The Tabernacle

I watched Tom cruises new movie Valkyrie on the flight home from London.

During our time in Germany I was again confronted with and reminded of the fact that God isn’t finished with the German Royalty. As we sat with some of them for many hours on this trip I felt the prompting of God that He was up to something here. My hunch is that it has to do with providing an alternative Godly leadership example within Germany, or at least a Godly reference point for other leaders to come to.

Then on the way home I watched this film and here was Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg of the German royal families involved in the leadership of and being the one to attempt to carry out this assassination attempt on Hitler.

When Helen & I lived in Germany we would not watch Hollywood movies of World War 2 as these were always from the victors ie America’s perspective. Ie ‘Germans bad, Americans good’. God had asked us to go to these people and to live amongst them and to be involved in calling them up to their potential and calling in Jesus. A very big part of this is to walk in the freedom of God’s forgiveness for past sins. Especially the sins not performed by this generation or in many cases by their parents either but by even earlier generations. World war 2 ended more than 60 years ago now. Yet constantly in the newspapers Nazi stories and every new movie was still saying ‘Germans bad’, this message has well and truly gotten through, I can tell many stories of how and how destructive this has been.

It was so refreshing to see a movie that showed Germans who disapproved of Hitler’s actions attempting ‘in an almost impossible situation’ to do something about it. (The attempt cost all of them their lives). Ie the plot was ‘Some German’s good!’ What a refreshing change, the German people are people too.

Over 5 years Helen & I based out of Germany and I can personally testify that we met many wonderful German people. Also that many that we met had wonderful faith, surpassing the faith and Godliness that we have seen from other nationalities, Helen & I learnt much from them.

I want to strongly challenge the Hollywood endorsed all encompassing view of ‘Germans Bad’. Hitler was actually an Austrian, yes their fathers did atrocious things, yes this is true. But God has very big end time plans for Germany and it’s people, the Fatherland has a big role to play and the royalty of that country are still there and in place for a reason, let’s have a view bigger than we’ve been spoon fed by movies. I want to come in line with what God is doing and saying about these people and I can testify that these leader people have a big role to play, I encourage and welcome their input, and am glad to call many Germans close friends.

Here I am in London, where it is clear that the multi-cultural factor is very advanced, there is such a dynamic mix of people here and many people we have met are actually second generational. ie they were born here in London. Phil who we are staying with is Chinese by ethnicity yet he was born and bought up in Liverpool, his wife was born in Vietnam yet grew up here. The nations are here.

I have just glanced at the Melbourne newspaper on-line and I noticed this article about Muslims getting a dedicated prayer space in a University. Helen & I have spend the last seven weeks traveling Germany and the UK, speaking about the importance of ‘Making Space both physical and time’ in our lives. Setting apart a physical space so that we can enhance our connection with God, how we excited we were to hear of the steps being taken to open such a space for God in Munich and here in Melbourne is a battle by some Muslims to also be given such a space.

Space is important, what we do with it is important. When space is given over and dedicated to a specific purpose, especially in the supernatural, it matters and it is important. Lets not as Chrsitians be last in this.

I have just spent 6 hrs with a friend who is discovering huge depth and intimacy with God through Ancient Coptic lines and traditions. There is such beautiful depth and love and knowledge of Jesus to be found here, in the Catholic lines too. We need to mine for the Gold and not let our arrogance rob us of this depth and tradition. It’s all about Jesus! It’s all about Jesus! It’s all about Jesus!

Here is the link

Right now I am sitting in a house just near Luton on the outskirts of London.

It is a miracle of God’s provision as we were going to stay in Cambridge over Easter, but the people we were to stay with had not finished renovations on their house and the situation with them, while incredibly generous was not looking like it was going to supply us with any rest. After 5 weeks on the road we really need this Easter break.

We had a couple of appointments with YWAM leaders over here (an hour and a bit away) and Ina told us that a house was available as the owner was in Melbourne, Australia (if you don’t mind) visiting family.

So once again we are experiencing Gods amazing rent free provision of a double story house this time in England.

