CitiLife Creative Pastor's Blog

Tabernacle Prayer

2009-08-21T15:14:00.000-07:00

The new Tabernacle Prayer pages are under construction on the jesus christ site. Moses tabernacle and Davids Tabernacle both pint to the new and living Tabernacle we now enjoy through Jesus Christ. Check it out at http:www.jesuschrist.co.uk/tabernacleprayer/index.html

Christian Sex and Christian Intimacy - An uncompromising and sensitive guide to physical intimacy in Christian Marriage

2009-08-21T15:10:00.000-07:00

Christian Sex and Christian Intimacy - An uncompromising and sensitive guide to physical intimacy in Christian Marriage. The is a great booklet for the Christian woman and Christian man who are seeking a deeper and more satisfying marriage. Powerful keys to intimacy are discussed, as well as practical pointers to physical enjoyments for married couples. Adults only.

The Lord's Prayer - a powerful doorway to commune with the Almighty!

2009-08-21T15:04:00.000-07:00

Recently added to http://www.jesuschrist.co.uk our site dedicated to Jesus Christ and all that Jesus said and did are several pages about the Lords Prayer. The minisite about the Lord's Prayer even includes pages dedicated to the Lord's Prayer song, where people have been inspired to put the Lords prayer words to music. Check it out at http://www.jesuchrist.co.uk/thelordsprayer/index.html

Tongue and speaking in tongues - new additions to the Jesus Christ site

2009-08-21T15:03:00.000-07:00

Some recent additions to the site include a number of pages dedicated to the gift of tongues. Speaking in tongues (Greek: glossolalia) is so powerful. The site also has links through to some fabulous free teaching materials. Check it out at http://www.jesuschrist.co.uk

Jesus Christ .co.uk - Great New website in developement

2009-08-21T14:56:00.000-07:00

Pastor David Martin has begun development of a new Christian website centered upon the person and message of Jesus Christ. The site aims to lift Jesus high and provide great resources for Christian everywhere. Check it out at http://www.jesuschrist.co.uk

FIRST LOVE?

2009-05-28T06:09:00.001-07:00

Rev. 2:4 Nevertheless I have somewhat against thee, because thou hast left thy first love.

Jesus calls us to return to our first love. What does first love look like for you? Leave a comment and let us know...

For me first love is...

Passionate

untainted

unequivocal delight in all things Jesus

Not measured by standards of my own making

Joyous expectation of good

Reckless reliance

Innocent abandonment to God and His presence and providence

Content to be with Jesus - no more, no less

Not seeking the validation of someone else's praise

Not ordered or boxed

Not packaged so as not to offend

Raw but innocent

No framework of judgment to judge others y

Embracing any and all who claim the name of Jesus

Presence not performance and principles

A home not a business

A family not a corporation...

How about you?

RAMBLING THOUGHTS ON TIME AND PURPOSE

2009-04-18T04:46:00.001-07:00

I believe however that there is a kairos time where God will and is raising his people to penetrate the world, whether it is the political mountain, the media mountain, the educational mountain or what ever other arena of influence. Jesus command was go into all the world, not invite the world to come to church, and I think the church beyond the walls of its own comforts and culture is desperately needed in our day. We need to really pray that houses of creative vision would be raised up for this purpose. Although in the very early stages this is what my wife and I and our team in London are seeking to do. We need to believe for the supernatural to clothe and set our work apart from others so Christ Himself invigorates and infuses every word we speak , note we play or stoke we paint.

The Dream (art and the church)

2009-03-29T00:15:00.001-07:00

"May the dream never die that some day, when people want to go and find the most moving and excellent art, they will go to the church. I am so convinced that we've only just begun to tap into some of the improvisational sounds that can be created in the presence of God. These are the sounds the world can't touch, yet will be drawn to." Tommy Walker, Jazz Fusion guitarist, Theologian and worship leader

Applying The Word

2009-02-04T10:46:00.001-08:00

In reading recently the book by Leroy Eims, 'The LOst Art of Disciple Making', he said this concerning the application of God's Word. Sometimes the simplest things make the deepest impact. Consider what Leroy says, and act upon it: "appling the Word of God is taking a portion of scripture that speaks to your heart, meditating on it, and debeloping practical steps toward making it an integral part of your life."

