming because I love you, because unworthiness is not something that I’ve put on you.” And slowly, but surely, brick by brick, the cardboard fortress came falling down as Jesus breathed grace into where the enemy and this boy, by agreement, had built strongholds.

And really, what was built, that became a pattern of his view of the world over many years, came down over some months. There was an initial sense of life as he met Jesus, and he recognized this is lies, but he needed to unlearn that way of thinking. He needed to learn, he needed to get some friends and help get that car out of that rut and start moving it in a different direction.

And really, my experience of strongholds and, really, walking in freedom came…and if you were in the first session that I did in this series of Link, you will have heard me say when I was at the Leadership School of Ministry with the Catch the Fire guys, and in one of the sessions, I think it was the one after demolishing strongholds, God started speaking to me and started putting his finger on some strongholds in my own life. And he started showing me, and I referred to this in the first session, how when I was born, I was born with a medical condition that made me stand out, physically.

And all through my childhood years, my mom would try to help me with it. And bless her, she was doing the right thing, the best thing. But actually, the enemy jumped on what my mom was doing and made me feel like I was somehow wrong, that somehow, my mom was ashamed of me, that she was saying, “Oh, this thing is horrible, let me change you.” And that’s not what she was doing. I know that now, but at the time, that’s what happened in my heart. There was a sense of, “You are somehow shameful because you weren’t made perfect.”

And then, so on that stronghold of shame that started being built in my heart, came a sibling of unworthiness, and so the enemy started lying to me. Now, I wanna tell you, I was raised in a wonderful Christian family. My parents loved me, they raised me in Jesus. I can’t remember a day that I wasn’t saved. I technically, probably, became a Christian when I was about three, got baptized in the spirit when I was about six. So, this isn’t like I was in a terrible scenario and all of these things were happening, I was actually, living a very wonderful, privileged life, I know that. But all of this stuff was going under the surface, and I didn’t even know it.

And so, this stronghold of unworthiness started being built in me, where I really believed, somehow, I am not lovable enough, even by God, so he made me this way. That was what I believed. And that lie took hold. And, of course, the enemy is cheering that lie on as loudly as he can, and reinforcing it as loudly as he can, in whatever situation he can.

So, any scenario where something went wrong or where I did something embarrassing, the enemy would jump on that and say, “Yes, see, that’s because you were made faulty. You need to understand that, that you are less than the other people, and so you’re not worthy. And even though people tell you God loves you and he does, because he’s really good, it’s not because you’re any good. It’s just because he’s that good.” And so, even the love of God became something that became different from what most people understood it because it was like, “Wow, God is so amazing, he loves me. I’m filthy, and awful, and terrible, but he’s great because he loves me.” That’s not the gospel that is preached in the Bible.

God sent His Son because He loved you so you were bought at a great price. Which means, to him, you were worth a great price. And so, in this conference, Scott was so kind to me. He literally, it felt like this thing was in a dark place in my heart. I didn’t know it existed. By the time I went to this conference, I’d been ministering for about seven-eight years. I’ve been in pastoral care for at least that long. I’d done loads of counseling up to that point. I didn’t know this thing was there. And then, Holy Spirit, so kindly, just, pup, turned the light on. And boom, everything changed for me, because I’m like, “That’s a lie. I know that’s a lie.”

As soon as the light of Holy Spirit was shone on it, that stronghold crumbled. Because I was so aware the enemy is evil and I have been ingrained with him all this time, unwittingly. Just saying “yes” to the enemy’s lies, lies that I know are simply ridiculous.

And so, in that conference, God set me free. But I had to learn to steward that, I had to learn to steward how I saw myself and how I spoke about myself because unworthiness makes you talk rubbish over yourself. You keep agreeing with that thing.

And I have to be honest with you, I have to keep learning that. And it’s wonderful having Julian in my life because he tells me and we do this for each other because it’s a good thing. And do this in your communities, catch each other saying lies about ourselves. And Julian catches me and goes, “Sorry, can you say that again? Just the truth of it this time.”

Man: That’s good, I love it.

Katia: And so I have to…you know, when I say to him, “Oh, I look rubbish.” “Sorry, what did you say?” And I know exactly what he’s saying, “Oh no, I don’t know rubbish, Jesus made me great.” Whatever it is. “Oh, that was the worst preacher ever, it was such a waste of time.” “Sorry, what did you say?” It’s a good thing to do because we all need to do it for each other because we all have the elements of this. This isn’t something that’s unique. Listen, these six things are the six most common things that all of humanity works through.

And so, all of us, at different moments, have to deal with these things. But I know that, for me, shame and unworthiness were something that I just hadn’t seen. And the reality is they grew the sibling of control because shame often partners with control because you wanna control how people see you because you’re so ashamed of who you really are.

And so, Jesus started unraveling those things, so kindly, so beautifully. And of course, it’s a journey, but I can tell you, “Wow, it’s so good to feel free from the rubbish of this thing, from the toxins that this thing was constantly feeding into my life.

And so, I want us to do some work for the last time this evening.

Now, if you didn’t write the common themes, I wanna ask you to write them now because you’re gonna do some work on them. So, unless you’re able to remember the six, which is totally fine. But so, we’re talking about rejection, abandonment, unworthiness, fear, shame, and control. Rejection, abandonment, unworthiness, fear, shame, and control.

And I wanna say, rejection and abandonment are similar but they’re slightly different. Rejection feels more like an active thing, that someone has, actively, rejected you. Often, with abandonment, it feels like a passive thing. It’s often like parents who were there but not really there. That, often, takes hold of abandonment rather than rejection because you don’t feel like someone actively rejected you but, somehow, passively, you found yourself alone.

So, I just wanna lead us into a thing where we’re asking Holy Spirit, “Holy Spirit, simply, can you highlight if any of these things are having a role in our thinking. If any of these things have become a little stronghold, that Holy Spirit, you can easily take down because we wanna repent of our agreement.” And really, I wanna encourage us, we’re not abdicating responsibility when we do this. You and I, I did this, I agreed with those lies, okay?

And so this is our moment to say, “Oh, the enemy is so rubbish, it’s all his fault.” He’s a liar, yes, but we also bring agreement. And so, in this moment, we’re gonna repent for our partnership in those strongholds. We’re gonna repent for agreeing with the rubbish lies that the enemy has been feeding us and, in fact, reinforcing those lies ourselves. And so we’re gonna ask Holy Spirit to show us if any of these strongholds have taken root, and then I want you to ask Holy Spirit where that stronghold came from. Because not only do we wanna identify strongholds, but we wanna identify their origins. And the reason for that is it’s really helpful to go back to that place and see what Jesus was doing and see what Jesus was originally saying over that place. And then, we’re gonna repent for believing the lie, whatever the lie is attached to that stronghold.

And I want you, in that moment, to ask Holy Spirit to show you the truth instead. So, for me ,very simply, God showed me unworthiness, he showed me that the root, the origin of that was from when I was really young, when I believed that I wasn’t somehow, lovable enough, which is why he made me faulty, which is all a huge lie, but anyway. So that was the origin. And then, God showed me, of course, that the lie is that I’m not lovable and somehow, he made me faulty. And the truth is that he loves me dearly, and the enemy tried to take me out, but God, in His kindness, restored me. Yeah?

And so, what we do in that moment, as we repent of the lie, as we start agreeing with the truth, this is a moment of power and breakthrough, but the stewarding of that comes where we keep breaking that lie and agreeing with the truth. Now, it might mean that you need to go home, and for the next few weeks, every morning, consciously, intentionally say, “I break my agreement with this lie that I’ve believed for many, many years. And in Jesus’ name, I choose to agree this truth.”

And I would encourage you to do that out loud. And it might be that you’ve been believing 1 lie, it might be that Holy Spirit shows you 50 lies. I wanna encourage you, on a daily basis, out loud, because there is power in our words. I really wanna encourage you because there is something about changing the ruts of those tires that they’ve sunk in, and it is about unraveling that mindset. And so, every morning, I wanna encourage you, identify the lie out loud, break agreement with it, and then partner with the truth instead that should fill the space of that lie. Does that make sense?

Together: Yes.

Katia: But so, in this moment, let’s close our eyes. Last part. Holy Spirit, I ask you to put your finger on any strongholds that have taken root in our hearts.

Life In Abundance

Mon, 14 Aug 2017 18:00:00 GMT

Our God is the God of excess. Abundant living is not simply an option for certain believers, it is an invitation for each one of us to display the lavish love of the Father to the world around us. In this teaching, Katia unpacks the implications of Jesus’ words in John 10:10 .

– TRANSCRIPT

Katia: When my little one-year-old delightful son, Ezekiel, woke up this morning just after 5, I was thinking, “It can’t be morning already. It can’t be morning already.” But here we are, anyway. And everyone feeling awake and happy now? I am so excited about this morning because I’m about to take a risk. And it’s always fun when you take a risk with Jesus, right? People are like, “No, it’s not.” No, it really is because the amazing thing about taking risks with Jesus is that the outcome really doesn’t matter so that you’re entirely safe in taking the risk because your value and your worth is predetermined, isn’t it? So the outcome of your action really doesn’t matter.

And I’m gonna take a risk this morning because I’m gonna go with what I feel like Holy Spirit has put on my heart rather than a safe bet. And for me, that is a risk, but it’s a nice one because I know regardless of what happens this morning, that God is so jolly-pleased with me. And I wanna start with that because I feel like that’s important for some of us. Even this will be important for some of us. Whatever you do, wherever you are, whatever you take steps in life, your value, your worth, is predetermined. And your Papa is singing in joy over you. Do you know, He watches us when we sleep and as Psalms tells us, “He sings songs over us.” There’s such an overflow of joy from Him even when you’re doing nothing at all. He’s just so jolly-pleased with us.

And so, it’s kind of fun getting to do what I’m doing this morning because I know that my Papa is beaming right now. Not just over me, over you too. As you sit there and listen or don’t listen, doesn’t matter. As you daydream or as you pay attention, do you know your Papa is beaming over you? And He’s saying consistently in the heavens, “That one’s Mine. Look at that one. Hey, angels, gather round. Look at My son, look at My daughter. Aren’t they awesome?”

Do you know, it’s funny. With my son, Ezekiel, sometimes when he’s asleep, I’ll get out my phone and I’ll look at photos of him. And I think, “Isn’t it funny I’ve spent all day with him and yet I miss him when he’s sleeping and I’m keeping looking.” And if someone looks at my face in that moment, they’ll laugh at me because I’ve got this slightly dazed smile on my face because he’s mine and I love him, and I’m so proud of him regardless of how that day has gone. That’s your Papa over you.

Right. Let’s get on with this. That was a total tangent, by the way. And what I’d love to look at is Living Abundantly this morning. This whole last week, God’s been speaking to me about abundance and excess. Now, there’s a word we like in the church. And has been challenging me and provoking me to become comfortable in living in that place of abundance and excess. So, we’re gonna look at a couple of some passages. Some of you are looking so worried right now. It’s gonna be fine, I promise. We’re gonna look at John 10:10 , and we’re going to look at Mark 6. And we’re gonna use those verses just as a springboard for some thoughts on the topic.

But I really feel like this is a message for us as a community and as a family in this season because I feel like God is gonna take us on a journey and He has an intention for us to come to a place of being comfortable with these truths. Because when we’re comfortable with these truths, then we’re open and receptive to some of the crazy things that He wants to do. And until we’re comfortable with these truths, we shy away from all that God wants to do because we don’t want Him to get a little bit over the top now. And we’re trying to encourage Him to just, “Come on now, be measured now, be controlled.” But we’ve gotta become comfortable with these truths because I think God wants to go a little bit wild and crazy with our community. And so, He’s leading us into a place of settling something in our hearts. And I hope and I believe He’s gonna do that this morning.

John 10:10 , 1 verse, “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” Let’s just say that together. “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy.” I wanna just say right off the outset, let’s never confuse the devil’s job description with God’s. If something is stolen from you, destroyed, or is killed, that wasn’t God. That’s the devil’s job description. And sometimes in trying to explain the challenges and the hardships we go through, we start confusing whose job description it really is. “The thief comes to steal, kill, and destroy, but I have come,” Jesus says, “that they may have life and have it to the full, or have it abundantly, or have it in excess.”

I like that. He’s come so that we may have life, not just the amount of life that would be needed for us, because that would be entirely reasonable and logical. No, no, he’s come so that we could have life and have it in excess, i.e., have leftovers – stuff we don’t need, stuff we’re never gonna use, stuff we’re not even gonna access. But that’s who He is. He is an excessive God, and if you don’t like that, then I’m really sorry, but I didn’t make up His character. He is excessive by nature. He loves to be lavish. He loves abundance.

And before we start over-spiritualizing this verse, because we really like to do that, because it makes us feel more safe, and start saying the life that Jesus was talking about is purely spiritual life or it’s about eternity, we can’t really apply this, the word that’s used here is Zoe life. And Zoe life is both physical, and spiritual, and both about the present and the future. It holds both of all of those things together. So, we can’t start saying, “No, no, no. The abundance that’s being talked about is the spiritual gifts that will be on show when we’ve all died and gone to heaven.” No, no, no. He’s saying, “I’ve come so that everything you experience in me will be in excess.”

Some of us are so trying to scrape by, trying to manage, trying to believing that we’ve just gotta somehow survive and hold it together. And I wanna tell you if that’s the Christianity you’re living, then there’s so much more for you because Jesus didn’t come so that you could survive. Jesus didn’t come so that he could meet your needs, Jesus didn’t come so that you would have just enough. He came to bring you life in so much excess that it’s embarrassing.

Second set of verses that I’d like to look at. I keep going back to this episode with Jesus and his disciples. Mark 6, we’re gonna start at verse 30, “The apostles returned to Jesus and told him all they had done and taught.” So, this is in the context where Jesus had sent out his 12 disciples and he’d equipped them, empowered them, “Go and heal the sick, go and cast out demons.” So they’ve gone on incredible adventures and they come back and they’re reporting to Jesus, and they’re on a big high. But if any of you have ever been in the ministry, well, you’d also know that they’re also exhausted. And they come to him, they’re telling him everything and he said to them, “Come away by yourselves to a desolate place and rest a while.”

