fbpx

Category: Theology

Posted on

How Jesus Changed Israel

As the worldwide celebration of Christmas overlaps with the ongoing Israel-Hamas conflict, my thoughts have been increasingly on the question, “Did Christ’s coming change anything about how we as Christians should think about Israel?”

Before Jesus, the Old Testament tells us that the Jewish nation of Israel was God’s chosen people.

For you are a holy people, who belong to the Lord your God. Of all the people on earth, the Lord your God has chosen you to be his own special treasure. ~ Deuteronomy 7:6 (NLT)

Not only were the Jews God’s chosen people but Jerusalem was a special place where God chose to dwell.

Of Solomon’s temple in Jerusalem He said: For I have chosen this Temple and set it apart to be holy—a place where my name will be honored forever. I will always watch over it, for it is dear to my heart. ~ 2 Chronicles 7:16 (NLT)

For the Lord has chosen Jerusalem; he has desired it for his home. “This is my resting place forever,” he said. “I will live here, for this is the home I desired… ~ Psalm 132:13-14 (NLT)

It is verses like these that have caused the Christian world to have a special love affair with Israel and the Jewish people. Countless Christian tourists flock to Israel, calling it the Holy Land. And many unapologetically side with Israel in any conflict because of this perception that they are special to God.

So my aim today is to interrogate this concept of a special people and a special land in light of Christ’s birth, death and resurrection.

But first I must go back a little further in history to a man called Abraham. God chose him out of all the people on the earth at that time and gave the land of Canaan (modern day Israel) to him and his descendants.

“I will confirm my covenant with you and your descendants after you, from generation to generation. This is the everlasting covenant: I will always be your God and the God of your descendants after you. And I will give the entire land of Canaan, where you now live as a foreigner, to you and your descendants. It will be their possession forever, and I will be their God.” ~ Genesis 17:7-8 (NLT)

Abraham had a son named Isaac, who had a son named Jacob. God changed Jacob’s name to Israel and it is his descendants that were referred to as the Israelites (later called Jews). Years later when the Israelites numbered over a million people, a leader named Joshua was appointed by God to lead the first military campaign to occupy the land of Canaan, birthing the first nation of Israel. The land was already occupied and the Israelites took the land by force.

However, they were never able to fully drive out the occupants. So, began the violent history of that region of the world. It changed hands many times and if we fast forward to Jesus’ birth. Jerusalem is under Roman rule and the Jews are still holding onto God’s promises. In fact, the prevailing Jewish mindset is that a savior will come in the likeness of a great military commander and overthrow the Romans, restoring Jewish rule.

BUT Jesus has a very different and up-to-that-point unprecedented agenda. His agenda has nothing to do with continuing the old paradigm. This is why to this day most Jews reject Him as the saviour that God promised. And this is the scandal, the game changer, the rock that we must either break our preferred narrative against or be broken.

Let me begin to break down this new Christ-paradigm with this verse where Paul describes some aspects of what is different because of Jesus:

For you are all children of God through faith in Christ Jesus. And all who have been united with Christ in baptism have put on Christ, like putting on new clothes. There is no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male and female. For you are all one in Christ Jesus. And now that you belong to Christ, you are the true children of Abraham. You are his heirs, and God’s promise to Abraham belongs to you. ~ Galatians 3:26-29 (NLT)

This is MONUMENTOUS! There is no longer Jew or Gentile (read Jew or Palestinian). Who are God’s children? Who are Abraham’s descendants? Who have inherited Abraham’s promise? Answer: All who have put their faith in Christ Jesus. So are the Jews God’s special people due to their lineage? No, anyone who has faith in Jesus are His people. Jesus destroyed all national and racial barriers! Therefore all thinking, prayer, action based on the ideology that the Jewish people have some special favour in God’s eyes in comparison to non-Jewish people is fatally flawed. Note I said, in comparison to. I am not saying that they are not special. It’s just that God has adopted us all in Christ and we are all special to Him; He has no favourites.