God you are amazing and I Love living my life for you, and while it is stretching I love living in a space where we look to you to see your hand instead of filling in the gaps ourselves, thank you God that you are good and real and that you love to intervene and show your love and care.

On Tuesday we drive to Scotland, then York, then home after a few days in London.

I went to a worship event in Stuttgart last night. Jason Upton was performing and after the first song he stopped and changed the order of the songs and played this “Freedom’ song below. Maybe he had felt some resistance/hesitance from the audience I don’t know. But it was a very powerful moment in the night and in the spirit.

This video doesn’t convey the power that was there last night but the message is still strong.

It was awesome to be amoungst hundereds of Germans worshiping, God is doing great things here.

I have discovered another fun traditional German fasting food. It is called ‘Maltashen’ and it is meat that is enclosed in a wrapping of pasta, the meat is also mixed with green spices so it doesn’t look like meat. So this is also traditionally eaten during fasting season.

So because you are not supposed to eat meat they hide it and then eat it anyway. Seems like an obvious result of enforcing LAW onto people, nothing much has changed, I think there is a similar result when things are enforced on people today.

What a pity that something so powerful and precious such as fasting is robbed by law and enforcing it onto people. Something that we can do to sacrifice or to ‘inflict ourselves’ wanting to draw close to God, warped by good meaning people enforcing this and stealing peoples choice to love God in this way.

Search me please God and show me if there is any way in which I am enforcing things onto people, even subtly I pray. That I would just feely love you and talk of your goodness inspiring others to freely choose to do the same.

Mark

We are back in Germany for a few weeks having a great time catching up with friends and enjoying lots of aspects of being back here. On Sunday we took our hosts out for lunch to a traditional Bavarian pub. They have great hunting type meals, Helen had the Duck and I had OX.

But of course in Germany it is always very important about the beer. In the Pub was a sign that said “Fasting time is strong beer time.” What this sign was saying was as it is Lent, or Fasting season as they call it here, it is time to be drinking the stronger beer that is especially brewed for fasting time. You see while you are fasting you are supposed to eat and drink less so therefore the beer needs to be stronger so you can get the same effect with less. Gotta love the culture here.

A couple of weeks ago I was able to speak at a church in Melbourne that meets in the National Hellenistic Centre. I loovveed the opportunity to speak about God and how good He is and how He is the centre of the world, not us. I particularly loved being able to do this in that building, Australia’s National centre & library for Greek thinking and thought (ie man is the centre of the world).

There is a podcast of my message here.              8th Feb, 2009

There was an interesting spiritual battle during this time, during worship I was singing and praying in the spirit, really claiming the territory and the atmosphere, when all of a sudden I twisted my ancle and could hardly stand, I was able to pray through this, all of the pain left! Praise the Lord!

Later when I was to speak they couldn’t get my power point to work. The CD wouldn’t even load on their computer. I tried it later in another computer and it worked fine.
It was just another reminder of how the spiritual is as real if not more so that the physical world.

Pray with me would you please, that the Lord of the Harvest would indeed continue to send out more harvesters. Matt 9:38 Let us all play our part in this.

I was in a church recently and in the time of worship I found I wasn’t focusing on God. Then I looked at the words of the song and I was stuck by the ‘subject’ of the song. When you look at a sentence you can discover the ‘subject’ by asking what or who the sentence is about? This song was full of ‘me’ ‘I’ and we. So the subject wasn’t ‘God’ the subject of the song was ‘me’ worshipping God. ie the subject of the song was ‘me’.

Now I don’t know about you but I don’t particularly want to sing about how good I am at worshipping God. I would prefer that the subject of the song was God and that I am Worshipping / singing about Him. So the songs that I like to use to lead me into worship are about God, and how Good He is and how wonderful He is, not anything at all about me, or how good my works or worship are. We do have a bit of a list of song titles on this website of albums and artists that tend to keep the main subject of their songs, God. Click here if you want to view or even sample some.

