During the past few weeks, I have been pondering what determines an authentic healthy relationship with God. Two particular conundrums have been highlighted in my life, Person A and Person B, although there are others, and there have been some online conundrums as well.

Person A has considerable time set apart for prayer on a daily basis; and is displaying devotional warmth and a noticeably higher level of reverence than the average. But has not been seen beginning new relationships on own initiative, and is very reserved in personal interactions, i.e.. a person of few words and minimal answers.

The question is: how authentic can this be if there is no observable deepening in relationships with others, and no observable outward focus in either service to others or in an intercessory prayer burden for others?

If you recall the galactic analogy, if you place God as the largest star in the centre, and yourself as a tiny star attracted to the centre, then in order to get closer to God you necessarily have to get closer to the other tiny stars; since the closer to the centre of the galaxy you are the more densely packed it is.

Person B has a substantial daily prayer routine with a somewhat regular touch of the supernatural happening.

The question is: how authentic can this be if there doesn’t seem to be a corresponding growth in reverence, in commitment to going the extra mile, and in outward focus on others. General impressions have a focus on ‘why me?’ and ‘what does this mean’?

At this point a personal stock take is necessary. Is there a daily committed time for prayer? Is there service in my life beyond friends and family? Is love and reverence for God growing? Is there any evidence of more patience, trust, gentleness etc than last year?

Person C has a committed prayer life with deep devotion, and a Mary of Bethany type focus in prayer. There is a degree of outward service and willingness to serve.

The question is: how authentic can this be if that outward service is usually either publicly visible, or at least visible to the priest, and people tend to tread on eggshells in this person’s presence lest they do something incurring disapproval and verbal reprimand?

Person D looks like they are walking the talk, have fingers in many service pies, are social to a point, and seem to have a regular prayer life.

The question is: how authentic can this be if you feel like purchasing a lottery ticket when they arrive for Mass on time or two lottery tickets if they are ever early?

Person E is a seminarian yet either comes to Mass just in time; or comes in for personal prayer early and doesn’t greet anyone. Then when Mass is over leaves without any eye contact; or heads off to a private chapel to pray alone rather than in common with others – unless the priest or someone relatively important makes a beeline to talk to him.

The question is: do they train them in seminaries to behave like this? How authentic can training for priesthood be if it actively discourages interaction with parishioners? Where is the balance between loving God and loving others?

Person F is usually a religious or ex-religious who is vastly superior to everyone else, and who can with ease make someone else feel like an insignificant gnat.

The question is: how authentic can a religious life be if it doesn’t possess the kind of humility that helps build others up, or at least treat others as befits their dignity as children of God?

Yet God loves them all, and is infinitely patient with them, always seeking to lead them along the path of greater authenticity of relationship with Himself.

Now for the online conundrums.

The biggest litmus test for these is, have they been written primarily for an audience of one (i.e. God)?

The first one is both insidious and commonplace. You start out reading reflections on a particular passage of scripture, or a written conversion testimony, or something that passes for a written prophetic word, or a topic relevant to living the Christian life. The content is useful and good until you get near the end. Then you get hit with a ‘buy my book’, ‘listen to my podcast’, ‘join my online mentorship group’ or similar. And you feel duped because what you’ve just read has been primarily a sales pitch.

The next one is easier to suspect from the get-go, and therefore easier to avoid. Because they usually have ‘wealth’, ‘prosperity’, ‘financial breakthrough’ or similar in the title. It normally goes something like: if you do X, Y and Z in that order, and exactly as I say, then God will give you everything you want. Some a little more sophisticated than that, but otherwise essentially the same. The truth is that there is no substitute or short cut for developing a relationship with God, and a relationship with God is the ultimate prize, compared to Him riches rank as dust.

After that come the ‘sow a seed’ websites, citing the scripture that says assistance to a prophet earns a prophet’s reward. As you might have already guessed, I have a problem with these. That’s because throughout Christian history God has called some to live trusting completely in His providence, only going out to beg on the streets when things are grim. When God’s ministers are doing good work, the natural impulse is to assist them. There is a significant difference between those who don’t have a ‘sow a seed’ or donation page, and those who do. With the former you know they are trusting in God, and writing as He directs, because there are no kick-backs in it for them. With the latter there’s an aspect of turning what God has asked you to do into an income stream. With that comes the temptation to write to attract donations instead of writing to attract God’s blessing; and the temptation to turn God’s anointing into a business.

The last type is insidious because it appeals either to our curiosity or to our need, making them difficult to resist. The former has click-bait style titles promising answers to satisfy our curiosity about heaven and hell, but which don’t lead us to greater love, awe and worship of God. Will you see your favourite pet in heaven? Did your favourite actor get to heaven? That kind of thing. The latter has click-bait style titles promising to do something God and only God can do, e.g. get the key to release everything the Holy Spirit wants to give you; conquer your demons and love with abandon; get success in petitioning the courts of heaven. That kind of thing. The most anyone of us can do on earth is to tell how God has worked wonders in our lives and in the lives of those we are close to. Frequently that sparks new wonders because those stories raise faith and expectancy in others. But no one can claim that they have a never-fail gifting from God. e.g. Some people are gifted by God with a charism of healing, and many do get healed, but it is always God who does the healing, and the gifted person cannot predict who will be healed and who won’t be.
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Can God use powerfully the gifted people who are the catalysts for these disappointing online offerings. Yes He can. But approach them with significant caution and don’t make them your primary go-to websites. God will always speak clearer where the sources are cleaner than where the sources are muddied.

Two things happened in recent months to up the ante on some things that have been niggling at me. The first one was viewing sessions online from a conference held at a megachurch, and noting how much the junior speakers were copying the mannerisms either of the senior pastor or of an international speaker who visits every year or so. The second one was reading an obituary for Gerald Coates (https://www.christianitytoday.com/news/2022/april/died-gerald-coates-new-church-pioneer-charismatic.html )

Even though imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, it really bothered me that these junior speakers were taking on these mannerisms, either unconsciously or consciously, instead of finding their unique authentic style. Hopefully it is only a phase these junior speakers are going through as they grow. God made each of us unique, according to His own specific purposes, therefore when we start looking and acting like clones or copies of each other we are obscuring His plans for us.

As I read through the obituary I was astounded at how far the ripples of Gerald Coates’ ideas had gone, and by how uncritically these ideas had been swallowed, and by how much they are still guiding principles - especially in the modern day prophetic movements. Yet, even by the obituary account, he did some very disturbing things e.g. preparing for a communion service and then part way through the meeting deciding not to complete it.

Because it does matter what you believe. Believing and acting on erroneous teaching is going to be far less fruitful than believing and acting according to true teaching. Erroneous teaching does not please God, Who is the source of all truth, and erroneous teaching leads many people astray. Indeed it is the 10% error mixed in with 90% truth which is the most dangerous combination of all due to that combination’s power to deceive the greatest number of good people.

The way Jennifer Eivaz explains this is useful:

Jennifer Eivaz, Prophetic Secrets, Chapter 7,
“One of the signatures of God’s prophets is that they love the truth and embrace the plumb line of the Word. They demand an adherence to the Scriptures from themselves and others, especially from other prophets and prophetically anointed people. When a lie gets into the foundation, however, then all the biblical boundary lines become altered through the lens of the lie. I like to point out Proverbs 22:28: “Do not move the ancient boundary which your fathers have set” (NASB). The context of this verse is an instruction to leave ancient geographical and property boundaries in place, but in principle it is an instruction for handling God’s Word. We also read, “Whatever I command you, be careful to observe it; you shall not add to it nor take away from it” (Deuteronomy 12:32), and several other Scriptures warn us not to add or take away from His words…
The undercurrents of hyper-grace thinking in the modern prophetic movement have neutered much of true prophetic ministry, as far as I am concerned. Many prophetic words now carry the vagueness of the typical horoscope, are lacking in scriptural precedent and then get delivered in a passive communication style with no edge or perceptible anointing. Furthermore, such instructors have drilled into their prophetic communities that personal prophecy is strictly for edification, exhortation and comfort, which is scripturally true, (1 Corinthians 14:3) yet neglects other New Testament Scriptures that clearly stretch prophetic ministry beyond that criteria*. Again, if there is a lie in the foundation, then everything comes under that distortion, and so prophetic words are often adjusted or neglected to fit the hyper-grace paradigm rather than reflect the heartbeat of the Holy Spirit.”

