The devil wants to keep you from praying any way he can

The devil wants to do whatever he can to keep you from praying.

He wants you to think you're too tired, busy or full of doubt to pray.

And if he can't keep you from praying all together, he wants you to be weak in prayer, to think it doesn't work or Gods not listening or he's too far away.

He wants to do anything he can to keep you from the kind of prayer where you know that you can go boldly to God with anything, that ANYTHING you ask for will be done.

And if the devil works so hard to keep us from bold, effective prayer, there must be a reason. And that reason is that when we get connected to God, we really do have the authority to trample on snakes and scorpions, to overcome ALL the power of the enemy.

If the devil knows our authority, so should we. Don't let him keep you from it.

Go boldly to God. Pray without ceasing.

When you feel like you're ready...maybe you're not

I've spent a long time wanting God to use me in big ways. I've spent a ,LNG time being impatient, quite frankly.

But when I look back in hindsight a few years later, I'm so ate full to God that He knew better and didn't give me what I was asking for then, because I can see now that I was totally and completely not ready for it. It would have overwhelmed me. I hadnt learned to trust God enough, I hadn't learned to manage my time, my health enough, I hadn't learned much of anything enough. But I didn't realise that at the time. I thought I was ready for more, and felt frustrated that God wasn't giving it to me.

So, thank you God that you know better!

But, ok, that was then. I'm ready now, right? Enough waiting already.

I never learn, clearly.

But as I go, I find I am learning more and more to see how inadequate I am currently and not just in hindsight. God has been revealing my weaknesses to me, not to condemn me, but to humble me, to heal me, and to help me understand how to rely on Him.

I have a terrible feeling that the day I truly grasp how unqualified and incapable I am of doing anything - the day I think to myself, "Actually, I'm not ready for any of this" - that will be the day God hands me the big stuff....

Because when we think we can do it, that's when we'll stumble. We forget to rely on God.

And when we know we can't, that's when His power is made perfect in weakness.

So if you think you're ready and up for the challenge - there may be some humbling and training on the way first.

And if you know you're completely un-ready... Watch out ;)

One sentence sums up God's plan for your life

We can spend a lot of time and mental energy wondering if we're on the right path, wondering what God's 'will for our life' is, and whether we're in it. But I feel like God's will for us is less an exact series of precise decisions that we can potentially stuff up at any minute, and more a way of living our lives aligned with His heart. The specifics are less important than we often think. So if you're wondering what exactly is God's will for my life? One sentence sums it up...

God's will for you is to reach spiritual maturity.

Maybe that sounds too simple. But think about it. If you are spiritually mature, you:

know God's heart more
have the fruit of the spirit abundantly in any circumstance
love like He does
understand His words
see His kingdom more clearly
become more like Christ

All of this makes it much easier to be led by the Spirit, wherever you are, whatever you are doing.

It's like knowing a friend or your husband really, really well. My husband doesn't have to be there for me to know what he will like or dislike or find funny or annoying about a situation. It's a bit like this with God. The more we know Him, the more we are aligned with His heart and will.

Whatever decisions or circumstances we encounter, this is something to keep in mind. If we see everything as an opportunity to grow in maturity, to grow closer to God, how would that change our mindset? How would that change how we respond?

Eph 4:14-15 Then we will no longer be immature like children. We won’t be tossed and blown about by every wind of new teaching. We will not be influenced when people try to trick us with lies so clever they sound like the truth. Instead, we will speak the truth in love, growing in every way more and more like Christ, who is the head of his body, the church.

We sometimes believe that God's will is unknowable, that we can't comprehend it, that we just have to blindly step out and cross our fingers and hope. But while God may not reveal to us the precise details and step by step layout of our lives, minute by minute, or even year by year, I don't think it is right that we can't know His will.

It's like saying of a friend, "We are good friends, but I'll never really 'get' him, I'll never really know what he likes or wants or will do." That's not how it happens. The more we know someone, the more we understand them.

It's the glorious grace of God that He is so beyond us, and yet, we can know Him. We are not servants, in the sense of acting out of obligation. Jesus calls us friends.

<sup>I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. John 15:15

Jesus has made known to us everything that the Father told him. By growing in spiritual maturity, we discover more of that revelation, and we understand more of it. We are changed and renewed by the Spirit to understand who God is and what His perfect will is.</sup>

Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. Romans 12:2

And we get beyond the simple mindset of wanting to know God's will, as in every little specific decision just for ourselves, in a little anxious bubble, and instead we more easily move in the flow and peace of the Spirit, in harmony with God's big picture for His church as a whole.