Just last year we were at a large worship / prayer house in the USA and an artist got up and started to sing about how he wanted his tombstone to say what a lover of God he was. I’m sure his heart was great and he was wanting to say how he wanted his life to honor God. But in the group listening and participating I didn’t want to find myself singing about what a great worshipper he was. Ie the subject of the song, or what the song was about was him.

So I have found it a good practice to look at the subjects of our worship songs and make sure that they contain God, songs may have a blend of subjects but I believe to be true worship the main subject needs to be God, because we are worshipping what we are singing about. Now please don’t anybody take this as a new way to criticise or correct people, taking someone to task if you find a worship song where the subject isn’t God, we can in love gently introduce the thought that the subject of worship songs is important, please remember there is a place for other songs in worship & church as people have many needs and hurts and God loves to meet those in so many ways. The point of this blog is to mention that if you are looking for songs to lead you into ‘worshipping Him’ ie. getting your eyes and thoughts off yourself and onto Him, then ones that are about Him and his attributes are wonderful for doing this.

Our Greek/western way of thinking tends to make all things about us, we are the centre of the universe, the most important person on the planet is you! Man is god and everything can be explained, researched and understood. These are Greek thinking patterns that I want to submit don’t fit Christianity, because we are not the centre of the universe, God is. We are not the most important person on the planet, man isn’t god, God is and He is jealous of that position, and while people try to explain and research God, He is unfathomable! He is way more than a concept, He is God the King of the Jews, the creator of the universe and everything in it. And guess what He cannot be fully understood! His ways are not our ways and His thoughts are not our thoughts.
This western influence may want to bring the focus of our worship subtly around to us, but I want to suggest that true worship, those that worship in Spirit and in truth, will be single-mindedly focusing their worship and the ‘subject’ of their praise on the one and only true God, Jesus Christ the Messiah.

When we first came across this we were living in Germany where this was called ‘kindlicher Geist’ and it was a major and very powerful thing when Germans were able to be free and operate in a Childlike Spirit before God. This is not a childish Spirit, but childlike where there is great freedom and inhibition in God, it is wonderful to behold. Of course it is powerful for people of any nationality, when people abandon their preconceived ideas and themselves and don’t worry about how they look or how they might be perceived, but operate in faith wanting to experience God in new and powerful ways, it takes faith and it takes humility.

I heard this at a whole new level when I was listening to reports of what happened at the Azuza st revival in America. They were talking about the presence of God entering the meetings and kids would be running around and playing with the presence, this sounds so right to me and what I know of God. While this was happening healings would take place and we are talking about limbs growing back here, whole legs or feet would just grow back right before people’s eyes, the blind would see the deaf would hear. As I was listening to this wonderful report of people being so close to God, I believe God spoke to me about the approach that He loves people to have when they come to Him and when they want Him to come.

I’m sure we all agree that there is just awesome power and it is an absolutely wonderful thing to experience the presence of God. But why do people want to experience the presence of God. WIIFT What’s in it for them. Here is where I believe the Lord whispered to me that He is looking for pure hearts and childlikeness.

When we come to God it shouldn’t be because we want ‘good worship’ or because we want to be known as people who ‘dwell with God’. It shouldn’t even be because we want to see healingings, or even because we want to see people saved. Desiring God’s presence should be for the sake of His presence, to be with Him.(It’s OK to desire God’s presence, it just isn’t Ok to want His presence just for the ‘stuff’ you gotta want Him.) In other words we shouldn’t desire God for what He will do for us or our reputation, we should only desire the presence for the presence, think of it in terms of a human to human relationship, if you are just in a relationship for the benefits and what you can get from it then the other person is very quickly likely to pick up on your motives. It is the same with God, He of course knows what is in our hearts. I’m not talking about being perfect here but I know that in my relationship with God I want to be a lover and His bride, I want to love Him for Him.

I have just re read this and I feel I have missed something important here, there are many times when I have gone to God, desperate for His touch or a word or some encourgement, God loves it when His children come to Him and it is a huge truth that we can come to Him at any time. I just wanted this blog to be a reminder of the power of a childlike spirit, and how much I want to come to Him with no agenda from Him.