(*) References weren’t given for this, but I assume the prophet Agabus whom God used to warn His people that a time of famine was coming (Acts 11:28), and that Paul would be delivered as a prisoner to the Gentiles (Acts 21:10-12) was in Jennifer’s mind. The first was news like Joseph decoded from Pharoah’s dreams, which led to effective preparations to combat famine conditions. The second was news indicating that God’s hand was in this seemingly alarming prediction, as it was in Simeon’s prophecy to Mary the mother of Jesus about a sword piercing her soul. Effectively it was a message saying, don’t resist this, it is part of My plan, trust Me even though it currently doesn’t make sense to you.

Therefore it is important to remove lies from the foundation.

So I am going to take each part of the precis of Gerald Coates’ teaching as given in the obituary and see how it stacks up against Scripture and Tradition. I admit that I have no idea whether the precis as given is a faithful and accurate representation of his teaching. But much of that precis has become generally accepted in Christian communities and it needs to be critically examined.

The first part of the precis is
“God will not be tied to 17th century language, 18th century hymns, 19th century buildings, and 20th century religious inflexibility,”

God’s word says, ‘But when the Spirit of truth comes, He will lead you to the complete truth’ (John 16:13a). That means God was leading our 17th century brothers and sisters into all truth, our 18th century brothers and sisters into all truth, our 19th century brothers and sisters into all truth and our 20th century brothers and sisters into all truth. If we ignore what God taught previous generations then we are denying ourselves aspects of God’s truth that can only be unfolded over lengthy periods of time. ‘Test all things, hold on to what is good’ (1 Thess 5:21) applies to this. Usually the test of time is sufficient. If multiple generations of believers have considered something worthwhile enough to be handed down and preserved, then it should be held onto and not discarded.

The Gospel message doesn’t change: Jesus, Son of God, was born in our flesh, to suffer and die to redeem mankind from sin. Vindicated by God through His resurrection from the dead, He has become the Saviour of all who believe in Him. He has been appointed to judge the living and the dead.

However how we present that Gospel message will change. How we present the Gospel message to a mother’s group in central London will be different to how we present the Gospel message to nursing home residents in western Canada, and how we present the Gospel message to native tribes in Indonesia will be different again. When St Paul went to Athens he studied what that culture considered important and used that scrupulosity in religious matters as his starting point for presenting the Gospel. Acts 17:23-34.

So while we’ll translate the very best of 17th century language expressed in liturgical prose, prayers, biblical commentary and theological treatises into modern idiom, we will keep using any 18th century hymns and lyrics if they have been in more or less continuous use, we will treasure our 19th century church buildings as a proclamation from one era to another of the faithfulness of God. The pains caused by sectarian divides between denominations we’ll happily leave in the past, because no one considers them good nor worth holding on to.

There will certainly be 21st century expressions of faith that haven’t been seen in human history before since we are to live by ‘one age shall praise Your doings to another’ Psalm 144(145):4b just as much as ‘sing to the Lord a new song’ Psalm 96(95):1a. It’s a ‘both-and’, not an ‘either-or’ way of living out our faith in the living God. As Jesus Himself said, a wise scribe brings out both new and old treasures from his storeroom, cf Matt 13:52

The second part of that precis is “God is changing His church. We are part of that change!”

God is the author of the church, and it is very clear that God doesn’t change. It is also very clear that when God decrees something, it is for all time; both the good (eg the promise of royal succession to David) and the bad (land that remains uninhabited).

James 1:17 It is all that is good, everything that is perfect, which is given us from above; it comes down from that Father of all light; with Him there is no such thing as alteration, no shadow of a change.

2 Cor 3:18 And we, with our unveiled faces reflecting like mirrors the brightness of the Lord, all grow brighter and brighter as we are turned into the image that we reflect; this is the work of the Lord who is Spirit.

‘Abide with me’ hymn: O Thou who changest not, abide with me.

Eph 2:20-22 You are part of a building that has the apostles and prophets for its foundations, and Christ Jesus Himself for its main cornerstone. As every structure is aligned on Him, all grow into one holy temple in the Lord; and you too, in Him, are being built into a house where God lives, in the Spirit.

Recall that the blueprint for the post-exilic temple given to Ezekiel was complete in every detail. It was the temple finished to perfection that God showed him. In that blueprint were no plans for change, alteration or expansion.

But the temple still needs many workers and lots of time for it to be built to completion. So God’s plan for the church takes time and effort too, and that plan is perfect. The plan doesn’t need to change, but the members of the church do need to be aligned with that plan, and to allow God’s work of transformation to occur in us so that we look more and more like Him.

We cannot say that God is changing the blueprint for his church. We can say that God is calling each member of His church to grow in greater holiness and in greater alignment to His will. That growth and alignment requires repentance and our co-operation with the grace of God.

Whenever sin disfigures holiness and whenever sin dislodges us from alignment, then we need repentance, restoration and healing. When this happens on a large scale, then there is a corporate need for repentance and realignment. The church is always in need of reform, because all her members on earth are sinners, but God’s blueprint for the church remains constant and unchanging.

How can we tell if we are in alignment? Study the foundations laid by the prophets and apostles. There are many documents written in the 2nd and 3rd centuries A.D. from Christian communities founded by the apostles. Clement, Justin Martyr, Polycarp, Ignatius of Antioch, and the Didache, are some of them.

Each generation is called to do their part in maintaining the parts of God’s blueprint for the church that have already been built and to do their part in the ongoing building works. There are things that this generation is called to do that are only possible because previous generations have done their part. Likewise there are things the next generation is called to do which depend on our generation fulfilling its part of the building plan.

The third part of the precis is attributed to him: “Coates continued to live up to the name of the network he founded to the end, “clearing the ground of unnecessary religious baggage and making a way for what God was doing.”” The group he inspired believed that “a whole new style of church is being born,” as they stripped away traditions and dogmas and returned to the authentic New Testament way of doing church.

All generations of the church look to the New Testament church, and in particular The Acts of the Apostles, for ongoing inspiration and renewed motivation for how to live out the call to holiness and the call to mission, for how to love God and for how to love neighbour according to the model of Jesus.

But since the promise of Jesus remains true, that the Holy Spirit will lead us to the complete truth, it is an error to ignore what the Holy Spirit has taught His church between Apostolic times and now.

That’s like saying to the best Teacher ever, we want to go back to the basics of addition and only addition; we think all this subtraction, multiplication, division, logarithms and matrices and stuff are unnecessary add-ons to addition, we don’t need anything else, we can judge for ourselves what we absolutely need and what is superfluous.

Yet anything organic of sufficient age, like a tree, has dead branches that need to be removed on a periodic basis, or new shoots in odd places that need to be pruned. None of us are immune from picking up purely human traditions along the way and giving them higher value than we ought to. However, that kind of necessary periodic trimming is very different to cutting the whole tree down to the roots and beginning again. Even God Himself promised not to ever destroy and begin again after Noah and the Flood.

Those dogmas might seem superfluous, but they represent understandings that had been wrestled out over centuries over matters of exceeding importance. They are boundary lines within which we can safely continue to theologise about our experiences, and beyond which are heresies which destroy faith.

We can even look back now on the traditions which eschewed movies, make-up and modern fashion and see a wisdom designed to assist young people to found marriages with realistic expectations and for deeper reasons than how attractive the prospective spouse was.

What if that re-emergence of the charismatic dimension of faith experience was initiated by God to re-invigorate existing churches from within, and to so draw them into the unity that only the Holy Spirit can do -and what if further splintering of faith communities was not His plan at all?

Yet every tree of sufficient age also needs new shoots, some of which will be vigorous enough to eventually become new branches. But they do need to be produced from the whole tree and not poking out through the heavy bark near the roots. To grow properly as God intends, the church needs both the old and the new, and the old needs the new as much as the new needs the old. We are back to both/and thinking, not the ‘new without the old’ as espoused by the third part of the precis.