I wanna pause there. This isn’t the aim of this meeting but I do wanna say that sometimes the desolate place is a place where God has an intention for us. And I’m not saying that He brings desert places to us, but I am saying, if you’re in a desert place, that God has an intention for it, and He’s gonna use it for good and even for your rest and refreshing. And that’s what happens here. They go to a desolate place so that the disciples can rest, for many were coming and going and they had no leisure even to eat. Now, we’re gonna look a few versions down and you’ll see that this is the time where Jesus multiplies food and his disciples are involved in that miracle.

I love it because at the beginning of the story, what the disciples were unable to access for themselves, by the end of the story, are giving away to others. Beginning of the story, they can’t even eat. They don’t have the time, it’s not the right setting, they’re struggling to even access food. By the end of it, they’ve learned how to multiply food by God’s grace so that many can eat. It’s pretty cool. And they went away in the boat to a desolate place by themselves.

Now, many saw them going and recognized them, and they ran there on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When he went ashore, Jesus saw a great crowd and he had compassion on them. Everything awesome starts with compassion. If you wanna see the miraculous, it starts with compassion. Because they were like sheep without a shepherd. And he began to teach them many things.

And when it grew late, his disciples came to him and said, “This is a desolate place. The hour is now late. Send them away to go into the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.” But Jesus answered them, “You give them something to eat.” And they said to him, “Shall we go and buy 200 denarii-worth of bread and give it to them to eat?’ That’s about two-thirds of a year’s salary. And they said… Sorry. “Should we give them something to eat?” and he said to them, “How many loaves do you have? Go and see.” And when they had found out they said, “Five loaves, two fish.”

And he commanded them all to sit down in groups on the green grass. So they sat down in groups by hundreds and by fifties. And taking the five loaves and two fish, he looked up to heaven, said a blessing, broke the loaves and gave them to the disciples to set before the people. And he divided the two fish among them all and they all ate and were satisfied. So, they reached the point of being full. And they took up 12 baskets full of broken pieces and the fish. And those who ate the loaves were 5,000 men.

I like this miracle for so many reasons, but at the moment, I’m loving it because it speaks of the excess of our father. He could have done it so everyone had the exact right amount. So that everyone was bursting full, He could have done it. It’s not like He didn’t know how much everyone would eat. It’s not like it was kind of a guessing game and hopefully, this would be enough. “Oh, look. Yay, we’ve got leftovers.” That wasn’t the point. He did the leftovers intentionally. He knew how much would be required to be multiplied and He went way beyond that because He’s trying to prove a point here.

He’s taken them to the desolate place, and the desolate place is meant to be a springboard for them, both for rest and for the miraculous. I wanna tell you, “Whatever your setting, it is a setup to display the goodness of God.” Whatever your setting. Some of you may be hearing me and thinking, “I am in the desert right now. There’s nothing around me. Nothing good can come in this place. And I don’t know what to do.” And I’m telling you, whatever your setting and whatever has put you in that place, I wanna tell you, God has an intention for that place. Your setting is a setup to display His goodness.

Just like this context. We’ve got no food, it’s a desolate place, we haven’t even eaten. We’ve got nothing to give. And Jesus is smiling and he’s thinking, “Guys, you don’t get it. Your setting is always a setup for me to display my goodness.” And when he wants to display His goodness, it’s never gonna be just enough. It always goes into excess. It’s kind of embarrassing. “Jesus, what a waste, 12 baskets of food. Now, what are we gonna do? This is terrible, we shouldn’t be doing this. Who are we gonna give this to now? It’s gonna go off, it’s hot, desert humidity.” This isn’t like, “Oh, wow. This will keep fresh for a while.” Bread and fish, mixed together in baskets in the desert sun. His point isn’t, “Oh, we’re gonna put this to very good use. Don’t worry, everybody.” His point is, “I am a God of excess. My intention is not that you have just enough. My intention is that there are always leftovers.”

Now, I wanna say, before I really offend some people… I’m hoping not to offend anybody. But because of the word Zoe, that means life, and because of the physical nature of this miracle, we can’t deny that the abundance that Jesus wants to bring is, in fact, physical in some measure. Now, I’m talking about abundant living in all aspects. So, I’m talking about an abundance of joy as much as I’m talking about an abundance of food. I’m talking about an abundance of peace as much as I’m talking about an abundance of finances. And I don’t want you to think all I’m talking about is money, but I also don’t want you to think that I’m not talking about money. Because what Jesus is speaking about encompasses absolutely everything in our lives. He wants to bring us to a place where we are comfortable with excess because that points us to something of his lavish goodness. And we’ve gotta get comfortable with that.

Let me move on. Just to say, I’m not denying the place of suffering. I’m not denying that bad things happen to Christians. I’m not denying that we’ll all face difficulties. That is a fact in Scripture. But let me say it again, what I am denying is that Jesus thinks that suffering, in itself, is good spiritually. I am denying that. Because all suffering is good for the Christian if it points to something victorious and glorious in the meantime. Your setting has got to be a setup, if not, something is wrong. Listen, the cross, in and of itself, is not glorious if you don’t have the resurrection. And some of us are so adamant to defend suffering, it’s almost like we would like to defend the cross at the cost of the resurrection as if the resurrection is irrelevant. No. Even Paul says, “If the resurrection didn’t happen, we’re all in trouble.” It’s not like the cross has some spiritual merit in and of itself. It’s in light of the resurrection where the cross is glorious.

And I wanna say to you, if you’re a Christian who defends suffering, and if you’re offended with someone talking about victory, and glory, and abundance, even in the context of suffering, I wanna say to you, “But that’s the gospel. That’s the kingdom.” If we wanna defend suffering purely because it’s a spiritual discipline, then we’ve got it all wrong because everything in life is meant to be a springboard to display His goodness. And if we’re nervous about His goodness and His glory breaking into the place of suffering, as if, “No, no, I need to learn the hard lesson a little while longer,” then we really don’t get what He is about. Suffering will happen, challenges will happen, difficulties will come, guaranteed. And all of them is His intention to display His goodness. All of those things are His intention to bring about such a glorious fireworks display of how awesome, and kind, and abundant, and lavish He is.

I could tell you stories of people who’ve been imprisoned for their faith, who’ve been taken into solitary confinement for months, and in that place of suffering have had the most incredibly lavish physical experiences of Jesus. The setting is merely a setup. It’s all about what we believe and anticipate in that moment. I’ve been provoked by Mathew 20 as I’ve been thinking about all of this. Mathew 20 is when Jesus tells the parable of the workers in the vineyard. And I’ll just say the story rather than read the verses just to keep this brief.

But he tells a story of how an owner of a vineyard goes to hire servants for the day. And he hires guys right at the beginning of the day and they agree a price which is one denarii, which would be a very normal daily wage at that time. And the guys agree to that. Of course, it’s fair, it’s right. And they go and work in the vineyard. And throughout the day, the parable goes that the owner of the vineyard keeps going back to where the servants would be standing waiting to be hired for the day, and he keeps going back all throughout the day and keeps hiring more people. And after he’s agreed the wage with the first guys, we’re told, with the next set of guys, however many there are, he keeps just telling them, “Come and work for me. I’ll pay you what’s right.” They don’t necessarily agree a wage, but he promises to be just.

And so, throughout the day, workers keep coming and joining the others in the vineyard. And at the end of the day, he says, “Right. Gather everybody in. We’re gonna pay the guys who started last first.” It’s an interesting way of doing things. He’s trying to prove a point. And the guys who’ve only been working for an hour or two, they come in and they get one denarii, a whole day’s wages. Now, the guys who started first are now thinking, “Oh, hang on, if they’re getting one denarii, we’re gonna get something different to what was agreed, surely.” But Jesus says that the vineyard owner pays everybody one denarii. And by the end, when the first guys have been paid, they’re grumbling because they’re saying, “This isn’t fair.” And the vineyard owner says to them, “Why are you cross? I gave you a fair wage. I gave you exactly what was right. I gave you what was agreed. Why do you begrudge my generosity?’

And I love that one question, “Why do you begrudge my generosity?” The thing is about grace, and the thing is about abundance, and the thing is about the excess of God is that as Christians who’ve been Christians for a while, we can get a little bit nervous about God being lavish to those who don’t deserve it. And when we say that, we mean other people, of course.

I’ve been a Christian for quite a long time. I’m actually quite good at being disciplined and obeying Jesus. I must have earned something by now. I know I got saved by grace. We all know that. No one’s disputing that. But I’ve earned something now. I really don’t like how that person who’s been a Christian for a week is starting to get all sorts of blessings, they’re gonna get way too big-headed. And we try to tell God how to control Himself because it’s pastorally inappropriate what He’s doing. True? Some of you are smiling far too knowingly. I know it’s true because I’ve been around the church for a long time. And I’ve been this person. I’ve been this person.

When I know the person next to me who has fallen into sin is still being blessed by Jesus, and it offends my insides. And I’m thinking, “You’re being too lavish. You need to teach him a lesson now.” And what we don’t understand is God is saying, “Why are you begrudging my generosity?” What we don’t understand is that He’s been ridiculously generous to us. And that’s simply how grace works. We can’t buy in to one portion of it. It is what it is, universally.

And for some of us, we begrudge Him His generosity towards us. We’re shy of God being over the top with us. We’re embarrassed when we’ve been blessed. And we try to make excuses and reasons for it, and most often, this comes with material blessing. Someone says to you, “Nice car.” And rather than saying, “Yeah. Isn’t God so kind? This is the best thing,” we say, “Yes. No, you know, it was a gift and I’m really careful how I drive it, and I give lots of people lifts.” Your Papa is excessive, and lavish, and abundant. Let’s get used to it.

His intention is abundance. And we don’t need to be shy. We don’t need to hold Him at arm’s length. We don’t need to try to coach Him into being a little bit more reasonable, but rather, we can start anticipating His over-the-top goodness and start enjoying being channels of that to other people. Ultimately, this isn’t about you or me getting really fat and really rich at the expense of others because there’s enough grace to go around for everybody. And there’s enough abundance for everybody. And He is excessive to everybody. That is His intention. And sometimes He does it all by Himself, and sometimes He likes to use you and me to do that. But, the kingdom is excessive in nature, and if we’re gonna sign up to everything that He has, we’ve gotta get comfortable with receiving His excess and giving His excess too. And that can become the [inaudible 00:25:18] part for us.

He doesn’t seem to mind waste. He doesn’t. He doesn’t mind that there’s 12 baskets left over. He’s not embarrassed when a lady breaks a perfume jar and there’s waste. Because there’s something right about being lavish. There’s something that fits into the kingdom with that. I love Luke 6:38 . It says, “Give and it will be given to you. A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be poured into your lap.”

This week I’ve got some sugar and I was trying to put it in a jar, and I knew there was too much sugar in the bag for the jar, but my stubborn streak came out and I’m like, “I’m gonna get this thing in there.” Ever done this before? So, I pour sugar in and then I’m shaking it to make it go down again. And I’m trying to press on it, and I’m pouring more, and I’m pouring more. And I keep doing this. And I know that we’re reaching the limits but I’m gonna try a little bit more, and, of course, it overflows and there’s sugar everywhere, and now I’ve gotta clean it up. But that’s this verse.

Jesus looks at us and goes, “I know how much you can take. Oh, let’s try a little bit more. Let’s try a little bit more. Let’s keep going. Oh, it’s pouring over, it’s spilling everywhere, all over your lap, that’s a waste.” Never mind, He’s excessive. And the whole point of this in Luke is to say to us, “Listen, there’s this crazy cycle in the kingdom. It’s not about earning something, it’s about getting onto this crazy cycle which is just going round and round, which is, He gives excessively, you give excessively, more excessively comes back to you, you give… It just goes round, and round, and round in circles.” And if we’re gonna learn to live in abundance, we’ve gotta get really good at receiving abundantly, and we’re gonna have to get really good at giving abundantly. Really good.

It means when we see someone who needs something, or maybe not. And we just have a little nudge like, “Oh, I wonder if I could do that. I wonder if someone could meet that.” Then our next thought in living abundantly can be, “Right. How much do they need? Why don’t we do a little bit more than that? Why don’t we give excessively? Why don’t we give embarrassingly? Why don’t we give abundantly?

Sometimes we have leftovers for unexpected visitors, don’t we? My husband Julian is an amazing cook. Thankfully, he does all the cooking in the house, so that’s great for me. But he’s really funny, I think, when it comes to portion sizes. And he has this philosophy that if the food finished, there wasn’t enough. And I’m always like, “No, no, we all ate and had our full, that was enough.” And he’s like, “No, no, no. There’s always gotta be a little bit extra so that people feel like they could have more if they wanted.” That’s just the way he grew up. I find that funny.

But the thing is, the good thing about having leftovers is when an unexpected visitor knocks on your door, you can feed them straight off. Some of your excess is gonna be used for the unexpected visitor. We’ve gotta be really good at living in the abundance of God knowing that some of what is spilled over all over our laps, we’re gonna come into encounter with someone who is in desperate need of joy, or grace, or peace, or kindness, and we’ve got it in abundance and excess. And in that moment, we don’t have to somehow try to access something or conjure something up, it’s like, “Oh, look, hang on. I’m living in abundance on this. Come and feast with me because there’s leftovers for the unexpected visitor.” And He wants that physically too in our lives.

The excess that we have in our homes, those things are awesome and good, and He wants you to get comfortable with it because His kingdom is excessive. But there’s also moments where the unexpected visitor comes and says to you, “I don’t have a pillow,” in passing conversation and you think, “Well, I’ve got an excess of pillows. I’ve got some in my storage cupboard.” Great. The whole point is to give off your excess because you’re part of the crazy cycle. Do you know you can’t ever out-give God? That’s just true. It’s not about earning something. You’ve gotta hear me on that. It’s not like, “We’re now gonna give so that we earn something in the kingdom.” It’s about joining the crazy cycle of the kingdom that’s going on with or without you. Abundance, giving leads to abundance, giving… It just goes round and round.

