Newness

I am filled with a passion and a presence

of something

Entirely the same

Yet completely new.

Like the Ready Brek man

Surrounded on the inside with goodness.

Filled with an impenetrable coating

Of molten, shining red

Iron.

New on the inside

And totally radiant as I embrace this

New

Awareness of life and love, of beauty

Of confidence inside.

I am grace-filled

Love-kissed

Spoiled

In deep unknowable places.

Where only He can – and does –

Touch .

Raw, painful emotion

Healed.

Dull, dead

Nerve-endings

Alive.

Deadness

Gone.

Life

In its place.

Joy seeping

into the

cracks and crevasses

Of my soul.

As if born

Again

I’m becoming new

and newer each

Precious waking

Day.

Perhaps it’s time…

To share an experience, more than a dream, this was an experience of the multi-faceted, deep-layered loveliness of God, in all His honest, beautiful, gentle wisdom and love.

It was sometime before the first lockdown and I had a dream….or an encounter in the night. So many things spring to mind when I think of it. The burnishing snese of the Spirit of God going through the floors above where I was standing as I watched: He, the Spirit, was washing through, like a burnishing tide all of the places and spaces that were above the ground floor of the building that I was standing in.

It seemed like a place either in Brighton’s Lanes, or London’s narrow streets around Fleet Stree (perhaps) ancient, narrow paths through the centre of an ancient city whose streets have been trod for generations.

I was in a formerly industrial building, narrow, or seemingly so, just off one of thise side streets with boutiques and bars and expensive places to spend well(?)-earned money after work in the City. Smoked glass doors, metal handles and a sense that these pillars that I saw – cast iron, black, solid and recently painted – were here to stay.

The building was clean. The floors empty – donwstairs, where I was I sensed that the Lord had been in this place. It was awesome. The sense of strength and purposeof the Spirit’s move was immense and somewhat awe inspiring. Not a one for much cleaning of houses (!) I felt slightly intimidated at his abilit to get right into every corner and ‘clean it all out’ – I guess – for those who know of these things – it felt a bit like the time before Passover when Jewish families search every corner of their home for hametz (yeast) and brush it out with a feather, minuscule movements, forensic and totally oveboard! Perhaps fun for the Lord as He is Spirit and the search and the action are both one and the same, releasing cleansing power as He speaks into each corner of our minds…

And so I became aware of my own attachment (He the Spirit was evidently cleaning me out as well!) to things, belongings, material things, that I – like my own Dad – had stored away in my attic “for a rainy day” random stuff that I would one day (if need be such) sell and have enough to survive …but this was not the Father’s way. And I saw that I was attached – like a spaceman to his mothership – by a long umbillical cord of lust for things that I depended on to ‘survive’ financially, and I knew I had in a moment to commit to get rid of these things, and this attachment to them, so as to be able to fully depend on my Father for life, for provision, for freedom and peace of heart, connection – all things in fact.

So in my mind and heart there and then in the dream I knew i had to do that and get rid of the stuff that encumbered my trust and blocked relationship with His heart. I knew I could grow in intimacy, which is the lifeblood of my life if I could do that and then, settled I returned from seeing my ‘attic addiction’ to my the dream building…and I saw some more amazing things happening…

For most of the Church?

This must be true for most of the church (in the UK).

James 1:22 in the Voice translation is like water to a thirsty soul for anyone who is puzzled by the following conundrum:

we go to church a lot
we speak about Bible knowledge as if it is the paragon of virtue
yet we don’t practice some of the most active bits: prophesying, casting out demons, healing the sick and “raising the dead”

It struck me as I read this that we are being deceived! The sharp cutting edge of the church – its super-natural sharp edge is being worn out, ground down by a load of heavy Bible teaching that somehow takes the edge off the ‘dunamis dynamic’.

It’s time we woke up, us old sleepy heads and got with the programme!

Young people (and some older) are indeed getting with the Programme and are on the front foot. Taking the power of the Spirit, in love to the front doors, the station platforms, the bars, the clubs, the streets and the hospitals and front rooms of people – our friends who don’t yet know, or haven’t yet tasted the “sweetest of Loves”. This power cuts through the religious stuffiness of the “let’s all meet behind closed doors” mentality, until we feel strong enough to go out…(and we end up seeing it never happen, because somehow the teaching seems to make us full of cotton wool comfort, not realising it is anaesthetising ourselves from the sharp pull of the Holy Spirit into an action and love filled “movement” of the Holy Spirit.

You see, He is always moving (no-one knows where He’ll go next – unless of course, you are listening, as John says in his revelations: “to what the Spirit is saying to the churches…”!).

The willingness to live on the frontier of our self-knowledge, on the edge of our understanding is rare – the willingness to take a risk, a punt on being wrong with a prophetic word, or of having the door shut in our face, or of failing to find the words when faced with anti-christian sentiment is cushioned by the motivation that drives us forwards – the Love, the Love of Jesus.

He is our motivation, this love must be our driving force, even if we get it wrong! It doesn’t matter, even when we fall or fail, it doesn’t matter. God looks for the heart, not the “success rate”! He grades us not by the level of souls won, but on the fire of love in our heart….He promises to give us what we need, so much so that we can afford to “give away our coat, if we have two!”. Meaning we can afford to give away anything (the gifts, the river of life, the river of the Holy Spirit) so that the Presence and love of God gets out. We can give away our whole lives to this and yet still get replenished, filled and “more than enough”.

I sense He is calling me, you, all of us Church-dwellers out from behind the walls of the church, to come out from behind our sofas (“oooh! the world is soooo scary”) to an adventure of Love. Into the lounges and dwellings of those around us, the neighbours, the workmates, the colleagues.

To love them well, to put their needs first, not ours, to put aside our judgements and our fears and to bring the flow of His fire to them – healing for mind soul body and spirit. Restoration of friendship, of finance or family, repairing broken bodies – He can do everything – everything!!!

James 1:22

The Voice

Put the word into action. If you think hearing is what matters most, you are going to find you have been deceived.