Change is the essential process of all existence.

Have you ever wondered what the real reason that Jesus spoke in parables was? Could it have something to do with people understanding the message more than the words?
Remember that the purpose of words is to relay a message, what is important is not so much the words written or even spoken but the message that is trying to be communicated. I believe this is why Jesus spoke in parables. Remember that a picture is worth a thousand words and God wants us to get the picture He is trying to paint in our hearts!
What I have seen over the years is that people will often debate and argue over words written in scripture and in doing so miss the whole point that God is trying to get across. These arguments usually result in divisions and separatisms amongst believers. Let us not be so literal (letter of the law) and try to understand the message trying to be relayed.

2Timothy 2:14 Remind them of these things, and solemnly charge them in the presence of God not to wrangle about words, which is useless and leads to the ruin of the hearers.
(AMP) Remind [the people] of these facts and [solemnly] charge them in the presence of the Lord to avoid petty controversy over words, which does no good but upsets and undermines the faith of the hearers.
(GNB) Remind your people of this, and give them a solemn warning in God’s presence not to fight over words. It does no good, but only ruins the people who listen.

Clarke’s Commentary states: That they strive not about words – Words, not things, have been a most fruitful source of contention in the Christian world; and among religious people, the principal cause of animosity has arisen from the different manner of apprehending the same term, while, in essence, both meant the same thing. All preachers and divines should be very careful, both in speaking and writing, to explain the terms they use, and never employ them in any sense but that in which they have explained them.

Matthew 23:23-24 “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you tithe mint and dill and cummin, and have neglected the weightier provisions of the law: justice and mercy and faithfulness; but these are the things you should have done without neglecting the others. “You blind guides, who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel!

Probably the prime example of missing the message and being caught up in words is found in the 2000 year debate over the divinity of Jesus Christ. Is Jesus God or just the Son of God? This was the thrust of the debate of the council of Nicaea in 325 AD, trying to deal with this topic which had split the church in two.

God’s purpose in Jesus was to express Himself (His love) and His message to the world. God’s message was not necessarily the words of Jesus but rather the life of Jesus. Jesus Christ was God’s message, God’s words, God’s love, God’s law, God’s purpose and intent for mankind wrapped up in human flesh! This is why Jesus did not tell people to focus on His words or teaching but rather taught people to focus on Himself!

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In 1967 the BBC commissioned the Beatles to write a song for the UK’s contribution to “Our World” the first live global television link. The song that John Lennon wrote was entitled “All you need is love”. Whether or not John realized this but it was a song of the heart of God to His children of the planet.

Matthew 22:34-40 But when the Pharisees heard that Jesus had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered themselves together. One of them, a lawyer, asked Him a question, testing Him, “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And He said to him, ” ‘YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, AND WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, AND WITH ALL YOUR MIND.’ “This is the great and foremost commandment. “The second is like it, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.’ “On these two commandments depend the whole Law and the Prophets.”

Matthew 7:12 “In everything, therefore, treat people the same way you want them to treat you, for this is the Law and the Prophets.

Where love is lacking, law is needed! Where love is lived, law is obsolete!

Romans 13:10 Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

The law is our teacher which over time brings us to a place of love (Christ). Jesus fulfilled the law by living in love. Love is expressed in relationship.

Galatians 3:24-25 Therefore the Law has become our tutor to lead us to Christ, so that we may be justified by faith. But now that faith has come, we are no longer under a tutor.

Galatians 5:14 For the whole Law is fulfilled in one word, in the statement, “YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.”

Remember that love is not a feeling; love is a lifestyle of preferring others over yourself. Love is a lifestyle of treating others in the way you want to be treated.

Philippians 2:3-4 Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility of mind regard one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others.

Godly love is more than the absence of treating others badly; it is the initiating of treating others in the way we want to be treated.

To Hear the Audio click here.

