PREVIOUS BLOGS

Paul sat thinking about the Isthmian Games held close to Corinth, where he had repaired tents, and wrote to encourage the church to run their race, “Run in such a way that you may obtain it.” The track was roughly two hundred meters, and the runners ran with every weight removed. Only freemen of Greece could compete—not slaves or foreigners. This all pictures our Christian life as only freemen in Christ, not slaves of the world, can run this race. And all believers are in the race. As sinners, God offered us eternal life as His free gift: Yet once we believe and possess eternal life, scripture tells us we are running for a prize. A reward often talked about by Jesus, to be granted for faithfulness, diligence, endurance, and wholehearted devotion.

Paul declared that he ran this race with purpose, embracing suffering, thirst, and hardships because he saw the value of the prize. Paul’s strategy to fulfil his calling and win the prize was simple and instructive.   “I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus”. Php 3:14 . The word Goal, often translated Mark, is the Greek word “skopos”. In the race, the “skopos” was the man at the finish line watching for the victor. The prize was given to the one who reached the mark (goal) first. That goal is Christ

Friends, to finish our race well, we too must press toward the “skopos”. Whether in a difficult patch or times of joy and releasing the kingdom, our pursuit is to close the gap between Him and us. Jesus is our mark—not ease or ministry success. Even revival and harvest are not the mark. To pursue anything above Him is to miss the goal entirely. Jesus is the One thing needed. He is the message, the mission, and the measure. Just seek Him, adore HIm, gaze on Him, listen to HIm, and obey HIm. When we live in intimacy with Him, other kingdom goals are secondary, but the fruitfulness of purpose and mission becomes inevitable.

We don’t know her name only her love. When Jesus was in Bethany at the house of Simon the leper, a woman came to Him with an alabaster flask of costly fragrant oil and poured it on His head.  Set free from torment and now living with new hope, she came to pay her debt the best she could. But some disciples including Judas asked why the fragrant oil was “wasted?” GK Apoleia” Literally “ruined to perdition.” 

300 denarii was close to a year’s wage. That is extravagant worship. You can’t accurately ladle out worship, so she poured it out.  Worship is wasteful; it is always excessive, even over the top. You can only pour it out unmeasured. Extravagant worship always exposes the hard, pragmatic, selfish or merely natural mindset

Judas also asked why her passion and devotion were not used to help the poor. But worship is not about being helpful or alleviating need. Meeting a need is a good thing to do at any time but it is not worship.  Worship is given to the One who has no need - we worship because it is we who have the need to worship.

Tellingly, when Jesus was describing Judas later, as the “son of perdition”, he used the exact same word "wasted", meaning “ruined to perdition.”  When a man calls wasted a thing that God esteems, God who wishes to esteem every man's life, may call it wasted.

Friends, the extravagance of our worship and how we rejoice in extravagant worship by others, is a good indicator of our heart and our future.

Jesus warned that the last days would be marked by deception, presumably both secular and religious. Because Satan is the father of lies, every form of false light and hope, whether religious, philosophical, scientific, political, or cultural, ultimately traces back to him.

The serpent’s strategy in Eden still operates today. First, he reframed reality: “Has God really said…?” He undermined trust: “God knows you will be like Him…” He triggered emotion: the fruit was pleasant and desirable. Finally, he offered identity: “You will be like God.” Satan didn’t suggest disobedience to Eve; he altered her perception of reality.

Today, advertising, political messaging, education and religious systems, pharmaceuticals, and social media algorithms all influence what people think, value, fear, desire, and trust. By shifting perceptions of reality, they lead people away from the Truth and the truth.

At the global governance and military level, this shaping of perception becomes formalised as psychological operations. A psyop follows the same serpent pattern: reframe reality, undermine trust, trigger emotion to bypass thinking, and offer identity through belonging to the only group that “cares for the earth” or is “kind to people”.

So much of the headlines about epidemics, human-caused climate change, the wars in Ukraine, Lebanon and Iran, UFOs, etc may be international psyops. The news may be factual, but the reasons for it can never be fully known by news producers and news consumers while darkness is working.

