Gideon’s men quietly picked their way in the darkness around the Midianites’ camp. At the signal, they broke their clay vessels, revealing their flaming torches. The Midianites felt outnumbered by the great army that they thought had come upon them. It's amazing what God can do with people who have the lamp in their vessels and are willing to obey and break it in the battle. (Judges 7:19).  The Word of God is the lamp (Psalm 119:105).  And that lamp can be hidden inside our hearts (the vessel).  David said he hid God’s Word in his heart so he might not sin against God. If there is no Word stored in our heart, there will be no victory in the field.  It is the Sword that works, not garlic. How many of us still memorise scripture?   The Bible has to be more to us than an App on our phone next to Instagram and Facebook.

When Paul and Silas, vessels for God, were broken by imprisonment, they sang. Their faith-filled songs sounded so good, God turned up and every prisoner's bands were loosed - not just the Apostles. When a woman broke her alabaster vessel to worship Jesus, the room was filled with the fragrance of devotion.

Friend, today, we may find someone who is sick, or who needs our prayer of faith, or we have the opportunity to share the good news with them. Breaking our vessel is taking the risk to step out and to do it. Whenever we allow the Word of God and our devotion to shine out of our lives, there will be a breakthrough. In our lives and theirs!

Blind Bartimaeus heard that Jesus was passing by. He reached out and received his sight. He left behind his mat, his garment and his begging. Others in the Bible had their lives changed, too, because they received something from Jesus. The adulterous woman couldn't believe what happened. She was brought before Jesus to receive judgment, but she received mercy instead. (John 8) Zacchaeus received value, and Peter received forgiveness.

Jesus is not trying to take something from us, He is always trying to give something to us. What do we have, and what will we ever have that we do not receive?  We have nothing valuable that never came from Him.

We need to be good receivers. It is the hungry, the thirsty, and the needy that receive from Him. The only thing that hinders us from receiving is not knowing our need, not knowing He is close by, or not asking. Everyone who received knew there was no life in temple programs or rote prayers, but only in a Person. When we receive from Jesus, we receive Life.  God is so good that it always brings Him more joy to give to you than to receive from you. Blind Bart received sight and followed Jesus in the way. The more we see of Jesus, the closer we will want to follow. Not as beggars but as sons.

Friend, when you receive from Jesus, your words, your position and your garments change. If you are ready to follow Him, call out to Him, "who is coming your way" and receive.

It had been easy days for the Moabites. Although a distant relative of Israel, they did not have such a turbulent history as Israel.  They had not been subject to many changes. Jeremiah the Prophet said, “Moab has been at ease since his youth; he has not been emptied from vessel to vessel, so his taste remains and his scent has not changed.”   

Wine was made by decanting the fermenting wine, off into other vessels and leaving the dregs behind in the first. This purified the wine and improved the scent of the wine. Here the people of Moab had become rancid with a taste and smell not pleasing to God. They had not been poured out. There were no changes in their circumstances and no changes in their hearts.

Great things can happen when we are in a place of change.  We begin to draw closer to God as we become more aware of our need for Him to turn up in our lives. When we are emptied from vessel to vessel or we are taken to a place that is foreign to us or even difficult for us, our scent begins to change.  We begin to smell more of Jesus; more humble, less self-confident more reliant on God. We smell more of the supernatural and of the grace of God.  In the new situation we can’t rely on ourselves anymore; we are out of our depth and have no pat answers; we need the Holy Ghost.

Friend, changes in our life help us to develop the fear of the Lord and a new scent around our life. As we are poured into a new situation of change, He can pour new wine into our vessel. His new wine will be totally sufficient and it will always fill up the shape of the “new vessel” or situation we find ourselves in. Best of all the wine in the new vessel smells wonderful to Our Father.

Peter and John saw the lame man begging at the Beautiful Gate. Interestingly, the word “beautiful” is related to the idea of a beautiful or perfect moment. They came at the perfect time and although they never had money, they had the perfect gift to give, in Jesus’ name and left a lame man leaping in the temple. Beautiful moments are created by believing our steps are ordered and believing we have something to give to others. Gifts are not our decisions but our discoveries, but if we know what we have to give and sense the time to release it, we will create a beautiful moment. When Jesus found us broken outside the House of God, He gave us all that He had, and our beautiful moment began.

