Write down the revelation...

My favourite time of year is coming up. It’s two months away, and in kid-time it may seem like an eternity but in adult-time, it’s only 7 weekends. That’s less than a school term, less than a Beth Moore bible study, less than a pregnancy trimester, and less than a season of my new favourite TV show, This is Us. I’m away most of May for a worship assignment (with my worship flags, from Catch the Fire Worship Flags – shameless plug), and June is busy with year-end activities and trying to schedule events before friends take off for the summer. So...in other words, if I blink 3x fast, summer will be here. Summer is the best time of the year. Summer means it’s my birthday, and my birthday means gifts, and celebrations and people saying all sorts of nice things to me on Facebook. Summer also means long evenings, late BBQ dinners, and friends – lots and lots of friends. In particular, I look forward to my yearly girl’s weekend getaway with my two longest and dearest friends. We’...

I just spent a few days with my college roommate. We used to play a lot of card games. Sometimes we’d play one game and sometimes we play as many as eight games. She could never figure out why it was so random until she realized I like to play until I win (for the record, it wasn’t a conscious thing on my part). If it takes only once – great; but if it takes more, we keep playing until I come out the winner. She still loves to razz me about this little fact but I make no apologies. I’m a winner and I know it. As Christians, it’s in our DNA to be victorious. It’s not our right to lose but it is our inheritance to win. From the first commission God gave to Adam in the garden – to multiply and subdue the earth – we’ve been destined to come out on top. The one who subdues is the one who claims victory. We are victorious; gloriously victorious in Christ. Daniel 7:22 tells us the Ancient of Days was seated [on his throne] and pronounced judgement in favour of the saints of the...

One of my all-time favourite suspense/thriller movies is Sleeping With the Enemy. I may be giving away my age but I saw the movie in the theatre with my high school boyfriend. (*spoiler alert) I still remember my heart pounding when Julia Roberts opened her cupboards to find everything in order and the audible gasp I let out when her ex-husband reappeared. She had made an elaborate plan to escape her controlling marriage by faking her death. Finally when she was starting to feel secure and remember who she was born to be, her husband returned. The law has authority over a man only as long as he lives. For example, by law a married woman is bound to her husband as long as he is alive, but if her husband dies, she is released from the law of marriage...So, you also died to the law through the body of Christ, that you might belong to another, to him who was raised from the dead, in order that we might bear fruit to God...But now, by dying to what once bound us, we have been rele...

Paul didn’t present the gospel only with wise and persuasive words but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power ( 1 Corinthians 4:2 ). For too long the church has watered down this verse to read, “a demonstration of power,” and by power, we mean with a loud and authoritative voice. By and large, the supernatural power of the Holy Spirit (dunamis) has left the church. I grew up in a church where there were little to no physical effects or demonstrations of the Holy Spirit’s power. We loved God, preached and taught about Jesus but the Holy Spirit was like a 3 rd wheel – no one knew what to do with Him, so he was pushed into a corner like crazy Uncle Bob at Thanksgiving. Smile and be polite but nobody engage him. I don’t recall many firsthand encounters with manifestations but even though I didn’t see it, I understood it largely to be demonic when and if it happened in a church meeting. The early church needed miracles but regular demonstrations of power through miracles ceased...

I live life naturally in the supernatural. I’m being trained to understand the supernatural realm and especially to understand the new supernatural nature we have through Jesus Christ. It’s awesome to learn what I’ve been learning but remember the original Karate Kid movie? Wax on, wax off? Eventually we understand the exercises and training are only to improve our party tricks but there is opposition we’ll encounter and the muscle memory learned in training will keep us in peace because it becomes part of our DNA. There are two erroneous ways to deal with the supernatural – both are common in the North American church. Today we’ll talk about the first error and on Friday’s post, I write about the other. First, we’ve been taught psychics , mediums and the black arts are phony. Are some of the practising psychics phony? Absolutely, but not all of them and to discredit them in one fell-swoop denies us the ability to protect, fight and advance against the dark spiritual forc...