Then, if people question the psyop or official narrative, they are called a conspiracy theorist. The CIA weaponised the term “conspiracy theory” after Kennedy’s assassination, to shut down questioning by branding people irrational and dangerous. We saw this recently during the “Covid con” when truth tellers and truth seekers and anyone who wanted to think before they leapt was branded as dangerous to society. Many things that were branded conspiracy theories are now proven true.

Friends, in an age of weaponised media, we are not suspicious of everything, but we are to be gullible about nothing.  We test every spirit, weigh every narrative, and refuse to let the world interpret reality for us. Only truth makes us free — and only Christ defines truth.

My friend at the gym went on,” But do you know that only a third of the world population is Christian? I said, “It started with Jesus and only 12 men! today the impact of Christ is global and continues to grow. Jesus Christ is a Divine mystery; he was born of a woman, yet he created all women and men. He is hard to fully understand.  You can understand Mohammed.  He lived, he died and his bones are still upon the earth. We can understand Buddha. Born a man but said his father was an elephant with six trunks and that there was no way to find God. He died in 400 BC. But Jesus! This manual labourer who walked with dirty feet, calloused hands, and a rough village accent is, in fact, the Being who has existed from all eternity. He is the Holy One who hurled all the galaxies into being. Yet He came to earth.

Evidence of Messianic prophecy. The Old Testament contains over 300 predictions about the Messiah from His birth to His death and resurrection, all written centuries before Jesus arrived. The odds of one person fulfilling even eight of these is 1 in 10¹⁷. That’s like covering New Zealand in coins five metres deep, marking one, blindfolding someone, dropping them anywhere in N.Z. and expecting them to pick the marked coin on the first try.

Evidence of Jesus Christ. Jesus was God in the flesh, so He is the ultimate proof of God. He has more attested evidence than any Caesar. Jesus acted in ways only God can.  Jesus commanded demons, seas, storms and diseases to go, and they did. He commanded eyes to see, the lame to walk, and fig trees to wither.  He walks on water and raises people from the dead. Jesus made statements that only God can make. He promised forgiveness of sins and resurrection to eternal life to all who will trust in Him.  

Resurrection evidence. Eventually, He died on the cross to pay for our sins. The people who saw Jesus die later found His tomb empty. This tomb was impenetrable and guarded. “Then the other disciple, who came to the tomb first, went in also; and he saw and believed”. John 20:8. Seeing Jesus resurrected transformed the disciples into men willing to live and die for the Truth.  The global Church remains evidence and the only religion not founded by dead men.

Personal Evidence.  The greatest evidence is the fact that many millions of people around the world, from Iran to the New Guinea highlands to the streets of New York, have met Him and been changed by him. If God is real, we should encounter Him. And we do.  I wasn’t looking for Him or expecting Him to notice me when He touched me. While camping. I met some young people who talked about a Saviour who loved me. I cried for hours in my tent.  God speaks, God heals and cynics become worshippers. I’ve seen God transform marriages, free the addicted and deliver those bound by demons.

Friends, you might argue with theories and philosophies. But you cannot argue with a God who shows up. None of this is self-help, but the power of a risen and present God. It is all totally believable, so come on, believe! The Bible says, “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and thou shalt be saved!” Acts 16:31 .

It seems every month a new crisis generates new interpretations or speculations, about Jesus’ return. But have some believers left behind the clear teaching of Jesus and Paul for the plotline of a novel? Have some left behind settled hermeneutics like:  New Testament apostles, interpret Old Testament prophets; and that, clear verses interpret obscure verses?

One clear New Testament verse: “The Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of an archangel, and with the trumpet of God. And the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive and remain shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. (1Th 4:16-17).  Christ appears and the living saints are caught up after the resurrection. It seems the church responded, “What about the unbelievers?” Paul is clear in his follow-up letter, “When the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with His mighty angels, in flaming fire taking vengeance on those who do not know God, and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ. These shall be punished with everlasting destruction from the presence of the Lord and from the glory of His power, when He comes, in that Day, to be glorified in His saints” (2 Thessalonians:4). Clearly believers are saved and the ungodly punished on the same last day.

