You’re the God of this city

Jesus said:

Believe me when I say that I am in the Father and the Father is in me; or at least believe on the evidence of the miracles themselves. I tell you the truth, anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Son may bring glory to the Father. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.

John 14:11-14

Brothers and sisters, do you realise how powerful a weapon prayer is? It is our attack on the battlefield against Satan’s desire to hold people back from freedom. 

Do you realise that, as followers of the LORD on this side of Christ’s victory on the cross, that we are purposed to do even greater things than the miracles Christ had performed? For He purposed us, and empowered us by the Holy Spirit, to be his witnesses to the ends of the earth. As a people who declares to be “Christians”, followers of Christ, are you obeying His Word? When you see the state of the city that you live in, does your heart break? For Christ’s heart broke for His city.

And as a people declaring to trust in His promises, do you trust that He can answer prayer? Because God can, and does answer bold prayer.

Here is one incredible example of the church asking the Father for big things in Christ’s Name. This prayer is answered for it is in line with the will of God to see more and more come to life.

 When they were released, they went to their friends and reported what the chief priests and the elders had said to them. And when they heard it, they lifted their voices together to God and said, “Sovereign Lord,who made the heaven and the earth and the sea and everything in them, who through the mouth of our father David, your servant,^[a] said by the Holy Spirit,

    “‘Why did the Gentiles rage,
   and the peoples plot in vain?
The kings of the earth set themselves,
   and the rulers were gathered together,
   against the Lord and against his Anointed’—

for truly in this city there were gathered together against your holy servant Jesus, whom you anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, along with the Gentiles and the peoples of Israel, to do whatever your hand andyour plan had predestined to take place. And now, Lord, look upon their threats and grant to your servantsto continue to speak your word with all boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal, and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus.” And when they had prayed, the place in which they were gathered together was shaken, and they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and continued to speak the word of God with boldness.

- Acts 4:23-31

Christ came to preach good news to the poor, proclaim liberty for the captives, recover the sight of the blind, set at liberty those who are oppressed, and proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour. 

Are you witnesses to this? 

Body of  Christ, are you doing what Christ did, following His command? Are you preaching good news to the poor? Are you proclaiming liberty for all those who are held captive by and oppressed by government, or their family, or their addiction, or their brokenness, or their greed? Are you recovering the sight of those who are spiritually blind?

It’s a big mission.

But it is God’s will for His body to be alive and moving, and He will empower you with His Spirit.

Pray for greater things to be done in your city, because Jesus is not just the LORD of Christians. He is LORD of all, and one day every knee will bow at His Name. Pray for revival. Body of Christ, proclaim that your LORD is risen, and call those who are spiritually dead to come awake and rise up from the grave.

Greater things have yet to come, greater things are still to be done in this city! We believe; we believe in You God 

Don and I are going out into the city tonight

Please pray that God will make our hearts to joyfully serve, pray that He removes any nervousness or anxiety. Pray that we will feel His presence with us the whole time that we’re out. Pray that we speak bold words.

Pray that He softens hearts to listen, pray that we can meet their physical needs, even if it’s in a small way, but pray that we can share with them the living water that will end all spiritual thirst. Pray that we go out and give people hope tonight. Pray that we will have new brothers and sisters tonight. We could really use a cocoon of prayer, that we would look so radiant with His glory and love that people can’t help but see Christ.

please read:

my friend Ella Armstrong (flowersfordelilah) is going on outreach to Denmark very soon and still needs to raise a fair bit of money. I trust that God will provide for her, and I ask that you will consider giving her whatever God places on your heart to give. My pastor once said that we will one day stand in the kingdom of heaven next to people who are there because He used us in His mission. Please consider being generous and sharing in that joy :) You can give via the Youth With A Mission website: https://www.ywamperth.org.au/007/payonline.asp

Brothers and sisters, there is so much work to be done.

This world is broken. People are so broken. They are so thirsty, and there are so many who need to know peace and joy that this world can’t offer. There are so many who are yet to experience the love of Christ. And when we refuse to love like He did, we are holding them back from experiencing that love. When we refuse to spend our time, our energy, and our money on loving and serving others like He did, all people see in our hearts is the same empty selfishness that they have seen all their lives. Brothers and sisters, we need to be different. We need to stop pretending that we’ve got this whole Christian thing together, and start offering ourselves as living sacrifices as we act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with the Lord. Christ didn’t just speak words of truth, without true service. He didn’t just serve, without speaking boldly. The heart of Christ contains the most beautiful mix of humility and faith. Stop holding back. Stop holding back your love, and stop silencing yourself when people need to know the glory of His Name. It’s not one or the other. Do both.

