Spiritcode

GOLGOTHA Jesus had been sentenced to death by Pontius Pilate and then tortured and flogged by the cruel guards of King Herod, and finally commanded by Pilate to carry his cross to Calvary, or Golgotha, which means ‘the place of the Skull’. Pilate told a Centurion to arrange for an escort of guards around Jesus to escort him to the windswept hill. The heavy beam of the cross was placed on Jesus' bleeding shoulder as they left the yard and went into the crowded street. The already large crowd continued to grow, some of them followers and friends, others bitter enemies, and yet others who were just confused and angry. Jesus staggered and buckled under the weight of the beam, but he continued to drag it behind him.  It was the custom to write a description of the crime committed on a clay plate and fix it to the top of the cross. Pontius Pilate had ordered that an inscription be written that read, “The King of the Jews”. Golgotha was near the busy city of Jerusalem and the signboard was written in Hebrew, Latin,

PASSOVER FEAST  Ever since Jesus had become the main attraction at the feast of tabernacles and proclaimed himself as the fountain of living water many of the Jews believed that he was the One - the Christ - the Rock from which flowed the water of life for Israel. From that time on and right up to the feast of Passover the healings and miracles and wisdom words of Jesus became more and more awe-inspiring - and just weeks before Passover Jesus worked the miracle of miracles - raising a man called Lazarus from the dead. So, the chief rulers of the Jews had a problem on their hands - what were they going to do with Jesus? they thought he might even decide to rule over Jerusalem and keep on bringing the Scriptures to life, working miracles like feeding hungry multitudes and raising people from the dead. They knew the people wanted this and these rulers were getting desperate.  John 11:47 The chief priests and the Pharisees gathered the council and said, “What are we to do? For this man performs many signs. If we

ROCK OF AGES There were three main ceremonial feast days that Israel celebrated every year. The first was the feast of Passover, commemorating Israel’s miraculous escape from Egypt. Each family had to sacrifice a firstborn lamb of their flocks and sprinkle the blood of the Lamb on the door posts of their houses, and the angel of death passed over the houses of the Israelites, while the firstborn of the males of the families of the Egyptians was slain. The second feast was that of Pentecost, fifty days after Passover, and this Feast celebrated the barley harvest. The feast of Tabernacles was the third and final feast of the year, and it was the feast that celebrated the presence of God with his people, and it took the form of a festival of joy and unity and thanksgiving. There was a closing ceremony on the seventh day of the feast and the main feature was when the priest invited people to draw of the water from a golden bowl.  That ceremony commemorated the miracle of the living water that God provided for th

THE WALLS OF JERICHO  Today we are looking at the story of Joshua leading Israel in the defeat of the city of Jericho, where the walls of the city fell down as the priests and soldiers marched around the city for seven days with the priests carrying the ark of the presence of God.  From the moment that God commissioned Moses to take Israel out of their captivity to Pharaoh in Egypt and to lead them though the wilderness and into the Promised Land, it was the power of the presence of God with them that prevailed for them. When God first told Moses to do this work, he said to Moses "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest. Then Moses said to Him, "If Your Presence does not go with us, do not bring us up from here. For how then will it be known that Your people and I have found grace in Your sight, except You go with us? (Exodus 33:14). God’s presence was with Israel in every situation of their forty-year wilderness journey in an outward demonstration of God’s supernatural power. God’s presence wa

GODS INTERCESSION  The three persons of the Trinity have always been totally fulfilled in love and purpose as the Three in One God, and through Jesus we have been invited into this loving communion of agreement and purpose. 1John 5:7 For there are three that bear record in heaven, the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one. (KJV) Their love for one another as the three persons of the Trinity was a mutual giving and serving and sharing with one another throughout eternity. We can now become part of that mutual giving and serving and sharing in our here and now life on earth. There is a word that is used in the Bible that means being in personal conference where things are agreed upon and acted upon. That word is intercession (entygchan??). We see that word highlighted in the Scriptures concerning our prayer in finding God’s will in our lives through the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.  Romans 8:25 The Spirit helps in our weakness for we do not know what we should pray for as we s

THE KING DAVID LEGACY  King David was the Old Testament person that could most be compared with Jesus in his heart attitude towards God and in his awareness of his own soul. The Bible says he had a heart after God’s own heart (1Samuel 13:14, Acts 13:22). Jesus was called in the Bible ‘The son of David’ (Matthew 12, Matthew 15, Matthew 21, and many other times). Of all the people in the Old Testament David had about the deepest understanding of the work of the Holy Spirit. It was almost as if he was having a peek into the new Covenant experience of being joined to the Lord in his Spirit. He said things like ‘create in me a clean heart O’ God and renew a right spirit within me’. He did indeed have more Holy Spirit anointings than anyone else, the anointing of a king and the anointing of a prophet. David also did something quite outside tradition when it comes to the Holy Spirit priestly anointing. Only the high priest could wear the priestly garment called the ephod which priests wore when praying to God on beh