To further cement the point:

Well then, has God failed to fulfill his promise to Israel? No, for not all who are born into the nation of Israel are truly members of God’s people! 7 Being descendants of Abraham doesn’t make them truly Abraham’s children. ~ Romans 9:6-7a (NLT)

What about the land is the land still special? Remember the verse above from Psalm 132 that speaks about the Temple? Listen to Jesus;

“All right,” Jesus replied. “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” “What!” they exclaimed. “It has taken forty-six years to build this Temple, and you can rebuild it in three days?” But when Jesus said “this temple,” he meant his own body. After he was raised from the dead, his disciples remembered he had said this, and they believed both the Scriptures and what Jesus had said. ~ John 2:19-22 (NLT)

Jesus effectively says here that after the temple was destroyed it was replaced by His body. Again, Christ redefines what is holy. The Holy people have become those in Christ, the holy place has become His body! Paul echoes this truth:

You have not come to a physical mountain, to a place of flaming fire, darkness, gloom, and whirlwind, as the Israelites did at Mount Sinai. For they heard an awesome trumpet blast and a voice so terrible that they begged God to stop speaking. They staggered back under God’s command: “If even an animal touches the mountain, it must be stoned to death.” Moses himself was so frightened at the sight that he said, “I am terrified and trembling.” No, you have come to Mount Zion, to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to countless thousands of angels in a joyful gathering. Hebrews 12:18-22 (NLT).

Hallelujah! We no longer worship on this mountain or that mountain but the time has come when those who worship must worship in spirit and in truth! God is no longer interested in a special land for a special people. In fact, He never was. From the moment He called Abraham, His end game was that all nations would be blessed (Genesis 22:18). All was a physical shadow and foretaste of a deeper spiritual reality that has been made fully manifest in Christ! And thank God!

For me, this year, this is the Christmas story. While so many remain stuck in the old quagmire of violence, domination and control of a small piece of land by a select few. We, the people of Christ, should,… must have a different heartbeat.. a larger view of a God that desires peace for ALL PEOPLE EVERYWHERE. We must be obsessed not with physical control of physical land but with heaven’s reality being made manifest on earth! We must be obsessed with heaven’s reality being made manifest in this realm.

Christmas is about the Prince of Peace and of the increase of His government and of peace
there will be no end! (Isaiah 9). So let us pray for this peace. Not a limited peace that favours a particular people. Let us pray for the peace of Christ for Israel, for Palestine, for the Gaza, for our nations. Let us herald peace on earth and goodwill to ALL men!.

Finally, when Christ’s work has reached its culmination this is how Revelations describes the reality:

Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the old heaven and the old earth had disappeared. And the sea was also gone. And I saw the holy city, the new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven like a bride beautifully dressed for her husband. I heard a loud shout from the throne, saying, “Look, God’s home is now among his people! He will live with them, and they will be his people. God himself will be with them. He will wipe every tear from their eyes, and there will be no more death or sorrow or crying or pain. All these things are gone forever.” ~ Revelations 21:1-4 (NLT)

Amen.

Copyright 2023, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
Posted on

The Inner Life, Revival and The Kingdom

Many agree that Jesus’ over-arching message was the kingdom. John the Baptist preached that the kingdom was coming and then Jesus came and it was ‘at hand’. Jesus was a walking demonstration of the love and power of God made manifest on the earth. Jesus brought heaven to earth. The enemy’s kingdom was completely outgunned. Sin fled in the face of forgiveness! Sickness yielded under the power of healing! And demonic oppression was evicted as Jesus proclaimed freedom! A new kingdom was on the earth! The fact that this governmental mandate has been passed onto the church has been a hot topic among the Christian circles that I am a part of.

Today, I gathered with a group of men and women with hearts earnestly desiring the manifestation of His kingdom in Trinidad & Tobago. We shared a meal and shared our hearts with a humility and intimacy that I have rarely encountered. No titles. No agendas. And God turned up. As we prayed and shared, the presence of God was amongst us and things shifted in the atmosphere undoubtedly far beyond our awareness or comprehension.

My friend, Dave, shared about the governmental reality that the church of Acts came into. He illustrated the journey that started as a church powerless in the face of the enemy’s attack on the apostle James. James was imprisoned and killed. Then Peter was imprisoned, and the church woke up. As they prayed for Peter in the prison, an angel turned up and supernaturally broke him out of prison. Then this governmental authority became so real in the church that when Paul and Silas were imprisoned, they started a revival in the prison complete with supernatural miracles and mass conversions. That’s a picture of a church walking in progressive governmental authority.