The fourth part of the precis is attributed to this ‘new church’ movement, and therefore to Coates as well: “They preached that the Holy Spirit was moving in the last days before Christ’s second coming to restore the church to her original purity. God would erase denominational divisions and bring new unity.”

Many minds have pondered the question of how unity could be possible given the huge number of denomination and non-denominational Christian communities. This is one of those answers. But their vision of unity is with no rules and no structure, just moving together under the Holy Spirit. Would the God who laid down very precise laws for temple worship and dispute resolution, the same God who appointed kings, priests, levites and elders of tribes, not want rules and structure?

The answers come in three general forms,
unity according to the highest denominator,
unity according to the lowest denominator,
and unity among the charismatic/Pentecostal leaving the non-charismatic to decay and disappear.

This third general form of answer seems to be prevalent in the megachurch movement which places high value on the manifestation of charisms and in those Christian communities that are still Pentecostal in name and in fact.

The second general form of answer is the most widespread. It goes something like this, if you believe in Jesus as your Lord and Saviour and accept the authority of the bible, if we can agree on the essentials and leave the other stuff in God’s hands, then we do have a unity, albeit imperfect, but the best we can hope to achieve this side of eternity.

This kind of thinking has given rise to so many ‘non-denominational’ Christian communities. It is thinking along the lines of David Wilkerson: “I am not preaching some denominational doctrine; this church does not belong to any denomination. We are not Assemblies of God, we are not Baptist, we’re not Methodist, and we’re not Catholic. We’re just Holy Ghost people believing the Bible.”

The first general form of answer is normally overlooked. It knows that true unity cannot be achieved unless it is unity in both love and unity in truth. Our differences in belief about God are a barrier to unity. It also knows that the original design of God matters, no matter how unpopular that may be. True unity is only to be found in the church that can trace its origin back to Jesus Christ and His apostles. The only church with that claim is the Catholic Church, all the rest have a founding date later than 33A.D. and a founding leader who is not Jesus Christ (Luther, Henry VIII, Wesley, Smyth etc). It also has rules, structure, and visible unity through the pope, the current successor of St Peter.

Can the Holy Spirit accomplish the first form of unity? Given the number of conversion stories I have read where God grants infused knowledge, and the people I personally know who have experienced this gift of infused knowledge, yes, it is quite possible. If God can arrange an army of 5000 men to travel to a remote spot on the shores of Lake Galilee to witness the multiplication of loaves by Jesus, He can do anything.

The fifth and final part of the precis is this: “The Holy Spirit is on a collision course with all forms of inflexible Christianity,” Coates said. “Denominationalism is sin! It is heresy! There is no way round it.”

There are some things that Christians are supposed to be inflexible about, for example: the ten commandments, protection of life from conception until natural death, belief in the bodily resurrection of Jesus, marriage being a permanent, faithful and fruitful commitment between one man and one woman.

He may be referring to the inflexibility of a pastor preaching on God’s favour instead of what the Holy Spirit had been prompting: repentance. He may be referring to the inflexibility of the leadership of a conference who changed nothing in the lineup after a profound prophetic word asking that we beg Him from the bottom of our hearts for an outpouring of the holy spirit; the music team continued to sing worship songs too instead of songs of supplication. He may be referring to an invitation to generosity that was ignored. He may even have been referring to how territorial about where we sit in church.

But I suspect he was talking about liturgy, and particularly about the rituals of liturgy. Yet there is room even in ritual liturgy for responding to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, knowing that God is a God of order and not of chaos. It is having the sensitivity to let the Holy Spirit work in the post Communion time and not ruin everything with mundane announcements. It is inviting the people to recommit themselves to God by praying the creed more mindfully. It is inviting people towards the end of the homily to raise their hands if they want God to be more active in this part of their lives, to let the hush linger, and to promise to pray for anyone when the liturgy is over who wants extra help from God in this area of his/her life.

But the Holy Spirit is a gentleman. He always invites, He never forces His will. After a long time of prompting without positive response the Holy Spirit just departs quietly and leaves the person. The worst thing of all is to be left in your error without the Holy Spirit to nudge you out of it, because if you don’t know you are in error you can’t get onto the right path.

Yes sometimes the Holy Spirit takes drastic action like knocking Saul off his horse on the road to Damascus. However this would have been buttressed with many prayers from Christians for Saul to be saved, forgiven, converted, and this action of mercy was aligned with God’s amazing plan for Saul’s life.

Is denominationalism sin? If it prevents someone from receiving all that God has for them in the Christian life, yes. Anything that splinters the body of Christ into more parts is against God’s express will That They All Be One. Taking refuge from accusations of denominationalism by being in a non-denominational church is just being in a nameless denomination.

Is it heresy? Well if you are not where God has placed – and guaranteed - the fulness of truth….then you are in error. If that error is about serious enough matters, then it is heresy.

If God established one church which from the beginning was united in Jesus Christ and recognised as the pillar and bulwark of truth, with rules and structures and visible unity, aligned to the perfect blueprint given from above, then Yes you do have to do something about it and there’s no way round it.

Jesus said, ‘I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life’.
Therefore the truth matters.
Truth is something you can either accept or reject.
Truth is something you can’t change.

​It does matter what you believe.

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A printer friendly version is available for download below.
​6 x A4 pages.

For the past 2 years we've all been through a very difficult season, where many of us have felt like our lives have been in a holding pattern. God hasn't been absent. I see His work in the lots of people who have been freed from old patterns of life, especially with regard to dependence on alcohol and nicotine.

But after the desert comes the promised land, and after death comes resurrection, and after sowing in tears comes a harvest of joy.

There needs to be some kind of change in us, to enable us to participate in the torrents of grace that God wants to pour out on all humanity, as promised in Joel 3:1-2.

God seems to have answered this need for an inner change through a talk given by Katherine Ruonala at the Australian Prophetic Summit in Brisbane on 14 Jan 2022.

A transcript of that talk is given below, 10 x A4 pages.

However, if you have the time and technology, watch it via YouTube www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYg-ufMJMjI

Details about when that talk starts and stops are on page 1 of the transcript.

And there's a possibility that one of the prayers she prays during that talk is one you might like to pray yourself each morning.

You can download that prayer below, 1 x A4 page, 4 to a page.

I know that there's a special grace upon this talk. It caused me to confront some very deep-seated mindsets. Someone else I know received eye salve from God which has been life changing.

​So, please share it.

A few days ago this word was released by Heidi Bryden via His Kingdom Prophecy:
https://www.hiskingdomprophecy.com/the-great-outpouring-is-beginning/

While there is far more to it, these few lines from it alone are worth holding close to your heart as 2022 begins. They are worth looking at again and again:

I saw an open portal in the midst of the clouds like a circle, and a stream of water poured down out of Heaven onto the earth.
This was surrounded by the great Cloud of Witnesses as they peered down through the portal into the earth. They were excited, watching where the water was falling.
Upon the earth a few people danced in the stream of water that poured from Heaven, rejoicing that Revival had come.
The long-awaited outpouring of The Spirit had begun!

And indeed there are parts of the world where this has already begun to happen:
https://www.elijahlist.com/words/display_word.html?ID=26590
An excerpt:
A holy fear and awe of the Lord swept through that place as we watched the Holy Spirit, night after night, heal people, deliver people of demons, draw many to Jesus, and fill little children with the Holy Spirit. I've never seen so many people delivered of demonic spirits in my twenty years of ministry. I've never seen the power of God move on this level. I've never seen so many young people become radically changed by one touch from Jesus. Redemption and restoration flooded through that tent and has continued to spread through families and states all across America, as people who visited the revival have gone home to see everything change!
Jennifer Martin, Nashville, Tennessee, USA  20 Dec 2021
 
We have a choice.
We can focus on all the horrible things happening in our world today, and the depths of the swamp.
OR we can focus on what God is doing.

We can choose to fill our hearts with bad news or with good news.

One will fill us with fear, the other will fill us with faith and expectancy and hope.
 
For many of us it is time to turn from alerting others that the swamp is real
and to watch for what the Holy Spirit is doing, and to align with that.