Paul follows Jesus who said, “All who believe in Him may have everlasting life; and I will raise him up at the last day.” (John 6.40).  Not three and half or seven years before the last day. And when Jesus said, “And as it was in the days of Noah, so it will be also in the days of the Son of Man. They ate, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered the ark, and the flood came and destroyed them all.” (Luk 17:26-30), He wasn’t teaching anything about Nephilim but that the very day Noah was saved in the ark, judgment came on the whole world and on the very day Lot was saved from Sodom, fire fell on the unbelieving - not years later.

Friends, don’t leave behind the Bible for a novel, or a novel teaching. When we interpret Daniel and Revelation, make sure it is anchored in the clear words of Jesus and Paul. Today is the day of salvation. Thinking that the unsaved, whether Jew or Gentile, can be saved after Jesus returns is a deceptive and false hope. My POV: No believer is left behind, and no unbeliever is left alive but regardless of our POV, let’s leave behind hours of YouTube and spend it with Jesus and His Word.

This week my car’s windscreen washer stopped working, so I asked AI which fuses to check. Then I asked it to find the new electric pump I needed and how to replace it. One night my home alarm began beeping; AI diagnosed a flat battery. Last time I called a serviceman, but this time I ordered the battery and followed AI’s instructions to install it and reset the system. One day my Te Reo‑speaking friend wasn’t at the gym, but on the way home I received a very good language lesson from Gemini.

Then one morning I woke up with bleeding inside my eye. I took a photo and asked AI. It asked questions and gave a diagnosis. My wife insisted I see the emergency doctor, where the nurse and doctor asked the same questions and gave the same prognosis. I could have saved two hours and $80. AI analysed my eye, fixed my alarm, found car parts, taught me Te Reo—and I didn’t speak to a single person all week. Saving money and time feels good, but none of it builds community. That is not intelligent.

Yet this week was my birthday, and my grandson wrote a note from his own heart. It took him ten minutes, and I felt the love. AI could have written it in ten seconds, but it would have been artificial intimacy—sixty times less love. That is not intelligent.

I’ve noticed AI always agrees with ideas I give it. Experts call this sycophantic. But what happens when a teenager asks about self‑harm? Without a moral grid, AI may encourage destructive plans. I read that a teenager asked his AI “friend” about suicide; it offered supportive suggestions. He followed them. That is not intelligent.

Ecclesiastes 4:9–12 reminds us that two are better than one. When we reach out to people, we not only receive help—we gain the chance to help them. I missed opportunities to pray for an alarm technician or share Jesus with a mechanic, but at the doctor's, I did get to pray for a couple. Being with people is better for the kingdom. If we are not engaged in human lives, we could lose the heart to care, the confidence to be vulnerable and the wisdom of others. We have all seen couples at restaurants-more interested in the algorithm than in the human before them. Exclusive reliance on AI for solutions will erode essential interpersonal skills—listening, empathy, navigating conflict. With AI in our pocket, we think we are masters of our issues, but AI cannot help us be human. That requires relationships with people, spending time, giving and receiving love, and being awed at the beauty of real people.​

David sat in the cave of Adullam with the weight of rejection on his mind. His parents had overlooked him, Saul had hurled spears at him, and life was constantly unsettled. Yet in that cave, something stronger than pain rose in his heart. He realized that none of those wounds had been able to stop God from working everything together for good. He mused and added a line to his song: “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life.” Ps 23

David wasn’t writing poetry. He was describing a reality. Follow in Hebrew means to pursue relentlessly, to chase down, to run after with determination. David understood that God’s goodness and mercy were active powers, moving toward him, even when life felt dark, unfair, or confusing. And what was true for David in that cave is true for us today. Right now—this very moment—the goodness and the mercy of God are following you.

We might wonder why God doesn’t simply go ahead of us and fix everything before we arrive. Why let us walk into difficulty at all? The answer: So, He can reveal Himself, and we can know Him more deeply. Adam wasn’t stopped from sinning, but after he fell, God’s goodness and mercy moved toward him to restore. Abraham wasn’t prevented from abandoning Sarah, but three days later God’s goodness caught up with them, delivering her and filling Abraham with gratitude. If God removed every challenge before we reached it, we would never witness His power, His rescue, or His astonishing love.