It may seem absurd to ask such a question, but if we are to continue on the journey I believe the Lord is taking us on, then it is imperative that these type of questions be asked.

Too often I find that we in Christendom miss a lot that God is trying to portray to us. I believe this is due to the tendency we have to over literalize scripture in areas where it was not intended to be literalized. One such area, I believe, is in the phrase “Son of God”. To properly understand and learn we must ask ourselves the following questions:

Why did God use that phrase, what was His purpose?

What did that phrase mean to the people and culture of that day to which He spoke?

Was it something that was literal or did it have a greater metaphorical meaning?

As a student of scripture I have come to discover over the years that God’s intention when He speaks or expresses Himself is for the purpose of revealing to us a greater reality of Himself and our purpose in Him.

With this in mind, let us look into the following verses in scripture to discover what is meant by the term “Son of God”.

Exodus 4:22,23 “Then you shall say to Pharaoh, ‘Thus says the LORD, “Israel is My son, My firstborn. “So I said to you, ‘Let My son go that he may serve Me’; but you have refused to let him go. Behold, I will kill your son, your firstborn.”

Hosea 11:1 When Israel was a youth I loved him, And out of Egypt I called My son.

Who is the Son of God in these passages of scripture? Is not the Son of God depicted here Israel?

Acts 17:28 for in Him we live and move and exist, as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we also are His children.’

Ephesians 4:6 one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all.

Here we see that God is Father of all, not just the father of believers. In Acts 17:28 Paul was speaking to the Greek non-believers. Does this not make all of us sons of God?

Mark 1:1 The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God.

Here we see that Jesus Christ is referred to as the Son of God.

Let us look at another metaphor:

Matthew 5:14 “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden;

Who is the light of the world? In this passage is not Jesus speaking to the nation of Israel?

John 8:12 Then Jesus again spoke to them, saying, “I am the Light of the world; he who follows Me will not walk in the darkness, but will have the Light of life.”

John 9:5 “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world.”

Now Jesus says that He is the light of the world and furthermore He unveils to them that He is only the light while He is in the world…….interesting thought!

Let me help you a little. God’s purpose for Israel (His Son) was that they would be light to the whole world. Jesus Christ was the physical embodiment of the nation Israel. Jesus was God’s light in Israel manifest.

We can now see that the term “Son of God” is a metaphor for God manifest or God purpose manifest.

You see God tried to manifest Himself through Israel but they were not willing. Then He decided to manifest Himself through Himself in the form of Jesus Christ. Today He manifests Himself through us who are willing to let go of our own lives and take hold of His life and allow God to manifest through Himself (Christ) in us. Through this we fulfill the purpose of God in being the light of the world. Christ (God) in us manifest to represent the Father and His love to the world.

To hear the audio press here.

Forty: The Road to Faith

It is quite interesting how often and where we find the number 40 in scripture. Whenever and wherever we come accross it we seem to find ourselves in a place of challenge and testing, a place where we are often cornered with seemingly no way out. It is at this place where we find God and feel compelled to trust Him, usually because there is no other way. It is in this place of despair that empowers us to discover that which is beyond our reason and logic and takes us on a journey into the realms of the unknown and endless possibilities. This journey we call “The Road of Faith”. Let us look at a couple of examples in scripture.

Acts 1:3 To these He also presented Himself alive after His suffering, by many convincing proofs, appearing to them over a period of forty days and speaking of the things concerning the kingdom of God.

Luke 24:1-53

Acts 1:1-11
The purpose of the forty days was to bring the disciples to a place in their lives where they would believe without having to see, that they would learn to see beyond the eyes of the body and see with the eyes of faith. They were to learn to live by a new perspective, the life of the spirit (internal life of relationship), and to free themselves from the limitations of the life of the natural (external life or sense realm).

Gen 8:6 Then it came about at the end of forty days, that Noah opened the window of the ark which he had made;

This is forty days from the time that the ark landed on Mt. Ararat.

