The start of Fire School has brought the challenge again to my heart - to serve God alone and not man.  To pray, not because someone is asking me to, but out of a desperation to see God reform my nation. So this is the beginning…. lets see where we go! 

God has just stopped me in  my tracks he has shot a scripture into my heart, it’s one of those times when it actually prevents you reading on, or doing anything else you literally cannot go further till you deal with this with god.

2 Sam 24:24 ‘but David replied to Araunah, “no, I insist on buying it, for I will not present burnt offerings to the Lord my God, that have cost me nothing.” So David paid him fifty pieces of silver for the threshing floor and the oxen.’

Over the past few days God has started showing me through a word brought by Andy on Fireschool, about the primary purpose of the cross, being that of purchase, God redeeming me and paying the price (a very costly price) so that I can be his and he can be mine.  When I read this verse, God brought it home to me the response to the cross that should be in my heart, so often i find myself only giving my all to God when it’s convenient to do so, so often when it’s harder I shy away telling myself that God understands, and of course he does; but regardless it is in those times that are harder or more tiring that i have an opportunity to pay a price and thank God in it. David didn’t have to pay anything for the threshing floor, but he understood the principle that to offer something to God without first paying a price for it is to offer an empty sacrifice.  

Therefore the challenge God is bringing to my heart is not whether to sacrifice for God or not, but about the attitude of my heart.  I was praying into this and God just showed me the enormity of the sacrifice he gave for me, in a way I’d never seen before.  God is the God of the ages who spoke life into being and flung stars into space and yet he sacrificed is only Son for me!  In this new light it seems outrageous that I am still complacent and half hearted when it comes to sacrificing anything for him.  This fresh revelation of a truth thats been there all along has just taken me out, and truly hit home that the reason for my life is to bring glory to God regarless of the cost, the only true response to this revelation is to lay everything down, but even this, I know I can only do through him.  

During the last 24 hours in various prayer meetings and in my own time with God, the Holy Spirit has given me what seems like a hundred scriptures to teach me about the power of God for salvation, (1 Cor 1:18) so I thought I’d share it with you. 

‘Kings will stand speechless in His presence. For they will see what they had not been told; they will understand what they had not heard about. Who has believed our message? To whom has the Lord revealed His powerful arm?’ (Is 52:15-53:1). People will see the power of God at work. They will see people fall under conviction. They will see what we have not told them. Who has believed our message? Jesus said ‘My message is not My own. It comes from God who sent Me. Anyone who wants to do the will of God will know whether My teaching is from God or merely My own’ (Jn 7:16-17). If Jesus did not preach His own message, but only the message given Him from God, then how can we expect people to believe when we preach ‘our message’. The message that I am often guilty of preaching is that ‘different kind of Good News’ that Paul warns us about in Galations 1. It is a message based on human reasoning, and is from a human source (Gal 1:11-12). The message we must begin to preach again is God’s message which, like Paul, we receive ‘by direct revelation from Jesus Christ.’ It is when we preach the true gospel, rather than one polluted by the humanistic ideologies that pervade all our thoughts and teachings that people will believe, and the powerful arm of the Lord will be revealed to them. God reveals His message of salvation in Isaiah 53, and the Holy Spirit has challenged me to get that message ‘deep in my own heart first and then go to my people in exile and say to them this is what the Sovereign Lord says!’ (Ez 3:10-11). If we will do this, then we will bear many children of promise by the power of the Spirit (Is 54:1/Gal 4:27-29)

I dont really know how to describe what I feel God is asking of me this year, but it’s pretty much summed up in Ezekiel 3:10-11 - ‘Son of Man, let all my words sink deep into your own heart first. Listen to them carefully for yourself. Then go to your people in exile and say to them, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says!”. Do this whether they listen to you or not.’

Last year on Fireschool, out of all the issues we prayed for corporately, it was the awakening and restoration of the church nationwide that moved my heart to prayer the most. I remember the day when I read John 2:17 - ‘Passion for God’s house will consume me’, and it was like God injected His own passion for the church into my heart. I have a longing to see the church in Great Britain walking in unity, in unceasing prayer, in deep relationship with the Holy Spirit and in real power. From outside, no one would ever know it, but inside I felt like I would explode with this burden from God in me. Anyway, its still there and I’m still praying…

For me, coming on Fire School is about building a foundation. A time of learning and growing in God, something that will in essence, set me up for the rest of my life. When we prayed about starting a new season with God, He gave me Jeremiah 31 v 18, showing me my utter dependance on Him, my inability to even turn to God, the fact that I need Him to turn me to Him, that I can’t even turn myself towards His face, I don’t know the first thing about relating to God and I need Him to show me.

God gave me Isaiah ch 42 v 16 a while ago and I was not sure what it meant, but I know now that it is for this day and this season, He is leading me down a path that is new to me, a path that I do not know and while this is scary, it is causing me to depend on God and trust Him, something that I don’t in all honesty like at times but something that I really desire for my life.