James 1:5 says that “If anyone lacks anything…” He’s talking about wisdom in this context. “If anyone lacks wisdom, they should ask God who gives generously.” That word “generously” is an adverb that comes from the word… I’ll read it to you just so you feel like I’ve done some research here. Haplos is the word, that’s not probably how it’s pronounced anyway, but the word literally means without fault, where we get our word generously from in the English. It means that when God gives, everything is unfolded in heaven. So, it is open-handed and free. The whole connotation of that is He doesn’t hold anything back.

You’re like, “God, I need this.” And he’s like, “Okay. let’s just open up the storehouse. That’s it. Open the doors.” All the grain pours out. That’s great. That’s how He works. Because there’s always more in the kingdom. But He is giving unreservedly to us as we ask. And sometimes we think that God is there like, “God I need wisdom,” and He’s going, “Okay, here’s your one portion of wisdom for today. Use it wisely. Come back when you need some more.” We have this image, “God I need this financed,” “Okay. Exactly how much do you need? I’ll give you this, make sure you give me back a tenth so I’ll make sure that we figure it out some…” He’s not like that. He’s not measured, He’s not controlled in that way. He’s excessive. His hands are open as He gives. And some of what He’s trying to draw us into is an anticipation of that.

I can’t remember where it is in the Old Testament, but the people are asking for rain and the prophet tells them, “Dig holes, dig wells, and the rain will come, and the water will fill.” That it’s what they anticipate for that gets filled. The rain falls but the more holes they dig, the more wells they dig, the more water they receive. And I feel like in this season, God is drawing us into a place where He’s saying, “Dream bigger, think bigger of me. Stop thinking of me as careful, and counted, and measured, and controlled because you’ve just gotta keep reading the stories, and the parables, and everything that Jesus did to recognize He’s too big for that.

Can you imagine when the lost son returned to the father, and the father said, “Kill the fattened calf and give him the best robe.” Can you imagine if the lost son had been like, “Father, the fattened calf is a little bit too much. That’s the prized calf, we don’t do that. And, you know, I’ve just come. Let’s just have a party, let’s settle for a goat.” It’s interesting because the older son later says, “I would have settled for a goat.” And I feel like the father wants to shout in that moment, “I don’t want you to settle for a goat. I had the fattened calf.” And the father says to the older son when he’s grumbling about how he would have settled for a goat, the father says to him, “All I have is yours.”

And sometimes we’re saying, “Not the best robe, Lord. Just get any robe, I just need a robe.” And He is like, “I wanna give you the best.” Why? Because it glorifies Him. Because it shows and displays to the heavens and to the Earth the lavish goodness and kindness of our Papa. And so, when we give, let’s give the best of ourselves. Let’s give the best robe. Let’s join the crazy cycle of abundance. It’s so much fun to live in.

In Mark 14… I’m gonna go back to a story that I’ve referenced, and we’re gonna finish with this. There’s a story of the woman who comes to Jesus… This is a great chapter, Mark 14. Jesus is reclining at the table eating. That’s how they ate in ancient times. All the guys would be reclined around the table. There would be no women eating with them.

And we’re told that this woman comes into the room where Jesus is reclining, which would be embarrassing already, and she gets to Jesus, which would be a challenge because they’re all reclining in a circle so it’s not like they’re sitting in individual chairs where she can easily get to him without touching anybody else. But she gets to Jesus and she takes an alabaster jar, which would be costly in and of itself, but we’re told that it was full of pure nard, which would be incredibly costly, and she breaks it to anoint him. And we’re told that everyone… There’s people in the room who were watching and some of them are saying, “What a waste. What an absolute waste.” She takes what is costly and she breaks it. She takes what is costly and pours it, and then onlookers cannot understand a lavish act and call it a waste.

It’s a beautiful story in and of itself, but its beauty is really a foreshadowing of a few verses later, and we miss the point if we don’t read the entire section in Mark because it’s paired with another dinner that happens only a few moments later, where Jesus is again reclining at a table with his disciples. And where he picks up some bread, and where he breaks it, representing something incredibly costly, “This is my body.” And he pours out some wine, representing something incredibly costly, “This is my blood.” And where a few verses later when he’s actually been broken and poured out, we see that people, yet again, onlookers cannot understand the lavish act and scold or mock and I’m sure many who wanted more shook their heads and said, “What a waste.” These two pictures go together. What is costly is broken and poured out.

What I would hate to do this morning is to make you feel like abundance comes cheap. It doesn’t. When Jesus promises us life in excess, it’s not about us as Christians being so other-minded and so selfish that we don’t understand cost. No, it’s about us as Christians recognizing the lavish act of one broken and poured out so that we say a wholehearted yes to the crazy upside down wild adventure of His kingdom. It’s about us living abundantly, overflowing with thankfulness, overflowing with a sense of, “I’ve gotta give this good stuff away,” not because we think it’s cheap, but because we understand its worth.

I can see that there’s bread and wine-ish out. And I just wanna encourage you today to take some, to take some with friends, to take some with people you don’t know, and to think for a moment of that lavish act. And recognize as we eat and drink, that what we’re saying is, “I’m a yes for abundant living. I wanna think bigger of you and what you wanna give to me, I wanna anticipate your lavish kindness. I don’t wanna tell you how to be pastorally wise, God. I wanna be a good receiver. And I wanna know how to partake of this, to be an excessive giver. Help me. Open my eyes to where I can give, what I can give, how I can give, which parts of me I can give. Help me give the best robe, not begrudgingly, but knowing that there’s a room full of the best robes in heaven. And I’m entering simply into the crazy, wonderful cycle of abundance in the kingdom.”

Let’s just stand together for a moment. We’re gonna end now. Father, we love You. You are overwhelmingly kind, and compassionate, and generous. And Lord, we wanna repent. We wanna say sorry and change the way we think. If we have tried to control You, or if we have tried to get You to be more measured, if we have judged how You have been gracious and generous to others, Lord, we wanna change the way we think. We wanna enter into abundant living in the kingdom, being great receivers of our Papa’s lavish kindness, and being great dispensers of that kindness too. Open our eyes that we would see where You wanna give to us, and open our eyes that we would see where we can give to others. We say we are all in to this crazy cycle, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

Freedom Series – Shame

Wed, 19 Jul 2017 18:00:00 GMT

– TRANSCRIPT

One of the scriptures that I think about is with the woman who was bleeding for 12 years. She must have felt such shame over that time. She would’ve had to proclaim herself unclean. I can’t even get my head around what that would feel like and telling people, “Don’t touch me because I’m unclean.” People must have thought that she was under the judgement of God. She must have thought that. It’s just one of those stories that blows me away because of the pain and suffering that she must have experienced.

There’s this beautiful moment where Jesus heals her. He deals with the shame and that’s my favorite part. He heals her physically but it goes so much further than that. He says to her,”Daughter.” He knows that she’s carried shame for 12 years and she needs this encounter with Him that will set her free from the grip of shame and the best way to do that is to redefine who she is. I can imagine it, that she’s there and she’s broken and she’s stooped over. She looks at Him and He says, “Daughter,” and suddenly everything is different about how she sees herself. I remember once getting a prophetic word at a moment in my life when I was struggling with shame, who I was. This lady came to me and she said to me, “God says your name means the right thing.” Katia means pure. To me, her word was absurd. Pure wasn’t a word that I would have described myself as. I was living in a place of shame.

Shame is different to guilt. Guilt is feeling bad about something you’ve done. Shame is feeling bad about who you are, to stop us from recognizing all that God has already put in us. What he saw me as, He was seeing me more accurately than I was seeing myself. I think that’s the way of walking in freedom from shame, allowing Him to proclaim over us what is the deepest truth about us. He redefines how we see ourselves so the power of shame is broken. He’s not agreeing with the enemy that we’re ugly, dirty, faulty, but rather you were made for greatness, powerful, and wonderful and that’s where shame gets broken. You are not faulty, less valuable, or dirty, or broken. You are powerful, wonderful, quite simply magnificent, and that’s the truth.

Freedom Series – The Power of Woman (Part 2)

Mon, 17 Jul 2017 18:00:00 GMT

– TRANSCRIPT

In our last video, we talked about freedom from oppression for women and we wanted to do a follow-up video thinking through more of the practicalities. What does it look like for women to take responsibility for their own freedom? And what does it look like for a guy, maybe for your wife, girlfriends, or daughters, how do you empower them to walk in all that God has put in them? We’re talking about women flourishing and just living up to all that God has put in them but in a beautiful way, responding to the call of God on their lives.

So, ladies, I get asked a lot, how has God taken me on this journey? How has God taken me from someone who, at one point, was questioning the call of God on my life or whether that was my own sinful desire, to a woman who feels empowered and liberated in what I’ve seen in scripture? And I can only tell you from my own journey, the first thing, you’ve got to do the work in terms of reading scripture and coming to a place of peace in your own heart. What do you feel that God is saying about you and your call? Keep a journal of what God is speaking over your life. Keep feeding and feasting on the words that He’s spoken over you rather than allowing the culture around us to dictate to us who or what we should be. Be courageous. This is a battle in the body of Christ. Embrace your femininity. This whole series is to present the heart of our Papa and to love each other as we express what’s on our hearts.

For the guys, create a context for the women around you so that they be able to flourish. The best thing for women in the body of Christ, I believe, is for them to feel like they are pursued to fully flourish. Spend time with the Father and invite Him to come and blow apart the boxes that we put Him in. The reality is how we see Him is how we’re going to represent Him. Lead women all around you so that they’ll be able to walk into their own destiny. You were created to change the world, to shape nations. What we’re really asking is for you to partner with us, to envision us and give us courage and strength. I believe that this is one of the most significant issues that faces the body of Christ and I feel like God has given our generation a unique privilege to see this battle won completely. This is for every woman and for every man that we would walk alongside each other fully free and fully empowered to see the Kingdom of God on Earth.

Is God Sexist?

Wed, 12 Jul 2017 17:24:04 GMT

A Case for Egalitarianism

I recently read an incredibly sad and provoking book entitled ‘Half the Sky’ by Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. It is a book all about women, documenting how women are the most oppressed people on the planet today. It shows oppression to be not only the horrors of human trafficking, but a wide range of experiences where women are told they are somehow less or smaller than the men around them. It’s a heart wrenching read, but also one of mobilizing the reader to action. It’s the sort of book that makes you want to stand up and change the world because surely when God created woman, He did not intend for her to be oppressed and held down but rather to lead and shape the world around her. He did not make her small and insignificant, but placed her in a place of honor in creation – alongside man – to rule the world (Genesis 1:28) .

About a decade ago if you had asked me what I believed God’s intention was for women I wouldn’t quite know how to answer you. As a child I grew up thinking that girls were equal to boys in every way. I believed that I could be or do anything. In my late teens I had a conversation at church that shook that belief in me. A conversation that left me questioning what God’s heart really was towards women. And that conversation – painful and confusing as it was at the time – was an incredibly helpful one in hindsight as it set me on a journey of study and encounter. I wanted to come to a place of peace in my heart – to understand what God’s intention is for me as a woman and to understand what scripture says about my role.

I’ve written the points below as a brief summary of some of what i’ve read and understood from scripture. I hope this post will be an encouragement to many – that the God of the Bible is FOR women and is not interested in holding them back. I hope also that this post may make some readers think again about some of the scriptures that may have been used to suggest that God has placed a lower ceiling on women than He has on men. In the end, I hope that whatever your view on the role of women, you will find me not to be offensive but rather passionate and ultimately full of love for both those who agree and disagree with me. I think that God is much more interested in us loving each other within our different opinions than proving our point to be correct but doing so in a way that lacks love for one another. I hope the former will be true of me.

Please bear in mind that I’m not trying to write this post as a conclusive thesis on the matter – I’m writing with my two children under two around me… makes for a somewhat chaotic writing process!

For the purposes of brevity, I’ve summarized my view on the role of women down to three main headings:

1. Equality from Eden to eternity

2. Jesus loved to liberate women

3. Paul loved strong women

1. Equality from Eden to Eternity

In Eden we see that Adam and Eve both had a mandate together to rule over and subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28) . Adam didn’t rule Eve to then rule the earth. They were equal co-rulers. Before the fall, men and women were created to rule alongside one another. There’s no hint of hierarchy. There’s no hint that Adam was the main ruler and Eve the subordinate.

Some have tried to use the word describing Eve – a helper (Genesis 2:18) – to insinuate that her role was somehow a deputy to Adam. But if we look into the word helper (in Hebrew: Ezer) we realize just how absurd that insinuation is. The word does not have the connotation of inferiority but rather of adding strength. In the Old Testament, the word Ezer is most consistently used of God – the point being that it is a word describing someone who is bringing much needed strength rather than someone who isn’t important enough to be the main leader.

Others have tried to use creation order as their basis to prove that Adam had more authority than Eve. There’s not much logic to this however. If anything, creation becomes more complex and authoritative the further on in order. The animals came before both Adam and Eve. That doesn’t give them greater authority, but rather the opposite! I certainly don’t claim this to prove that Eve had more authority than Adam, but neither do I find justification for claiming the opposite.

Jumping ahead from Eden, right through to eternity, we catch a glimpse in the New Testament again of God’s desire to see men and women standing alongside each other – together in equality to rule and reign. Men and women are co-heirs with Christ (Romans 8:17) , seated in Him (Ephesians 2:6) and reigning with Him (Revelation 5:10) , the focus no longer our gender but our oneness in Christ (Galatians 3:28) .

I wonder why, when God created men and women to rule together from Eden to eternity, we would think that His intention for our present age is any different? Why would we think that God would introduce hierarchy as His intention now when hierarchy is not His intention either in Eden or in the Kingdom fully come?

2. Jesus Loved to Liberate Women

If Jesus is to show us the heart of the Father, then we see that Papa God loves to liberate women and see them flourish in roles that some would reserve only for men. Jesus let Mary sit at his feet (Luke 10) – the posture of a disciple – scandalizing everyone around Him as He redefined what a woman could and couldn’t do. He catapulted the Samaritan woman into being the first evangelist (John 4) and used Mary as the first witness to His resurrection (John 20) – completely disinterested in the fact that this would make the testimony of His victory weaker to those who saw women as somehow less able than men.

