Grace and Truth

…all the words of this life…

Tag Archives: Christianity


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Occult Practices and Public Schools

I am becoming increasingly alarmed at the occult practices that are being introduced to my children in public school and even in kindergarten.  As momentum increases to try to remove Christian Religious Education from public schools, it alarms me that I see the pagan influences increasing.

My daughter is in grade 4 and my son in grade 1.  Every year so far there has been a battle with regards to this issue.

When my son was in his last term of kindergarten he had a substitute teacher for the last few weeks to cover maternity leave.  She had the kids sit in a circle and pass around a stick.  This stick had a string attached to the end of it with a feather attached to the string.  She asked them to wish for a pet as they held the stick.  She also practiced visualization and meditation with them.  She would get them to visualise their parents as tiny and in the palms of their own hands as they said some sort of mantra exerting their own will over their parents.  When my husband and I found out about this we were extremely alarmed.  We complained to the kindergarten.  They could see nothing wrong with what she was doing and said she was encouraging “imagination” etc.  It was only when we threatened his permanent removal from the centre that they arranged a meeting with us and they agreed to stop this kind of “teaching”.  These kids were 4 years old at the time.

I have had to go up to school when my daughter was in grade one and meet with her teacher as I heard that she was about to start reading a famous story about witches to the class.  I requested that she consider not reading the book, but if she were to go ahead with it that my daughter be removed from the class whilst she read the story.  She decided to not go ahead with it.

In grade two my daughter’s teacher began leading them through guided meditation and visualization as they lay on the floor.

In grade four this practice still continues in her classroom but, praise God, after much prayer about this the teacher has now given the children the option to “opt out” of it.  My daughter now giggles and chats quietly with a friend or reads a book as it goes on.

A “reflections” garden is now being planned and designed for the school with winding pathways and orbs.  Maybe I am getting overly alarmed, but this to me also sounds a bit worrying.

There seems to me to be a double-standard here – get rid of Christian education, remove the history of our Judeo-Christian heritage here in Australia, but practices from another religion such as Zen Buddhism or Hinduism are acceptable.

I know that nature abhors a vacuum, and so the removal of Christianity in any form from our schools will have to be replaced with something else.

My husband and I feel we are really left with no choice but to pull the kids out and put them in a Christian school.  But what about those families who cannot afford this option?

Has anyone else experienced anything similar?  Would love to hear any feedback.

 

 

 

 

 


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Do You Have a Secret History?

With God I mean.wind

Do you look back at all the times when you were alone with Him in His presence? When He had called to you “Come away” with Him and you hearkened His voice and went?

Do you have a “secret place…in the clefts of the rock
Where He can see your face,
Where He can hear your voice;” ?  (see SoS 2:14)

Do you remember those times when you sat at His feet and wept?

When you sat there like Mary and learned of Him…?

When He shared Himself with you and He was revealed…?

When your eyes were opened to His beauty and glory…?

When He unfolded the work He has for you…?

 

Do you have a golden thread running through the tapestry of your life?

gold threadAll those times when nobody else knew or saw, but you were with Him, where He was?

Times that you look back on with almost painful joy….

When the household was dark and quiet, asleep, but you were there on your knees wrapped up in the glories of heaven, tears streaming down your face?

All those times in the dark quietness of the prayer closet, where your roots went down deep.  Where you were established. Where nobody else saw.

Only your Creator.

It is those times spent with God, where nobody else sees – where if you were to try to describe it to another that words just woudn’t do justice – that is the place where your relationship with Jesus is rooted and established, like the roots of a tree. That is where true Holy Ghost ministry is born. That is where His life is imparted to you and to me.

 

A secret history with God is necessary first to establish roots in each of us. Once the root system has been established below in the dark then the tree is able to begin its slow emergence up into the sunshine.   This is the realm where others can see the result, or the fruit, of the work of the unseen deep.

“Deep calls unto deep at the noise of Your waterfalls…” Psalm 42:7

The result of your time spent alone with God.

It’s never too late to start….Jesus2

Get alone with God.

Spend time with Him. Don’t count the minutes.

Just be unhurried…

 

The secret is unhurried prayer.

 

 

God bless you friend.

 

 

 


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Missionary Quotations: Paris Reidhead1

“If I had my way, I would declare a moratorium on public preaching of ‘the plan of salvation’ in America for one toparis rh two years. Then I would call on everyone who has use of the airwaves and the pulpits to preach the holiness of God, the righteousness of God, and the Law of God until sinners would cry out, ‘What must we do to be saved?” Then I would take them off in a corner and whisper the gospel to them…. Such drastic action is needed because we have a gospel hardened generation of sinners by telling them how to be saved before they have any understanding why they need to be saved.”