I thought this word was of note. There is good teaching on what the modern day apostolic actually is, and an encouraging word for Australia as a seed bed for the Nations.

I encourgae you to listen with your spirit.

Link

Mark

I heard a great message from Bill Johnson on Favor and then I had a look at The Word (the Bible) to see what it had to say on favor. Interestingly a common phrase in the Bible that came up as I was looking at Favor was “Make Your face to shine upon me Lord”

I found this very interesting as often people think of favor as being all about us. What I want and what I can get. Lord show me favor so I get something, favor in money or business. Looking at the scriptures changed my focus. Because when the Lord makes His face to shine upon us then we will be overcome with His Glory, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, ie everythuing will become about Him, our focus will no longer be on us and our situation.

One thing that The Lord has shown us over and over again as we have endeavored to push into Him is that the closer we get to God, the more we realize that we are nothing and that He is everything. The more we realize that we are so tainted with our own selves and muck, the unholy trinity of me, myself and I.

Lord make Your face shine upon me, but please don’t look too closely as I have become aware of how full of myself that I am.

No, we can pray confidently “Lord make your face shine upon me, as I know that Jesus has washed me clean and I can boldly come into your presence.” Lord also help me to have the courage to be able to face up to what and who I really am and that together we can go forward and clean up, Lord have your way and help me to trust you, no matter what I think or how it looks help me please Lord to trust you knowing that you are ALWAYS GOOD!

When you draw near to The Holy God, your unholyness will be revealed to you. But this is never so that you go away, but only ever so that you are given an opportunity to surrender it to God, and then once that ‘muck’ is dealt with we then gain the ability to come even closer.

Tonight we lit our first candle for Hanukkah. This is a Jewish festival commemorating an event that happened in the time between the Old and New Testaments, a group of Jews forcefully reclaimed the Temple in Jerusalem and then purified it, welcoming back the presence of the Lord. I think this is a very special festival, not just because we know that Jesus celebrated it, but because it celebrates God seeing to it that His Temple is purified and Holy and in a place where people can get access to Him.

I am sure that this is also what He is doing now all around the world we are hearing of more and more prayer houses and Tabernacles. Just this week Helen was told of two more Tabernacles or ‘God spaces’ that people had felt to set aside and consecrate for Him, Jesus the King of the Jews, right here in Melbourne.

So as we lit the first candle tonight we remembered the reclaiming of the Temple in the time of the Maccabees, and also that God is very much now today wanting us to forcefully reclaim Temple space, purify it then welcome back the presence of the Lord, that is set apart for Him both in our own bodies and also some of ‘our’ space.

For more on Hanukkah click here

I have been reading through Proverbs again, reading a chapter a night with Helen. Tonight was chapter 3 and verse 9&10 were my highlights.

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with the finest wine.”

In this current economic climate it just struck me how easily everyday things like the nightly news can take our eyes of God. Here in Proverbs and in many other places the Bible tells us to ‘Honor the Lord with our wealth’ and then our ‘vats will overflow’. This is what God says, Honor Me with your wealth! And then I will take care of you. Do we believe this? As if we truly did then a lot of us would act pretty differently. Matthew ch6 gives us a very clear view of the promises of provision from God for His people. Why do we find this so hard to trust? God is Good! I know this from personal experience, I have even written some of the amazing stories down on this webpage, I know He is good yet it is still hard to totally let go and trust Him with finances, somehow we believe the stupid thought that we are more able to take care of our needs than He is. That is crazy, He is far more able and totally willing. So why do we doubt, why do we allow fear to creep up? I believe it is because we have an enemy working against us, constantly whispering lies, saying God is not good, you must look out for yourself as no one else will.

Well tonight I want to speak to that I want to say

“Honor the Lord with your wealth and with the best part of everything your land produces. Then he will fill your barns with grain, and your vats will overflow with the finest wine.”