Recently my prayer and study has led me back to the simplest truth of Christian living, love God and love people. That's it in one short sentence. As a fellowship we've been looking at 1corinthians 13, the famous love chapter. In looking at the description of love in this great chapter we have so far been unable to get any further than this simple truth: love is kind.

Mother Teresa said, "We do not do great things, just small things with great love." It is in the small decisions we make each day and moment to act in love that make Christianity the glory of God manifest in the earth!

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Artistic Revolution

2008-12-12T02:32:00.000-08:00

Throughout history artists have been forerunners of cultural change and transformation. Some reflect the generation and culture they are growing up in, others stretch beyond the bounds and bring future ideas and images to bear upon a society which is catching up.

I firmly believe that God will call upon the artists and musicians to go ahead of the army, much as the priests and singers did in Jehoshephat's day, to confound the enemy of mankind, and rouse the sleeping church to victorious action.

A festival of colour and sound, new sounds and fresh stories are waiting to be unleashed from the well of faith in the heart of God's Bride.

Write that song! Paint that picture! Put that story down on paper! Develop that film!

I often think about this: "Someone somewhere has painted the picture that rocked the art world. Someone is writing the songs which are shaping the cultural appetites of a generation. Someone is writing the plays, the dramas, the novels, which encompass the heartbeat and longing of a lost generation. Why not us?

The Scriptures say that our children will be for signs and wonders (Isa 8:18). I believe that. I also believe that the same promise was given to our parents. Let's get on with the supernatural job of being signposts pointing clearly and loudly to the One we adore and serve.

The New Reformation

2008-11-19T01:58:00.000-08:00

I am more and more convinced that a new reformation is taking place in our generation. A baton is being handed to a new breed, a company of prophetic people eager to see the very structures we have grown up in, radically re-formed. RE formed to accommodate the lost, the broken, the ones who know that they don't have it all together, but who believe that God can do it anyway! A new clothing of vulnerability and openness, a fresh lick of colourful diversity.

Just as there was a reformation of doctrine under Luther which rocked the foundations of the church world, I believe this reformation, which has already begun, will rock the core of churchianity and bring us into a new wave of radical Christianity in the nations. It will not lack holiness but will trash legalism, it will not want for excellence, yet will shun showmanship, it will generously receive all it needs to fulfil its call and mandate from heaven, but will never beg for supply. Form will not replace function, as the fivefold and the saints arise together, equipped for harvest.

Bring it on Jesus, mess with our heads so you can possess our hearts!

God speaking through the Creative Arts

2008-10-07T13:56:00.000-07:00

I am taking a team of dancers to Liverpool this weekend to minister at an Aglow conference. Am very excited we are taking a cutting edge dance, about releasing the warriors to posses the gates. I love speaking a message that will imprint on peoples minds as Jesus did when he painted stories for people through His words.

Studying at the Rad (Royal academy of dance) is opening up so many ideas on how to portray the gospel and the places it get can to. Martha Graham, a pioneer of Contem.. dance would dance for the president and such alike, I believe God's heart is to develop the Artistic gifting’s within His people, that will communicate to the entire world!!!!! Let God create through us something so fresh and new that the peoples will long for it.

Ok I am getting excited, like it though.

Speak again soon.

Covenant Faith

2008-09-28T14:57:00.001-07:00

We have entered into the most intimate and binding relationship available to man - blood covenant. The words of the covenant are recorded for us plainly in the scriptures. All that remains is for us, as true partners of the lord, to take time to find out what they say and apply ourselves to believe and claim them for ourselves. The lord's intention is that you walk in fullness of blessing, just as Abraham was blessed in all things. Application of this covenant, ratified by Jesus blood and sealed by his spirit, is called faith. The just shall live by application of the covenant in their lives, exchanging their weakness for the strength of their covenant partner. Nothing is impossible for him, and even more amazing, through covenant nothing is impossible for us!

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Relationship - The only foundation for faith

2008-09-15T01:28:00.000-07:00

Excerpted from The Spirit Life Bible School

1. What Faith Is

a. God’s character is the foundation for faith

To begin we will first define faith. We will consider both what faith IS and what it IS NOT.

To lay a foundation for all that follows in these sessions, which will deal much with principles and practical application of those principles, we must first stress that the doctrine of faith cannot be divorced from relationship with God. Many of the principles we speak of over the following sessions can be exercised with some result apart from a vital union with God. The New Age and the Motivational world of humanism is replete with books and teachings concerning positive confession for example, with testimonies of amazing results. Biblical faith and its exercise however is rooted first and foremost in a love relationship with our Father in Heaven through Jesus Christ.