Jesus’ encounters with women consistently lifted them up and honored them. I wonder if this is true of us who represent Him? I’m not talking about patronizing or flattering women. I’m talking about allowing women to walk in authority – as Jesus did – despite what the traditions around us may think. His example is both encouraging and provoking.

3. Paul Loved Strong Women

I love reading through Romans 16. It’s a chapter where Paul honored those who labored with him in the gospel. The chapter is full of affection, admiration and respect. The remarkable thing about that chapter is that Paul names several women within it. He is not offended by their strength, not taken aback by their gifting, not scandalized by their positions of authority. He honors them: Phoebe, Priscilla (who interestingly is named before her husband Aquila in case you are still adamant that order connotes authority), Mary, Junia (who alongside her husband Andronicus is named as outstanding among the apostles), Tryphena and Tryphosa, Persis, Julia. Women who were deacons, apostles, co-labourers in Christ. No hint of hierarchy or male dominance in Romans 16.

It’s interesting to me that we largely ignore how Paul loved and affirmed strong women who had authority in Romans 16, ignore how he didn’t put any gender qualification on operating in gifts of the Spirit including teaching and leadership (Romans 12 and 1 Corinthians 12) or in holding offices of apostle, prophet, evangelist, pastor, teacher (Ephesians 4) all in favor of a handful of verses he wrote to a church that was struggling with false teaching and so needed specific, corrective insight (1 Timothy 2).

I find this sad because 1 Timothy 2 is no more authoritative on the role of women than the other verses, it’s just that it gets much more airtime. It’s tragic that people defend holding women back by claiming that they are just following the ‘plain reading of scripture’ when what they mean is that they are following an inadequately shallow reading of 1 Timothy 2:11 +12 whilst ignoring the ‘plain’ reading of Romans 16 and Galatians 3:28 and 1 Corinthians 12 and Ephesians 4, let alone taking into account the broader brush strokes in scripture of the heart of God and Jesus’ example towards women.

This blog will become far too long if I go too in-depth on 1 Timothy 2 but let me just say a few things to whet the appetite –

1. The word translated authority in 1 Timothy 2:12 (authentein) is an incredibly complex word. This is the only time it is used in the Bible. The normal word for authority (exousia) is used multiple times by Paul elsewhere but here he chooses the word authentein – we would be in error if we did not see this as a caution in how we are to translate the word. This has led many well respected academics and theologians to point to authentein not being a word meaning just authority but rather a word with the connotation of grabbing or usurping authority.

2. The word translated as silent or quiet in 1 Timothy 2:11 by many is the greek word ‘hesychia’. Outside of Paul’s teaching on women, this word, or its Greek root ‘hesychios’ are found in four other places in the New Testament – 1 Timothy 2:2 , 2 Thessalonians 3:12 , Acts 22:2 and 1 Peter 3:4 . In all these contexts, the word conveys a sense of being at peace/at rest/peaceable rather than having a low level of volume! It would seem that Paul’s instruction is that women learn in a way that is at rest rather than resisting or argumentative towards instruction (this fits well with the general tone of the surrounding passages about encouraging unity and peace rather than division).

3. Even without the complications around translating ‘authentein’, 1 Timothy 2:15 should make us aware that this whole passage simply cannot be interpreted at a cursory glance. There is no way of getting away with a ‘plain reading’ of 1 Timothy 2. If you walk away at a shallow reading of the chapter, you will walk away in error. Many have done this with the teaching on women.

4. The context of the book of 1 Timothy is I believe a great key in its interpretation. It was written by Paul primarily to correct the false teachings being propagated in Ephesus. It was not a letter laying out his core, timeless beliefs (which would be more true of the book of Romans for example), but rather a letter trying to correct specific errors in a specific community. If we mistake Paul’s applications to a specific community as his principles for all communities, we run the risk of falling into great error ourselves.

There is much more that I could say on these headings, let alone all the other headings i’ve left out! But, let me finish this post by saying this:

The more I read and study scripture, the more I realize that God loves women. God’s heart is to liberate women. He wants full expression of life in women as much as in men and has put His incredible authority on women as much as on men. He has called men and women together to manifest Kingdom life all over the earth. He is not the author of misogyny but rather is a proud Father cheering on His daughters (and sons!) to bring heaven to earth as heirs of His Kingdom. Isn’t it time we as the church joined the cheers of our Father for women to be powerful and beautiful and all they were created to be? Isn’t it time we honored the Priscillas and Junias and all the rest among us? Romans 8 tells us that all creation is longing and waiting for the full revelation of the children of God.

I think it’s time to set our women free.

Preferring Earthquakes to Whispers

Mon, 26 Jun 2017 17:31:15 GMT

I’ve got to be honest, I got really grumpy with God this week. Grumpy to the point where I must have resembled my toddler having a tantrum about not getting whatever it is that he wants. Grumpy to the point where I was accusing Him of not caring and not being all that He’s promised He will be. I think God must have used up extra patience from His storehouse on me this week…!

The thing is, it’s been a tough few weeks – battling illness in our home, children not eating or sleeping (or both!), multiple visits to different medical professionals and scary diagnoses being mentioned and looming threateningly overhead. The levels of pressure have been up and the number of hours of sleep have been low. That’s a dangerous combination right there.

And so, after another night of broken sleep my frustration and hurt and disappointment and weariness came tumbling out in some big questions – ‘Where are you God?! Why aren’t you breaking in? Don’t you care? We feel like we’re drowning over here!’ In all honesty, it felt good to let it out. It wasn’t my prettiest moment, but it was real! The funny thing is, even as the accusations were coming out of me, there was a deeper truth holding me steady in my heart, aware that the questions were rising out of my flawed perspective and sleeplessness rather than a new found discovery of flaws in Him. But it did my heart good to let the hurt out so that I could invite truth and affection in. Once i’d spent my hurting emotions fully, I was able to just be still for a while and as I did that, of course I could hear Him speaking into my circumstances.

I was reminded of 1 Kings 19:11-13 when Elijah is waiting to encounter God, but God is not in the dramatic earthquake or wind or fire but rather in a quiet gentle whisper.

The truth is, i’m a woman who likes breakthrough earthquakes – quick, epic turnaround moments where the landscape of my circumstance changes drastically in just a few moments. And of course God does work that way at times, and I really love it when He does! But the reality is, that’s not the only way He brings breakthrough and life. Some of His ways are more subtle, quieter and less dramatic. It’s easy for me to miss the whisper when i’m hoping to see Him in the earthquake. But this week, after my outburst, God has graciously been pointing me to all His whispers of breakthrough in the last season. Whispers of incredible loving family and community who have surrounded us and given us strength. Whispers of health improvement in small increments where it’s easy to overlook the improvement because it’s not complete… but it’s improvement nevertheless! Whispers of miraculous energy levels even despite shockingly low levels of sleep. Whispers of smiles and giggles from poorly children where love and joy has overpowered illness. The list goes on and on when I start to adjust my lenses.

So i’m writing this this morning with my circumstances having been somewhat improved but not yet completely restored. But i’m smiling and full of hope knowing that God is whispering to me even now and that every moment of my setting is a set up for me to encounter His goodness if I’ll just stop and be still and let the whispering God envelop me again.

Freedom Series – The Power of Woman (Part 1)

Sat, 10 Jun 2017 18:00:00 GMT

– TRANSCRIPT

When I think the word women, I think strength, power, courage, a love that is willing to push past pain, a God bearer, a warrior, beautiful, raw, creative, beauty that God has made. I think of a part of the heart of God. I think equal, valid, worthy, free. When I see women now in the church, I see potential not fully realized. Fear, caution, restriction, women who aren’t sure who they’re meant to be. And sometimes, I catch a glimpse of more who is being all that she was created to be. And when you see a woman like that, is I’m convinced one of the most beautiful things on earth. I see 1 Timothy 2 translated where women should be silent. The Greek says “Women should be peaceable, see a scripture as a weapon against women where God intended this to be a safeguard for women.”

I grew up free. My parents believe that women can do anything. I had a conversation in a church setting. I must have been late teens, early 20s, and I was told that the gifts that God had put in me, the things that I was most excited about, they weren’t gifts from God. But rather, God had put them in me as a strange test to see if I would fully submit. And if I tried to step into any of those things, then that would be rebellion rather than obedience to God. I remember feeling confused and really upset if I’m honest, crying out to God one day, “God why do you hate women?” And I’ve realized He doesn’t hate women. His heart is not to hold women down. He really wants to see women flourish.

When I look at the breadth of scripture on this, I see freedom, value, God lifting women up. I see that women are called to bring the kingdom of heaven on earth. I see women named as rulers. I don’t see inequality, subordination, hierarchy. I see freedom and liberation throughout. When I see the future, I see a generation of women who know who they are and who are unapologetic for it, who know their value before God and are not willing to settle for anything less, who don’t know anything but freedom, flourishing, value, and worth, seeing miracles happen all around them, who know the power of God in, and free them wherever they go.

Freedom Series – Fear

Thu, 25 May 2017 18:00:00 GMT

So often I find that fear cripples me. And as hard as I try, I can’t overcome these fears in my own strength. Recently I sat down and processed my thoughts on fear, and what I do to step into freedom in those areas.

– TRANSCRIPT

God has said that I’m a queen not a pawn. Before, I really felt like I was just part of some big game and I was insignificant. But we’re actually royalty. We’re queens on the chessboard. We can go wherever we like. And to be honest, it’s a bit scary putting it out there. The fear of failure comes into that one for sure. One of the things that I know God has been journeying me on is in the area of fear. Fear in me didn’t look like me being afraid but actually looks more like anger or frustration and more often than not it’s fear of failing. And so, I can get frustrated with myself or frustrated with a situation or with a person. It’s a mask for this fear in me that I don’t want to fail, I don’t want to get it wrong. And there’s this fear of disappointing people around me.

I know that fear is a normal emotion. Everyone experiences it. I get that. I don’t think it’s something that we ever stop experiencing. Even though I experience fear, I’m not driven by it. And that’s the question for me. Is it possible to live life in a way where I experience fear and then I decide to do things anyway? I guess I’ve come to a point of really journeying with God in love because 1 John 4 talks about how perfect love casts out fear and I’ve come to the point of realizing that I don’t overcome my fear by simply trying harder, by somehow trying to work out courage and bravery in myself, but rather if I want to overcome fear, I need to spend time with God understanding His heart for me. Any fear that is impacting me to the point that it is changing my decisions or motivating my decisions, that fear is an indicator that I haven’t come to grips fully with the affection of God for me.

And so if you’re someone in that space grappling with fear and being motivated by fear, I want to encourage you, just stop. Close your eyes. Rest your head and lean in on the one who loves you. It’s His affection that undoes and uproots the grip of fear in our lives, and the more we encounter His love and tenderness for us, then we can truly walk free from fear. We’ll still feel it but we won’t be driven by it. He just loves us and I’m coming to grips with the fact that He’s not afraid to love me over the top.

What the Enemy Wishes you Didn’t Know

Tue, 28 Feb 2017 18:00:00 GMT

Is Anyone Listening?

Thu, 16 Feb 2017 17:35:34 GMT

Recently I was reading Matthew 6 and something so simple yet incredibly encouraging jumped out at me. If we don’t understand the Father, we’ll think we have to bring something ‘worthy’ to make Him listen to us – in Matthew 6, Jesus talks about reliance on clever and long winded language. But in reality, if we are basing His listening to us on anything we have to offer – be it gift, strength of faith, impressive eloquence or anything else we can think of, then we simply have not understood Him.

As He teaches, Jesus here makes a step from the incorrect belief of gentiles that long prayers lead to being heard and simply says instead – your Father knows . Your Father is listening not because of anything you can bring. He listens simply because He is your Papa and He knows. He knows your needs. He gets it and He gets you. He’s listening not because of what you can convince Him of. He’s listening because of who He is. He is your Papa and His heart is for you. A little further on in Matthew 6, Jesus teaches against worry and does so again on the basis of relationship. He is your Father. And you are valuable to him. Not because of what you do, but because in making you His child He gave you value. Full stop.

So today as you go to Him – whether in hurried prayers in the midst of thousands of demands, or whether in hours of glory and soaking up His goodness, understand this: He’s listening to you. Not because of anything you are or aren’t doing, but simply because He’s your Papa and that’s what He does. He really is just that kind.

Feeding Thousands with my Packed Lunch

Wed, 25 Jan 2017 17:41:05 GMT

For a little while now I’ve been thinking over the story of Jesus feeding the five thousand. It’s an epic story – almost unbelievable – yet it really happened! My focus hasn’t been so much about Jesus and the incredible miracle He performs, but rather His disciples and their role in the whole thing. I’ve been trying to put myself in their shoes, trying to imagine how they felt as Jesus asked them to do something so completely ridiculous as feed a crowd of more than five thousand people with someone’s pitiful packed lunch.

Can you imagine it? Matthew 14 tells us that Jesus and the crowd are in a desolate place – there’s no hope of relying on anything in that setting to bail the disciples out when Jesus asks them to feed the crowd. The disciples are faced with thousands of hungry people… a crowd that are so hungry that they may well be tipping into the well known phenomenon of hanger (the meeting point between hunger and anger!) at any moment! And as they face this crowd that may well turn into a rioting mob pretty soon, Jesus is asking them to do the impossible.

Just at the point when things probably seemed like they couldn’t get much worse, Jesus gets everyone to sit down so there’s an increasing sense of expectation, prays over five loaves and two fish and then breaks them up and hands the pieces (which when divided by 12 can’t have been much more than one handful each) to his disciples. At that point the disciples must have been looking into their hands and then looking up at the crowd wondering what on earth Jesus expected them to do. Was this some kind of painful, un-funny joke? It’s actually quite an embarrassing moment if you think about it. They must have been so nervous as they made the walk from Jesus towards the crowd, they must have been calculating how many crumbs they could break their handful into and wondering how many people they could possibly placate before the crowd would start rioting in disappointment and frustration. Surely not an easy moment for them.