Friend, today God will have someone with a problem waiting at “the gate” outside the Temple. Such as you have, whatever Jesus has given you. hope, prophecy, encouragement, mercy or healing, release Him into their life today.  Sometimes it may be even cash but there is a beautiful moment planned for you and someone else today. It will be like giving a lame man back his legs!

No one ever benefited much from arriving at their destination. Nobody learns anything on graduation day but in the 4 years it took to get there.  The Bible declares “Blessed is the man whose… heart is set on pilgrimage.  As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring…  They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God." Psalm 84:5-7 

Whatever your destination is in life, it’s the journey that God uses to grow you.  Like you, I have had difficult days.  Friends have left town, and staff have quit. Parents have passed on, and children have been in car accidents. I have been through burnout and had children away from God.  It wasn’t a desperate search for sermons that have helped me know Him and grow stronger but the weeks I walked the streets, with a desperate cry for answers to heart-breaking challenges.

It is not going through valleys that grow us, but it is making our “Valley of Baca” into a spring, as we dig deep into the Holy Spirit’s life and power. Strength doesn’t come in a manual but in the midst of mystery (sometimes misery) as we draw from His grace and the assurance of His love.  The Psalm says as we do this, we appear before God. You may not see Him yet. You might still feel lost in a crowd of troubles; at a loss to understand how things have worked out the way they have.  But when a child is lost in a crowd, it doesn't matter if the child can’t see the father, for they are safe the moment the father sees the child.

Friends, our Father sees you, and He will strengthen and comfort you. Set your heart on a pilgrimage toward Him and keep digging for springs. Who we look for/at determines who we look like. Our journey is the blessing that enables us to arrive at our most important destination: Being like Him when we see Him.

 Samson had been fighting the Philistines and winning.  In one day of powerful victory and strength, he even took the gates of a city to the top of the hill but the Scriptures say “afterwards he loved a woman.” Judges 16:4

No matter how many successes we have there is always an afterward.  A leader might take a great meeting or preach an awesome message but afterwards, there may come temptation or even a secret struggle with anger, lust or insecurity.  The greatest test of integrity is not when you have revival every night but often when nothing is going on; when it’s prayer night and you know only a handful will be there. The test is not when your marriage is in full bloom and exciting but when you come home to a tired and grumpy wife.  The test is not when you’re at home surrounded by loving parents who fill up your emotional tank but when you’re living away from home and your emotional tank still cries out for love.

Sadly it is not our successes that define us but it is our “afterward.” It is always in the "afterwards" that our integrity is tested and when our true character is revealed.  Behold, I have chosen thee in the furnace of affliction. (Isa 48:10 ). In a firey time of testing God sees and chooses people who will not give up their birthright for a bowl of stew.

Friend, let’s watch out for the “afterwards.” Samson found out that the afterwards of sin took him further than he planned to go and cost him more than he wanted to pay. Jesus was tested in the wilderness. The Bible says “Afterwards He was hungry”. Satan tempted Him with bread but gladly for us, Jesus knew that after a hard spiritual victory, never to pamper yourself with an easy pleasure.

As Lot looked down upon the lush plains near Sodom, it seemed to him that the rivers were like beads of diamonds laid upon green velvet.   To him, it seemed like the “garden of the LORD and like the land of Egypt”. (Genesis 13:10). The garden of the Lord and the land of Egypt looked the same to Lot.  Egypt and the garden of the Lord were both green and lush, but God dwelt in only one.  His heart immediately went there, followed by his feet. Soon Lot moved his tent as far as Sodom.

Lot was a believer.  He could be us!  Lot enjoyed great privilege as the nephew of Abraham, the friend of God. He lived with grace and faith, but he remained greedy and short-sited.  Lot’s relationship with God was enough for him to change countries but not enough to change his heart.  Abraham’s home was in the “unseen city” but Lot was more at home in things he could see.  Lot was distressed by the sensual conduct of the wicked but not distressed enough to leave with his family. (2 Peter 2:7).  He was vexed but still hooked, still powerless with insufficient relationship with God, to be able to discern the difference between darkness and light, Egypt and Eden.