Gen 8:11 The dove came to him toward evening, and behold, in her beak was a freshly picked olive leaf. So Noah knew that the water was abated from the earth.

The dove represents the spirit and the olive branch new life. So after another forty days Noah entered into a new life in the spirit and it was at this time that God made a covenant with Noah through the rainbow. The rainbow is found after the forty days of testing.

Acts 1:6 So when they had come together, they were asking Him, saying, “Lord, is it at this time You are restoring the kingdom to Israel?”

They still were not getting it, they were still looking for a natural kingdom with a natural king.

What are we looking for today? Are we waiting for a natural king to restore the kingdom to the Christians? Or are we looking to a spiritual kingdom that is lived through us? Our lives still have many forty days to go through until we come to a place of maturity in faith, where we can live the kingdom now from the inside out. It is only through the faith journey that we will see the coming of the King and when the King returns the scriptures say that what He will be looking to see if He can find faith in the earth. Remember that we are the earth!

To here the audio press here.

Four Layers of the Word

Life began in a garden. We call this paradise, which comes from the Persian “pardes” which means garden. This word made its way into the Aramaic and Hebrew, written PRDS (remember that the ancient Hebrew had no vowels). Later on the Rabbis created a teaching from the word PRDS on the “Four Layers of the Word of God” in an acronym form.

· P = pschat, the literal sense of the Word
· R = remes, the allegorical, parabel sense of the Word
· D = drasch, the moral sense of the Word, what it teaches us
· S = sod, the hidden layer of the Word

The Rabbis defined the fourth layer “sod” as Kaballah, what we would call Bible Code. The New Testament word would be “Revelation”.
We can do the same in English and create an acronym we can remember. We know that Jesus Christ is the “Word of God” and He is the “Lamb of God”, therefore we can use the acronym LAMB.

L – Literal interpretation
A – Allegorical interpretation
M – Moral interpretation
B – Bible Code or Revelation

Before we go any further, please understand that all four layers are required for our lives. These layers produce progressive understanding and allow for a proper theological perspective in our viewing of scripture. What we want to avoid is becoming “parked” on a certain layer and viewing our Christianity from a limited perspective.

Read: Mark 4:1-20

L: Literal Interpretation

Mark 4:4 as he was sowing, some seed fell beside the road, and the birds came and ate it up.

Mark 4:15 “These are the ones who are beside the road where the word is sown; and when they hear, immediately Satan comes and takes away the word which has been sown in them.

These are people that take the word literally (letter of the law). They do what the Bible says but it is not part of their journey of life (beside the road). They are more concerned about being right in their doctrine than they are of discovering life along the journey. Thus they tend to be harsh and critical of others.

A: Allegorical Interpretation

Mark 4:5,6 “Other seed fell on the rocky ground where it did not have much soil; and immediately it sprang up because it had no depth of soil. “And after the sun had risen, it was scorched; and because it had no root, it withered away.

Mark 4:16,17 “In a similar way these are the ones on whom seed was sown on the rocky places, who, when they hear the word, immediately receive it with joy; and they have no firm root in themselves, but are only temporary; then, when affliction or persecution arises because of the word, immediately they fall away.

These are people that I would call “heady”, always looking for the “new teaching” or the “new revelation”. They sound good but their lifestyle disqualifies their teaching. They will have intellectual understanding but will not be able to process this understanding into a lifestyle of reality.

2Timothy 3:7 always learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth.
2Timothy 3:7 (CEV) These women always want to learn something new, but they never can discover the truth.

M: Moral Interpretation

Mark 4:7 “Other seed fell among the thorns, and the thorns came up and choked it, and it yielded no crop.

Mark 4:18,19 “And others are the ones on whom seed was sown among the thorns; these are the ones who have heard the word, but the worries of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other things enter in and choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.