I wonder at what point the multiplication happened. At what point did the disciples realise that the pieces just kept remaining in their hands even though they were handing them out. Please note that there’s no mention that the disciples had any help carrying the food which presumably means that the multiplication didn’t happen all in one go at the beginning so that the disciples knew there would be enough for everyone, but rather must have happened in the process of them walking from one person to another which meant that they required faith to keep going until the very last person’s needs were met.

It’s remarkable to me that they did it. That they agreed to Jesus’ crazy plan. That they obeyed even when what they held in their hands right up until the very last second was painfully small. The fact that they did walk from Jesus to the crowd with such meagre supplies tells me that they must have been convinced enough about Jesus’ heart for them and ability to do something amazing (although my guess is they had no idea what kind of miracle was about to take place), to make them walk forward into the crowd, rather than finding the quickest route out of that desolate place. The disciples must have believed that Jesus was for them. That Jesus wouldn’t set them up for failure in such a horrible elaborate way. That Jesus wouldn’t ask them to do something if He didn’t have some kind of plan up His sleeve. They must have had enough faith in who Jesus was for them to empower them to walk towards an otherwise pretty certain beating up.

I’m so inspired by what the disciples did. At the beginning of this year as I’m looking at a busy diary and fresh challenges (some fun and some definitely not so fun!) and increasing demands on what I already feel are meagre resources, I’m provoked by the faith of the disciples to meet the challenge head on. They knew Jesus enough to know that He isn’t mean. They knew Him enough to know that He isn’t a fan of cruelly setting up to fail those who trust in Him. They knew Him enough to know that He cared about them and that when He put them in crazy situations it was because He wanted to do through them equally crazy miracles!

So, at the beginning of 2017, as I look at the packed lunch in my hand and feel the nudge of Jesus to walk forward and feed thousands with what surely is not enough, I’m challenged to believe that His heart is for me. That He loves me. That He’s not setting me up for some kind of spectacular defeat, but rather catapulting me into the wonderful realm of the miraculous. I’m provoked to press myself ever deeper into His heart for me so that the crazy situations I find myself in, the situations that feel horribly overwhelming, suddenly become opportunities for increase and Kingdom breakthrough.

What resources are you holding in your hand at the start of this year and what situations are you facing that far outweigh your ability? Rest assured, it’s a set up. A wonderful, God-filled, Kingdom-favoured set up. He’s going to do the impossible and He’s going to do it through you.

Gaining Heaven’s Perspective – Documentary

Mon, 09 Jan 2017 18:00:00 GMT

Frequentsee led a team of young people to Clarens, South Africa for “Gaining Heaven’s Perspective School”.

Do You Not Care?

Thu, 04 Aug 2016 17:45:58 GMT

This morning I was thinking again of the story of Jesus and his disciples in a boat in the midst of a storm. Remember that one? Jesus is fast asleep while his disciples are understandably terrified as the storm rages all around them and the waves are breaking in, filling the boat. They think they’re going to drown and are wondering why Jesus isn’t doing anything to help. They find him asleep and wake him with these words, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’ ( Mark 4:38 ) And Jesus amazing, wonderfully gets up, speaks to the storm and suddenly everything is quiet and still again. He then turns to the disciples and asks them, ‘Why are you so afraid? Have you still no faith?’ ( Mark 4:40 ).

Often I have read these words and thought that Jesus was asking the disciples why they didn’t have faith that He could calm the storm, but I’m not so sure that that’s what He’s getting at anymore. I think that Jesus’ question as to whether the disciples had faith is in relation to their earlier question – ‘Teacher do you not care that we are perishing?’ – which in fact was a question of love not of power. They weren’t asking whether Jesus could calm the storm, they were asking if He cared enough to do so. ’Do you not care that we are perishing?!’… ‘Here we are in the midst of a storm and you are fast asleep as if you don’t care enough about us to do anything about the waves that are about to overwhelm us!’ And Jesus turns to them, having quieted the storm, and asks them why they are afraid and if they still have no faith.

If 1 John 4:18 is right, perfect love drives out all fear. Jesus sees the disciples are afraid and the reason is that they have not fully understood His perfect love and so in the midst of the storm, fear rushes in because their hearts are crying out with questions about His heart and whether it has enough affection for them to meet them in their most vulnerable space.

I wonder how many who read this today are finding themselves in the midst of a tumultuous storm. I wonder how many of us in our brokenness are crying out with questions about God’s heart towards us. There’s nothing quite like the combination of a storm and a sleeping God (or so we assume because of His seeming lack of breaking through) to make us question whether we really are that important to Him and whether He cares all that much for us. The enemy loves to jump into the boat with us and shout in our faces that God doesn’t really love us and the storm is proof of it. Oh but don’t listen to the enemy – he is a liar. His only intention is to deter you from your destiny. Let me encourage you, even in the midst of the most terrifying of storms: GOD LOVES YOU. His heart is full to overflowing with affection for you. He sees you. He hears you. Even in the midst of your storm, He is putting in motion His plan to make all things work for your good and has dispatched His goodness and mercy to be your unwavering companions. Take heart, stand tall, lift up your weary head and let the warm rays of His steadfast love light your way ahead.

Keep on Walking

Mon, 01 Aug 2016 17:56:04 GMT

This week I’ve been reading through the account of Abraham and Sarah and their crazy radical challenging life. What’s struck me is that the Bible’s account of their story doesn’t really start with them but starts with Abraham’s father Terah.

In Genesis 11 we’re told that Terah had three sons, one of whom (Haran) died while they were in their homeland of Ur of the Chaldeans. We’re then told that Terah set off from Ur to go to the land of Canaan but when he came across a place called Haran he settled there instead and never made it any further into his adventures. I wonder if he settled in Haran because of the son that he had lost of that same name?

It makes me think of how crucial it is for us as the people of God to process our hurts and disappointments well. If we don’t learn to fully deal with the hurts of our past, we may like Terah be tempted to settle in places where we end up keeping those wounds alive rather than walking free into the crazy wonderful destiny that God has marked out for each of us.

The beautiful thing about this story is that God redeems what is lost for Terah and calls Abraham to continue journeying to where his father had started out – and promises all of that land as an inheritance for him and his offspring. Oh the kindness of our God – giving to Abraham what Terah had hoped for all those many years ago.

Let me encourage you (and me!) today: let’s be quick to bring our wounds and hurts before Jesus and allow Him to bring healing and restoration to our hearts and minds so that we are a people who walk fully free of our pasts, empowered to keep pressing forward into all the adventures that God has promised us.

Facing our Valleys of Defeat

Tue, 19 Jul 2016 18:11:52 GMT

Over the last couple of days, I’ve been reminded of some well-known verses in the book of Ezekiel (chapter 37) where God takes the prophet to a valley filled with the bones of an army. It’s a valley that represents utter hopelessness and total defeat – you only see a graveyard of an army if that army was defeated.

And yet, into this hopeless place of defeat, God speaks to Ezekiel and tells him to prophesy to these dead, defeated, dry bones and tell them to live. And of course, as Ezekiel obeys the promptings of God and makes prophetic declarations of life even in this valley of defeat and failure, life springs up and what was once silenced by the enemy is restored to full strength and glory.

I wonder how many of us carry the shame of our previous defeats? Moments where we failed to be all that we’re created to be. Moments where opportunities – so promising – were missed and seemingly forever lost. I wonder if for some of us, God is calling us to revisit these valleys in our hearts where we have grieved over dry bones, and is prompting us to declare life into the places where we’ve fallen before.

What strikes me about the passage in Ezekiel is that we’re told there were very many bones – a vast army defeated – and that they were very dry – this defeat had happened quite a while ago. I believe some of us are being called to revisit the places we would see as our biggest defeats, our most epic failures, and into those many bones that may have been in the valleys of our hearts for quite some time, we are to start prophesying flesh and breath and life.

The same Spirit who raised Jesus from the grave is very much alive in us and still loves to bring dead bones back to life. In a Kingdom where the grave itself holds no permanence and weakness is the perfect platform for power, defeats and failures are merely opportunities for God to show His nature as restorer of what is broken all over again. Let Him in, excavate those dry bones and let Kingdom power break out to make the valleys shake with the sounds of life once again.

Living in the ‘But God…’ Space

Tue, 12 Jul 2016 18:54:00 GMT

It’s been a few months now that I’ve been living in the ‘But God…’ space. You may not call it what I do, but I can bet that you’ve lived in that space too at some point or another. It’s the space where all your circumstances seem to be completely opposite to what God has promised you. It’s the point of tension between what your world looks like and what God has said it should look like. It’s not an easy space to live in.

And when I’m in that space, I find the words ‘But God…’ trip off my tongue so frequently. ‘But God, why are you letting this happen?!’… ‘But God, don’t you remember what you’ve said?’… and on and on my questions go. Initially my ‘But God…’ questions were not questions of faith but rather questions of complaint. Questions which at the heart of them contained doubt as to whether God cared about what He’d said and what was going on in my life. But then I read some words in Genesis 32 which changed the ‘But God…’ question for me.

In Genesis 32 we see Jacob who has been called by God to go back to the land of his fathers hearing some seriously frightening news that his brother, Esau (who Jacob previously cheated out of his father’s blessing) is on his way to meet him with 400 men by his side. Not news that Jacob wanted to hear at all! So when he hears the news, this is what Jacob prays –

9 “O God of my father Abraham and God of my father Isaac, O Lord who said to me, ‘Return to your country and to your kindred, that I may do you good,’ 10 I am not worthy of the least of all the deeds of steadfast love and all the faithfulness that you have shown to your servant, for with only my staff I crossed this Jordan, and now I have become two camps. 11 Please deliver me from the hand of my brother, from the hand of Esau, for I fear him, that he may come and attack me, the mothers with the children. 12 But you said, ‘I will surely do you good, and make your offspring as the sand of the sea, which cannot be numbered for multitude.’”

Here’s Jacob obeying the call of God and trusting His promise to him and suddenly he hears terrifying news. News that stole every last bit of courage for his home-coming out of him. News that filled him with fear as he realised that he may never make it to his homeland given that Esau was on his way to meet him and presumably was not particularly impressed by the wrongs Jacob had committed against him. As Jacob stood bang in the middle of the point of tension between what He’d heard God say to him and what his circumstances seemed to be screaming at him (i.e. TURN AROUND AND RUN AND SAVE YOURSELF!), he began to pray a ‘But God…’ prayer, but not one that was steeped in doubt but rather in faith –

‘But you said, ‘I will surely do you good…’’ (verse 12)

Jacob stood in the ‘But God…’ space and chose to make it a place of courage, a place of faith. He reminded himself (and God!) of the goodness promised him and then refused to obey what his circumstances were telling him to do. He refused to turn around. He refused to give up. He made his home in the ‘But God…’ space. But God had promised to surely do him good, so onwards he would go.

I wonder what promises God has spoken over you that your circumstances are trying to get you to turn away from? I wonder whether you are listening to the discouraging voice shouting in your ear ‘Turn around! You’ve got it wrong! Go back to where it was safe!’ or whether you’re allowing the still small voice to wash over you with ever increasing certainty, ‘But You said you will surely do me good.’

God has promised that His goodness and mercy will follow you all of the days of your life. Into the wind, into the waves, into the heart of the storm they will follow you. Don’t give up. Don’t turn around. Onwards into his promises let us go, choosing to make our home in the ‘But God…’ space until all the other things fade away and what He has promised unfolds in all its brightness before our eyes.

Thanksgiving is our Dialect

Wed, 27 Apr 2016 19:27:40 GMT

Recently i was reading through Ephesians 5 and came across this verse that really impacted me –

‘… instead [of filthy or foolish talk] let there be thanksgiving’ ( Ephesians 5:4 )

The Message translation puts it like this: ‘Thanksgiving is our dialect’.

I like that. I am created to be a woman who is fluent in thanksgiving. A woman who is aware of her good, good Papa in all circumstances so is able to speak the language of gratitude irrespective of my surroundings. A woman who finds that thanksgiving is instinctive – not something i have to actively think about but something that just comes out naturally.

Much like learning any language, it may be challenging to begin with and the language may not flow too easily from me. But, with enough intentionality, enough time given to practice and any language becomes increasingly instinctive.

I want thanksgiving to be instinctive for me.

A couple of weeks ago i read a Bill Johnson quote – “Complaining proves nothing but that you can hear the voice of the devil”.

Complaining is a practice completely at odds with thanksgiving. Complaining puts me in the slip stream of the devil’s ideas and intentions for my circumstance. Thanksgiving on the other hand is the language of heaven – constantly connecting me with the heart of my kind Papa who has shown His goodness to me time and again.

So here’s my challenge to you and to me – let’s be a people who start speaking the language of our home and let thanksgiving flow from our lips. Let us step out increasingly to see our intentionality lead to fluency. Let our natural response in all circumstances become the dialect of thanksgiving because we are a people who know that our Papa is with us and His goodness will be our ever present reality.

The Three D’s

Wed, 03 Feb 2016 19:49:58 GMT

In my quest to stop ‘playing it safe’ in life, I’ve been asking myself some hard questions about what I believe God has created me to do and how I’m positioning myself for it. It’s not good enough to fill our journals with prophetic words that people have given us and simply wait for them to happen. God invites our involvement. And while only God can bring the words to full fruition, our role is that we would position ourselves in faith for them and, crucially, when an offer of a compromise comes along, refuse to settle.

The Devil aims to try to derail us from our prophetic destiny and to do so he often uses one of the three Ds:

Distraction –

If the devil can get you looking in any other direction, he will. Whether it be sin, or just getting busy with life, or even other ‘good’ pursuits – as long as it’s not the reason you were created, he’ll happily lead you there.

Discouragement –

He loves this one. Whether it be by intimidation or by causing delay if the devil can he will try to sap all the courage from you so that you won’t have the heart left to pursue your destiny. Look at the life of David – he had to overcome both the in-your-face intimidation of Goliath and the long years of waiting in Saul’s shadow in order to step into the fullness of his destiny as King of Israel. Intimidation and delay both have one purpose in the mind of the devil: discouragement.