 

 

 


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Street Preaching Last Night – An Epic Battle

soldiersThe Hare Krishna’s came back as we were preaching.  Two weeks ago, as I wrote about here, they came and did their dance to Krishna but left after only a few minutes.

Well last night they came as I began to preach.  But this time they stayed.

This time they had an amp with them and sang songs and chanted mantras to Krishna whilst they danced.  It was loud.

I kept preaching though.  I kept on, like last time:

“Jesus is the Way, the Truth, the LIfe. No one comes to the Father but by Him…”  etc

“There is no other Name under heaven by which humankind can be saved than the Name of Jesus…”

On they stayed.

On I kept preaching.

“Jesus is Lord.  And at the Name of Jesus every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord to the glory of the Father!”

It went on.  Multitudes of people came over to see what was going on. They were fascinated.  It was a battle and everyone knew it.  Many people video-ed all of it on their phones (if you see it on YouTube, let me know!)

10 minutes – I began calling out the words to “Amazing Grace”.

hareThe Hare Krishnas became frenzied. Faster and faster they got, they worked themselves into an ecstatic frenzy. They reminded me of the prophets of Baal as they cried out to their “god” to answer them on Mount Carmel.

 

15 minutes…

My voice started hurting, my chest was heaving. I prayed to God that He would sustain me to keep going.  I saw why He has prompted me to get fit lately.

I looked into the crowd as I proclaimed that “Jesus is Lord” and there was a gift from God.  A young lady with her hands in the air crying out “Amen! Jesus is Lord!”

She became my lifeline.  I looked to her as it went on.  She encouraged me to keep going.

I didn’t know what else to do.  I lifted my hands in the air and shut my eyes and cried out:

“Jesus, I proclaim that You are Lord over this station!  You are Lord. I praise the Lamb who was slain from the foundation of the world!  I praise you Lord! Hallelujah to the Lamb!”

The Hare Krishna’s left.battle

Praise God.

I kept preaching for another minute, then the gift-from-God young lady came over and asked if she could sing.  She had never sung by herself in a public street before but the presence of God was so strong.

She sung a beautiful song all about Jesus.

Some people from the crowd hung around to talk to some of the guys.

There was a great battle last night, but there was a great victory for the kingdom of God too!

Needless to say, it has taken me all day today to recover…:)

“Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place.” 2 Corinthians 2:14

 


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First Time I Street-Preached it Wasn’t on the Street

The first time I street-preached it wasn’t on the street.IMG_2504

It was in my prayer closet – my daughter’s bedroom.

A hairbrush was my microphone, the Lord Jesus my audience.

Just me and Him.

I wept and pleaded for sinners to turn to God, to flee from the wrath that is to come. I preached my heart out, to Him.

Then I fell on my face and wept and wept. I was under the anointing and I knew He was pleased.

 

Mind you, it took a long time to get me to even this point. First there was the call to preach years before, then sometime later He commissioned me with Isaiah 40.

Both of these occurred when I was alone with Him in my prayer closet.

The commissioning was terrifying. I was so scared that I was shaking and ran out to my husband crying “God has just commissioned me! But I don’t know what for!”  I was almost too scared to ever return to the prayer closet again. Both times I knew He was calling me to something but I did not have a clear picture of what it was.

He had asked me “Will you feed the multitudes?” and I had said yes, but at the time I didn’t understand what that meant.

Then came the dreams and “visions”. One dream was of me standing on a box in the CBD of the city and preaching God’s coming judgment, warning people in suits to flee from the wrath that is to come.

Another dream was of hell. It so terrified me that in my dream I awoke and ran to my front door crying out “I have to warn people not to go there!”

There was the “vision” of me preaching during the day in the city with a certain huge guy standing next to me, almost as a bodyguard. (This was fulfilled last year).

Then I actually began going out to the street, Friday nights into the city. I didn’t preach for probably a year though. I spoke with people, prayed with them, handed out tracts. The pastor I went with kept encouraging me to preach but I’d say “No, no, I couldn’t”.

cropped-girl-praying1.jpg

Meanwhile Jesus was training me in my prayer closet. He was having me preach to Him. Sometime around this time I discovered two other occurrences of God’s similar training methods:

  • One was in Angus Buchan’s biography. This book details how God also first taught him to preach in his prayer closet, the cornfield. He would stand in the back of his truck and preach to the corn stalks.

 

  • The other occurrence was David Wilkerson. Before he went to the streets of New York God had him walk the fields around his home and pray and prophesy to the trees.