Others are doing a great job with swamp alerts eg
https://www.theblogmire.com/reflections-on-another-year-of-covidian-lies-and-how-the-truth-will-ultimately-prevail/
 
Consider this: St John the Baptist leaping and dancing in his mother's womb, welcoming Jesus on behalf of all Israel, and that it was only after this leaping and dancing 'a la King David', that the Holy Spirit hit St Elizabeth.
​
Maybe it is time to practice a bit of extravagance in worship.
 
My son took the imagery given to Heidi Bryden and put in on paper.
​
May it help you to keep this promise of God close to your heart.
May it help you to bring to nothing all the attacks of fear.
May it help you to focus on what God is up to in 2022.

(www.CavanaghArt.com or at Instagram @cavanaghcreative
 
Of course, sometimes it is the extravagance in worship that calls forth the Holy Spirit, and sometimes it is the active presence of the Holy Spirit that starts the leaping and dancing, and sometimes each builds on the other in a glorious holy spiral towards more of God.

​Come Holy Spirit!

The Gospel for this Sunday, the 24th Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 8 of St Mark. Between last Sunday and this Sunday (Mark 8:1-26) there has been a second multiplication of loaves, a demand for a sign, a warning against the leaven of the Pharisees and the healing of a blind man at Bethsaida. In this part of Mark:8, while they are on their way to the villages around Caesarea Philippi, Jesus interrogates His disciples.

But before we get to that, if the ministry itinerary of Jesus seems strange, well it kind of is. Why would Jesus push on to Sidon after going to Tyre, and why is He off to Caesarea Phillipi?

The answer is in the map of Israel at the time of Joshua, and where the territory of the various tribes were apportioned within Israel.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/e6/a6/de/e6a6dec8f6ced5c5fcc09f40fe6df877.jpg

Tyre and Sidon are where the tribe of Asher settled, and the area around Caesarea Phillipi is where the tribe of Dan settled. In the time of Jesus these places were foreign territory, but if you were looking for descendants of the lost tribes of Israel, you would look in these places. This speaks of an incredible commitment of Jesus to seek out the lost, and of God giving a message through these missionary journeys that God has not forgotten His covenant with the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, even if they have forgotten Him.

Jesus opens up this deliberate interrogation by asking ‘Who do men say I am?

The answers are interesting:
John the Baptist is one answer, recognizing that Jesus and John preached the same message ‘The kingdom of God is close at hand. Repent, and believe the good news.’
Elijah is another answer, recognizing that with His miracles Jesus is on a par with the greatest prophet of Israel. Remember that at the Transfiguration, Moses represented the law, and Elijah represented the prophets.
Or one of the other prophets was the third answer the disciples provided, recognizing that Jesus carries a powerful message from God, and is a catalyst for the destiny of Israel, and this will bring Him into conflict with those who do not fear God and don’t walk in God’s ways.

Then Jesus puts them all on the spot and asks;
‘Who do you say I am?’
Peter responds, ‘You are the anointed one’.

When Israelites were hoping and longing for the anointed one of God, the Messiah, what did they expect the Messiah to be and to do?
-That the Messiah would usher in a new covenant. Jeremiah 31:31
-That the Messiah would be a prophet like Moses. Deuteronomy 18:15-19
-That the Messiah would be the Son of Man. Daniel 7:13-14
-That the Messiah would be greater than David. Psalm 110:1-4
-That the Messiah would be a descendant of David. 2 Samuel 7:12-16
-That the Messiah would be the coming one to whom the scepter belongs. Genesis 49:10
-That the Messiah would be the descendant of Abraham through whom all nations would be blessed. Genesis 12:3

When David was King, an extraordinary king who took God as His commander, Israel was united, and Israel had rest from the enemies that normally besieged or enslaved them. David carried that triple calling of priest (worshipper of God), prophet and king; and was seen as a type of the Messiah to come.

Peter and the others were likely to be hopeful of being close retainers of king Jesus in a new earthly Davidic kingdom following a swift and painless overthrow of the Roman occupation.

But Jesus starts teaching them about the Messianic prophecies they’ve never ever considered before. All of that suffering servant stuff in Isaiah, and some of that gruesome stuff in Psalm 22 and other places.

Whoever we think Jesus to be
Jesus Himself insists that God’s plan for the Messiah is rejection, suffering, death and resurrection
and that to belong to Him
and indeed even necessary for salvation,
we have to be willing to walk exactly the same path.

That’s exactly what the scriptures have foretold that the Messiah will be.

In effect Jesus is saying here we are at A, the destination is B.
You think getting from A to B will unlock lots of glory with little effort.
Whatever you think B is, the B is bigger than you can ever possibly imagine.
God’s plan isn’t earthly and temporal, it is divine and eternal.
You are thinking far too small if you are thinking about a terrestrially based kingdom.
You are thinking far too small if you are only considering the salvation needs of this generation.

Getting to the fulness of the kingdom of God is going to take total commitment from Me, the pathway is not straight forward, and it is going to require significant suffering and rejection, and yes even an ignominious death, to get there.

The requirements for you to enter into the fulness of the kingdom of God are no different.

If you are going to come with Me from here on in,
this is what it is going to cost you.
No compromise is possible.

Either you are 100% with Me, and do it 100% God’s way,
no matter how heavy the ultimate personal cost turns out to be,
or you walk away now.

I will follow God’s path for Me even if none of you stay as My disciples.

It is decision time.

To stay with Me you have to accept this path of the Cross,
you have to live it wholeheartedly.

Are you coming with Me all the way?
Or do our ways part now?
​
On your answer hangs the salvation of countless others.

Knowing how to sift true from false prophecy is something that everyone needs. It may be easier to understand if some case studies are used.

This need came to my attention through a friend who had been sent an unsolicited prophetic word by an email. The friend had no idea where the prophet had obtained the email address from. However, it was a lengthy piece, and it spoke into all the hopes and frustrations this friend was experiencing, ie it was exactly what the friend wanted to be true.

Thankfully the friend had the courage to share it with me.

The very first thing after reading the prophetic word and ascertaining that it contained nothing specifically pertaining to the life of this friend, ie there was nothing in it that couldn’t easily be applied to the life of just about anyone else (warning flag 1) was to search the internet for what could be learned about the prophet.

The website had a pleasant feel, and a link to what must be a very inspiring conversion story, and some very basic Christian teaching without any perceived denominational biases. But it did contain a few things that gave me significant pause; a few very general prophetic words that were undated, no contact information or details, and no affiliation with any faith community.

It is so unusual for a prophetic word to be undated (warning flag 2). No address, no social media links, no email address, no contact form where you would expect it to be (ie an easily visible Contact page), but given bit by bit under a ‘please support this ministry’ sub-page that begins by asking for donations (warning flag 3). There is no indication on the website that the prophet is part of a faith community, in leadership of a faith community, or anything other than a lone ranger. Ideally a prophet should have a regular small group to which he/she is personally accountable, and should also be under some form of leadership to whom he/she is also accountable. Otherwise there are none of the normal and natural checks and balances that come from community life where people are invested in you enough to ask the odd quiet question if you are looking like going off the rails, or when your walk doesn’t match your talk. (major warning flag 4).

If something is exactly what you want to hear, (eg in order for the destiny God has for you to unfold, don’t let anyone box you in to their mindsets) and it doesn’t contain any invitation to transformation that leads to a deeper relationship with God, that should put up a warning flag too. It is a hallmark of the Gospel accounts that Jesus always invited people to the next level of relationship with Him, requiring either a change of heart or a change of life.

There were enough warning flags to safely dismiss and delete that email.

Around the internet at present there is a set of major ‘doom and gloom’ prophecies going around. The prophet is not a regular prophet, but is in leadership with a Christian community, and has had some vivid dreams that were felt to be prophetic for a national and global scale.

Can God call anybody to deliver a message? Yes, He can, for example the prophet Amos. However, it is more usual for an important wake-up call kind of message to be given to someone who is mature in the prophetic gifting and widely recognised as such, with a reasonable track record for accuracy.

There is also a difference between a Jonah-like warning message that invites to repentance and a Daniel-like message declaring that God’s judgement on bad behaviour is going to manifest in specific ways. Neither are certain; the former can be mitigated or even avoided by repentance (Ninevah); the latter can be mitigated by intercession (2 Sam 24). But even the most dire of messages warning of austere times to come contain an inkling of hope, that after punishment and exile that there would be restoration and return (Jeremiah).