Diminishment –

If he can’t succeed in either of the above, he’ll go for a compromise to diminish your impact. His plan is one of containment – if you have to pursue your destiny, he’ll try to get you to stop at a lesser stage than the one you were created for. Look at Moses for this one. God tells him to lead the Israelites out of Egypt and when he tells Pharaoh that, Pharaoh initially says no and then starts offering Moses a compromise instead –

Exodus 8 – ‘If it’s worshipping your God you’re after Moses, why don’t you just do that in this land? I’ll let you worship, but just stay in Egypt’

Exodus 10 – ‘Okay, okay, if you have to leave Egypt, why take all the bothersome women and children with you – they’ll only slow you down anyway – why don’t all you guys go alone instead?’

In both cases, the enemy’s intention was clear – if Moses insisted on pursuing his destiny, then an offer of a compromise would have to be made so that at least there would be a diminishing of the effect of his destiny.

I feel like often we are good at spotting the first two of the enemy’s tactics, but sometimes stumble at the last hurdle. Maybe we feel like close enough is good enough, or are nervous to hold out for the fullness of what God’s spoken – what if it doesn’t come to pass and we’re left with nothing to show for all our trouble? But let me tell you, both of those thoughts are whispers directly from the enemy’s camp. Don’t pay him any attention – he’s a liar!

Don’t lose heart! You were made for greatness, and the enemy knows it. Keep fixing your eyes on Jesus, keep listening to the voices of those who have gone ahead all standing witness to the faithfulness of God. He who called you knows what He’s doing. Refuse to turn aside, refuse to let your knees get weak, refuse to settle for less than the full prize. Keep your eyes straight ahead, for just beyond the horizon, just beyond all the enemy’s scare tactics, you’ll see the sun in all its glory rising.

Playing by the Rules

Thu, 21 Jan 2016 20:02:21 GMT

Do you have a theme for your year? Every January i like to spend some time thinking, dreaming and praying to get a sense of what the year ahead is going to look like and to settle myself into a truth that i believe will be key for the challenges and adventures ahead – a theme for the year if you like.

For any of you who’ve been following this blog for a while now, you may remember that last year’s theme was God’s faithfulness – and boy did i need to return to that wonderful truth again and again as my husband and i said goodbye to loved ones, moved countries, took on new jobs, renovated a house, found new friends and had a gorgeous little baby boy! Faithful is certainly one of the words i’d use to describe my Papa God in 2015!

So, looking ahead for 2016, i’ve stumbled upon a new theme for a new year. This one’s going to require more courage from me. My theme for this year is ‘Playing by the Rules’. Now that may not sound like it will need much bravery to see it through, so let me try to explain –

In Ezekiel 11 God tells the Israelites

“You have not walked in my statutes, nor obeyed my rules, but have acted according to the rules of the nations that are around you.”

As i read this verse a couple of weeks ago, it struck me that we are all playing by someone’s rules. No matter how we live our lives, no matter how independent-minded or unusual we like to think of ourselves, the reality is each of us is living life either according to Kingdom rules or worldly ones – there is no other option.

The more i think about it, the more i can see how big a temptation it is for me to live by worldly rules – rules that dictate how i spend or save my money (usually selfishly and in accordance with my bank statement), rules that dictate how i interact with people (often seeking to please people so i will be liked), rules that dictate whether i take risks or not (failure is something to be feared so playing it safe is often deemed more ‘sensible’). The temptation to live by worldly rules is strong because it makes me feel more in control.

Playing by Kingdom rules is much more risky. Now, don’t get me wrong – when i mention Kingdom rules, i’m not talking about the 10 commandments. I’m talking values far deeper and far harder than 10 simple laws. I’m talking about outrageous, over-the-top love like Jesus modelled, even to my enemies. I’m talking extravagant generosity, for my finances are dictated by the unlimited resources of heaven and my Papa who loves a cheerful giver is my provider. I’m talking crazy faith that laughs in the face of risk – for faith pleases Him, not performance, and so the fear of failure need not have a hold over me anymore. I’m talking unreasonable joy and unshakable hope and mystifying peace.

So, you see, my theme of ‘playing by the rules’ is no easy task – it will take courage to live in the grace that will empower me to live according to these rules. But oh, i want to go all out in playing by them. I don’t want to play it safe any longer. I want to be outrageous and unreasonable and unshakable and risky. And i want to do it all to the glory of God.

How about you?

The Breakfast That Breaks Disappointment

Thu, 10 Sep 2015 05:05:22 GMT

In recent days I’ve been thinking a lot about the power we have in forgiving ourselves. Unless we’re able to embrace God’s grace and mercy in wiping the slate clean for us and walk freely forward without looking back at our own failures, we’ll never be able to step fully into all that God has for us.

I keep going back to Peter’s story in the gospels. The ‘head boy’ of Jesus’ disciples who then falls so epically in denying Jesus just before His death… we all know the story. The bit of the story that i can’t get out of my head is the series of events after Jesus has risen from the dead.

We get a little hint that all’s not well in Peter’s heart when Jesus speaks to the ladies at the tomb to ‘Go and tell the disciples and Peter’ ( Mark 16:7 ) about the resurrection. Why would Jesus feel the need to say ‘and Peter’ when Peter was one of the disciples – and arguably one of the most important at that? Had Peter been voted out of the discipleship group? – we get no indication from that in scripture. Maybe Jesus knew that Peter would need special encouragement after such a deep failure, to see himself again as the person he’d been called and created to be. Maybe Jesus wanted Peter to know that He still believed in him, that He still wanted him in his original role, even after the betrayal.

The next clue that we get that Peter’s heart is hurting is after Jesus has appeared to him and the disciples. Jesus turns up and shows the disciples that everything He ever said and claimed was true and that He really is God. WOAH!!! Time to throw a party! Jesus is alive and is GOD! But Peter does’t throw a party. In John 21 we see that knowing everything he now knows, Peter decides to go back to his old job – ‘I’m going out to fish’ ( John 21:3 ). Now what on earth would make him do a thing like that? This is the same Peter who once said there’d be nowhere to go outside of Jesus because He ‘holds the words of life’ ( John 6:68 ). Why’s he now walking away from Jesus who’s just had His most victorious moment? I wonder if it’s because Peter couldn’t shake off his sense of disappointment in himself. I wonder if it’s because He couldn’t look at Jesus without seeing his own worst and lowest moment and he couldn’t take the pain of that. I wonder if Peter walked away not so much because he was seeing Jesus differently, but because he was seeing himself differently – because he no longer felt worthy of his ‘head boy’ status but now was struggling with such a sense of unworthiness because of his failure that he decided to walk away.

But here’s the beautiful thing – Jesus was not disappointed with Peter. Disappointment requires for you to have had higher expectations of someone than what actually happens. But Jesus had accurate expectations of Peter right from the beginning. He knew that Peter was going to fail dramatically even when He called him. He knew on the night it happened and so warned Peter that ‘“Simon, Simon, Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. but I have prayed for you, Simon, that your faith may not fail. And when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers.” ( Luke 22:31 -32 ) We often read these verses thinking that when Jesus is praying for Simon’s faith not to fail, He’s praying that Peter won’t betray Him – but i don’t think that’s what Jesus is getting at at all because in the very next sentence, Jesus makes it clear that Peter will fail, but will then turn back. I think the ‘faith’ that Jesus is praying for is not the faith that stops the mistake, but the faith that helps us to continue believing in His words declared over us, in what He’s called us to be after the mistake is made so we’re able to turn back and strengthen others. Listen up: Jesus is not disappointed in you when you fail, because His expectations of you have always been 100% accurate, so He saw what was coming even when He called you. What He’s drawing you towards and strengthening you for is the ability to accept His grace over you, for the courageous faith to believe Him even when you no longer feel like a person worthy to carry His promises. The power to ‘turn back and strengthen the brothers’ is the power to forgive yourself and believe Jesus’ words over you again.

In one of the most tender moments of the gospels, the God of the universe cooks His disciples breakfast so that He can help one of His friends back to a place of faith again (John 21). Jesus calls Peter back from his sorry fishing expedition so that He can restore him to the fullness of his call and so that he can step freely into the destiny marked out for him. I wonder how many of us need to accept Jesus’ invitation to breakfast this morning? I wonder how many of us need to invite Holy Spirit to empower us to walk free from the shame of the past? Let Him in today – He cannot wait to break off the chains of your self-disappointment so you’re able to run again with full abandon the race marked out for you.

Another World

Tue, 01 Sep 2015 05:14:52 GMT

There are some friends that pull you towards another world. Friends that stir in you a hunger for something more, something other, something altogether more beautiful than the world you’re living in. Talking to them awakens in you the cry for the life you’ve always wanted, the life you were created to live – even if you were unaware of it before. This week i have the privilege of spending time with just such a friend. Talking to him of miracles and encounters and heavenly resource and Kingdom breakout tugs at my heart for more than i’ve settled for.

I don’t want to build my life simply with routines to inform me about another world (which is so easily what ‘spiritual disciplines’ can be reduced to), i want to build my life with routines that enter me into that world.

For whether i know it or not, that other world, that upside down Kingdom is coexistent with and in fact dominant over the world i’m living in. And if i want to, if i allow the cry of my heart to bubble up, if i listen to the quiet but determined invitation offered to me, i can experience in the here and now the vibrancy and colour of that Kingdom as it becomes my most perceived reality. Who are you spending your time with? Find friends who will help you listen to your heart cry. Put into your life-diet books and video clips and blog posts and anything else that will tug at you until you cannot ignore the life you were always created to live. ‘Seek the things that are above where Christ is seated… set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth’ ( Colossians 3:1O pen in Logos Bible Software (if available)+2) – notice Paul isn’t saying ‘set your heart and mind on Jesus’ (although that’s a great thing to do!), but he’s saying ‘fill your heart and mind with the things, the realities of heaven where Christ is’. Let’s live from heaven’s technicolour reality and let the pale greys of earth fade away.

Commands, Rebukes, and Life-Giving Promises

Tue, 30 Jun 2015 05:30:00 GMT

I realised something this week: the way I read my Bible & hear God’s voice has completely changed over the last few years.

I noticed it as I was reading 1 Peter & came across this verse: ‘Be holy as I am holy’. Now, the way I used to read this & hear God’s voice in it, was a command. God commanding me to live a holy life because He is a holy God. But I don’t read it like that anymore.

This week as I read those words, I was aware that I was hearing a tone of promise not command. I was hearing life-giving, fully transforming words where Jesus was declaring over me ‘Be holy’ much like he would declare healing over someone – ‘Be whole’ – not a command to them to make it happen, but a declaration of life over them – ‘This is what I’m saying you can be & now are’. Why? Because He is holy. His DNA is holy & that very DNA is in me. I get to be holy not because I try to be but because He has put His DNA in me & therefore I will be holy. I hope this makes sense to you – a promise, not a command.

I realise too that I now read words that I used to see as rebuke – words like ‘Go & sin no more’ – as promise not rebuke. Again, Jesus releasing life-giving transforming words over the hearer. Because He says it, power is released to accomplish it and therefore it’s a promise not rebuke.

What enables us to access the power of the promise is how we hear the words. If we hear Jesus’ words as command or rebuke that’s all the power we will encounter. But if we recognise in His words transforming power (which is His intention) and take hold of his words as such, explosive miraculous life will lay hold of us.

I wonder, what is Jesus saying to you today? If it’s ‘Stop sinning’, it’s not a rebuke but a word of empowerment – releasing over you the power needed to stop sinning. If it’s ‘Lay hold of me’, it’s not a command but a promise – he is to be found by you. If it’s ‘Run faster’ (ooh such a goody!!), it’s not a rebuke or command but a word of supernatural acceleration.

Hear his intended tone & you will reap his intended purpose: life and life in all its fullness.

A Simple Impossible Life

Tue, 23 Jun 2015 05:42:06 GMT

A little while ago i was reading from 1 John and stumbled upon some words that have got lodged into me. Words that provoke me with their simultaneous simplicity yet impossibility. Words that make me want to live differently and fill me with hope because i know i was created to live differently – everything God has put in me is enough to see these impossible words come to reality.

‘And this is His [the Father’s] commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another’ – 1 John 3:23 (ESV)

Now at first glance you may be wondering why these words have stopped me in my tracks and are filling my thoughts – they’re so basic. But i think that’s why they’ve got me. In reading these words i started thinking about what my every day moments would look like if i actually did both of the things i’m commanded to. What would my internal life look like and what would my interactions with the world outside me look like if my moments were motivated by living out these two things?

What does it look like for me to really BELIEVE Jesus in my everyday moments? For me to put my full weight of belief on Him? To believe what He says about Himself – that He’s good – really good – not just a little bit good but so lavishly good that He takes my breath away; that He’s strong enough for all my weakness and in fact most glorified if i press into Him in the moments where i come face to face with my greatest inadequacies; that He’s kind and loving and gracious and full of laughter and the only one i need with me in a storm. And what does it look like for me to really believe Jesus about what He says about me? – that i’m wonderfully made; that i can live truly free – free from fear, free from enslavement to man’s thinking and expectations and ‘wisdom’; that i’m powerful because His power is at work in me; that there’s God’s very DNA coursing with life in me prepared to take impossibilities and make them possible.

And what would my world look like if i learnt to really love others? Not just those i like. Not just those i find convenient. But really lived in a place of loving the people i meet every day, every moment? Love may look different in each different moment depending on the person before me and the needs of their heart. But i wonder, could i really be the sort of person who truly LOVES people, all the time?

And herein lies the reason for me finding these words stuck in my heart and echoing in my brain. The sheer impossibility of being a woman who lives her life according to these simple words staggers me. A woman who would believe Him and love others with all her heart. Now that seems a simple but tall order.

But the more i think about what God has promised for those of us who have put trust in Him, the more i realise that i don’t have to pray to become this person, but i get to embrace myself as this person because that is the reality of God giving me His nature. His nature at work in me is overflowing with belief. His nature at work in me is the very essence of love. And so my prayers have become less striving – ‘Oh God, turn me into a believing, loving person’ to ‘Oh God, help me embrace my real identity, because my new nature from You is a fully believing and loving person’. Subtle difference in words but massive difference in the fruit. I’m now staggered not only by the impossibility of the command, but more so by the graciousness of a good, good Father who has created in me the very nature able to live out that impossibility.