 

My first night of street-preaching, actually on the street, eventually arrived. I can’t remember why this particular night I said “Yes” when the pastor asked me to preach, but I did.

I got up there, terrified, microphone in one hand, Bible in the other. I deliberately held the open Bible two inches from my face as I read it so nobody could see me and I couldn’t see them. I read out John 3:16. Someone said “Amen” as they walked past me, then I turned the microphone off.

That was it.

That was all I could manage at the time. But I have been trained since, and I am still being trained.

And it was the Lord who trained me.

He trained me in the school of the prayer closet. He trained me by the Holy Spirit, through tears and through prayer. He taught me that when I preach I am to preach to Him. Even on the streets. Even surrounded by crowds. It is Him I am preaching to, it is Him.

I felt to write this today. It is the season of Pentecost and I feel it is for someone in particular to read, so I pray that this will bless, encourage and inspire whoever it is for.

In Jesus’s wonderful Name, Amen.

 

 


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The Place of Enlargement

I believe it is God’s heart to bring His children to the place of enlargement.meadow

“Even so would he have removed thee out of the strait into a broad place, where there is no straitness; and that which should be set on thy table should be full of fatness” Job 36:16

It is not His desire that we should stay spiritual babes, rather it is His design to bring us forward, to help us grow and enlarge.

At the moment we are extending our little house. As a result, things are busy, messy and chaotic here. Currently we have no phone line, no proper plumbing in the kitchen and big holes in the wall where our back door and kitchen window used to be. It is winter here, I might add…. It is difficult, painful, inconvenient. However, with the greater vision in mind of the complete transformation at the end of all this, I find I can grin and bear the mess and disorder (so far at least).

The process of the enlargement of our home somewhat reflects the process of enlargement in the spiritual life…

Enlargement always comes through straitening.

I love this old-fashioned word. The KJV uses this word and I don’t think any other translation can beat it.

Jesus said: “But I have a baptism to be baptized with; and how am I straitened till it be accomplished!” Luke 12:50

It means to constrict, pinch, restrict, squeeze, distress, compress.

straight jacket(A “strait-jacket” in its purpose to confine and restrict gives a good picture of this word.)

We see that Jesus Christ Himself went through a straitening process in His sufferings and ultimately His death on the cross.   He was straitened. He was God wrapped in human flesh yet His eternal divinity was compressed into the limitation of humanity.

“This limitation could be removed only by the baptism of dying on the cross. Then the unlimited divine eternal life within the Lord Jesus could be released.” The Experience of Christ, Witness Lee

So why did the Lord of Life have to be straitened?

He was straitened so that we could be brought to the place of enlargement.

It was through His death that His divine Life was able to be released and imparted to us limited, small human beings.   He interceded for us by becoming a human-being like us. He was confined, restricted, distressed and squeezed for us so that we could be brought to the place of enlargement by partaking of His divine life.

“Verily, verily I say unto you, unless a grain of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” John 12:24

It is only through the impartation of the divine life of Christ that we are enlarged and there is no enduring enlargement apart from Him. But in order for this to happen we are taken through many afflictions, trials and suffering.

potterUnfortunately there is no other way – we also need to be straitened to be brought into the enlargement that God intends for us.

As with the renovations all around me : for the new to be brought in, first the old has to be removed. And sometimes that’s painful, noisy and messy.

It is His way of conforming us to the image of His Son.

So if you are feeling pinched, restricted, squeezed and in distress – know that God has a purpose in it. Know that He has not abandoned you, nor is He finished with you. No! Instead He is busy working on and in you to bring you to a place of enlargement.  Like clay in the hands of a potter, simply yield to Him, allow Him to do His work and you will be brought through it into a broad and spacious place.

“He sent from above, He took me; He drew me out of many waters. He delivered me from my strong enemy, From those who hated me, For they were too strong for me. They confronted me in the day of my calamity, But the Lord was my support. He also brought me out into a broad place; He delivered me because He delighted in me” Psalm 18:16-19

 

God bless you!

 


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Street Preaching Tonight

It was different tonight than it’s ever been.flinders st

It began pretty much the same as usual, but at some point I noticed the Hare Krishna’s dancing their noisy way towards us.

Great

With their colourful clothes, tambourines and dancing they make it all but impossible to preach the gospel.  They usually pull up in a wide circle in front of where we are preaching and dance and sing for sometimes 10-15 minutes.

Usually we get pushed to the sidelines amongst all the colourful chaos and the tourists bustling to take photos of them.  Standing on the sidelines politely waiting for them to finish their worship ceremony to their false god is absolutely frustrating.  It feels like Satan has got one over on us.