I am up for some ‘finest wine’, thank you God that you are Good and thank you that I can rely on and trust You. I love you Jesus thank you.

God I know that You are Good and I do trust you, I am sorry for my unbelief and for listening to the enemy that wants to whisper lies to me that You are not good, and that You are unreliable and that You won’t care for me and meet my needs. I recognise these lies, I repent of them and I ask for Your forgiveness. Lord fill me with more Faith I pray. I honor You with myself and my wealth, I don’t hold them as gods over you, I want you to be Lord over them as well. I believe in You and what You have promised in Your Word, the Bible.

Can I challenge you? Once you have read this to consider praying this prayer for yourself or making up a prayer that suits your situation. Don’t hang on to ANYTHING that you are not willing to surrender to God. ‘For the Lord your God is a Jealous God and He tolerates NO rivals.’ (The second Commandment, Exodus 20)

Misty Edwards I will waste my life.

Very often I find myself talking to people about ‘hearing from God’. Let me be honest with you, it is very close to my favourite topic to discuss. I love talking about how God always operates and speaks within the fruit of His Spirit. In Galatians 5:22-23(NKJV) we read, “But the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self control. Against such there is no law.” How awesome to ‘get it’ that this fruit of the spirit is describing to us what God is like, this is the FRUIT of HIS Spirit. I hate that this list has at times become a ‘heavy burden list’ for people to carry, where they are told they must produce this fruit. This is so far from the truth. This list is telling us what God is like. It also just happens to be true that as we become more like Him, our lives also start to look and smell sweet like this. It is a list of what God is like and as we surrender our lives to Him it becomes a list of what we are like too. Not because of our work, effort or goodness but because of His work, effort and goodness! All we get to do is surrender more and more of ourselves to Him and He does the rest. It really is a very good deal.

There are two more things I think are very tell tales signs that the voice you are hearing is from God:

1/ It will involve a Faith Element. God is into Faith. He really really is. He has set the world up in such a way that it is absolutely required in order to be in relationship with Him. Is God real? Is it possible that I of all people would be able to hear His voice? Faith is required and God loves it that way and from what I can tell this isn’t going to change anytime soon. Our Greek thinking and mindset hate the ‘faith factor’ or put in a Greek way ‘lack of proof or tangible elements’. God isn’t into what you can prove about Him or your studies of Him; or even your work for Him. God wants a romance with you, that is why you are described as His bride (John 3:29), that is why the book Song of Songs exists. To step into any relationship involves faith and risk, that is how God set the world up and that is how it is with Him too. From hindsight I can tell you how great and wonderful and absolutely reliable that He is, but to know that for yourself you are going to have to step out in Faith.

2/ It will involve your heart, and letting Him love it and heal it. I was talking with a pastor last weekend and again this came up. We can so easily impress ourselves with our great achievements for God and ministries we are involved in. But as I have learnt to hear the voice of God, it has become clear to me that God isn’t impressed with ministries, He always seems to be caring about and wanting to touch the individual hearts of people. It seems HE is focused on what He is on about, way over and above what we are on about. He is on about touching, loving and healing the hearts of men and women, boys and girls. This is a huge concern of His. How wonderful it was for me to first learn of God’s deep and loving and knowing care for my heart, not about what I had or had not done, it was never about that for Him just that I knew His love and He was so keen that I would invite him to come and to touch and to begin the process of loving my heart.

There are so many more things that I could put here, like that God wants us all to know that He is Good. That He truly is and lives out ALL of the fruit of the Spirit. Read through the list again and let it soak down into your soul. This is what our huge great God is like. He is loving, joyful, peace, longsuffering, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self controlled. He is beautiful and I love Him.

Just an end note. If you are hearing a voice and it is like the opposites of these fruit (go through the list and work out what the opposites are) then guess what? You are being suggested to by the accusing Prince of Lies. As soon as you recognise this you must stop listening to this voice, he wants to tear down accuse and destroy. Simply tell him to stop in Jesus name and then invite Jesus to speak to you, even ask Jesus what He thinks of you. You will know Him by His fruit.