These are people that on the outside live a moral life. They do the right things and avoid the wrong things. The problem here is that there has not been a death to self. The issues of the heart are not yet dealt with and a struggle continues in regard to the internal lusts of the heart and mind. Remember that a lust is nothing more than wanting what you want for yourself and allowing that want to affect your life and judgment. Therefore these individuals produce an external Christianity but do not produce the fruit of life of the Christ (Galatians 5:22-24).

B: Bible Code or Revelation

Mark 4:8 “Other seeds fell into the good soil, and as they grew up and increased, they yielded a crop and produced thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

Mark 4:20 “And those are the ones on whom seed was sown on the good soil; and they hear the word and accept it and bear fruit, thirty, sixty, and a hundredfold.”

In this verse the word “accept” means to take in and be part of your life, contrary to the word “receive” in verse 16 which means to take hold of externally.
Revelation is more than seeing something new or understanding something new, revelation is only revelation when it is processed in our lives. It is this process that allows the fruit to bear which is the life of The Christ!

To hear the audio click here.

Overcoming Offence
Pt 2: Letting Go

Matthew 6:12 ‘And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.
Forgive: to release, to let go, to let alone

Matthew 18:21-35
What we do to others, we will have done to us. This is because what we do to others we are really doing to ourselves and to Christ. Do you not realize that you are one with your brother? He and you are from the same body. If your foot stumbles and hurts itself, does it not bring hurt to the rest of your body? So what should you the rest of your body do? Should you be offended because of the pain you are feeling or should you take care of the foot until it is healed? Of course we take care of the foot because this is the only way to stop the pain. The problem here is that we do not believe that our brother is one with us because we are living on the low road of life in self outside of the Christ. If we grasp this reality of oneness we would be quick to resolve issues, if only to stop the pain. Unfortunately we would rather be right and suffer pain than to let go of our rights and experience freedom and oneness.

Beloved we are confused about what our rights are. The only rights that we have are in the grace of God, we have NO rights in ourselves. We do not belong to ourselves, we belong to Christ. We have no right to hold something against another. Choose to let it go, take the high road of life in the Christ and be free! Let it go!

Matthew 16:24-25 Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.

Whoever will let go of his life will find the God life! Let go of your life, let go of your rights and you will find forgiveness and you will find life!

To hear the audio click here.

Overcoming Offence
Part 1: What is Offence?

To overcome offence, one first has to determine what offence is. This is important because offence is the number one killer of Christian life in the Church today. Offence is like a cancer, it can attack you at any time. If it is caught early enough it can be treated but if left too long it is fatal. Thanks be to God that there are precautionary measures that can be taken to reduce the risk factor but first we need to discover what this killer is and how it really works.

Matthew 24:1-13 (MKJV)

Matthew 24:10 (MKJV) And then many will be offended, and will betray one another, and will hate one another.

Offended G4624 skandalizō (skan-dal-id’-zo)
To “scandalize”; from G4625; to entrap, that is, trip up (figuratively stumble [transitively] or entice to sin, apostasy or displeasure): – (make to) offend.

Matthew 24:10
(BBE) And numbers of people will be turned from the right way, and will give one another up and have hate for one another.
(CEV) Many will give up and will betray and hate each other.
(CJB) At that time many will be trapped into betraying and hating each other,
(GNB) Many will give up their faith at that time; they will betray one another and hate one another.
(GW) Then many will lose faith. They will betray and hate each other.
(NASB) “At that time many will fall away and will betray one another and hate one another.
(WNT) Then WILL MANY STUMBLE AND FALL, and they will betray one another and hate one another.

So then, when we are offended we have”Turned from the right way”, “Given up”, “Become trapped”, “Given up our faith”, “Lost our faith”, “Fallen away” and “Stumbled and fallen”. When in offence we find ourselves on the low road of life called “self” instead on the high road in life called “In Christ”.