So, as I said, this is a hot topic in many circles. For many, this revelation is communicated by an understanding that the word translated church in the scripture – “And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.” (Matthew 16:18 ESV) – is the Greek word ekklesia which refers to a gathering of the citizens of a nation for the purpose of governance. But as another brother in the meeting today focused on the verses that precede this one, some things that I had been struggling to articulate properly before suddenly became as clear as day!

So let me share what is on my heart by unwrapping these verses. Here is the full text (Matthew 16:13-18 ESV emphasis mine):

13 Now when Jesus came into the district of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” 14 And they said, “Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets.” 15 He said to them, “But who do you say that I am?” 16 Simon Peter replied, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” 17 And Jesus answered him, “Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven. 18 And I tell you, you are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against it.

So Jesus says that this governmental force that will wreak havoc on the kingdom of darkness will be built upon a rock. The question is: what is the rock? Let’s start at verse 13. Jesus asks His disciples who other people say that He is… and they give some answers but what Jesus really wants to know is this: do His disciples really know Him? Peter answers, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Right answer Peter! But let’s look at this more closely. This is not mere intellectual knowledge. You see most Christians think that because they believe that Jesus Christ is Lord, they can walk in kingdom authority. That is a fallacy! And that fallacy is a big obstacle because many believers are busy spreading this revelation of ekklesia and kingdom governance in the very erroneous assumption that the information is sufficient for governmental function. I don’t believe it is.

You see the real rock that Peter identified with was not the objective fact that Jesus was the Christ. It was the subjective experienced reality of who Christ was to Peter that was birthed out of real physical intimacy with Jesus. Peter had experienced the Messiah first-hand. The Messiah who walked on water, empowered him to do the same, rescued him when he started to sink and calmed the winds and waves! It was after this encounter that those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:22-33 ESV). In fact, this reality of Christ’s deity and power was so tangible in Peter that Christ identified him as the rock. The quality of Peter’s knowing changed him on a fundamental level. This type of knowledge only comes through experience not education.

Jesus will only give the keys to bind and loose to those who know Him like Peter did. While Jesus is not physically with us now, His Spirit is in us and it is only through a deliberate pursuit of intimacy with the Christ in us that we can walk the path to any form of true kingdom authority on this earth. Those who are on this path understand that the inner life of intimacy and communion is our highest priority. We must cultivate and grow this communion to become the rock like Peter did. The reality of Jesus with us here and now must be an increasingly experienced reality. Those along this path often use words like worship, encounter, contemplation, meditation, tarrying, lingering, and retreat to describe practices that enable this pursuit.

This is why the current revival that God is doing across the earth (most recently in Asbury) is so important and exciting. Revival is the word we use to describe when God moves from intellectual theory to experienced reality in a corporate way. It is actually the necessary start of ekklesia. Many do not make this connection. Many discount revival in favour of more teaching and organizing. If we meet in homes, if we teach everyone that they are a citizen, if we take the 7 mountains, if we do more evangelization, if we do more missions, if we do more community service, if we (insert whatever educating/organizing effort)… then we will see the church take its place as a ruling change agent in society. We all long for this and these are all good things that the church should do but they are not the first step or even the most important step. In fact, without intimacy with God any education/organization effort is doomed to failure no matter how great it is, even if it accomplishes great things in the natural. You see, education and organization can take us very far (exhibit A: the tower of Babel) but it cannot give us real authority and therefore it cannot defeat the kingdom of darkness. The kingdom of this world will only bow when the King becomes incarnate in His body.

When God begins to encounter us on a corporate level, He is opening a window of opportunity for us as a body to step into a Peter reality. That is why I am going after revival. This is why I think it is important to celebrate and connect with anywhere that God is breaking into this world. It may just look like people laughing or crying or worshipping but it is much more than that! It is God bringing the reality of the kingdom in us first before we can bring it to the world. You have to worship in the boat with Jesus before you can worship in the prison. You have to be blinded by the light and knocked to the ground and hear Jesus speak to you before you can invade the darkness with light and knock the enemy off his feet. You must become the rock shaped without human hands before it can grow and take over the world. As a corporate body, we must encounter God in unity in the upper room before we can turn the world upside down.

Attention to our individual inner life with God brings corporate revival in the church and revival in the church brings kingdom come on earth.