However if the prophet reveals that his/her consumption of news media is greater than his/her consumption of God’s word in scripture, then extra caution is required.

Many years back this lesson was given to me. It happened like this. The community I was a member of at that time was receiving lots of apocalyptic sounding prophecy. It somehow happened that I was able to have a chat to one of the most accredited prophets in that community about all this apocalyptic stuff. His response was that many in the community had been reading the same spiritual/devotional literature that contained that kind of language. The ideas you consume eventually come out again, and often get processed in dreams and can be expressed in prophecy. And that was what had been happening in that community situation. You can see it too in less mature prophets who drink in what a lot of other prophets are releasing online. Sometime down the track, all of that prophetic soup will emerge in a very generic prophecy (and very sincerely given) that is a reasonable summary of the main flavours of the soup.

Such known human weaknesses do make it less clear to discern whether God is telling everyone the same message (in which case, Pay Attention!!!), or whether everyone has collectively gone off on a non-God inspired tangent. For this reason, keep aware of times of the liturgical year that various messages arise.

Sometimes they are collective wishful thinking born of deep desire to see God act in powerful ways, as what often happens as Easter, Pentecost and Christmas draw near or something related to the Jewish liturgical calendar. You see this big crescendo of expectation, and then as the special date passes, there is a lull until someone comes out with a statement that the date was still very important, and we will find out why in due time things didn’t manifest in the natural and there’s even bigger and better things coming in a month or 3 months’ time. Yes, it is easy to become cynical, but we do have to fight against that lest we dismiss a true message from God. That’s why growing in discernment is so important and so necessary.

Discernment can take time. And it is easy for us to get it wrong.

Just recently I have had to sadly acknowledge that someone I had on my short list of trusted online prophets was no longer worthy of being on that list. When the messages are exactly what you want to hear, and those messages get picked up and promoted by others and there are online followers in the order of tens of thousands, then of course you are biased towards the messages being true prophecy. But slowly some question marks began to arise. The first question marks happened when some of my cautionary comments that had logical merit were rejected out of hand. The second question marks began when there were more lists of how to do this or how to respond to that, which were all just human thoughts. The third set of question marks began when ‘sign up for my online course’ appeared at the end of prophetic messages, and it was an almost seamless segue. The final question marks were due to the disclosure by way of sharing personal background that this was, despite friendships and recognition from other prophets in good standing, very much a lone ranger ministry although it was couched in pioneer terminology. So I went back and took a more detailed look at the associated website, and the lack of accountable relationships became apparent.

It is like this, as far as possible there should be no conflict of interest between the ministry of a prophet and the way a prophet earns a living. The whole ‘God showed me how to deal with issue X in a whole new and effective way, but you need to pay $$ before I will share it with you’ thing flies in the face of ‘you received without charge, give without charge’ Matt 10:8. At the same time, a labourer is worthy of his hire, so there is no objection to a Donate/Give page. But when the prophet’s main source of income is online mentoring courses or similar, how can the prayers and natural desires for a good sign-up rate not transmute consciously or unconsciously into the prophetic messages, particularly when those messages are squarely aimed at hidden and forgotten ones who have a big destiny in God’s plan? Isn’t this what we all long to hear when we feel that life has passed us by, thus making us very vulnerable and susceptible to exploitation?

Then again, some things are presented as prophecy, when in fact all they are is teaching or preaching on some topic of the life of faith. Weigh it for what it is, not what it purports to be.

In this age of prophets with some celebrity status, it is well to remember that popularity is not a guarantee of accuracy. In the time of Jeremiah there were plenty of prophets announcing times of prosperity ahead, and only Jeremiah repeating God’s warning that the punishment of exile for their sins was coming. Of course the people of that time wanted to listen to the other prophets who spoke what they wanted to hear, and of course they wanted to shut Jeremiah up by any means necessary.

There will be times of restoration and refreshing, just as there will be times of trial and testing, therefore the maxim, ‘test everything, and hold onto what is good’ has to be our guide, as well as frequent prayers for guidance and discernment.

Why is the accountability thing so important? Because a true prophet is going to have enough humility to mistrust his/her own judgement, and be open to correction and submission/obedience to leadership. Even the best of prophets don’t get it 100% right every time (1 Cor 13:9). Obedience to lawful human authority despite what the prophet believes God has told him/her is the ultimate test of legitimacy. If it is of God it will come to pass, despite setbacks, delays and misunderstandings. Any prophet who thinks that everything they receive is always 100% from God is deluding themselves, and a big danger to themselves and others. Do you know what the worst punishment is from God? To be let drift into error. Because unless someone intercedes for you, there’s no way out. (read St John of Avila’s ‘Listen Daughter’ a.k.a. ‘Audi Filia’ for the best ever explanation of this.) Even Moses had his father-in-law Jethro as someone willing to speak truth into his life.

Now should a prophet make a grand prediction, and it doesn’t come to pass, eg a major share market crash during the visit of a specified world leader, then said prophet is automatically and completely discredited.

Particularly when it comes to dreams and visions, it can be crucial to separate the raw material of the prophecy from the interpretation of the prophecy. Quite often the raw material is correct, but the interpretation is incorrect or immature (ie the prophet has only grasped the first layer of the interpretation and not yet the underlying layers of interpretation.) In essence they are similar to parables. With time and diligent prayer, usually the full meaning comes to light.

Sometimes a prophecy (particularly to a community) is an invitation to go deeper, and the ‘more’ that God intended doesn’t happen because the response to the prophecy was mismanaged. For example, someone in that community who has been growing in the prophetic gifting shares that God has shown a vision of angels, surrounding the prayer meeting, who are waiting to be sent on assignment. Responding with a call to those at the prayer meeting to present their petitions to God is level 1. If you took that word seriously you would them get the prophet back and ask if there were any angels left, and if so, how many? (level 2) and if the answer wasn’t zero, you should then either get the people to petition some more, or better yet, ask the community to pray for wisdom in order to petition according to God’s desires (level 3) and delegate a leader to question the prophet about any details not disclosed in the initial message (ask if the angels were all the same size?, were they perhaps in groups?, was there anything to distinguish the groups eg colour, what they were holding?) which might give clues to the How to pray. If there is any sense that this might be a more significant word than first ascertained, then and there, or soon afterwards, get the prophet to have a go at drawing what they saw in as much detail as possible, and then share both the verbal and drawn parts with leadership and other prophets to pray over, discuss and ask further questions. After all, if it was God’s intention to lead the group into prolonged and specific intercession for local political leaders and business leaders, or for the bringing down of some stronghold that was preventing the conversion of the region, and everyone prayed for those they knew in personal, financial or family stress, then that was a comparatively poor outcome.

Some prophecies don’t find fulfilment for a year or several years, some don’t find fulfilment in our lifetimes. Because of this, some interpretations take a while to become clear. For example, St Catherine Laboure was convinced that much needed funds would appear if an area was dug down to a certain level. Everyone else thought she was crazy to keep insisting upon it. Yet in the years ahead, that area was the place where her body was buried, and not too long after a very sizable donation was anonymously placed on her tomb.

Care should be exercised when reading prophecies from years past and seeing in them relevance for today. That can indeed happen. However it is also possible that the mindset with which you read it today prejudices you into believing that it is solely about the current times. For example the pandemic situation the world has recently found itself in has seen a lot of re-evaluation of past prophecies. Many of them read like they were written for us today, and some of the phrases that were glossed over back then, now seem to carry increased meaning (eg A great shaking happening among the nations, and peoples locked down by a spirit of fear). ‘Lockdown’ carries a whole new level of meaning now that it didn’t pre-Covid19, as does ‘lawlessness’ in the wake of the George Floyd riots. Yet there is no guarantee that this is the only era it was meant for, or even if it was the primary era it was meant for.