Something I’ve learnt: if you give Satan an inch – he will take a mile.

We are in a spiritual battle and being on the city streets you cannot forget it.

So tonight as they approached I grabbed the microphone and began preaching. As they came up to us I kept going.  They waved to me, I waved back.  I was polite, but not polite enough to stop. I preached:

“Jesus said ‘I AM the Way, the Truth and the Life, no man comes to the Father but by Me”.

They kept going.  I kept going: “There is no other name under heaven by which man can be saved, than the Name of Jesus!”  Sometimes I just called out “Jesus! Jesus!” over their noise.

They stayed for maybe two minutes then gave up and left.

But then it happened…

bourbonstreet1As I was preaching, I began weeping.

Yes, weeping.  In front of lots of people. It was weird. I couldn’t stop it. I felt God’s heart breaking for these lost sinners.  I felt Him yearning for them to come home.  It wasn’t me being emotional or sad – it was Him calling to them through me.  I wept as I preached to them His heart.

But then I stopped preaching because I began to think.  That can be a problem whilst preaching.  The anointing lifts off when you start to really think, especially if you wonder what people are thinking of you.  Now I kind of wish I kept going because that’s never happened to me before and I think I probably stopped it before God was done.  Sorry Lord.

Important point: I believe God wants to raise up preachers who are broken for the sins of the people.

You see, there are preachers who preach the cold, hard truth of the gospel.  They want the authority that gives them, but they don’t take any responsibility for the people.

Then there are preachers who in response to the above have taken out most of the truth of the gospel and replaced it with psychology or self-help or something else human.  They want to take responsibility for the people, yet they have no God-given authority to do so.

God is raising up those who will “speak the truth in love”.  We can get rid of neither love nor truth, and that is what so many have done.

God gives authority to those who will take responsibility.  And being willing to take street_preaching in chicago 1930responsibility for others brings authority.

We need to speak the whole truth of the gospel – yes, including sin, the law, hell and judgment.  BUT we need to speak the truth from a heart that has been broken for the people’s sins.  We have no right to be preaching to people about whom we couldn’t care less. That is not God’s heart.  That has never been His way.  Think of Moses, Samuel, Jesus, Paul…  We need to be willing to take responsibility for them by standing in the gap and interceding.

Preaching and intercessory prayer go hand-in-hand

Just as:

Authority and responsibility go hand-in-hand

May our mighty God bless you!

“If sinners be dammed, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one GO there UNWARNED and UNPRAYED for.” Charles Spurgeon

 

 

 

 


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We Need to Pray for our Sister

This pregnant Christian woman is facing hanging, after receiving 100 lashes, for apostasy.  She has been sentenced by an Islamic court in Sudan.  Her lawyer is going to appeal.  Please pray for this sister and her family:

 

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/sudan/10837365/Islamic-court-permits-pregnant-woman-to-give-birth-before-she-is-hanged.htmlMeriam-Yehya-Ibrah_2914047b

 


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Rousing the Bride

Now arise My precious Darling,sleeping woman

Wake up you sleepy-head.

It’s time to uncurl from these blankets

To get up out of bed.

 

My Bride, it is morning

The day is far spent

Come rise My love-

Away with Me-

For the time that is left.

 

Open your eyes,

And see the sun

Look – there it is arising

If you look

You will see

Just beyond the horizon

 

I want you to see My love

For whom it is

I came to die.

It is something that will wake you,

But you need to decide,

 

Will you open

Or keep closed shut

Those dear, drowsy eyes?

For to see

Is to share the pain

Of an intercessor’s sighs

 

Out there is a road

It is long and it is dusty

The people there are many

And on their way to destruction

 

All along that road are ones

For whom I go searching:

The lost,

The broken,

The abandoned,

The sinner

And the bloody

 

I came so that they have life

And I’m going to them now

My Bride, I want you with Me

Show them

To My Father’s house

 

Come with Me My love

Raise up that heavy head!

To the road I am going

Oh will you leave

This comfy bed?

 

Cold out there?

Yes it is, that’s for certain.

All along that wide road

You will be buffeted,

Perhaps even broken.

 

But child-

Don’t you see?

We’ll be together

Side-by-side,

You’ll be with Me

Where I am,

Together to abide.

 

Come now,

Beloved Bride,

Stick out your toe.

Those covers-

Will you toss them aside?

 

My Dove,

They’re waiting,

Let them see your beauty shine

For lo, I am with you always

Place your hand in Mine.

 

The Bride-groom is rousing His Bride from her comfortable bed of luxury.  Let us respond to His call and pray for an awakening.

May God bless my brothers and sisters in our wonderful Lord Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen