How to prosper!

This is a mircoblog this morning and i can confirm this is my testimony.

Prov 28:13 – “People who conceal their sins will not prosper…..”

This is me. I have lived this. When I lived with sin in my heart and I lived in secret from those around me…… life was full of mirages… none of my dreams would eventuate. I wish I could say my walk with God is a perfect 2 step, but after I dealt with some stuff, or put it more correctly, I allowed God to do a work on the inside of me after I turned and confessed my sins publically, God has started to prosper me….. and the degree to which i walk in his light and walk with Him will be the degree to which I will prosper…..

Every Christian needs this – we need to prosper, the work of our hands needs to multiply far beyond the unit of 1 in and 1 out. With God one unit in can be 100 units out. When I walked with secret sin, it was 1 unit in, 0.5 unit out at its best.

In this time and in this day we can’t afford to leave that testimony in the earth. Our testimony must be that our God is real and that he prospers the works of His people. The world needs more 100 fold Christians – that’s what all of heaven is searching for, cheering for and rejoicing in….

There is a door open in heaven

John saw a door open in heaven and he heard these words – “come up here”. One day we will her these words too – maybe not these actual words, but the result will be the same and we will find ourselves in the spirit on the Lord’s Day.

The picture that is painted after this scene is truly incredible and with our earthly mind we have real troubles in comprehending how magnificent it really will be. Our mind hasn’t yet conceived how great heaven and how amazing God really is (and this is why we need to walk so closely with God so that he can reveal it to us by His Spirit – even so we will still see heaven through a poor tainted reflection).

This is where we ill all one day stand to give account for the things done in the flesh here on earth. God is seated on the throne – me majestic that we can now know and the living creatures around the throne are continually singing “Holy Holy Holy….” and the 24 elders who I assume are 24 of the greatest saints (Enoch, Moses, Elijah, Paul, John, Peter?????? – we simply do not know now) to have walked the earth are all lying prostrate on the ground having taken off their crowns following the lead of the living creatures. They are not doing this because they have to – they can’t help do this because they are in total awe of the one  who sits on the throne.

This is where we come to have our works revealed and just like the living creatures who are covered with eyes so not one part of our lives will be hidden – everything will be exposed before the throne and we will be revealed as to who we really are in the is moment – were we a fraud who’s lives were really only hay, wood and stubble or did we cultivate gold and precious gems within our lives here on earth as we lived for the king rather than for ourselves. Low vision, selfish lives will come to nothing and we will slip into heaven as a man who escapes the fire and we take up our eternal position which will be rather lowly in the kingdom of God or we might not make it at all and we find ourselves cast into outer darkness (miss out on the millennial reign of Christ on earth) or even worse into the fires of hell because we were in actual fact a stumbling block to other (the worst of crimes) or we would not forgive or we kept living a lie we we were really filled with Deadmans bones…… or we are exposed as someone who loved God and fire of judgement reveals the gold of good deeds and we reign and rule with Christ on earth and in heaven to come.

This day will be a most fearful day for all as we come to stand before the judgement seat of Christ. It will be far better for us to visit it now…. and we can do so at anytime… anytime… and it will be far better for us on that final day day if we do..

A message to Thyatira

This is another good little thought about the preparation for “coming home”. I sense personally that what God tolerated in the past ill not be tolerated in the times ahead – the bride that is coming home has clean clothes, is without spot or wrinkle. She has purified herself.

I remember at school receiving our exam results and the teacher would start reading out the marks aloud from the front of the room. They would usually start at the bottom and make their way to the top. It might start at “Smith, 43%, Jones 46%…..” and each student would go up the front to collect their exam paper. Dread would come over us hoping that our names would not be called out when the marks would be low and slowly we would relax as the marks started to rise and then there would be excitement amongst the students who’s names had not been read yet as the marks went higher “….Harris 83%, Collingwood 85%…..” etc etc.

One day we will receive the report card on our life and this report card will have eternal ramifications. It identifies our location and position for eternity. This report card is so important it will determine our eternal role – a doorkeeper or a king, a ruler over many or a caretaker. Making it heaven is enough, but making it and receiving great rewards will be better… much better.