I have just gotten off the phone from a friend in Munich. Amongst other things, we were talking about the recent powerful, prophetic event where a group of Israeli worshippers came under invitation, to the city on the 70th anniversary of Kristalnacht, which originally happened in Munich. (This is recognised as the time when Hitler started his Nazi persecution of the Jews.) The event bought praise and welcome to an anniversary where racism and murder had reigned.

This friend of ours is an intercessor and has spent many hours / years praying for and discerning things from God over the city. She is an important person in the spirit for Munich. On the Saturday she was in the city showing a high place to a visitor when she heard the Lord whisper to her, “The shame is gone”.
The next day she was stunned to hear from an Israeli pastor who was speaking, that “the shame had gone”. God was revealing a powerful truth that He had worked from the faithful actions of Germans and Jews present at the event. He has removed the shame, and coincidently mentioned it to both parties.

Having lived in Germany, we have seen and comprehended just a tiny part of the shame carried by all German’s over World War 2 and the holocaust. This breakthrough is absolutely wonderful. This is very, very powerful and very significant. Thank you Lord that this is now broken in the spirit.

Let’s own this declaration/truth from God. ‘The shame is gone’ and we declare freedom over Germany, Israel and every soul born in them. Lord may they deeply know your love, peace and freedom of heart.

Added about an hour later..
I have just been reminded of a moment back in 2004 when I was in Israel. We were speaking with a German lady and while we were talking she felt to tell us about a vision the Lord had given her.
It was of an event horse being very correctly and well ridden around a tight arena. This horse and rider were doing everything very rigidly and well, perfect even one might say. But then she said that while the horse was doing great and that it was very controlled, that that wasn’t what God had created horses for, God told her that He created horses to run free, out in open space to gallop and to be free with their manes flowing in the wind. She thought that this picture represented the German people, that they were stuck in the eventing arena perfecting their circles. The lady then went on to tell us that in this type of eventing that the only way for a horse and rider to leave the arena is when someone calls out ‘Door Free’. She then went on to say that she thought that it would have to be a non German to tell the Germans this, that maybe this was why Helen & I were returning to Germany at the time.
Very strongly in the Spirit and from here, Australia ‘the Great South land of the Holy Spirit,’ I sense to call out right now ‘TÜR FREI’

Last night I was listening to a Podcast from Bethel church (17/11/08) when I had the following revelation.
We can tend to think that something that we ask God for is answered only when we see it. But this thought really is leaving us as god and only what we see with our eyes as real. But what I want to propose is that a prayer is answered when God says that ‘He will do it’, or ‘Yes’, or ‘it is done’. Have you heard that still small voice as you have prayed? “Yes I have done that, it will be so.” I believe that is the point that prayer is answered. Not when we see it ourselves. That may be months or weeks after God has answered and acted.
So once we have heard God say ‘Yes’ then we need to switch from ‘persevering in Prayer’ to ‘Standing in Faith’. Because what God says always comes into being, so the prayer is answered at that point, we just then need to stand in Faith until we then see it for ourselves. God is very very GOOD!

There is so much in this for us, another quote from the podcast is this.

Fruitfulness comes out of Rest.
Warfare comes out of Romance.

Resting in God knowing that it is He that does it, (1 Thess 5:24) and understanding the awesome power of our romance with God. There is nothing that you can do that is more devastating to the enemy than letting it all go and Resting in God and holding nothing back in your romance with Him.

I have just been sent and read a chapter from a Book called Punk Monk. It tells of the writers journey (24/7 Prayer, England) with God of discovering ‘Sacred Space’ or thin places. This is exactly the language that we were using as God first took us to Europe and then took us into Tabernacle and started to teach us that He wanted spaces set aside for Him here on Earth. They are great reflections and I highly recommend reading the chapter and then spending some time asking God what He has for you from it.

You can download the pdf of chapter 2 here.

We would love to hear your thoughts and comments on this chapter, please go to TabernacleBlog and leave your comment there. Thanks