Copyright 2023, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.
Posted on

Rated XOX

It’s 2022! Happy New Year! And what better way to start the year than with some steamy, passionate sex! Yes, this is still a Christian blog 😊.

Christian mystics throughout the ages have used sexual union as a powerful metaphor for spiritual union with God.  It was Saint Paul (a chaste man, ironically) who said, ““A man leaves his father and mother and is joined to his wife, and the two are united into one.” This is a great mystery, but it is an illustration of the way Christ and the church are one.”

In my journey toward wholeness and holiness, I have been wrestling with my sexual brokenness. Years of distorted sexual messages and experiences have configured my mind in such a way that seeing the divine intent in sexual intimacy is a challenge.

To explain let me share a quote from one of the many books I’m currently reading (I may have mentioned before that I’m a book junkie).

“…desire is one of the greatest gifts we can give to another. It is the gift of receptivity. Being received by someone in love, whether in a physical or spiritual way, is one of the most life-affirming experiences we can have. When a wife opens herself to receive a husband in sexual intimacy, or when a trusted friend allows you to share your deepest hurts or hopes with them, you feel seen. These are healing, expansive encounters. And they mirror the inner life of the divine.”

Kelly Deutsch – Spiritual Wanderlust: The Field Guide To Deep Desire

This truth-speaking from Kelly Deutsch caused my soul to leap. I knew it held some truth that I needed to hear although I did not quite get it at first. As often happens, my mind railroaded me with distractions. The provocative phrase ‘when a wife opens to receive a husband’ filled my mind with a flood of images that seemed much too dirty to be associated with God. I struggled with these seemingly opposing forces in my being. Should I go deeper or turn away? Should I be thinking of God this way? Curiosity and shame locked horns.

Only God Himself could help me sort through this entanglement and see what was true. So, I took my thoughts to Him in my usual morning devotions, and this was what I heard Him say:

“Matik, We want you to know that We see your confusion. We see your struggle to untangle your thoughts and desires. We see your heart and mind straining to see purely; to see Us clearly. We see the condemnation that tries to infect as you struggle with your sexuality; your sexual desires entangled with the deepest desires of your heart, and your thoughts toward and about Us. Know this Matik, We are never ashamed. And We are not ashamed of you or shamed by your thoughts. Bring them all to be reconciled at the cross. We can handle it.”

He always knows what to say 😊. My Saviour accepts me; receives me; as I am; unconditionally. He is not waivered or put off by the immature and incompetent bumbling thoughts of a child struggling to comprehend concepts much bigger than himself.

Soothed by the reassuring love of my Papa I was able to push past the surface and lean into the mystery that He wanted to reveal to me… Sexual intimacy is not just the heated sating of physical appetites but two hearts longing to be seen completely, known fully and in the context of that full disclosure to still be desired, wanted and cherished. To have all our flaws and imperfections exposed and still be found desirable. We want to be wanted for who we are without having to pretend or perform. We want to be affirmed that we are beautiful after all. This is what we truly seek, and this is what only God can truly provide in full measure.

God wants to be with you, with no barriers and pretenses (naked), know you fully (inside and out) and have you look into His eyes and see only hot desire and unconditional love for you. Not only that, but He wants to be known by you too, and wanted by you (if you can accept the thought). God is constantly revealing Himself to us for the explicit purpose of captivating us with His incomparable beauty and eternal love in the hopes that we would set our hearts rapturously upon Him and open ourselves to receive Him.

As I said, there is no better way to start this new year than with a passionate love encounter with the Lover of your soul! May He satisfy you all the days of your life and into the blessed union of eternal bliss!

Copyright 2022, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

Posted on

“My Kingdom Is Not An Earthly Kingdom”

“My Kingdom is not an earthly kingdom. If it were, my followers would fight to keep me from being handed over to the Jewish leaders. But my Kingdom is not of this world.”

John 18:36b (NLT)

This was Jesus’ answer as Pilate questioned Him about being king of the Jews. It is a reality that informed everything that Jesus did and the way in which He conducted His life. But perhaps more to the point that Jesus is making here is what He didn’t do. He did not vie for leadership of the Sanhedrin. He did not come as a king like Hezekiah or David to free the Jewish people from their oppressors. In fact, he made no attempt to free them from Roman rule at all. He never tried to gain any earthly power, whether through political means or through violence. His kingdom was not of this world and therefore was not enforced by earthly means.