This is the message to Thyatira. This is what jesus told them so they would come home with style…

1. Keep improving in your love, faith and service
2. Hold on tightly to what you have
3. Victory is yours if you obey right to the end

Then he tells them they will have the same authority that the Father gave him and that they will rule over nations.

Consistently and constantly doing what is right in the face of persecutions and pain will stand us in good stead at the reading of our report card.

Coming Home

We just started a series on Sunday mornings called “coming home” and I was reading Luke 21 this morning and he are a couple of excellent points about “coming home”… when I stumble across something like this its a god thought not mine.

Luke 21 – the world is in turmoil and the times of the gentiles is coming to an end with the climatic final 7 years – the destruction of Jerusalem, wars, death, plagues, signs in the heavens, unusual events with the tides – the whole world is rolling around in the confusion and the distress of those times. Then in vs 28 it says to stand and look up for your salvation is near.

This is how to get ready to go home. We are strangers of this world (or are certainly meant to be), we are citizens of heaven, our names are known there, the records of our lives are being recorded, todays events are being noted, we have received the key to the city (the seal of the holy spirit) that gives us access to the throne room of heaven (with this key we can present ourselves before the throne anytime with any request and we will never be turned away – this is another message) and one day at the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ we will be taken home.

This is how to get ready to go home – its all tied into the Jewish wedding ceremony. Read this – its beautiful: Bridegroom pays a price for his Bride to be, he goes away and prepares a place for them to live, when it is ready the father of the bride gives his approval, the bridegroom can come at anytime usually at midnight, the bride must be ready, everything she needs for the ceremony, her attendants, clothes, knowledge of the ceremony rituals etc etc, she doesn’t have time to get ready once the bridegroom appears – he will leave without her, she must be purified and she must be ready. (I will look into this, but I’m sure the bridegroom will come again for his bride if she wasn’t ready the first time, but one thing is for sure – she will have been chastened by her family, she would have had it in the ear and her own disappointment would be enormous – she will be ready next time and perhaps the final time). The attendants of the bridegroom blow the shofar and announce their coming with a loud shout from outside the city and the attendants go into the city and carry her out so she can attend her wedding (7 days). This is so rich – there are so many parrells with the coming of the Lord, the rapture, the wise and foolish virgins – but this is the main point for this blog – LIVE READY.

The bride had to be purified, spotless, holy. One day we are going to go home if Jesus is our saviour – we must be living ready – which is repentant, overcoming and in communion with God.

These are the 3 things that will stop us from living ready vs 34 – living for ourselves and the pleasures of this world, running from the pain life by masking it with “stuff” – alcohol, drugs, sex, food, games etc etc and finally worrying – the all dull the heart and stop us from entering into a real and active relationship with Christ and therefore prevent us from LIVING READY.

One day we are going to go home – are you ready?

Entering and inheriting the Kingdom of God

It’s one thing to enter the kingdom it’s another to inherit it. Entering through the gate of salvation takes us into the kingdom of God…but inheriting it and partaking in the kingdom of God is not the same. We inherit the kingdom only through trials, testing, endurance and the refining of fire until we reflect the image of the king.

When Jesus tells the people “I did not know you”, he’s saying I didn’ have intimate fellowship with you and as a result you don’t get an invite to the wedding feast. I know of you, I’ve seen you around, I know of you by name, but we’re not friends and certainly not close enough for me to give you an invite.

 

These ones never enter the second gate of inheritance - there is no ruling and reigning with Christ in the kingdom of God – only weeping and nashing of teeth. Saved? I believe so they have escaped the fire only with their lives and have escaped the lake of fire – the destination of the doomed.

This life is like a job interview for eternity – we do well – we hear these words “well done good and faithful servant”, if not- ” I did not know you”.

How do we do well in the job interview – every Christian inheritantly knows the answer to this – this is living as life full of the Holy Spirit, daily, and walking in obedience to his word. No journey is the same, and every trial is a little different but the key is denying ourselves and picking up our cross and following Him. It’s in the dying you find life – and its in His life we posses and inherit the kingdom of God.

The coming Great Awakening

Time is racing towards a close and the new age is beckoning us, the earth is crying out for the revelation of the sons and daughters of the new kingdom. Before the end of this age there is going to be one more great awakening but I believe it is going to be different from the ones we have had in the past.

