The truth is, if you put God in a box He’s not gonna be there, because He can’t be put in one. The Holy Spirit blows where He pleases and not according to where we want Him to blow. What if God was waiting for you to hear what you’d never known before, what if the Holy Spirit, who has too often been shelved, disregarded and silenced, is the new thing He’s been waiting to speak.

What if, what if God really did want us to celebrate ourselves? What if He called us righteous and lovely, because He wanted us to see it in ourselves too? To celebrate rather than deny, and offer up rather than shy away. What if, by celebrating our gifting and who we are, we actually brought glory to the one who placed it within us.

From formless earth dark and void, God spoke, and light burst forth. Blind eyes spoken to gained sight and a fig tree cursed, withered. Demons fled at the Son of God’s rebuke, and a storm was stilled with the command for the raging waves to be silenced. It was neither smart thinking nor cunning that got Jesus out from the wilderness but the declaration of who He was as the Son of God.

The more we risk, the more we realise how much more there is to give. The more we are pushed to count the cost less, and surrender more of who we are. It’s the yieldedness of the ‘yes’ that is so precious to Him. ‘Yes I will go, Lord’ ‘Yes, Lord, send me’. ‘Yes Lord, What more can I give’.

I must worship though I feel nothing, rejoice though my spirit feels barren and thank Him for the very things I do not see. My feelings do not determine the reality of God. Because while our feelings change, He doesn’t. It is a beautiful offering- the heart that chooses to praise though it feels so desolate.

I will yield the reward of intimacy with my King to the extent in which I choose to find Him.

Your Daddy is standing in a swimming pool, a little bit out from the edge. You are, let’s say, three years old and standing on the edge of the pool. Your Daddy holds out his arms to you and says, “Jump, I’l catch you. I promise. Now, how do you make your daddy look good in that moment? Answer, trust him and jump. - John Piper

Make your choice, adventurous Stranger,
Strike the bell and bide the danger
Or wonder, till it drives you mad,
What would have followed if you had.
C.S Lewis

The world is indeed full of peril, and in it there are many dark places; but still there is much that is fair, and though in all lands love is now mingled with grief, it grows perhaps the greater.” J.R.R Tolkein 

Many people are waiting for the permission to climb higher and jump higher. You don’t need permission. Jesus living inside of you contains all that is necessary to eradicate the apathy and the normalcy.

What can anyone do when you are fearless? When you cannot be made to fit in preconcieved boxes, even people who want to think of you as an enemy will not know what to do with you. But you can be truly fearless only when you are in love- when you are immersed and yielded to the point that you do not care about the cost. If you are always in the river, always in love, and always ready to pay any price, it doesn’t matter what the world does to you. In the secret place you do not fear being shot at or being killed. Jesus has become utterly real to you. If you die, you go to heaven.’

‘Why does evangelism sometimes feel like selling vacuums door to door? Here is why: many of us have been trained to use a bag of tools and methods to share the gospel. More often than not, those methods become the focus instead of Jesus. When that happens, we can end up selling and manipulating instead of serving and sharing Father’s gift of salvation and love.’ Bob Johnson

Without intimacy, we are religious, without action we are just theology. Religion creates a taste in our mouth that cannot be satisfied. But Jesus! He alone can satisfy. God doesn’t want fan boys and girls or a number on a tally chart, He’s asking for people who will be in Covenant with Him.

It’s time to let the spirit reclaim lost ground, to let Him invade the area He has wanted all along. To understand that Holy Sprit is not here to tickle us but to transform. It’s time to become a culture bearing the ‘miraculous signs’ of a God of the miraculous, unwilling to settle for the natural when we serve a God of the supernatural.

The day the church understand the reality of the Spirit of the living God dwelling within them- will be one of the finest realities this world has ever seen. We’ve spent too long crying out ‘Come Lord Jesus’ to a Spirit who is already in us and amongst us. Hours of prayer meetings are spent beckoning forth an open heaven, missing that they’ve been open since the day Jesus broke forth from the Jordan with John at his side.

Love is not a slicker programme or a forced offering. Love is not transient, irritable or resentful. It does not boast or rejoice at wrongdoing. To love, requires no theological degree or space filled in on a form. Each heart was built for love, and therefore longs for love: the love of loves.

Take off your shoes he whispers and reach out your hand. All along we’ve been walking on holy ground, we’ve just rarely known it away from the comfort of protected feet.