Lot, needed the crowd to tell him he was doing fine.  “You enjoy the same life as us; you are one of us.”  Lot knew he belonged there. Lead him out into the desert and he wouldn’t know who he was.  Yet Abraham in the wilderness would face the wind and look into the face of his Father and friend.

Every believer sees heaven to some degree, but some don't see it enough to change their love or tolerance for the world.   The world seems like home. He was more familiar with “King of the hill,” than the King of Kings.  The life of Beyoncé was more compelling than the life beyond. What defines a man is not his shoes, his haircut or the size of his TV but the size of his vision.  What can he see?  Does he look at his bank account, his 10-year plan, his FB likes, or is he gazing into heaven?  Can he see what can’t be seen? Lot, had no vision for the invisible.

Friend, have we seen enough of God to free us from the world or are we moving closer to Sodom?

In the well-known tale, the frog stayed in the pot of water too long and got cooked because the water was heating up imperceptibly. Today we are sitting in a warming ideological pot.  And if we can't explain the meaning of woke, critical race theory and social justice, we are cooking in the pot and don’t know it. Woke thinking is endemic and hard to escape.  Most politicians, educators and media people, either believe it or feel they must go along with the madness.

The woke say that they are now awokened or “enlightened” perhaps by Critical Race Theory, to the evils of Western institutions. CRT is a theory that looks at how race intersects with social stratification, gender, class and nationalities but seemingly has become a criticism against Christians, Christmas, boys’ and girls’ clubs, the Ten Commandments, and an illogical offence at the Christianized development of the world. Woke people believe that they are oppressed victims of others and are offended at everything that gave them wealth, and education, like capitalism, white people, exploration, and colonization. They are even offended at things that gave them life itself, marriage, heterosexuality and carbon dioxide which is only 0.04% of the atmosphere! 

To undo the “evils” of the West’s pioneering history, they want all connections with the past, that give us reason to be proud of our heritage, to be removed. Statues are being taken down or defaced, and books are being removed from libraries. History is being reinterpreted to magnify any abuses committed by the pioneers.

But some people are noticing the temperature rising in the pot. My 10-year-old grandson came home from school and said, “I think they are trying to get us all to hate the colonialists from Britain, but they forget they brought us the Gospel of Jesus.” Exactly, while there have been obvious abuses during modernization, they ignore completely the benefits they inherited, of transport, technology, governance, science, health, and Christian missions. The gospel light brought an end to murder and mayhem among the Māori who became believers and delivered untold millions from the spiritual darkness of paganism around the world.

Those who are truly awake, know who the real oppressor is. Satan has colonized the earth and has oppressed all mankind. The good news is that Jesus paid the penalty for our sins on the Cross to free us all including the woke, from the oppression of sin and Satan’s rule over us and is now alive to heal and deliver all that will call upon Him.  The same wonderful Jesus that has blessed the whole world spiritually through the Church and materially through the “Christianized West,” continues to save and bless the awakened.

One day Saul, who hated David and was pursuing him all over the hills of southern Israel, stopped to refresh himself in the very cave where David was hiding.  David's men insisted that this was God's opportunity for David to kill Saul, and so become King.

After all, David had received a prophecy, that he’d be king, and he had been anointed by the prophet of God.  Not only that, but Saul was abusing God’s people and was deaf to the prophetic word from God. Saul had built no altars to God, only a monument to himself and he had even sought to murder David numerous times.  On top of that, everybody loved David and it was obvious to the nation that Saul was losing God’s favour.

But David had character and refused the “good idea”.  In one psalm, David said, “my heart is fixed” (Psalms 57.7) To fix our heart means to keep it steadfast, immovable and stable. This came from believing that his times and his life were in God’s hands. He would not move against Saul, choosing to maintain a Godly and honouring attitude.  He was convinced that God would vindicate and promote him at the right time.

Friend, character is often revealed as a fixed attitude of faith in God and His Word in a trying time.  Character does not prove itself in our first or second test but after many times of testing.  You may not be able to fix your circumstances, but you can fix your heart. Fix it upon Him and His faithful goodness.