For the last couple of months I have been studing ends times, the possible sequence of events looking into prophecy, reading about heaven and hell and I am convinced that everything is ready for the final 7 years of Daniel and 7 years of revelations to begin. There are only a couple of key events that need to happen. There is the war of Gog and Magog in Eze 38, there is the subsequent peace treaty with the antichrist. Many Christians will point to the scripture – the Gospel will be preached in all the world and then the world will come – and they tell us the gospel has yet to be preached in all the world. Jesus comes in a 2 fold coming – there is the rapture where only those wise virgins who are ready and waiting for the Messiah are taken and meet Jesus in the air and this can be argued as a pre or mid tribulation scenario (I personally favour a pre-trib scenario for many reasons but there are very arguments for a mid trib rapture and then to confuse things further there is a theory of a 2 fold rapture which is not out of the question either) and then there is the conquering king coming to earth on a white horse at the end of the tribulation and the end of Daniels missing 7 years. The gospel doesn’t need to reach the end of the world before the rapture, only before His coming. Those Christians left behind those 144000 converted Messianic Jews will go crazy with the Gospel. The rapture, the unveiling of ancient artifacts such as Noahs arc, the arc of the covenant, the 10 commandments will be heard about through the whole earth. No one will miss these events.

I believe that before all this takes place there is going to be a great awakening that will sweep across the globe. This is what I see in my minds eye. Every nation has the opportunity to step into this awakening – we can taken the opportunity or we can miss it, we can march into glory bringing a nation with us to the praise and adulation of heaven or we can miss it. We stand on the verge of something very special and something very unique - an opportunity like no other. 

If we would risk it all and step off the cliff into the unknown we will walk upon the waters and supernatural power of heaven will be made available to His servants. This time it isn’t reserved for the few – this time the gifts and the power is for the body and not for the exclusively for the preacher….. we are God’s anointed, and if we have faith mountains will be moved….. if we would have the courage to step out these coming days will be the most exciting days that we will ever witness and nd they will be more exciting than anything we have ever heard about……

Are the judgements of God coming quickly

Today is the 9th of Av the worse day in the Jewish calendar. It is like God has removed his blessing from the Jewish people on this day and the worst of things seem to happen on this day – check it out. That is ot the purpose of this post, but it will be interesting to see if anything bad happens to the Jews today.

I have noticed that the judgements of God have been coming more quickly in my life. I don’t have to wait long for the consequences of pride to kick in, or the sin of lust, or lying. This is a general observation…. I don’t think God is going to tolerate lukewarm Christianity like he has in the past. He has been patiet with us in the past and has allowed leaders to remain leaders for periods of time while he tried to bring them back into his will andhe has allowed sin to remain "hidden" (not from himself) while he gently coaxed us back to himself  is happening anymore – I think he is in a hurry and lukewarmness will not be tolerated.

When are lukewarm he are telling everyone it is alright to be disobedient and selfish. And especially leaders – they teach people by their lifestyle and actions that disobedience is acceptable. We know its not and we also know people will see through the thin veneer of our words and see into our actions/lives. I sense that time is running out and we need to judge ourselves before God does it… the consequences of God’s judgement will be more severe than our own- what i mean by that is  can learn the easy way or we can learn the hard way – the easy way is that we can judge ourselves, the ha way is we can allow God to do it.

We need the grace of God to live out what we know.

The other thing to note is that if judgements coming quickly to the house of God it will also be coming quickly to the world live in very perilous times nd this is the time we need to be prayering living holy.

HOW MUCH LONGER HAVE WE GOT?

Not long.

There are only a few more things prophetically that need to happen before the rapture of the Church and the coming of the Lord. And they could happen so quickly. Late year I was watching the news and it looked like things could move very quickly towards the 7 year tribulation with Russia invading Georgia, a peace treaty with Syria on the cards and then everything settled down very quickly. With hindsight and more knowledge its easy to look back and go “of course its not going to happen.”

All we need for the tribulation to start is an alliance with the southern Russian states, Iran, Libya and perhaps Sudan and there is already a loose alliance at hand. All it needs is a trigger like a severe drought in the area (Israel holds huge water reserves) an Israeli attack on Iran or something and events could precipitate very quickly.