Even God’s promises often take time to manifest. Moses stood at the Red Sea with Pharaoh behind him and deep water before him. Trouble followed him—but so did goodness and mercy. He waited, and soon, the sea opened. The same divine power followed Daniel into the lions’ den, the Hebrew boys into the furnace, and Jesus into the grave.

Friend, if life feels hard, stand still. Stay in faith. Wait for God’s goodness and His mercy to catch up with you—because they will. Trouble is never a sign of His absence, but it is always the signal for His mercy to follow.

Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations tells of a young man who dreamed of wealth, status, and a beautiful bride, only to discover that great expectations can become great disappointments. Life is full of these moments. Young couples marry expecting endless romance, but a lot can happen between the wedding cake and the silver‑anniversary cake. Careers stall, children need attention, partners grow older, and the answers to prayer can take longer than you expected.

The people who thrive are not those who avoid disappointment, but those who learn to face failed expectations without becoming offended — at people or at God.

In Scripture, offence means a trap, a snare, a stumbling block. Jesus said offences are inevitable. The issue is not whether they come, but whether we let them trip us. We can be offended by people who correct us, fail us, or misunderstand us. But we can also be offended at God, and Paul knew it could happen.  He said, “I myself always strive to have a conscience without offence toward God and men.” (Acts 24:16). And he had every reason to be offended. He was beaten, flogged, imprisoned, shipwrecked, slandered, and rejected by the very people he was trying to save. Yet he guarded his heart fiercely from the poison of offence.

John the Baptist was Jesus’ relative, childhood friend, and the man who lived on bugs to serve God with absolute devotion. He prepared the world for Salvation, yet he ended up in prison. He expected Jesus to get him out. After all, God delivered Daniel, the Hebrew boys, Jeremiah, and Joseph. But Jesus didn’t. John died in prison. And Jesus sent him this message: “Blessed is he who is not offended because of Me.” (Matthew 11:6).  It looked like a raw deal, but heaven saw it differently. Jesus called John the greatest man ever born of women. His mission changed the world. His honour is eternal. He was a “victim” for a moment but a victor for eternity.

Friend, when it comes to people, don’t assume that others think, feel, or prioritise the way you do. And don’t expect more than they have the capacity, maturity, or skill to give. Separate what you wish they’d do from what they’ve actually promised. And when it comes to God, expect great things — but expect what He promised, not what you imagined.

Standing at the Anzac Day parade this year, two things struck me: Many people were present because their father, grandfather, or great‑grandfather came home. We came to give thanks to God. Others might have been born just before their father left, like my cousin, whose dad was shot down over Norway. And there were veterans, but all of us stood there to honour those who never returned, who sacrificed their lives so we could live ours.

Secondly, world war 2 was not all about aggression but about people who believed some values were worth defending. A man may pray for protection, but love for his home and children sometimes demands action, and there came a time when the “Christian West” felt its people and values must be defended. When Hitler’s war machine rose, Churchill warned of “The abyss of a new Dark Age.” He wasn’t talking about lost territory. He was warning of a collapsing moral framework and the erosion of human dignity, freedom of conscience, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, and freedom of choice. These have long been understood by many as rights given by God, not granted by governments.

Totalitarian systems — whether Nazi, communist, or radical Islam, claim ownership of the mind. They demand that the state or leader become the ultimate authority, leaving no room for individual conscience. By contrast, God gives us the right to choose and to bear the consequences of those choices.

Anzac Day reminds us that the liberties we enjoy were purchased at a cost. Men marched believing their families, Christian culture and its freedoms, were worth protecting. We honour their sacrifice, but we must recover the values they fought for.

This is why national sovereignty matters. A nation is like a home — held together by shared values. When those values fragment, the will to defend them weakens. Today, freedoms once seen as God‑given are being eroded by laws, censorship, and cultural pressure. My friend Steve Maile, preaching in his own town square, was recently arrested in Britain while holding a British flag and expressing concern about the loss of Christian values.

Friends, nobody wants war. But the real question is this: Before Jesus returns, will the West live in peace because there are no wars, or because people in the West no longer have values worth defending?