The first definition we will give for faith then is simply this:

“TRUST in another or another’s Word.” The Greek word, “pistes”, translated ‘faith’ in the New Testament simply means: “Trust, assurance, confidence in another and another’s word.” To have faith in God means to trust Him, to trust His Word and have confidence that He will keep it.

Faith works by love. It is our love relationship with a God whom we know and trust which provides the seedbed for fearless confidence in His Word. We trust and act on His Word, because we trust Him, and know that His thoughts and intentions toward us are entirely good.

Andrew Murray in his exposition of Hebrews, ‘The Holiest of All’ exhorts believers to go beyond the mechanics of faith to discover its Source: “Faith is much more than trust in the word of another,” he says, “That trust is of extreme importance as its initial exercise, but the word must only be the servant leading into the divine truth it contains, the living person from whom it comes. To deal too exclusively with the word as the ground of faith will lead to a faith that is more intellectual than spiritual, a faith that, as the Church so universally shows, rests more in the wisdom of men, in the power of reason, than in the power of God. We need to be persuaded very deeply that faith is not only a dealing with certain promises, but an unceasing spiritual intercourse with the unseen world around us.”
Andrew Murray, ‘The Holiest of All’, KCM publications, ISBN 0-8010-5763-9

God’s own character is the very bedrock for every other action of faith. The Bible says that He is the faithful one, and that He cannot deny Himself (2 Tim 2:13). He is the God of Faith, the very Source!

This truth is important to remember to prevent us from unwittingly entering a religion of works where we merely apply spiritual principles in order to get desired results, and forget that God did not send His Son merely so we could be healed and prosperous – He sent His Son for something far greater than that, that we could know Him:

“And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent.” (John 17:3 NKJV)

Many philosophies today, even some which purport to be Christian, do not believe that God is a Person. They consider God as the perfect Mind, or the Universal Consciousness, yet they refuse to locate Him. They have a faith in certain principles or concepts, ones which undoubtedly have wrought great changes in their lives, yet they cannot bring anyone into fellowship with the Father, or produce a New Creation. True faith is first and foremost in a Person – the Person of God.

A Moment In Time

2008-09-04T11:39:00.001-07:00

The glory of the gospel includes the invasion of eternity into time. We all feel that time is so limited and honestly, if we really had a comprehension of how short our life is in the light of eternity we may well live differently. Our moment here is preparation for there! What fascinates me is just how the awesomeness of an endless realm found space in the limits of time and space in the Person of Christ. Even more amazing is what He said concerning Believers, that we are in Him and He in us.

Remember the Future

2008-09-04T09:06:00.000-07:00

A voice crying, prepare the way, the King is coming, approaching quick with healing in His train, A voice revealing, peeling the veil from the eyes of present darkness, to unpack the delights of a coming world, to harness the powers, tomorrow's design, arrest imagination with wonders and signs...

Its time for us to remember the future. We, as the people of God, are not a relic of the past but very literally the children of a coming age! Too often culture has shaped the 'kingdom' instead of the Kingdom shaping the culture. This is a call to all the artists ands artisans, the poets, pastors and nation shifters of our day; Our mandate is to turn the world upside down.
The surface dwellers of the days of Acts said with terror in their trembling voice, "Oh no, These that have turned the world upside down are come here also" (Acts 17:6).

One of our favourite portions of scripture is found in Zechariah 1:20-21:

Then the LORD showed me four craftsmen.
And I said, “What are these coming to do?”
So he said, “These are the horns that scattered Judah, so that no one could lift up his head; but the craftsmen are coming to terrify them, to cast out the horns of the nations that lifted up their horn against the land of Judah to scatter it.”

It is time for the craftsmen to rise up, the anointed artisans of our day, the visionaries and revolutionaries of the future, to step through and fearlessly shape the present with divinely inspired innovation...

Instead of an archaic bastion of religious memorobilia, the church is to be the cutting edge of tommorrow's ideas and environment. Let's stand in our place of salvation, a people of the future age, a life without limit, without sickness, disease or poverty (of heart, soul or body), and deliver the message to the present population of a world groping for a way ahead. We have...no, we are...the answer!