We do know that God never takes back or revokes His gifts, and that He always invites us to grow. The intended life cycle of a prophet is that as they grow in experience, they also grow in holiness, and weightier and more important prophetic words can be given through them. However this doesn’t always happen; what started out relatively pure can become increasingly sullied with human frailty and error; or what started out pure can go through a wilderness period away from the moral life and then re-emerge stronger than ever after a sincere conversion. Sometimes there will be only a single season of profound revelation, and then no more, if that is God’s plan for them. St Bernadette is an example of this; and saw herself as a broom that was used by God for a while, and then put away. Always the revelation is firstly for the prophet, and then for others. If the prophet is growing in response to the revelation, and growing in holiness and in moral character, it is an indication that what they are receiving is God inspired.

If God is trying to get a message across, He will use more than one messenger, and probably from diverse sources. Therefore, if a message is of a personal nature, it will confirm something He has already called you to do, or in time to come it will be confirmed via other sources. So never change your life on the strength of a single unconfirmed word. Write it down, store it somewhere, refer back to it every 3-6 months, it may make more sense then. If it doesn’t, and there haven’t been any confirmations of it, you can safely forget all about it.

These are only general guidelines born of experience for sifting out the questionable. For every general guideline there are exceptions, because God is not limited and He sometimes chooses to use the unusual or discredited to get our attention and loosen our pre-conceived ideas.

Here are some scriptural reminders that the gift of prophecy is a good gift from God, and needed, and worth the effort of time in discernment and interpretation:

1 Thess 5:19-21 Never try to suppress the Spirit or treat the gift of prophecy with contempt: think before you do anything – hold on to what is good.

2 Peter 1:19b-20 You will be right to depend on prophecy and take it as a lamp for lighting a way through the dark until the dawn comes and the morning star rises in your minds. At the same time, we must be most careful to remember that the interpretation of scriptural prophecy is never a matter for the individual.

I Cor 14:3 The man who prophesies does talk to other people, to their improvement, their encouragement and their consolation.

1 Cor 14:32 Prophets can always control their prophetic spirits, since God is not a God of disorder but of peace.
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For more detailed guidance on prophecy, interpretation and discernment, please read the attached document, particularly pages 11-16 and pages 18-20.

Firstly a rough transcription of the prophetic words given that night; some prior to the talk, some afterwards:

•Find your shout and declaration again. Angels are putting trumpets to our lips. Declare what God is saying and not what anything else is saying. The truth of God is being rewritten over minds and hearts. God: 'But what do I say?' Pay attention to that and not to your circumstances. Echo what God is saying over us.
•(sung) There is a mighty echo. Come up higher. Can you hear the echo? See His angels all around. Let the trumpets sound. Let the people gather round. The Lord is coming on the clouds. Holy, holy, holy is the Lord. Holy ones I am calling You to Myself. Re-sound the sound of the trumpet sound. Holy mantles. Holy mandates. High and holy ones, you are My hope.

(the talk took place, see below)

•This council of the Lord is not just for church services, it is a realm that God is inviting us into as parents, and business leaders throughout the week, an invitation that doesn't require a building or a worship CD as access points. I am training My people to be supernatural in a very natural way.
•There are so many angels here. We have so much authority because we are in Jesus and He is the supreme authority over everything. In the story of Daniel it says, 'As soon as you prayed a command was given'. The angels are waiting for us to pray and declare so that they can be given their assignments.
•We were in the throne room, all of us, with Jesus on the throne. The four beasts with wings were there and the lampstands. The angels were singing, and we were singing with them. The elders bowed down and worshipped Him, and all their crowns came off because they were so bent before Jesus. When we come before Him in worship we are to be like them and bow down so low before Him that our crowns come off. As we walk closer and closer to Him we are bowing further before Him. We need to be bare before Him in order to receive from Him and give to Him.
•In a similar way to how native American wind-talkers were used in WW2, God wants to give us messages that the enemy cannot decode.
•God is repositioning us into different levels and areas of our lives e.g. spiritual warfare, intimacy, intercession, spiritual realms. We need to do something in the natural to co-operate with, appropriate and come into agreement with this action of His. (It was suggested that as a sign of our Yes we swap places with the person beside us).
•Isaiah 51:16 'I put My words into your mouth. I hid you in the shadow of My hand, when I spread out the heavens and laid the earth's foundations and said to Zion, 'You are My people.'' It is time for rain. Contend with Him for the promised rain. The rain will be a sign in the natural of what He is doing in the supernatural. God wants us to be reminded of the prophetic words that have been planted. He is raising up blueprints and strategies and He was a holy 'DO' partnership, people who don't just listen but who act upon His word. This is a multigenerational thing. A time when newer generations pick up the neglected/forgotten/as-yet-undiscovered destinies embedded in their families and run with them; to take on the family legacies given by God and to see them happen.
(This was primarily for the Central Coast, but for people all over the world as well.)
 
Secondly a rough transcription of the talk given by Larry Sparks, international speaker and publisher at Destiny Image  Publishers who studies how God has acted in past movements of the Holy Spirit and who seeks out the prophets God is raising up in our day in order to help relay the messages of God to the people of God. He is an American, married, and has a much loved daughter:
 
Australia is a testimony nation to the earth.
(speaking to the HopeUC worship team): Worship teams have the capacity to be key leaders in the council of the Lord, places that are reserved for His friends. He invites you there, and desires to share His secrets with you there. Songs birthed in the council of the Lord release the thunder of Heaven. We want those songs. They carry God's active power. The gift and inspiration of those songs belong to those who want to be a friend of God far, far more than they want to be professional, successful musicians.

This message is for Australia, but also for the nations.
Be obedient.
God is reforming or language a bit, explaining what standing in the council of the Lord means.
'Holy, Holy, Holy' is the song of Heaven that never gets stale, tired or old.
New encounters with God often occur when we tap into the ancient songs.
You can tell that someone has had a genuine encounter with God if they tremble with the awe and reverence of God upon their lips.
In this atmosphere tonight there is a sense of reverence.
At a recent prophetic roundtable I met a young woman named Hannah Brim, granddaughter of Dr Billye Brim, and she said, 'I see myself as a friend of Jesus, not as a prophet'.

Our identity in God has three levels.
First identity: friends of God, those who see and hear the Word of God in the council of the Lord.
Jer 23:16-18 'The Lord God of hosts says this: Do not listen to what those prophets say: they are deluding you, they retail visions of their own, and not what comes from the mouth of the Lord; to those who reject the Word of God they say, 'Peace will be yours', and to those who follow the dictates of a hardened heart, 'No misfortune will touch you'. But who has been present at the council of the Lord? Who has seen it and heard His Word? Who has paid attention to His Word in order to proclaim it?'
Second identity: intercessors with God, who know what to do with what they see and hear - including who to share it with, and when, and how. They ask Him, what you have revealed to me, is it for me alone? There are some secrets that God wants to share with us personally that are for us alone. Is it something I should share with four crazy faith-filled friends to help me process and steward this revelation? Is it for someone else, of for a group? Or is it for me primarily, and shareable with others later on?
Third identity: prophet of God, declaring what God authorises you to declare.
In our times we have great need of people secure in these three identities who can reliably and reputably receive God's messages for our region, our city, our church community, our nation, and who are in right relationships with church authorities and not itinerant lone rangers.

The realm of the council of the Lord is available to everyone, but highly exclusive, because it belongs only to those who prize their relationship with God above everything else.
Study Abraham and Moses, who are friends of God. Their bold prayers were actually high reverence because they knew the character of God so deeply. They were able to 'be confident then, in approaching the throne of grace, that we shall have mercy from Him and find grace when we are in need of help' Heb 4:16.
Friends of God are invited to know what is coming. If it happens to be negative, then they pray for that situation not to happen or for it to be mitigated, because they know God's delight is to show mercy. They appeal for mercy, even when judgment is deserved, eg Abraham concerning Sodom and Gomorrah, Moses concerning God's repudiation of Israel after the golden calf incident. If no one ever finds out that their prayers for this potentially negative situation were effective, then that doesn't bother them at all. They remind God what He has promised until that promise is fulfilled, no matter how long that 'until' takes. They contend for those promises with supernatural grit. They know that God has not forgotten the promises He made, even if it feels completely otherwise.

The Hebrew word for council means 'a circle of familiar friends'.