I want to encourage you today – won’t you join me in entering the adventure of living this simple, impossible life? A life where really all our moments boil down to us believing Him and loving others? Let’s make it our day’s mission to be more of who we have been made to be – fully believing, fully loving. And so the simple impossible life will ever so steadily become our reality.

What He Sows He Reaps

Sun, 22 Mar 2015 18:00:00 GMT

Recently I was teaching on the principle of sowing and reaping. The Bible (and nature) is pretty clear on this – we reap what we sow. You reap in kind what you have sown. You can’t sow apple seeds and expect to reap oranges. You can’t sow unrest and expect to reap peace and unity. You can’t sow in honour and reap anything but honour. Both in the good and in the bad, you’re going to reap what you sow. Pretty simple.

Got me thinking – it must mean that God reaps what He sows. And that then must mean really good news for us, because He has sown supernatural seed in the hearts of His followers. Incredible miraculous, life-giving, identity-transforming, power-infusing seed! And He reaps what He sows. Which means what God has sown in your life, He will see through to fruition. There’s nothing that He’s planted in you which will be wasted or come to nothing – His seed in you is good, and His work in you is trustworthy.

As you go about your day today, know this: what He’s started, He’ll complete in you. You don’t have to try really hard to be good, you don’t have to strive to keep the rules, He’s not relying on your strength or ability to perform, He knows His seed is what has the power to yield the fruit in us. We just get the privilege of leaning on Holy Spirit who loves to lead us into all truth – into the experience of true reality. He has sown in us wonderful new creation seed. Watch how it bears good fruit in His hands.

Songs in the Night

Tue, 17 Mar 2015 18:00:00 GMT

‘By day the LORD commands his steadfast love, and at night his song is with me’

Just a little thought today, because i can’t get these words out of my head this morning. Wonderful, strength-giving words from Psalm 42. Words that pour courage deep into me because i know whether in the day or night, whether in the brightest moments or darkest valleys, i am surrounded. Surrounded by His love, surrounded by His song.

I love the thought that in the night time God’s song is with me. His lullaby fills the atmosphere around me and chases away the hopelessness of the dark. There are songs that He reserves only for the night. Songs that bring peace in the midst of storms. Songs that bring comfort in heartache and strength for battle. Songs that ultimately speak of an unimaginably good Papa who’s got you in His hands.

As you read this – whether the sun is shining brightly over you, or even the moon is hidden on the darkest night – know this: He has committed Himself to loving you persistently and tenderly. There is not a moment where He hasn’t chosen to surround you and cover you. You are never alone and you’re never outnumbered. He’s got you.

Glory in Unlikely Places

Sun, 01 Mar 2015 18:00:00 GMT

I love the way God delights to use the least likely to reveal His glory. I can imagine Him in Heaven smiling to himself and choosing people for tasks that are much too big for them – knowing His grace is sufficient and His power will be most magnificently demonstrated in their weakness. It gives me hope and courage to step into all that God has invited me into – He’s got this, He’s just been kind enough to invite me along for the ride. I’m not the good choice, but I’m the grace choice – and that’s fine by me!

Beyond encouragement for myself, it provokes me to keep my eyes and ears open for unlikely sources of God’s glory in those I meet. If I’m an unlikely means of His goodness to others, surely others will be that to me? I wonder how often I have missed a means of God’s grace to me because I have rejected the packaging in which it’s come? I wonder how many unlikely vessels I’ve brushed aside because they don’t fit my ideas and expectations?

Here’s some food for thought: If you only stop for what meets your approval, you may be in danger of missing that which has true supernatural substance.

In the book ‘Beautiful One’, Anne Stock talks about the disguised nature of the Old Testament Tabernacle. The tabernacle was filled with all sorts of incredible earthly treasures and housed the very presence of God. But God in His wisdom commanded that its outer covering would be goats and rams skins (see Exodus 26). Any casual observer would see nothing special from the outside – just a large, brown tent. But oh if they only got close enough to really see, they would discover the treasure hidden within. A humble covering housed unimaginable beauty. I suspect God often takes pleasure in choosing unlikely coverings for spectacular content.

I want to be a woman who’s seeing with supernatural eyes. A woman who isn’t swayed by external packaging – neither unduly impressed, nor unfairly dismissive – but has trained her supernatural senses well to pick up on the slightest hint of glory wherever it may lie.

And I want to challenge you today: keep your supernatural eyes open. Who knows what treasure you may find?

When Dreams Don’t Come True

Sun, 15 Feb 2015 18:00:00 GMT

A few years ago two friends and i moved into a council estate in south east London. Our aim was simple – we wanted to be an expression of the Kingdom on earth – to love and befriend the community, heal the sick, feed the hungry, proclaim freedom to the captives… you get the idea. Central to our vision was a tired looking building right at the heart of the estate which we wanted to turn into a community centre – a place where we could serve and love and feed people from. The idea was exciting and crazy and full of adventure – and we loved it! We felt like God had spoken to us, given us a strategy, provided us with a home on the estate and we couldn’t wait to get started.

Fast-forward almost 5 years on and you’ll find the same estate with no community centre. Some of us moved out of the estate onto different adventures. A few other courageous adventurers moved in to take our place. Some beautiful unlikely friendships were formed with a few people on the estate. But as yet, no obvious outbreak of what we dreamt. All that we lived and breathed in our hearts and minds have somehow not made it into earthly reality – yet. I have to be honest, it’s painful when i think about it. It makes me sad to think back to wild, exciting hopes and dreams spoken of and prayed into in our little flat – hopes and dreams that we didn’t quite see through to spilling over outside our front door.

So five years on, i have to admit that sometimes dreams don’t seem to come true. But i want to say as emphatically as i can through my computer: it’s still worth the dreaming. And here are a few reasons why:

1. God is attracted to faith, not performance. It makes me smile because i know every person who was involved in throwing themselves into that dream for the estate brought pleasure to God’s heart. I can seem Him beaming over us even now, because we took the risk, because we believed that we could make a difference, because we believed that God plus one person is a majority no matter how many stand against you. And i still believe those things with all my heart. I would rather go out on a limb a million times more and fail whilst trying, than stay safe in my own secure bubble never jumping into the unknown with God. The thrill is in the jump.

2. Going on adventure is wonderful and painful and crazy and fun and may not have any of the results that you were aiming for, but if you have open eyes, you’ll see lots of results you hadn’t anticipated. I learnt so much in the years that i lived in that little grubby flat. Learnt how to pray and then pray and pray some more, learnt about my fears, learnt about how far i was willing to jump into the unknown if i thought God was in it, learnt about how hard my heart can be toward the broken and how much i need to embrace the new loving identity that God has given me, learnt about how faithful God is even when things don’t go as planned, learnt about how beautiful deep friendships can be, how precious friends are who agree to go on wild adventures with you just because they love you and have your back.

3. Nothing is wasted in the Kingdom. Nothing. The time we gave to that estate is not wasted but sown. The prayers we gave for that estate are not wasted but sown – God heard every one. The energy and money and dreams and hopes and anything else we gave are not wasted but sown. The Kingdom operates with sowing and reaping. My friends and i, and doubtless many before and after us, got the privilege of sowing. We put good seed into that ground. Miraculous seed. Supernatural seed. And that seed can’t help but grow. I may not be the one reaping on the estate – but i know someone will, because the seed we planted was good and inherently fruitful. Not only that, but in all that time that we were sowing on the estate, God was sowing into us – and His seed in us is good, fruitful and miraculous. I get to reap the benefit of that seed and oh i am so very grateful to Him for it.

Maybe not many of you reading this have dreamt of living on a council estate. But i know many of you will know what it feels like to see your dreams seemingly not come true. Let me encourage you, keep dreaming anyway. No matter what the enemy would want us to believe, one way or another, our dreams will bear much fruit.

Living a Fascinated Life

Sun, 01 Feb 2015 18:00:00 GMT

One of my favourite authors is a man called G.K.Chesterton . I still remember where I was when I read his book Orthodoxy, vacillating between being unable to put it down and forcing myself to slow down because I didn’t want to finish it too quickly. I felt like i was eating a feast – simultaneously feeling full and satisfied and yet hungry for more delicious mouthfuls. It is a book filled with fantastic insights and provoking arguments. If you haven’t already read it, do. I promise it will do you so much good.

In Orthodoxy, Chesterton talks of ‘the eternal appetite of infancy’ – a state of fascination and wonder and delight, even in repetition. He writes, ‘Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, “Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.’

Jesus said that His Kingdom belongs to little children – the way in is child-likeness. Child-like faith that is quick to believe and sees no reason to doubt. Child-like questions that are motivated by curiosity and not skepticism. Child-like joy that is always ready to bubble over into laughter and delight. Child-like fascination and wonder where repetition does not breed boredom but causes almost unreasonable excitement as the words ‘again, again!’ are exclaimed again.

In my eagerness to seem ‘mature’ I wonder if I have lost some of the beautiful child-like fascination that my Heavenly Papa so delights in. I wonder if I have somehow mixed up maturity and religious behaviour in my head and so become a more solemn version of the woman I was created to be, missing the fun, sun-lit moments that my Heavenly Papa is joyfully setting up for me. Some years ago Jesus spoke to me and encouraged me to take my grown-up ‘leader hat’ off and put my ‘child hat’ on instead so that I wouldn’t pass by moments pregnant with His goodness and pleasure because I was too busy being grown up. Elizabeth Barrett Browning wrote, ‘Earth’s crowned with heaven and every common bush afire with God, but only he who sees takes off his shoes; the rest sit around and pluck blackberries’. I want to live my life seeing heaven crammed in every moment, I want to see and take off my shoes, I want to persistently wear my child hat so I am ever increasingly caught up in wonder at my marvellous Heavenly Papa. He really is so worthy of wonder – if only I will open my eyes to see.

True Humility

Sun, 25 Jan 2015 18:00:00 GMT

It seems to me, that some christians have a problem with the concept of greatness. Not so much a problem with God being great, but more so difficulty with the idea that God made humankind to be great. A belief that to think ‘too highly’ of ourselves, to really believe that God has put anything great at all in us, is walking on dangerous ground and should be avoided at all costs. Better to think less of yourself than to risk falling into pride.

But i’m not too sure of this logic and this is why –

When i examine scripture, i see that every time someone thought of themselves in ways that were less than accurate, in ways that made less of who God had made them to be, there were disastrous consequences. I think of Eve in the garden of Eden right at the beginning of time. The serpent came and offered her the ability to become like God. The ironic thing of course, is that Eve already was like Him. She’d been made in God’s image. She already had what the devil was dangling in front of her. And yet, because she did not see herself accurately, because she thought of herself as less than what God had made her to be, she traded everything for the promise of something she already had.

All throughout the Bible this scenario repeats itself in different ways. The first generation of Israelites out of slavery in Egypt show the same problem. They looked at the promised land, loved what they saw of the land itself but became intimidated by the people of the land for they saw giants around them and saw themselves as grasshoppers. They thought less of who God had made them to be – His own people, empowered to take the land. They saw grasshoppers where God declared them to be victorious warriors and in their unbelief they traded what would have been incredible steps into their destiny for years of wandering in the desert and loss of all that was promised. The difference between them and the subsequent generation was nothing other than an understanding of who they were and who their God was. One generation thought less of themselves and perished, the next generation took God at His word about what He’d spoken over them and became conquerers.

Interestingly even with Jesus, the devil tried to bring doubt in His mind about who He was. In the desert where the devil tempted Jesus, the temptations were centred both around the character of the Father and around the real identity of Jesus. ‘If you are the Son of God…’ the devil said. If Jesus had begun to think less of Himself in that moment, everything would have been lost. But wonderfully, He saw His Father and Himself completely accurately. He would not be drawn to think less of either of them. And so the enemy was defeated.

I believe the enemy is bringing the same old questions and doubts to the people of God now, just as he has been doing right from the beginning. He understands that if he can make us believe less of ourselves than is true, then he’s got a good chance of stopping us in our tracks and robbing us of our God-given destiny. He doesn’t mind clothing all of this in the idea of ‘humility’ – twisting the word to mean something it doesn’t so christians wholeheartedly take hold of thinking less of themselves with the misguided notion that they are becoming more godly in the process.

The truth is, thinking less of yourself than is accurate is dangerous and foolish. God has put greatness in us. He’s made us in His image and adopted us as His children and given us the privilege of being heirs of His Kingdom. He has made us brand new creations with godly natures aglow with supernatural DNA. To deny any of this is to enter into the enemy’s trap.

Someone once defined humility not as thinking less of yourself but to think of yourself less. I like that. I don’t want to fall into the enemy’s trap to think less of myself – God has put greatness in me and i’m so grateful for it! But to think of myself less and to fix my eyes on Him and all those He loves. Ah, now that’s humility i want to lay hold of. Let me encourage you – be honest about how great God has made you to be, and then put your focus on the God who gives you greatness in the first place. It will make you someone full of courage and faith – knowing He’s put everything needed in you for your destiny, and knowing He who began a good work in you is faithful to see it to completion.

Make Faithfulness Your Home

Thu, 01 Jan 2015 18:00:00 GMT

At the beginning of this year I feel older. Not older in a tired way, but older in a deeper, fuller way. Older in the sense that this last year was full of rich experiences – some wonderful and fantastic, some ok, and some down right miserable. But what made them all rich is that in every one of those experiences, the faithfulness of God shone through. Whether in the highest mountain peak or the lowest, darkest valley, He cannot help but be Himself – good, loving, faithful, true and oh-so-breathtakingly-kind. And so i sit typing at my computer with a smile on my face, seeing His fingerprints all over 2014 and looking forward to another year where i’ll get to glimpse even more of who He is, both in the good and in the bad times.

Yesterday i read an invitation to ‘feed on faithfulness’ (Psalm 37). I like that. I’ll be taking it as my theme for this year – whatever the circumstance, i’ll be digging deep into the treasure chest of His faithfulness and feeding off of it for fullness of life. I plan on making His faithfulness my home, secure in this wonderful truth, that there’s more than enough of His goodness for all of us.