The three major events as I understand it that need to happen are 1. an invasion of Israel from an alliance heading by Gog (Russian) which ends in a major defeat for them. 2. Some sort of semblance of a one world government (which we have in a crude form in the UN) and split into 10 regions (the Club of Rome has a suggested list of 10 regions which I believe they identified almost 40 years) and the emergence of muslim leader referred to as the Antichrist. And of course there is the gospel which needs to be preached to all nations before the ends come – but that could include the tribulation period.

My point is that the tribulation could happen very quickly – there are no insurmaountable obstacles that prevents these things happening in the next 3 month. Although this is unlikely – events could unraval very quickly.

Jesus iterated in the last book in the bible 3 times ” I am coming very soon”. That is way we must watch and pray and not be like the 10 foolish virgins.

The Watchmen

I’ve been reading the bible of late in a bit of a scatter gun approach which is probably not the best way to read it, opening it up at random pages and starting to read…. sometimes its great sometimes not…

The other night (a week ago) I decide… ” God what should I read”…. Ezekiel 33…. I’m thinking to myself “I wonder what’s there”?  I then read it and I’m getting really nervous. Last night I ask the same question – Ezekiel 33…. I’m thinking to myself… ” haven’t I just read that…. what was that chapter about again….”

There’s 2 parts to this….. a message to the watchman and a message from the watchman.

As a watchman, God gives us a message for people and if we fail to share that message the blood of those who die is on our hands, if we share the message the blood comes off. The responsibility and the ramifications are enormous.

The message of the watchman is this – the good deeds of a good man will not save you if you turn to sin – there is no thing as once saved always saved – you can live how you like. The evil deeds of an evil will be forgotten if he turns from them and seek forgiveness.

The watchman must share their message and the hearer must live ready and repentant. A bit like the parable f the 10 virgins – we don’t know when our time is up or when the taking away of the church will happen (but be really really ready every feast of trumpets – 19th of September this year) – we need to be ready and full of oil and if you have a message for our friends and family which we almost certainly do…. we must share it with them and love them otherwise their blood will be on our hands.

There was an old man who lived next to me….. I was living a lukewarm, selfish, sin filled life… although I wanted to serve God I think I was only holding onto salvation with the skin of my teeth…. I saw him outside the gate of his house… I felt impressed to pull over, get out of the car and pray for him…. I didn’t…. that was the last time I ever saw him….. I attended his funeral 2 weeks later

I had a message for him…. I didn’t share it…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………….. pray you don’t make my mistake

Naturally I am so ordinary

….my head has never stuck up above the crowd, I’ve never had 5 mins of genuine fame, I do my thing and world keeps moving on, I take one step forward and life gets tough and then I seem to step backwards, there are ebbs and flows that I seemingly have no control over…. I am so ordinary, naturally speaking.

We are saved by grace but we are judged by works – the size of our reward depends on our works. The thing is we don’t receive a reward for doing good stuff. If we are employed to do sales and end up doing accounts and do a great job of them we’ll still get hauled into the bosses office and get a reprimand. We get judged on what we are called to do…. so we better find out what the heck we are called to do.

“I’m so ordinary I don’t know what I’m called to do.” This is a lie and one of the  reasons for this is we have been lazy and have allowed ourselves to be hijacked by a Sunday mentality. We see the glamour of the Sunday service and we look at the preacher and we recognise they are called of God to do what they do… and I’m not as good as these people… I don’t have the time…. I’m a Christian first and foremost but somehow I got left out of the “calling thing” – was I in the bathroom when when they all got handed out. Seemingly I am so ordinary….

Naturally we are so ordinary, even the ones we judge by surface appearances to be great are ordinary. I once had the opportunity to meet Sir Edmond Hillary and I said it was an honour to meet a living legend… his response… I don’t feel special…. I feel very ordinary….. in my mind he was far from that….. he was very humble which made him even more intriguing.

From the highest to the lowest in our natural order we all have opportunity to be supernaturally extraordinary. Empowered by the Holy Spirit from spending time with the King we take on a different look in the spirit realm – we are not ordinary in God eyes. If we live up to the calling God has given us we will be greatly rewarded. If we walk righteously before our king, keeping ourselves pure and leaning on Him in our times of need, repenting of sin and we work with all the power God has given us on the things he has called us to do we will be far from ordinary in the eyes of our King. 

We may look ordinary but supernaturally we are so extraordinary.