What distinguishes a true prophet of the calibre of Isaiah, Ezekiel etc from the rest of the prophets are their throne room encounters with God and their ability to stand in the council of the Lord where He reveals His plans. What qualifies prophets like this, are the encounters with God that leave a person completely undone.

For friendship with God obedience is necessary viz John 15: 14-15 'You are My friends if you do what I command you. I shall not call you servants any more, because a servant does not know his master's business; I call you friends because I have made known to you everything I have learnt from My Father.'
Amos 3:7 'No more does the Lord God do anything without revealing His plans to His servants the prophets.'
God wants us to know, 'You are welcome in My room'.
Heb 12:22-23 'What you have come to is mount Zion and the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem where the millions of angels have gathered for the festival, with the whole Church in which everyone is a 'first-born son' and a citizen of heaven.'
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All of us are invited, but responding to that invitation requires much from us, including that we seek Him solely for the prize of the pleasure of His company.

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​Below is a printer friendly version (3 x A4 pages)

Remember, these are but rough notes that give the gist of the content of that night.

It has been a while since I have been able to get fingers to keyboard, and there have been many reasons for that. What writing I was able to do went on Instagram @pcav3473 because with a mobile phone you can write 'in transit' whereas it is often close to midnight before computer time becomes available.

So I will try and distill some of the global prophetic word from the last few months, seeking the golden threads of the themes that unite them. However I will add a note of caution, because it is sometimes difficult to get past the current buzz words, which are recycled frequently (consciously and unconsciously), to get to the actual message.

Many people are in a time of transition from one phase of their lives into a completely new phase. Images of the birthing process, whereby all you can do between womb and the outside of the womb is to submit to the uncomfortable tension, pressure and inability to move with as much patience as possible, have been useful. Another image was that of all the delays, detours and frustrations that happen when new roadworks are under construction, and then how wonderful it is when the new roadways are completed. But, calling on another image, the end of the transition process is not simultaneous, some have already been released and others are still waiting in no man's land for it to feel like God has remembered them.

The old ways of doing things will not work in this new phase. What could that look like? Paradigm shifts of outward missionary focus (the vast majority of the miracles of Jesus did not take place in the synagogue or temple, but out on the streets, in homes and marketplaces); of ministry leadership happening through talent-balanced, vision-unified senior leadership teams; of ministry multiplication through the intentional identification and raising up of new leaders (setting aside quality time to co-operate with God in making your good people rise to new heights of excellence); of pioneering people willing to put the seemingly crazy new ministry ideas from God into action.

In nature we can see that some growth happens as 'more of the same' and then there are metamorphoses that take dramatic new changes of direction: caterpillar to butterfly type stuff. It is the latter type of change that appears to be on God's agenda in this season of grace.

One thing that is keeping me going is seeing that this has begun to happen in the lives of some of the people I follow through social media, big breakthroughs, extraordinary opportunities arising where there had been none beforehand. However as I ponder the two most visible of these people, in success one of them seems to have forgotten God's part in all of it, while the other has kept grounded and focused on keeping relationship with God first and foremost.

Some letting go will be part of the process. In the early years of the ministry of John Wimber he was bringing in all kinds of unchurched people from the entertainment industry into his parish, and one day he saw a well-respected woman of his congregation weeping. He asked her why she was crying, and she replied that the parish had changed so much it didn't feel like it used to anymore, it was no longer a comfortable, reliable place that never changed. To his credit John wept with her over the loss she was feeling, but also explained why he had to respond to God's call to bring in the lost.

We also need to really seek God about how He wants us to pray about things. If we pray for delay to be broken and God has a specific plan which requires that delay, or of we pray that a storm goes away rather than that the storm accomplishes God's purposes, we might be praying against the establishment of His kingdom on earth rather than in co-operation with Him. Our prayers need to be, 'God I don't understand, but may Your will be done in and through this situation that seems so contrary to all we have been praying for'.

The battles we face in our era have two parts to them, the on the ground leg work side and the on the knees prayer/intercession side. Make sure in each circumstance that you are on the side of the battle that He wants you on. For example in the various battles for public opinion to be brought to the side of the Gospel, instead of fighting social media with social media, consider that perhaps the real battle is spiritual and more will be won in prayer than in another post of words and images. Both are needed. A single image that emerges from extended prayer can carry an anointing to change a multitude of hearts. Sometimes we need to be with Joshua on the battlefield, sometimes we need to be with Moses and Aaron praying from a vantage point overlooking the battlefield. If He calls you up higher, answer that call.
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Above all, trust in Him and don't fret. He knows what He is about, and how to achieve the greatest good.

The Gospel for the weekend of 8/9 September 2018, 23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time, Year B, is taken from the end of Chapter 7 of St Mark. It tells the story of a group of people bringing a man, who is both deaf and unable to speak clearly, to Jesus. In response Jesus takes the man well away from the crowd, to where he can have a very personal encounter with Jesus. As part of this encounter Jesus sighs as He commands 'Be Opened'.

This is a much longer and detailed reflection on this Gospel passage than was possible via Instagram. (@pcav3473)

Jesus is back on home turf in the ten towns of Galilee after an absence. Are the people who bring the man to Jesus hostile or friendly towards Him? Either is possible, but the more we understand what it meant to be deaf and unable to speak clearly in Jewish culture, the more the balance swings towards friendly.

Being deaf is a very isolating experience at the best of times, but it was even worse for someone living in a culture based on oral tradition. To participate fully in the religious life of a Jew you had to be able to hear: in particular to hear the sound of the shofar, the blowing of the ram's horn that is part of several important feast days, and used to sound warnings. You also had to be able to speak: in particular to recite the Shemar at the prescribed times of the day, (viz, 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the one Lord …). Some rabbinical teachings said it was enough to try to recite it accurately, others said it didn't count unless it was recited perfectly.

There were special laws that decreed that those both unable to hear and unable to speak clearly were to be treated as minors, ie without legal status. Think about how much haggling was part and parcel of most business transactions and you can begin to understand why. Thus unless you were able to find a sympathetic advocate who took the time to question you in the approved manner, a person deaf and unable to speak clearly was unable to buy and retain property and unable to marry.

Even if this man had somehow been able to learn who Jesus claimed to be, having no legal status he would have been unable to request healing from Jesus. That is why people had to bring him to Jesus and he could not approach Jesus on his own. To do that for the deaf man, in the absence of any obvious axe to grind eg healing on the Sabbath, would require a significant level of compassion. Hence the likelihood of friendly.

Due to these known difficulties of life for a deaf person, it is no longer a surprise that Jesus does not hesitate to come to this man's assistance.

What is interesting is that Jesus takes him somewhere private. It feels like there is more to it than just needing to be away from eyes that might class these actions of Jesus (putting fingers in his ears, and spittle on his tongue) as weird. There is a layer of intimacy and personal encounter that feels just as essential as the weird stuff.

Here's the kicker.
What if this story doesn't only relate to the earthly realm, but also relates to the supernatural realm?

The citizens of the supernatural realm are able to hear God in that realm and to speak forth from that hearing for Kingdom of God purposes. These are people we would class as having prophetic gifting (prophecy, visions, dreams, word of knowledge, discernment of spirits etc). God regularly shows them His mind, His heart, His plans, His secrets. They co-operate by speaking forth these things according to God's timing and thereby bringing the active power of God to bear in the earthly realm. For example, in the passage from Ezekiel 37:1-14 about the dry bones, God commands that the prophet speak to the bones in His name.

What if access to the supernatural realm was supposed to be normal, as normal as hearing and speaking in the earthly realm is?

We know that Moses desired that everyone prophesy and be filled with the Holy Spirit (Num 11:29). We know that God promised through the prophet Joel (Joel 3:1-5) that a time would come that everyone would prophesy, dream and have visions. On the day of Pentecost St Peter declared that this promise from Joel was now a reality. Could this sigh of Jesus be an expression of His longing that this be true for everyone?

The adage 'sheep make sheep, and shepherds make shepherds' has had fresh resonance recently. Sheep making sheep is the laity going out into their daily tasks and evangelising and making new disciples of Jesus. Shepherds making shepherds is the role of leaders to not be bottlenecks but to notice those with leadership potential and to call them forth and train them to be good leaders and to surpass their mentors.