So what is it that offends us, let’s look at Romans 9:30-33

What shall we say then? That Gentiles, who did not pursue righteousness, attained righteousness, even the righteousness which is by faith; but Israel, pursuing a law of righteousness, did not arrive at that law. Why? Because they did not pursue it by faith, but as though it were by works. They stumbled over the stumbling stone, just as it is written, “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.”

Christ is the “Rock of Offence” or more specifically the “Grace of God” that is found in Christ Jesus is the rock of offence. Grace through faith is the high road of life in Christ, whereas works is what I can do and what I can accomplish and is the low road of life in self. Christ Jesus is either the Rock of Salvation or the Rock of Offence.

The last time someone treated you unkindly, did you react in offence or did you pause and take the high road? Did you see them as an unkind person or did you see them as someone in whom you are one with in the Christ? You see, the grace of God empowers us to see others through the eyes of God and helps us realize that all are His children (Ephesians 4:6) and right now that individual might not recognise the Christ in him but we know that He is in there!

Read 1Peter 2: 1-8 for yourself and see what the Holy Spirit speaks to you in regards to this teaching.

1Peter 2:1-8
Therefore, putting aside all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the word, so that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: “BEHOLD, I LAY IN ZION A CHOICE STONE, A PRECIOUS CORNER stone, AND HE WHO BELIEVES IN HIM WILL NOT BE DISAPPOINTED.” This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, “THE STONE WHICH THE BUILDERS REJECTED, THIS BECAME THE VERY CORNER stone,” and, “A STONE OF STUMBLING AND A ROCK OF OFFENSE”; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed.

To hear the audio message click here.

Repentance

This is an interesting and often misunderstood topic. If one was to ask a variety of people “What does it mean to repent?” your answers would vary from “being sorry” to “turning away from sin”. Though these examples can be part of the repentance process, they in themselves are not repentance. Let’s go into the scriptures and see what we can find.

Matthew 3:1 Now in those days John the Baptist came, preaching in the wilderness of Judea, saying,
Mat 3:2 “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

(AMP) And saying, Repent (think differently; change your mind, regretting your sins and changing your conduct), for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
(GW) “Turn to God and change the way you think and act, because the kingdom of heaven is near.”

Repent:G3340 metanoeō (met-an-o-eh’-o)
From G3326 and G3539; to think differently or afterwards, that is, reconsider (morally to feel compunction): – repent.

“Metanoeo” comes from two Greek words “Meta” meaning a change or modification and “Noeo” meaning a thought process. Therefore metanoeo can be defined as “a change or modification of the thought process.

Matthew 3:2 could be read “Change the way you think and see, for the realm (kingdom) of the eternal (heaven) is here!” John the Baptist was the forerunner for the Christ and his message was that of preparation for one to recognize and enter the Christ.

Matthew 4:17 From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Jesus realized that a people who would not allow themselves to think differently would never be able to believe in what they cannot naturally see.
Remember what is said in Hebrews 11:1 Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen.

Faith is a conviction of things that we cannot naturally see. This conviction is a result of learning to think differently, learning to think beyond the physical and into the eternal or heavenly realm. This is what John the Baptist and Jesus were attempting to do, to empower people to believe and see in a way they never had before.

Matthew 11:20 Then He began to denounce the cities in which most of His miracles were done, because they did not repent.
Note here in this scripture that Jesus began to denounce those who would not allow themselves to think differently. The miracles were tools that God used to allow people to see beyond the natural and allow their minds to expand into a heavenly or eternal perspective of thinking.

John 3:1-7 Here we see Jesus teaching Nicodemus to think and see from a higher perspective. To be “born again” is to be born from above, to think and see from a higher perspective. This phrase “born again” indicates repentance which enables one to see and enter into this Kingdom (The Christ realm) which cannot be seen from a lower level of thinking or perspective.

So we see that repentance is a daily lifestyle that empowers us to grow into the fullness of the Christ through a continual change in the thinking processess.

To listen to the audio press here.