As 2021 comes to a close, I cannot help but think that we (Christians) still haven’t learned the lessons of 2020. We are still desperately trying to build a spiritual kingdom with earthly tools. Utter futility. Nothing, I believe, illustrates this better than US abortion statistics:

First of all, it is worthy of celebration that abortions have been falling since 1990. I think that this is good news no matter if you are pro-life or pro-choice. However, what is striking is the fact that the greatest declines in the number of abortions took place under Democratic administrations (shown in blue). We can conclude from this chart that there either is no correlation between a pro-life administration and reducing abortion rates or more astoundingly an inverse correlation.

Many well-known Christian leaders publicly and vociferously supported the Republican candidate in the last US elections and cited his policy on abortion as a deciding factor (if not the deciding factor). This one issue absolved us Christians from any responsibility for the pettiness, bigotry, hate, and division that he spewed forth daily. We were saving innocent lives. Only, as it turns out, we weren’t. The CDC’s statistics on abortion for 2018 and 2019 reveal something that has not happened in a long time – two successive years of rising numbers of abortions. (https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealth/data_stats/index.htm)

Could it be that what influences a nation is not so much the legal policies but the spiritual atmosphere? Could these scandalous statistics be a message from the unseen realm… “My kingdom is not of this world!”

Maybe (and I admit that this is a hypothesis) what made a difference was the prayers of the church lifted up during pro-choice administrations as opposed to resting on our spiritual laurels during pro-life administrations? Maybe…

Looking forward into 2022, the pandemic rages on and many of our churches continue to be preoccupied with earthly kingdom business. Our big concerns – being forced to wear masks and get vaccinations. As over 5 million people worldwide (including many clergymen and women) have now died from Covid-19, one would think that there would be bigger things on the minds and hearts of God’s people than the infringement of our ‘religious freedoms’. Surely.

Our kingdom compass is desperately in need of recalibration. Where does the anchor of our hope find ground? In Christ or in our government? What is the motivation for our actions? Love of neighbour or love of self? Are we moved by God’s voice or the latest conspiracy theory? What’s our priority, our freedom, or our responsibility as ambassadors of Christ?

Do you have strong convictions about taking or not taking vaccinations? Great! Take a page from the Hebrews in Babylon. They stood up for their convictions and depended on God to deliver them from the earthly authorities of the day. We can rest assured that if we are in the purpose of God, He will protect and provide for us as He did for Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Our King is much more powerful than any earthly power. Daniel and his friends never sent around a petition for signatures or started a campaign against the king or plead their case or even asked God to judge the authorities. They just stood by their decision and left the rest to God come what may. They knew that their kingdom was not of this world.

Let’s flip the script in 2022. Let’s show the world the power of God like Daniel did… like Jesus did! Let’s be radical demonstrations of the love of Christ. The demonstration of Christ’s kingship was not in His ability to bend men to His preferences through legislation, political power or social pressure but His ability to destroy the power of sin, sickness and demonic oppression in the lives of men. In the physical realm, Jesus spent His life as a sacrificial demonstration of love. In the spiritual realm, He completely undercut the power darkness that was at the root of all evil. This is how we shine in the present darkness. We wrestle not against flesh and blood. Our weapons are mighty for spiritual battle.

Let’s get radical. Let’s see thousands healed of Covid as churches send out intercessory teams to surround hospitals with prayer. Let’s see churches give radically to care for the sick. Let’s elevate our minds above these worldly affairs of masks, vaccines, and politics and begin to really follow Christ into His kingdom. Let’s demonstrate the indefatigable love and power of Jesus Christ!

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

Posted on

Make Room For Intimacy

I recently read this verse from the NLT translation of the bible and it resonated deep in my soul:

I want you to know me more than I want burnt offerings. (Hosea 6:6b emphasis mine)

God’s heart cry is to be known by us. Stop and let that verse sink in for a while. Seriously. Take a minute.