If God's will for us is that we grow in spiritual maturity, we can be sure that in every circumstance, bad and good, we have the opportunity for this to happen, and God will provide you with everything you need to grow and not be crushed. Let this change your thinking when faced with challenges.

Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything. James 1:2-4

God does not want to keep you broken

I've heard people say, and seen the effects of people believing, that it's God plan to leave them broken, sick or struggling so He can use it for good.

God will use your brokeness, it's true. He will use what you have been through to help others. He will work all things together for good for those who love Him. 

But it is a huge fallacy to think that means you have stay where you are, in your pain, so that God can use it to help others.

How can you give a testimony to how God can heal our hurt, our sickness, our brokeness, if you are still in it? How can you lead people through their pain to the other side, if you don't even know where that is because you've haven't got there yourself?

Don't get me wrong - God can and will use you where you are. He can use anything and anyone, no matter how imperfect or broken. He can bring unfathomable good in even the most difficult circumstances. But just because God is using you while you are still sick or broken, does NOT mean he wants you to stay there.

"Many people followed Him, and He healed them all" Matt 12:15

There is no addendum to that verse, no fine print that says *"except for the few he let stay sick so that they could empathise with other sick people".

Sure, you may find comfort in talking to others who are experiencing the same thing as you. It may help the burden not feel so heavy. But who can help you more - someone who is also struggling the same as you, or someone who once struggled, but has found freedom?

If you are blind, another blind person can only teach you how to cope as a blind person. Jesus can teach you how to see!!

It is not God's will for you to stay sick, hurt or broken. Jesus didn't die and rise again so that you could stay as you are. He didn't conquer sin and death so that you could just battle on, and try and prop up others also struggling.

He died and rose so you could be free! So you could be healed! So you could have life!

Don't believe the lies and doubts that maybe God wants you to stay where you are. If we are to pray for His will to be done on earth as it is in heaven, and there is no sickness and brokeness in heaven - then that's what we should be believing for on earth!!

And don't hold on to this belief as a security blanket. Sometimes we believe that maybe this sickness or struggle is God's will because if we let go of that idea, then we risk being disappointed. What if I don't get healed? What if God doesn't get me out of here? What if I believe that I'm meant to be set free, but find myself still a prisoner?

It's a scary place to be - to have stepped out from behind our protective lies, and into the wide open. And we don't know the exact timing of when and what God will do. Sometimes what is done in the spirit doesn't appear in the natural right away. Maybe it seems risky.

But if you can be sure that if you stay where you are, you definitely will not see change. 

Step out in faith. Give Jesus a chance to prove that he wasn't lying when he said that now is the time!

"He sent Me to tell those who are held captive that they can now be set free, and to tell the blind that they can now see. He sent Me to liberate those held down by oppression. In short, the Spirit is upon Me to proclaim that now is the time; this is the jubilee season of the Eternal One’s grace." Luke 4:18-19

It is our testimony of our personal and collective experiences of God's grace, love and freedom that will draw people. Anyone can say to a sick person "I know how you feel". 

But don't you want to be able to say, "I know how you feel - but I also know the one who can make you well!!"

If you want to be put back together, if you want to be healed, get to know the healer.

Joseph Prince's second sermon at Hillsong conference 2012

No box is big enough

A thought occurred to me last night, as I lay in bed talking to God. I felt that God was close to me, that I could talk to him one on one, with his full attention. Then I imagined everyone else in the world. The billions of people who could also be talking to God at the same time, with this same full attention.

Just think about that for a moment. A being who can be everywhere at once, and not be diminished at all. Who can talk to you intimately like a loving Father while also doing this for billions of others, but never being diminished or distracted or too busy.

It's hard to wrap your mind around. If we are talking to one person while trying to listen to another conversation, we can barely take in any of it.

And while there is so much in that about God as Father and how loving he is, and how we can have such an intimate relationship with him...none of that is unimportant or trivial. But the thing that occurred to me last night was, how can I possible ever think I've got God figured out?

We can know more and more of Him, but we are barely scratching the surface.

Yet we continue to try and fit God into a neat box so we can manage Him. And if he does something that makes Him not fit into that box any more, we just recalculate and decide that we just need a bigger box.

But no box will ever be big enough. He is outside of the time and space, beyond anything our earthly minds can comprehend.

If I can't even understand how it's possible that He is even talking to me, then how can I suppose I know and can fit into neat boxes who he is and what he will do?

And yet, by His spirit to ours, He gives us glimpses of things greater than natural life. He does make it possible for us to know Him. Bit by bit, the more we spend time with Him, the more He can reveal His glory, the more we have life by the spirit, and the natural things no longer bind us. We begin to live and know more than is naturally possible, by His spirit.

If we are only willing to accept and know God as much as we can understand Him or define Him, we are missing out on so, so, so much.

How small is our God if we allow Him to be only what we can comprehend? If we allow Him to act in only ways we could have thought of for ourselves?

Don't just look for a bigger box to contain Him, trust that if you stop trying to work Him out, He will supernaturally make himself known to you.

You might think it will be scary or confusing if you let go of the box and allow Him to live in you - in us, His house, His church - in whatever way He wants. But in God you will find so much love and so much grace - you will find so much divine peace that it completely passes all understanding!

You don't 'arrive' as a Christian, there's always more

No matter how many years you've been a Christian, no matter how spiritually mature you get, you never 'arrive'. You're never done. You never achieve the 'highest rank' and then stay there.

This is not because there's more 'work' to do. It's not because you are so imperfect and must keep working on yourself.

You are imperfect of course, but that's not actually what God focuses on.

Because being a Christian is not a job description.

It's a relationship.

In a friendship or marriage, you never get to a good place in the relationship and then say "Ok, that's it. We've done it. I can stop making any effort now."

If you stopped talking and laughing and spending time together, that good marriage or friendship would quickly dissolve.

God wants a relationship with you, first and foremost. Maybe after that you'll do things, He'll change you, work on your heart, make you a 'better' person and all that.

But it all flows naturally out of a relationship with God. You can't 'arrive' in a relationship. It is ongoing. Especially with God - there is always more to know, more to discover, more to understand, more love, grace and peace to be found...

If God focuses on the relationship, why do we continue to focus on the work?

For the big and the small

My daughter just had her 4 month old vaccinations. Never mind that she is already 5 months, and we were a month late. This post is not really about me being a slack parent...

On the morning of the day we had to take her in to get the needles, I said to my husband, "I wish I could have them for her."

You see, watching my happy little daughter's face register shock and hurt and break into tears as two nurses jab her in the legs is heart breaking. Because of her pain, and because she doesn't understand what is happening. So I wish I could take it for her, and she still receive the health protecting benefits.

And that made me think about what Jesus took for us. He took a whole lot more than a little physical pain for us, so that we didn't have to feel it, experience the pain and consequences or be separated from God. And we received the benefit.

But even though in our heads we know that is true, most often when we talk about Jesus taking all of our sins, but we focus on the obvious. (And we have a hard enough time accepting that)

Sometimes when feel like we've got what Jesus did we accept that counts for the big stuff - the 'big, ugly sins'... the ones that practically stand up and shout "I'm a SIN!" You know, murder. And maybe he was talking about lying, and cheating, and swearing at people...those obvious things.

But something stops us really accepting that Jesus actually took everything. Everything. The big, the little, the obvious, the subtle. He cares about the big and the little of our lives.

He died for every mean thought. Every careless word. Every selfish action. Every rebellious moment. Every impatient foot tap. Every tear-filled argument.

He cares about every moment that you don't feel peace. Every moment you lack joy. Every moment someone is unkind. Every moment you feel a twinge of anxiety.

It's not just the big.

We sometimes think that God cares about the big stuff that He knows we can't do on our own. But we feel like the little stuff, well shouldn't we be able to manage that ourselves? Why would God spend time on our little things - we just have to get on with it.

And so we struggle on with things that we think are too little for anyone to care about, and feel bad when we still struggle...when things end up being harder than we think they should be... we things hurt and we just try to get over it...we feel like we shouldn't struggle with it, so we pretend we don't.

My daughter's vaccination is a small thing. It is over in 10 seconds, and with a bit of comforting she is soon fine. If I - a slack, imperfect human parent - can feel so much compassion over a relatively tiny thing, if my heart breaks at her few moments of confusion and pain, then how much more will the perfect God who IS love, feel love and compassion over our 'tiny' things. Our 'little' struggles. Our confusion and hurt. Our moments of disappointment. Our minute of sadness.

I can't take my daughter's vaccination for her, because then I would be getting the immunity and she would still be unprotected.

But the thing is,  God can take it for us, and we still receive the benefit. Jesus bore every burden and all our suffering, and we received the peace.

So don't just wait to cry out to Him once the weight of your life has become unbearable. Every moment of your life, reach out for the love He has lavished on us. Take hold of His peace and joy.

Think of the love of a mother for her baby. Then multiply that by infinity and I don't think you've even come close to how much God loves you.

God cares about every. single. moment of your life. He bore every. single. burden for you - and you get the supernatural, life preserving benefit.

He was wounded to heal yours

Many of us have been wounded by various things in life, as a result of our own sins or those of others. These wounds range from cuts and scrapes to deep, weeping sores that threaten to be fatal. And so many of us walk around just trying to live with these wounds, to manage as best we can, to just grit our teeth and live through the pain.

When I was in my late teens and early twenties I tried to self-medicate to deal with the pain of my wounds. Through alcohol and sexual relationships, I tried to fix my suffering. The problem was, everything I tried only numbed the pain superficially, enough for me to function in public. Deep down I was still incapacitated by emotional pain. And worse still, untreated, my wounds festered. My sins festered, and caused me more harm.

When I fumbled my way back to God, I finally cleaned up my wounds and washed them out. Some of the infection was cleared up, and then I bandaged those wounds tightly. That's what I thought I had to do. Just keep them clean and protected and our of the way.

I experienced some healing, but not fully. While I didn't suffer from constant pain, the wounds were still there. I still couldn't live fully. Those bandages stopped me getting hurt more, but they also did what they do best - I was bound and restricted. I couldn't move freely, I couldn't love freely.

I began to realise that I needed more than bandages. That I needed to uncover my wounds and let them be healed.

This is not about exposing our wounds and poking and prodding around in there on our own. We don't know what we are doing, we'll probably just cause more bleeding and damage and be prone to falling back to self medicating to numb the pain we have reawakened.

There is a doctor who knows exactly how to heal our wounds. Someone who has been wounded Himself to heal us.

When we put down the things we use to ignore or numb the pain, when we stop relying on the bandages that protect but restrict us, when we stop trying to figure out how to heal ourselves - then we can take our wounds to God.

Jesus was wounded for us, so that we could be healed. He bears the scars so that we don't have to.

God can heal your wounded life, no matter how deep, no matter how painful the sin, hurt and rejection, and leave you with a whole, full life, free from restriction, free from scars.

Jesus took it all on the cross for us; he was rejected and punished and he suffered for us. Not just for our physical suffering, but for our emotional and spiritual lives, so that nothing could any longer separate us from the healing love in Gods presence.

...he was pierced for our rebellion,
crushed for our sins.
He was beaten so we could be whole.
He was whipped so we could be healed.
Isaiah 53:5

It's already done, so why are you still trying to do it?

Imagine if a parent told a child "You can go to the party, but first your room must be perfectly clean. BUT, guess what? I've already cleaned it for you. You're free to go!"

Would any child respond, "Thanks for doing that for me, but I didn't deserve that so I might just go a try to clean it myself too."

No! They would go with joy, secure in knowing that their parent loved them, and freely receiving the gift they had just been given.

Why do when then do this very thing to God. "Come freely into my presence. I've already made you righteous!"

"Thanks God, but I didn't deserve that, so I might just go and try to work at it myself first."

We don't wash our clothes when they are already clean. We don't scrub the dishes when they are already spotless.

And yet we try to clean our own lives - something we could never do perfectly anyway - when Gods already done it.

Or worse, we sit there, giving up, thinking our lives will always be hopelessly dirty - and don't notice that Gods already saved and redeemed us.

Would they child, the room cleaned for them, then stay home and not even bother going to the party?

You can say all you like that real life is more complicated than the simple analogy I'm making, that's its not that easy.

But I believe, at the core of it, it is. It's that simple. God has paid the price. It's already done.

Accept it, like a child. Accept the gift, the joy, the peace. Let God deal with the complicated parts of your life. Just take the Grace.

Revival begins in the heart

If you are praying for revival for your town, your city, your nation chances are you are looking around for signs of it in your churches.

Can I suggest stop looking around, and look inside yourself. Stop looking at revival as coming from the outside, and look at your heart.

Revival begins in the heart. Look there for revival.

Not only yours of course, but yours is the one you have a stake in. Your heart is the one God wants to work on with you.

We tend to look around at what God is outwardly doing with everyone else to see signs of Him moving, of a revival stirring. But long before we see that, I believe God has started a revival in our hearts first.

That's how God works. From the inside out. He often heals our hearts before our bodies. He changes our attitudes before our circumstances. He renews our thoughts before giving us action.

And don't you want a heart revival first anyway? If we are looking for a revival that is more than just a power show, that's more than just a way to make church life more exciting, that's more than just a fun time for Christians - if we want a revival that sets fire to our lives, that changes us and then change e world...


It's got to start in your heart.