Potent Commands

Fri, 05 Dec 2014 18:00:00 GMT

One of my favourite books read this last year has been Chuck Parry’s ‘Free Falling’. If you haven’t read it, do. It’s a challenging, inspiring, thought-provoking book chronicling the many miracles Chuck has witnessed during his life so far. I remember reading it in a coffee shop and the presence of God falling on me so wonderfully and sweetly, i felt thoroughly undone and put back together again all in one moment. One of the highlights for me is when Chuck talks through his take on Jesus’ words in John 15, ‘If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love’. He makes the point that Jesus is not referring to the 10 commandments or some rule book. In fact, if you go through the New Testament looking for commands that Jesus gives, (which i haven’t done, but Chuck has!), those given most frequently are:

Be made whole (summarising all of His healing commands)

Believe

Fear not

When Jesus teaches us to live in His love – a position of rest, of receiving – He tells us to pay special attention to His commands – commands for us to live in wholeness, commands for us to put our full weight of belief in Him, commands for us to live lives free from fear (for perfect love casts out fear).

I want to live just such a life. Whole. Faith-filled. Fearless. The beauty is of course, that Jesus’ words have within them the power to accomplish that which they demand. This is why he never prayed for the sick, he simply told the person to be healed. It’s why he said to the woman caught in adultery, ‘Go and sin no more’ – not a word of disapproval, but one of transformation, for as he said it power was released to her to go and sin no more. It’s why Peter who had observed the potency of Jesus’ commands says to Him as Jesus is walking on water, ‘Lord, if it is you, tell me to come to you’, for as Jesus gives the invitation ‘Come’, power is released for Peter to step out and walk on waves alongside His master. Jesus is not placing on us a heavy duty of obedience, but in speaking a command over us He is releasing the power for its accomplishment. And so, Jesus’ commands become wonderful invitations into lives of fullness and freedom. No matter who you are or where you are today, Jesus is speaking a power-filled invitation over you, words of heaven’s potency – be whole, believe, fear not. Because He has said them, we get to walk in them. Wow.

Happy Intercession

Mon, 17 Nov 2014 18:00:00 GMT

The week before Julian and I got married, his mum became very ill. She was admitted into hospital and every day the report from the doctors got worse and worse leading to a call the night before the wedding telling us that she wasn’t going to make it through the night. In that moment, i felt like we were going to be swallowed up in grief and loss, just at the moment where we should have been caught up in great celebration. Amazingly, what the doctors predicted didn’t happen – mum pulled through, the wedding went ahead, and though she wasn’t there to witness the day, she’s alive and well today to witness our marriage. In the weeks after our wedding, Julian and i spent some time processing what had happened – we felt like we’d got caught up in a whirlwind that threatened to destroy our joy and peace and though we were thrilled at the turn-around in mum’s health and the wonder of being married, we needed to process some of the disappointment of his mum’s illness and her absence on the wedding day.

Shortly after this, we were in Redding, California for a conference at Bethel Church and i had an encounter with God that has completely transformed my understanding of battling in the whirlwind. God burst in on me in such a way that i spent about an hour and a half crying with laughter – i could not control it and every time i tried to stop it, another wave of pure, overwhelming joy would wash over me. What was unusual about this encounter is that it started as i was having my dinner in the hotel. You can just imagine what kind of scene i was making! Poor Julian had to half carry me out into the car, and again had to help me into the evening meeting of the conference. As i lay on the floor completely undone by this laughter i started asking God what on earth was going on. I had not asked Him for this hysterical manifestation so i knew He must be up to something!

He began to tell me that He was teaching me about warfare. That He was showing me how to be an effective intercessor – His joy is strength (Nehemiah 8), and in a battle, God knows we need strength. He spoke to me about how He wanted me to pursue this kind of happy warfare next time i was caught in a whirlwind that threatened to destroy. This is warfare Jesus style – get super happy in God, tap into the rivers of joy in His heart and laugh at the enemy’s plans, laugh at his lies and start declaring the exact opposite into being. After all, our Father laughs at the enemy (Psalm 37) and prepares for us feasts in the presence of ours (Psalm 23). It’s time for us to stop living an anaemic version of christianity because we’ve overlooked the importance of joy in the battle. When was the last time we accepted God’s invitation to feast in the presence of our enemies? To fill up on His joy and goodness and kindness and stand our ground and laugh at the absurdity of the enemy’s tactics.

Joy is not a frivolity. Joy = Strength. Live a life devoid of joy and i’ll bet there’ll be a great shortage of strength too. But accept the invitation to dive into God’s joy and you’ll find all the strength needed for the battlefield. Laughter is powerful and intercession can be fun. Who knew?

Living Recklessly

Sun, 09 Nov 2014 18:00:00 GMT

A few years ago i had a picture during a time of worship that has been going through my mind in recent days. What i saw in that moment changed how i lived life subsequently and now as its memory has been floating around in my mind, i’m feeling afresh its provocation to step out just a little bit further than my predictable, safe normality and allow myself to be stretched again. In the vision i saw myself jumping into ocean waters and swimming as deep as i could go and then returning to the surface to catch my breath. I had this feeling of needing to go deeper still, so i would jump back into the water again and try to get to new depths, before inevitably having to come back up to catch my breath.

The vision continued like this a number of times – repeated cycles of me plunging into the waters, trying to stretch to greater depths but always, disappointingly returning to the surface to catch my breath. As i tried to make sense of what i was seeing, i felt the Father gently but firmly pinpointing my problem – i was struggling to reach the depths i longed for because i was always saving enough breath to return to the surface. His invitation to me, though simple, was completely radical to the sensibilities of my ‘rational’ thinking – He was inviting me into adventure with Him where i would not save enough breath to return to where i’d started but i’d invest it all in exploring new depths of His heart. No more safety net. No more sensible reserves incase my God adventure didn’t come off.

No going back.

His invitation was full-blown, abandoned, head-long plunging into the unknown with no intention of ever coming back to the surface. Of choosing to make my home in the depths of His heart and His adventures for me. To take the hand i’ve been dealt with today and go ‘all in’ on it. I don’t know about you, but i don’t want to reach the end of today knowing that i still have breath in me for returning to the surface. I want to live today recklessly spending all my reserves, trusting that the One who calls me to Himself has more than enough to sustain me on this crazy wonderful journey of following Him.

Aglow with Supernatural DNA

Sun, 02 Nov 2014 18:00:00 GMT

I think I may be too hard on myself. In my attempts to live a ‘supernatural lifestyle’ (whatever that looks like), I often beat myself up if I don’t get something right first time around or assume that I must have made a mistake if whatever I’ve stepped out to do doesn’t come off as I had hoped or planned.

I remember going out onto the streets of London a few years ago with my wonderful friend Toni and praying for the sick (or anybody we could find who would let us pray for them!) and wondering what I was doing wrong as we didn’t seem to be seeing any miracles happening as we prayed. I remember walking away disappointed as time and again we weren’t seeing any ‘success’, wondering if i was really built for supernatural life after all. Maybe the promise of the miraculous was meant for ‘special’ christians who were more anointed than i was?

More recently though, i’ve started wondering if my only mistake at that time was to underestimate the beauty and the nature of process. When a child learns to walk or talk no one with any sense is assuming that they’ll be able to do it successfully on the first attempt. In fact, no one with any sense assumes that they’ll be able to do it successfully on the hundredth attempt either! It takes countless attempts for a child to step out until eventually their stumbles look more like walking rather than falling, and their words become intelligible instead of baby babble. But if you look at their parents during this process, they never once punish the child for falling instead of taking a successful step, or for mispronouncing a word for the hundredth time even though dad has taken great pains to sound the word out correctly for the child to follow. As we see stumbles and hear nonsensical sounds from the child, no one comes to the conclusion that the child wasn’t actually created to walk or talk. That somehow those are gifts reserved for ‘special’ or ‘super’ children – which as evidenced by their failed attempts, our children do not possess. In the natural, we understand the beauty and nature of process well. Why then, do we not apply this same principle to our attempts at stepping out in supernatural life? Why do we set up such impossibly high standards for ourselves as if our heavenly Papa is growing impatient with us as He watches us stumble, wondering if we’ll ever get it right. He has grace for the process, and so must we. Every time we fall instead of walk, our heavenly Papa is there to pick us up, dust us off and say, ‘That’s ok, we’ll try again tomorrow, you’ll get it eventually – i made you to!’ No amount of stumbling and failure is proof that we were not made for the miraculous or that signs and wonders are reserved for someone other than us. Each and every one of us carries DNA aglow with supernatural life, which means we were created with the miraculous in mind. If you’re someone like me, who still often finds herself stumbling – resembling more a fall than a walk in the supernatural, take heart. Your heavenly Papa is right there with you with a big smile on His face – attracted much more to your faith than your performance – and is saying, ‘That’s ok my love. We’ll try again tomorrow’.

I Smell Fresh Bread…

Fri, 17 Oct 2014 18:00:00 GMT

Recently I was reading Darren Wilson’s book ‘Igniting Furious Love’ and came across a paragraph which made me stop reading and start praying instead. Ever had one of those moments? The paragraph was in a chapter on evangelism by Heidi Baker. She responds to the suggestion that people we come across may not be hungry for Jesus and says, “‘What if nobody is hungry?’ you ask. If you get into the presence, into the intimate presence of God, if you get into the holy place, if you’re connected with Jesus, in love with Jesus, breathing, eating, dreaming with Jesus – then fresh bread, the bread of presence is in your hands and even the rich cannot resist fresh, fresh bread.” And that got me thinking. So many of us get caught up in the latest strategy for evangelism. We listen to multiple sermons on how to reach the lost and how to be more effective at preaching the Gospel. But i think Heidi Baker may be onto something here! The reality is, even if you feel full, if you walk into a bakery where fresh bread is being made, the wonderful aroma is enough to make you start salivating. Just a moment ago you were thinking about how full you felt, but in the presence of the smell of fresh bread even the most self-controlled individual begins to melt. I feel provoked to be someone who carries fresh bread. It’s not good enough for me to describe bread to people – that will not ignite hunger – I hav to be carrying the real deal so that the fragrance will create a hunger in them, even where hunger was previously thought to be absent. Sharing the gospel is not about me following some tick-list of things to say and do, but is about coming to the bread of life, soaking up His presence, learning to carry and host His presence, so that i become the fragrance of Jesus to a lost world – the aroma of fresh bread really is irresistible.

Refusing to Change the Subject

Thu, 09 Oct 2014 18:00:00 GMT

I think it was a sermon from Graham Cooke that i was listening to – he said the devil doesn’t have the Holy Spirit in him and so it’s impossible for him to exhibit the fruit of the Spirit so he cannot be patient. It then follows, that in whatever situation that you’re in, if you’re in the place that God’s put you and the devil’s trying to come against you, if you just keep going, you can out-patience him. It’s like he’s playing a game of supernatural ‘chicken’ with you – coming at you head on – and he’s betting that you’ll be the one to flinch and change your course first. But what if you don’t? What if you’re the one who stays on course for longer? What if you refuse to change the subject causing him to lose patience and move first? I was mulling over all this when my amazing friend Sarah (of the aforementioned costa coffee experience) told me of some research she’d heard that shows that couples who are unhappy and wanting a divorce, if they just decide not to divorce (that’s all they have to decide – no change in behaviour, no new marriage strategy), in the vast majority of cases they’ll testify to being happy together in 5 years time. Just a simple decision to not change the subject, to keep going forward, to refuse to quit and voila, they’ve out-patienced the devil who loves to bring division and breakdown of relationships. It’s easy to assent to this idea of out-patiencing the devil from a distance, but harder when you’re the one going through the difficulties. When all that is around you is crumbling and the temptation to point the finger at God and say ‘Why aren’t you answering my prayers?! Don’t you see? Don’t you hear? Don’t you care?’ pulls you like an overwhelming current. I had just such an experience in this last month. Suffering a personal loss and feeling the effects of it in my own body with things seemingly going downhill even after much prayer. After a month of no recovery, i started to grow impatient. Impatient with the situation, impatient with God. And just as i was about to push Him away and give up i remembered Graham Cooke’s advice to out-patience the devil. And so, there was only one thing for it. I decided to write all my disappointments and hurts on a piece of paper then stand on that piece of paper and worship until i connected with God and had a good attitude. It may have taken a couple of hours (i’m a slow learner), but i tell you the sense of wonder when God touched my heart and all that felt like ash slowly turned beautiful in my heart was incredible. He really is able to turn mourning into dancing (Psalm 30) and out-patiencing the devil has turned out to be one of the best things i’ve done in a long time. Keep going. Keep pushing. Once you’ve heard God’s opinion, refuse to change the subject and you’ll see just around the corner, eventually, sometimes oh so gradually, the glimmer of heaven breaking in on the seams of earth.

Glory in a Coffee Cup

Sat, 04 Oct 2014 18:00:00 GMT

This morning I had the best coffee ever. I’m serious. My amazing friend Sarah suggested we meet at 7am at our local Costa coffee shop so that we could have an hour of catching up time before she caught a flight to the States and before I got on with work for the day. I thought the early start (I love my sleep!) was a big sacrifice but oh. my. goodness. was it worth it. We talked about everything from our marriages to out-patiencing the devil (more on that another time!) and from our extended families to the Kingdom of God breaking out in our everyday lives so that we’re no longer just trying to get through the day but we’re allowing God to use our normality to be the doorway for His outrageous goodness to transform our realities. Pretty awesome stuff for 7am. It occurred to me that slowly but surely Jesus is helping me renew my mind so that i really believe Him. Not believe the theoretical possibility of His life in me, but really believing Him for all that is true of heaven and His presence to make its home in me and to radiate from me to others. I’m realising more and more that i can put my full weight on Him. My full weight. Not holding onto something incase He should give way, but sitting on His truth like i’m sitting on the chair i’m in right now – not even the tiniest concern that it’s going to give way. I know it’s sturdy. I know it’s secure. And so I’m completely at rest in it. Psalm 9:10Open in Logos Bible Software (if available) says that those who know His name trust in Him. I’m loving the adventure of getting to know His trustworthy name all the more and so slowly relinquishing my hold on my ‘plan b’s’. Lots of food for thought… and all this from just a morning coffee with a friend – think I may do that again!

Katia Adams Blog

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