God wants intimacy more than service. Put another way, He wants sons and daughters, not slaves. Consider all the way back to the newborn creation when God walked and talked with man in the cool of the garden. God’s original intent, distinct from His intent toward all other created beings, was to walk in fellowship with man. Often, we are busy busy busy doing things for God instead of being with God. God does not just want our prayers, our fasting, our tithes, our church attendance, or our bible reading. He wants our fellowship. He wants us to seek a real heart-to-heart relationship with Him. Getting to know the Eternal One is the most necessary and serious endeavour of our Christian life.

The unfortunate reality is that our culture is more rational than relational. Consider the first 20 years of your life. What was the emphasis of all those years of preparation for adulthood? In our early years, we were taught how to talk, walk, read and write. Then we went on to more difficult things such as Algebra, Geography, football, playing the guitar, and driving a car. Then we graduated to real challenging subjects such as plumbing, performing surgery, or doing a theatrical performance. But how much did we learn about listening, processing our emotions, vulnerability, empathy, or handling conflict well? Not nearly as much.

This academic, task-oriented, performance-driven culture has fully saturated our religious lives as well. We measure our Christianity by things like bible knowledge, church attendance, ministry engagements, missionary work, and doctrinal understanding. How far have we drifted from “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:35). Or what about, “The most important commandment is this: ‘Listen, O Israel! The Lord our God is the one and only Lord. And you must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, all your mind, and all your strength.’ The second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ No other commandment is greater than these.” (Mark 12:29-31). The central issue of being like Christ is relational – loving God and others like Christ did. And all relationships begin with the desire to know and be known by the other.

I do not think we are even aware of how plutonic our relationship with our Heavenly Father has become. Consider how universally the bible has come to be considered the Word of God. It used to be (in biblical days) that the Word of God included a personal encounter with the Divine. There was no separation of God’s voice from His Presence. The Speaker was inseparable from His words. When the Word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, God personally spoke to him and said, “Fear not, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.”. When Balaam announced what the Lord had spoken to him, he said, “This is the message of Balaam son of Beor, the message of the man whose eyes see clearly, the message of one who hears the words of God, who has knowledge from the Most High, who sees a vision from the Almighty, who bows down with eyes wide open”. Can you hear the echoes of someone who has been in the presence of the Voice of Many Waters?! In New Testament times the people gathered around Jesus to hear the living Word of God speak to them!

Nowadays, we casually read from the bible and believe it is synonymous with hearing God’s voice. This is a deception. Without a doubt, He can speak to us as we read, but hear me well, it is not the act of reading that brings connection with the divine. No no no. Many souls have read the good book (and some have memorized it as did the Pharisees) without any interaction with God whatsoever. I myself have come away from the book at times remaining empty of the Bread of Life. Hearing from God is a far more relational endeavour in the same way as reading someone’s biography is very different from spending time with them. Hearing from God requires a pure heart and an undistracted mind turned with burning desire and rapt attention toward the only One who has the words of eternal life. “Lord, to whom would we go? You have the words that give eternal life.” (John 6:68)

The Holy Spirit lives in us. The whispers of God echo in our hearts if we hearken to His quiet voice. I implore you. Take a step back from doctrinal debates and endless studies and make room in your hectic schedule of good deeds to seek God. Intimacy is nurtured in SLOW time. Awake before the dawn and set your affections toward God in hushed silence. Take long slow walks in nature and soak in the wonder and the beauty of His handiwork. Linger in heart-to-heart journaled conversations with your Eternal Lover. Instead of approaching the bible like a manual for life to be studied, approach it like a love letter that fills us with an inexorable desire to turn from the pages toward the Author of such amazing love. Instead of approaching times of prayer with a list of petitions, approach it with a curiosity to discover what Your Heavenly Father might want to speak to you today.

In this season of advent let us make room in the inn of our lives for the Saviour. Let us make room for intimacy.

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

Posted on

Eternal Rest

In the lack,
The fear gnaws at the pit of my stomach.
Have I done enough?
Is tomorrow safe?

In the fragmentation,
The edges of my mind are frayed.
Glitch! Glitch! Glitch!
The maddening itch,
That I can never quite scratch.

In the shallows,
The water churns.
The currents tug and pull. Exhausting!
A thousand vanities of frothy frenzy.

But,
In the silence of the deep,
Eternity rests unchallenged.
She sits; all-knowing Observer.

In the center of my soul,
She dwells; the Spirit of Peace.
Smiling the smile of complete knowing.
The planetary weight of stillness.
Fixed. Immovable. Quietly defiant.