Consider the normal way people come into a living relationship with the Holy Spirit. It is person to person, a person (or persons) infilled by the Holy Spirit praying over someone who hasn't yet been filled with the Holy Spirit. But there could be around 5-10% of people for whom God acts sovereignly, infilling them with the Holy Spirit without any active human co-operation. Consider Ananias praying over the future St Paul vs the Holy Spirit coming down on Cornelius and his household while St Peter was still speaking.

Is it possible that prophetic gifting is transmitted in a similar way? For sure there are still sovereign acts of God, a la Amos and his prophetic call, and young Samuel under Eli the priests's care. But what if the usual way is for someone with prophetic gifting to pray over someone without prophetic gifting? What if the usual way is how it is described in this Mark 7:31-37 passage?

Those of us deaf to the ways of the supernatural realm have no legal standing there. We are helpless unless a group of people with prophetic gifting have enough compassion to bring us one by one to the Lord Jesus in prayer, asking Him for citizenship for us. Then knowing His ways, taking each one to places of prayer and quiet where that profound personal encounter with Jesus can happen in His timing. Extended times of personal prayer with Jesus precede the activation of those prophetic gifts and flow from those prophetic gifts.

Why is this so important?
Because in order to come into alignment with God's will, we need to have some certainty of God's will, and that comes from the prophetic gifting. Otherwise we are like deaf people trying to lip read what God is trying to communicate to us, and unable to release the kingdom power that flows from that alignment. Even the best of lip-readers only catch around 30-45% of the message through lip-reading alone.

If this is God's usual way of doing things, then it makes sense for those young in prophetic gifting to have those mature and experienced in prophetic gifting contactable during the journey to maturity in those gifts.
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But it begins with groups of those with prophetic gifting having deep compassion for those unable to function as citizens of the supernatural realm and praying for them, one by one.

​There are a lot of 'high expectation' prophetic words flowing around online in Protestant and non-denominational circles at the moment. Gauging what is happening in prophetic word from Catholic circles is very difficult, because it doesn't get shared online unless there has been some heavy duty discernment. However the more I read, and ponder and pray, a possible interpretation emerges that has implications for both sets of circles.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, and maybe something even more wonderful is afoot behind the scenes.

Some of the recurring themes are increase, acceleration, breakthrough, harvest, letting go of the old and taking hold of the new, surrender and humility as the path to these treasures, an army prepared for battle, the opening of doors and deep wells, an invitation to more, an invitation to intimacy and lingering with God, hunger for God, sudden divine appointments and sudden divine alignments, new mantles of gifting and of authority, huge release of resources, growth coming from unexpected directions.

What if you looked at all of these themes through the lens of the journey home to the Catholic church?

Under this lens the need for acceleration makes sense. Why? The process of the journey home to the Catholic Church is normally slow and gradual stretching over 5, 10, and in many cases 20 years or more. With special grace that process can be accelerated.

The same can be said for the initial process of conversion to Jesus, it is usually slow and gradual too. Sudden conversions like what St Paul experienced are infrequent. But since the messages are for those who are already Christian, maybe God does want to accelerate the process of the journey home to the Catholic Church.
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Part of that process is the stirring of the heart to want more of God, and to be dissatisfied with anything less. I'm going to quote from Nate Johnson here, because he describes it well:
I want to be honest...I haven't been satisfied for a long while now, and I could pretty much say I have been like this my whole life. Always peering around the corner, curiously wanting to see what was to come and living in the tension of what is now and what is to come. But there is a LONGING for more that myself and many others are experiencing right now which has been very different.
One morning in early December, I was so overcome with the presence of God that out of me came this cry of: "I want more Jesus, I want more!" I was not saying that He was not enough or that I was ungrateful, but it was something He was doing in me to reveal the untapped vastness of His person – His glory – that I was not yet experiencing or seeing others experience.
It was a dissatisfaction that ran so deep that it seemed like all other appetites evaporated or waned instantly in light of the hunger that was erupting from my spirit. God began to show me that in this season He is rolling back the curtain and the veil, so we can see what is available. He is calling the Church out of stagnancy and "church as usual" to develop the appetite we were designed to have...for the unlimited riches of His glory!

Does this feel to you like a hunger that could only be satiated with the Eucharist?

It does to me.

Another part of that process is the discovery of ancient sources of renewal that are available to all, but few people know how to find or to value them. For example, the places hallowed by the prayers and lives of the Saints, the writings of the Early Church Fathers, the writings of the Doctors of the Church, the Sacraments, sacramentals (medals, holy water, icons, scapulars etc), the hymns of St Romanos the melodist and St Ephrem. Could this be what the Holy Spirit is referring to in these words from Michele Stickells?

I saw an angel stirring the waters, then I hear, The angel is stirring up the waters of ancient wells, that have become dry and redundant. I see it's time that God wants to restore the wells that hold the ancient anointing, to bring forth the end time anointing that will bring revival. I also see mantles lying in the dust, waiting to be picked up; they also carry past and ancient anointings. The Holy Spirit is moving across the nations looking to see who will see what He is doing, and be ready to receive from past ancient anointings that have remained dormant and hidden for an appointed time, for it takes an ANCIENT ANOINTING TO RELEASE THE END TIME ANOINTING !!!

At the same time there are various calls to lay down our own agendas and ideas and those things that have worked in the past, and to pick up God's plans. Nate Johnston explains it like this:
I had a vision of a hot air balloon that is being fired up to take-off, but it was being held down by sandbag weights all around it. I heard the Lord say, "You have to lose your sandbags to ascend." Then I began to see many obstacles in the spirit that many of us experience when God is inviting us to ascend. To my surprise, they were not just fears, worries, and concerns, but they were more like concepts. They were things like holding onto old patterns and ways of thinking – not wanting to shift from the way God was moving to the new way He was flowing and taking us. These sandbags were also the mindsets of wanting to stay behind the wheel and control the direction of our lives, the process, and orchestrate the outcomes. Not yielding to the Holy Spirit stops the fruit from growing. It's an interesting thought that you can look like you are full of fire and ready to go, but without letting go of the old and surrendering to the shift, you stay grounded. LET GO, and watch Him build and increase you beyond your own means.

And Lana Vawser explains it like this:

I had a powerful encounter with the Lord recently and in this encounter I saw Jesus and He was inviting the Pioneers into the most beautiful room in the library of heaven. The interesting thing about this room in the library of heaven was the door was VERY SMALL. The door was tiny, so to “enter into this room” and to move into the invitation the Lord was releasing, there was a significant call to “lay down, and go low”. There was a deeper place of surrender, humility and yieldedness to the Lord that had to take place, it is not a place of “striving” to “be humble” but a recognition that He is Lord, and we are not. He is the One who we hand the reigns over to, to lead, to guide, to speak. We hand the reigns of timing over to Him. We hand the reigns of “the way” over to Him. We hand the reigns of how things are “built” over to Him, it was a place of such deeper surrender to Jesus and trusting Him in His way and timing. The beautiful thing is I could feel so strongly in the invitation to continue to ‘lie down’ and ‘go low’, is the plans, purposes and manifestation of what He is building is bigger than what is even being dreamt about by the Pioneers.

What could be harder or more difficult than to lay down any anti-Catholic sentiments and to yield any long held teachings that are not truly biblical? And yet what is more necessary for true growth and the finding of untold treasures of grace?

So if you are a Christian and odd things seem to be happening in your life that are pointing you towards the Catholic Church, receive them as invitations from God to the more that He has for you and start to investigate what the Catholic Church actually teaches. If you are looking for a starting point, remember that burning question that you shelved because you couldn't get a satisfactory answer? Take it out, look at that question again, and find out from reputable Catholic sources what answers the Catholic Church has to that question.

So if you are Catholic start talking and thinking about what your parish would need, and what would need to change if the number of people wanting to do the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults (R.C.I.A.) multiplied by ten. What would you need to do if it multiplied by a hundred? Start working on increasing the budgets, recruiting and training additional R.C.I.A. team members, and gathering the resources that the spiritually hungry are going to need when they arrive.

Mary, Mother of the New Pentecost, Star of the New Evangelisation, pray for us.