BODY SOUL AND SPIRIT AWARENESS  God uses the number three to depict his wonderful creative design in many things in the Bible – The number three speaks of perfect order and design and perfect unity and function. We see this in the Three in One Trinity of Father Son and Holy Spirit, symbolised in the Bible in the order of our cosmos of Sun, Moon and stars. We see it in Noah’s Ark of salvation in the upper, middle, and lower decks. We see it in the eternal expression of his nature in Faith Hope and Love. And today we will be looking at his perfect design of humanity in Body, Soul, and Spirit.  1Thessalonians 5:23 Now may the God of peace himself (peace - Eirene – oneness and harmonising) sanctify you (set you apart – re-purposed, re-designate) completely (to reach the end goal) and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord. He who calls (invites) you is faithful; he will surely do it.  That is a great prayer and a great promise about what God wants to do in us. HUMAN CR

ENOCH WALKED WITH GOD Genesis 5:21 Enoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Methuselah. After he begot Methuselah, Enoch walked with God three hundred years, and had sons and daughters. So all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years. And Enoch walked with God; and he was not, for God took him. Hebrews 11:5 By faith Enoch was taken away so that he did not see death, "and was not found, because God had taken him"; for before he was taken, he had this testimony, that he pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him. These two accounts, one from the Old Testament and one from the New Testament present a very brief account of Enoch’s life but they embody the major themes of the story of Enoch’s existence on the earth. We read of some ordinary facts like the timeline of his life on earth and some scarce family details. And we also read of the most extraordinary circumstance o

MORE THAN ALL WE ASK OR THINK Ephesians 3:18 … that being grounded in love, all you who believe may be able to comprehend what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us. That Scripture holds the most boundless and unlimited promise of the unveiling of the Reality of the power of God’s love.  It actually states that we can be filled with all the fullness of God! We are living in times when God is revealing (apocalypto) everything that needs to be exposed and to be seen for what it is, the good and the bad. One word describes what God is revealing – Reality. When something gets exposed for what it really is we don’t have to guess anymore. That includes everything we see in the world around us, in politics, in culture, in religion, and most of all, in ourselves. What God wants to

I HAVE COME TO BRING A SWORD Matthew 10:34 Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person's enemies will be those of his own household. Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. Jesus was quoting a Scripture from the Book of Micah the prophet, who felt the burden of serving God above all else when many of God’s people were serving all else above God. For the son treats the father with contempt, the daughter rises up against her mother, the daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law; a man's enemies are the men of his own house. But as for me, I look to the LORD; I

HOPE IN HARD TIMES There is only one thing that we have as human beings that God does not have – Limitations!  Suffering is the human experience of our reaction to our limitations – When we can’t have what we want, when we can’t do what we want, when we can’t be what we want to be. Jesus came to live in the midst of our human limitations to resolve all of those problems. He did not come to remove them, but he gives us his unlimited risen self for us to rise above our suffering in the midst of them.  1 Peter 4:12-14. My dear friends, don’t be shocked at circumstances coming your way that test you to the limit. Don’t think of this as being out of the ordinary as far as you’re concerned. You can be glad that you are going through the same sufferings that Jesus went through, so that when his power and glory shines through, you will be elated just to be there. You can also be elated if you get insulted for being a Christian because the power and nature of Jesus will be on display in your life. Their words might be

POWER LOVE AND AN ORDERED MIND 2Timothy 1:7 For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of an ordered mind. When Paul writes this letter to Timothy, he had been abandoned by many of his associates and is suffering in prison like a criminal for preaching the Gospel- and Timothy is suffering in the church in Ephesus because of the opposition and criticism toward his own ministry. Paul had commissioned Timothy to care for the church in Ephesus, which he himself had founded and established, and he knew well the strengths and weaknesses of that church and he knew the pressures of the opposition that Timothy was under.  He encourages Timothy and identifies with him, saying ‘God has not given ‘US’ a spirit of fear’. And in saying ‘US’ he is talking not only about himself but to all of us who also embrace the truth of the Gospel of ‘Christ in us and us in him’ – the Gospel that Paul preached everywhere he went. (Colossians 1:2, Ephesians 3:6-17).  That message of the simplicity of Christ w

RISE AND FALL Luke 2:34 This one is assigned for the fall and rise of many – Simeon the prophet… After Jesus was born in Bethlehem, Mary and Joseph had to bring Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to be dedicated.  This time for dedication and purification was forty days after the birth of a child according to Jewish Law.  A man named Simeon was also in the Temple at the time and The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he would not die until he had seen Jesus, God's anointed King. Holy Spirit had prompted him to go to the Temple that day to answer Simeon’s lifelong prayer of faithfully waiting and expecting the Messiah to come soon. And so when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord in obedience to the law, Simeon realised that his prayer had been answered, and he greeted them. He took the child in his arms and began praising God. ‘Lord’ he said, I have seen him as you promised me I would. I have seen the Saviour you have given to the world. He is the Light that will shine upon the nation