In the stillness,
Silently flows the Eternal Spring.
That infinite supply,
That will never run dry.

No hurry,
No worry,
No need,
No lack.
Come all who labour.
Come all who are burdened.
I will give you rest.

Copyright 2021, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

If you haven’t yet, check out our FREE Spiritual Growth Foundation Course in which we cover the four foundational principles for spiritual growth and much more! In addition to on-demand videos which you can watch at your leisure, there are downloadable handouts for those who prefer written content.

Posted on

Forsaking The Known, Embracing The Unknown

God is in many ways a mystery. The bible says it this way in Isaiah 55:8-9 (ESV):

8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,

    neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord.

9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,

    so are my ways higher than your ways

    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

God is inscrutable. He is above human scrutiny. If we could understand God; if we could pin Him into a package that our minds could comprehensively define, then you can be sure that that would be a god of our own making. The clay cannot understand the ways of the Potter. The mind of Creator is, by definition, on an unfathomably superior plane to the created being.

I think we constantly need reminding of this. We too easily become arrogant and presume levels of enlightenment beyond our endowment. We become too sure of what God would and wouldn’t do; too convinced of our theology and doctrine; too secure in our denominational position. God does reveal Himself to us, of course, but be assured that what we know is far less than what we do not know.

The minute we become too sure of what we know is the minute that we lose our ability to receive the next revelation of God; to transition to the next season in God gracefully. You see, we never have it completely figured out. We read the historical accounts of the bible (with full knowledge of the end of the story) and feel that the way it all panned out would have been obvious to us had we been there, but consider this:

  1. John the Baptist actually witnessed the Father speaking from heaven and the Holy Spirit descending on Jesus as he baptized Him. Yet, when John found himself in prison and heard what exactly this Messiah was doing (or not doing) he asked, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” What Jesus was doing did not fit into his prophetic interpretation of scripture. And this was the great prophet John! Jesus said of John that among those born of women there had arisen no one greater than John the Baptist!
  2. What about the disciples on the road to Emmaus? Jesus had been crucified and there were rumours of His resurrection. They bemoaned, “…we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” A dying Saviour and an Israel still under Roman occupation was nowhere in their frame of reference of the Saviour.

What’s my point? God often defies our expectations of Him. We cannot follow Him through our human reasoning or academic study of the scripture. Only the Spirit knows God’s next move.

1 Corinthians 2:8-11 (ESV)

8 None of the rulers of this age understood this, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. 9 But, as it is written,

“What no eye has seen, nor ear heard,

    nor the heart of man imagined,

what God has prepared for those who love him”—

10 these things God has revealed to us through the Spirit. For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God. 11 For who knows a person’s thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

To this very day, the Western world is bound in an intellectual approach to God mainly through the study of scripture. Studying scripture is good and necessary but without actively engaging the Spirit it is inadequate.

Those who have embraced mystery, often called mystics, have frequently been vilified by the rest of us. A spiritual approach to seeking God has often been misbranded as New Age. This tragic misunderstanding has cut off many from an abiding relationship with Christ.

I was recently reminded of the amazing access to tangible relationship with God that opened to me when I first came across the concept of Contemplative Prayer. A very well-respected mother of the faith expressed her appreciation of my contemplative position and I realized how much it had now become a part of me. When I first discovered the contemplative, it was rare to hear about it in mainstream Christian media but recently I have been hearing preachers mentioning names like Thomas Merton, Richard Rohr, Brother Lawrence and Madame Guyon and I have rejoiced. Contemplative Prayer is better known by our Catholic brothers and sisters and I would dare say it is something that they have that we all need.

Listen to Madame Guyon in her book Experiencing the Depths of Jesus Christ:

“You see, the only way to be perfect is to walk in the presence of God. The only way you can live in His presence in uninterrupted fellowship is by means of prayer, but a very special kind of prayer. It is a prayer that leads you into the presence of God and keeps you there at all times; a prayer that can be experienced under any conditions, any place, and any time… May I hasten to say that the kind of prayer I am speaking of is not a prayer that comes from your mind. It is a prayer that begins in the heart.”