The harvest is ripe. He is asking for workers. He is asking YOU to work.

job 29

I stumbled upon this passage today and realised the months that Job longs for are where I am now, or at least, I’m somewhere at the start of this picture. I longed for this a few years ago, and I never thought it would be possible. I want to do all these things that Job did, and God will enable me to do it if my desires are for His glory. Bipolar no longer has a firm hold on me. I will love, and the Spirit will teach me to love well. This is how I want to serve. My ‘prime’ has not passed. My path is drenched with cream. Spirit, teach me to love like this. Make my face a precious sight to others through the way that I walk at the impulse of Your love.

 ² “How I long for the months gone by,
       for the days when God watched over me,

 ³ when his lamp shone upon my head
       and by his light I walked through darkness!

 ⁴ Oh, for the days when I was in my prime,
       when God’s intimate friendship blessed my house,

 ⁵ when the Almighty was still with me
       and my children were around me,

 ⁶ when my path was drenched with cream
       and the rock poured out for me streams of olive oil.

 ⁷ “When I went to the gate of the city
       and took my seat in the public square,

 ⁸ the young men saw me and stepped aside
       and the old men rose to their feet;

 ⁹ the chief men refrained from speaking
       and covered their mouths with their hands;

 ¹⁰ the voices of the nobles were hushed,
       and their tongues stuck to the roof of their mouths.

 ¹¹ Whoever heard me spoke well of me,
       and those who saw me commended me,

 ¹² because I rescued the poor who cried for help,
       and the fatherless who had none to assist him.

 ¹³ The man who was dying blessed me;
       I made the widow’s heart sing.

 ¹⁴ I put on righteousness as my clothing;
       justice was my robe and my turban.

 ¹⁵ I was eyes to the blind
       and feet to the lame.

 ¹⁶ I was a father to the needy;
       I took up the case of the stranger.

 ¹⁷ I broke the fangs of the wicked
       and snatched the victims from their teeth.

 ¹⁸ “I thought, ‘I will die in my own house,
       my days as numerous as the grains of sand.

 ¹⁹ My roots will reach to the water,
       and the dew will lie all night on my branches.

 ²⁰ My glory will remain fresh in me,
       the bow ever new in my hand.’

 ²¹ “Men listened to me expectantly,
       waiting in silence for my counsel.

 ²² After I had spoken, they spoke no more;
       my words fell gently on their ears.

 ²³ They waited for me as for showers
       and drank in my words as the spring rain.

 ²⁴ When I smiled at them, they scarcely believed it;
       the light of my face was precious to them.

 ²⁵ I chose the way for them and sat as their chief;
       I dwelt as a king among his troops;
       I was like one who comforts mourners.

Don’t you know? He loves you so much. He did everything He can to open your eyes to see just how much He loves you. Hasn’t He changed everything for you? Don’t you wake up with purpose and with hope and life and freedom? Don’t you know how much He loves you?

He loves you.
He loves you so much.

Oh, how how He loves you.

Our God is jealous for you. People don’t understand this. Don’t you know? Don’t you know how absolutely and completely loved you are? He is jealous for you because He can’t bear to see you give your heart to things that will keep breaking you and breaking you and breaking you? He is jealous for you because He knows that He can offer you such beauty and security and joy and delight that nobody can and He wants you to see how much He loves you.

My heart is beating so violently. Please, if you call yourself a child of God, open your eyes to see how much He loves you. See the crown of thorns, and the spear in His side, and the nails in His hands and feet and the suffering and the lashes and the spit on His face and see how much He loves you. See how much He was willing to go through because He was jealous for your heart.

Children of God, open your eyes and see how much He loves you. See what hope you have. Start understanding how much mercy and forgiveness and love you have been shown. Understand it so you can see how precious it is. And live your life so radically, completely for Him. Sell all you have for that pearl, that treasure. See how much He loves you, and see it in a way that means your life just shines how much He loves others. Please.

You have hope. You have such hope. See how much He loves you, so that others can see how much He loves them. Please. Don’t hold back. Love and love and love and share the hope He has given you - because some have never tasted it and with our apathy and our unwillingness to be bold, they never will. Please. He loves you.

make me willing to pay the cost.

Lord, when You call me to go to the other side of the lake, I don’t think I know fully how much of a cost it will have. Spirit, change my heart so that I know with confidence that even though I know the exact details of that cost just yet, You prepare me to be completely willing to abandon comfort to go where the Son of Man would go, to go where there is no place to lay my head. And Lord, melt my stubbornness away so that I don’t make excuses, and I remember that there is only one way that sins can be forgiven, and that there are some who don’t yet know that. God, the souls of those You love are far more important than my comfort. Make me a willing servant. Make me a faithful servant. Help me to do whatever it takes to feel that joy and delight of seeing one more person experience the life You offer. I love You, Lord. Make me love You more.

Hello, stranger.

We might not meet for a few more years, but I am praying for you. I pray that I can speak in a language of Love that you have never heard before. And I have something to share with you; something beyond what you could possibly imagine. It’s a freedom that is more than you have even thought of longing for.

I pray that you will not be a stranger for too long. I pray that you will become my brother and my sister. I pray that you may one day read this letter, after you experience the love that the Father has lavished upon us, and know that our God is a God who answers prayer.

Stranger, know that my heart is full for you today. Know that He has placed you on my heart. He loves you, stranger. He loves you so much.

He has been good to me. Stranger, He has showed me what it’s like to feel like you’re falling. He has allowed me to know what it is to fall, so that I can know what it is to be caught by the One who loves me more than I can possibly fathom. Stranger, He has allowed me to feel heavy, so that I can know what it is to cast my heaviness on Him and to feel the weight lifted off my shoulders and onto His.

Stranger, I know what it feels like to destroy my own body; I know what it feels like to want escape. I know what it feels like to drift off to sleep not wanting to emerge into the new day. I know what it feels like, stranger. 

But my story doesn’t end there, and neither will yours. Stranger, this is just the start. You have no idea. The freedom He offers you is something beyond what you can comprehend right now. There has been a purpose to my suffering, and it is this: that He loves you more than you can imagine. And He is willing to take me through what He knows I can bear with His help, so that He can carry you through what He knows you can bear with His help. Stranger, He has allowed me to breathe ugliness, so that I can share with you what it is to breathe beauty.

I am praying for you, stranger. I know you feel alone, but don’t worry. He is there, and He is waiting. Hope is coming for you. I will see you soon. I love you, and He loves you more.

Then Peter began to speak: “I now realise how true it is that God does not show favouritism but accepts men from every nation who fear him and do what is right. You know the message God sent to the people of Israel, telling the good news of peace through Jesus Christ, who is Lord of all. You know what has happened throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John preached— how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and power, and how he went around doing good and healing all who were under the power of the devil, because God was with him.
- Acts 10:34-38

If I am to trust that God is preparing me to become a healer and carer and a worker on His mission field, I need to trust that He has the power to heal through me, and to break the bonds of the lost and the mentally ill, and to help them find true freedom in His Son. I don’t trust in that enough. It is my weakness now, and He has spoken to me powerfully this morning. As a follower of Christ and because of His Sacrifice, I have the Great Counsellor living within me. I am anointed with the Holy Spirit, and I can speak and heal, if that is  His will for me, in the power of His Name. It may not be instantaneous healing, and it may not look like what the world thinks a miracle looks like. It may take years of counselling, and perhaps medication, and perhaps the world will dismiss it simply as psychological treatment and nothing more. But if it is God’s will, we will see people - men, women and children - set free from their torment and embraced by His love.

Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.
- Matthew 28:18-20

Father, forgive me for my doubt. Spirit, fire of God, burn in me. Place all my dependence on Your healing power, Your love. If I am to be a worker in the places that You have placed on my heart, and to reach out to those that You’ve placed on my heart, then in the next few years as I train to go, cultivate in me a trust in Your ability and Your willingness to heal. Help me to see what the Cross has set us free from. Spread the hope that we have to all people through me. Do not forget about the mentally ill, Father. I trust that You can bring freedom despite my own mental illness. Stretch my faith now, so that I trust that You can bring freedom despite others’ mental illnesses as well. I pray these things in the powerful Name of Christ, Amen.