KING OF PEACE In the days after the birth of John the Baptist, Caesar Augustus, who was the adopted son of Julius Caesar, decided to do a census and register every person in the known world. Caesar Augustus was the emperor who established the Pax Romanus, the Peace of Rome, a two-hundred-year era of worldly political peace under the rulership of Rome, which allowed the gospel to spread into the whole world, as the empire of Rome comprised over twenty percent of the population of the known world at that time. Everyone had to go to their place of birth to be registered, so Joseph had to take Mary back to Bethlehem because he was of the house and lineage of David. The Scriptures had prophesied that the true King of Peace would be born in Bethlehem at that very time, in a small village nearly five thousand miles distance from the palace of Caesar Augustus in Rome. Micah 5:2. But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me One who is to be ruler i

MESSENGER AND MESSAGE Even before the fall of Adam and Eve Father God had always planned that a new species was to be born into the earth one day. He had planned for his Son to begin this new species, a Spirit species – God and man. God would set up a Divine force-field where immortality joined mortality for all of humanity for all time. Now was the time for Jesus to go to earth as The Father’s Son, to become the pain of what human life had become, and to walk the path of its lost hope, and its sorrow, and to lift human life into a place of oneness with ‘The Three in One’. Jesus as the Son of the Father knew before the beginning of time that this was to be. He knew that it was the only way for the love of God to be known by humanity. Jesus knew that he would become the expression of that love in the most perfect way. Age upon age had passed in what we call time, and finally the appointed time came to heal the earth. It was broken and bleeding, twisted and torn, and it could not help itself. Lucifer had plante

FOOD THAT YOU DON’T KNOW ABOUT Jesus had been sitting beside a well talking to a very preoccupied, unhappy and unfulfilled Samaritan woman about giving her the living water of the Holy Spirit, and the words he spoke to her changed her life forever. His disciples had become hungry and had gone into the township to get something for them all to eat. They returned with some food for Jesus and offered it to him. John 4:31. Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, saying, “Rabbi, eat.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Has anyone brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work.  Jesus didn’t say ‘My duty is to do the will of him who sent me’. He said that doing the will of the Father was the energy that sustained and strengthened him.  Jesus carried enormous burdens of responsibility to do his Father’s loving will for other people. He also had to absorb the discouragi

BAD NEWS AND GOOD NEWS  The world is mostly preoccupied with bad news more than good news in its media expression and general conversation. That is why we have been given a Gospel of good news and it would be unwise to allow the preaching emphasis of that Gospel to be more on the bad news than on the good news. Paul writes to the Corinthian church about this in his letter concerning the ministry of death and the ministry of life. 2Corinthians 3:6 God has equipped us to be ministers of the New Covenant; not of the letter, but of the Spirit: for the letter brings death, but the Spirit gives life. The ministry of the law written on stone that brought condemnation and death and separation from God, came with a short-lived glory (reflecting the nature of God’s righteousness and wisdom). The face of Moses shone, and Israel veiled their eyes and turned away…  Will not the ministry of the Spirit have a much greater glory? So we can put our hope in this and speak clearly and confidently. For if the temporary order of

WAKEUP CALL There are two parables describing marriage feasts in the gospel of Matthew and they are about the Kingdom of Heaven and of God’s relationship to his Church, and they both give us a picture of the end time return of Jesus to be joined to his bride. In Matthew there is the parable of the King arranging a wedding for his son. “The kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who gave a wedding feast for his son, and sent his servants to call those who were invited to the wedding feast, but they would not come (Matthew 22:2) Here the attention is upon the guests who were invited and their various reasons for not attending, which dishonoured the King, but there is nothing mentioned here about the bride or the bridesmaids. In this story the King finally sends his servants out into the highways and byways to compel people to come to the feast because he wants the celebration to be well attended.  The parable of the wise and the foolish bridesmaids is in Matthew chapter 25 and is more focussed upon the bri

GLORIFY GOD IN YOUR BODY AND IN YOUR SPIRIT (1Corinthians 6:20) John Chapter 13 speaks of Jesus washing the disciples’ feet at the Last supper, and through to John Chapter 17 Jesus speaks his final words to his disciples before he and his disciples go out from the Passover Feast into the garden where he is betrayed by Judas and arrested. Between Chapters 13 and 17 Jesus prepares his disciples for the new life of the Kingdom within them that will come after his resurrection. He shares with them of the coming of the Holy Spirit that will abide with them and transform them and lead them into all truth concerning the words he has spoken to them.  In Chapter 17 he finishes with his astounding prayer to his Father concerning the glory of God that will be seen through them and through all those that come after them that truly believe in his indwelling presence.  John 17:22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become per

WHAT IS MAN  Hebrews 2:5 What is man that You are mindful of him…  or the son of man that You look compassionately upon him? You made him a little lower than the angels; You crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet. In this Scripture the word for man is Anthropos which generically includes all humans, not just males, and it is where the word anthropology comes from which is the study of mankind and human societies and their cultural development. God is mindful of Man, humanity, and in fact that word mindful (mnaomai) in the Greek has an emphasis of ‘being a fixture of the mind’. That Scripture also says that ‘man has been created of a lower order that the angels’ because humanity is a spirit being with a body and soul whereas angels are pure spirit beings.   Humanity is a ‘fixture of the mind’ of God because we have been made in the image of God to reflect his nature of love and creativity and we have been chosen to be his