This type of prayer is a way of life that is not very common but, in my opinion, an absolute necessity. However, my overarching purpose is not a contemplative prayer sales pitch but rather to unearth the mindsets that cause some of us to throw out ‘different’ viewpoints like contemplative prayer without any serious consideration.

I personally have found that every time I get comfortable with accessing God in a particular way or to a certain religious routine, God shakes things up. The life of a disciple, I have learned, is a commitment to constant movement. My revelation of God and how He works in my life is constantly evolving and broadening. The minute we become so rigid, so right, that God can’t change our doctrine, is the moment of departure from His will. Imagine if Peter had dismissed his vision of God telling him to eat unclean food. (The thought is not so far-fetched… Anything contrary to the Law (Bible) must be from the enemy right?) What if Abraham had said that God would never ask him to kill his son? Would a good God ask such a thing? I think if we honestly place ourselves in these stories, we might find that we are not so sure that we would have accurately discerned God. These pioneers of the faith had to follow God into uncharted waters, down paths that even seemed unbiblical initially. But they had faith; they trusted beyond human reasoning.

Even the Christmas story is a reminder that God comes to us in unexpected and unanticipated ways. Mary had to believe that she could conceive the Messiah by the Holy Ghost, something that never happened before in history. The Jewish world had to grapple with their King coming as a helpless child from an inauspicious family. Emmanuel, God with us, rarely draws close exactly the way we imagine.

Walking with an inscrutable God necessarily entails embracing the unknown even if it offends our understanding of God up to that point. Our mental understanding cannot be allowed to be the arbitrator of our trust and obedience.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls.
All rights reserved.

To receive more content like this in your inbox and to receive a free e-copy of my book, The Primacy of The Voice of God – Elevating the Word of God to Its Rightful Position, please subscribe to www.authenticjoy.org.

Posted on

You Are Loved

Today I have a message for you…

You are treasured.

You are valued.

You are loved.

It doesn’t matter what you’ve done.

It doesn’t matter what you haven’t done.

You are precious.

Wherever you come from.

Whatever circumstances you are in.

Jesus gave His life for you.

RIGHT HERE.

RIGHT NOW.

AS YOU ARE.

UNCONDITIONALLY.

UNRESERVEDLY.

YOU ARE LOVED.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls.
All rights reserved.

To receive more content like this in your inbox and to receive a free e-copy of my book, The Primacy of The Voice of God – Elevating the Word of God to Its Rightful Position, please subscribe to www.authenticjoy.org.

Posted on

DO NOT SETTLE!

Seven years ago, my life was dramatically changed when I discovered this truth:

“It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.”

C.S. Lewis

(I didn’t read it from Lewis’s book, The Weight of Glory, but from John Piper in his message on Christian Hedonism. You can listen to it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cRkUt4glaE)

I had spent more than twenty years trying to reconcile my innate desire to be happy with my desire to please God. The fact is that the world is FILLED with unhappy (or at best mildly happy) Christians trying to convince people that not drinking and not having sex and not partying and going to church and reading the bible and praying is the most enjoyable way to live. Pffft. Please. We are not convincing anyone. I know I wasn’t convincing myself… Until, one day, I experienced the Presence of God. In that very moment, I felt like I had taken the first desperate breath of air after years of being held under water. That life-giving gasp signaled that I would indeed live and not die. That I could be an unbelievably happy Christian.

To this day, the Presence of God is the ONLY thing that has eclipsed the copious worldly pleasures that I have tasted. The sad thing is that Christians who have experienced the fellowship of the Presence of God are rare. I don’t care how great the worship session was or how much the preacher blew your mind, without God’s tangible presence touching our lives we are still dead. D.E.A.D.

In Psalm 16:11b David says:

in your presence there is fullness of joy; at your right hand are pleasures forevermore.

This truth is worthy of a lifetime of pondering and pursuit. Consider these statements:

Fullness of joy – no joy lacking, perfect joy, complete fulfillment.

Pleasures forevermore – eternal bless, unending happiness, delights upon delights.

This is where every Christian should reside. When this type of joy exudes from our soul, then the world will know the glory and worth of our King! We should not settle for less. We cannot settle for less! There can be no waivers or qualifications! Nothing less than His Presence with us can be accepted as the normal Christian life. This was Moses’ prayer. We will not go without Your Presence! We have become altogether too content to go on without God. Go on with our worship sessions. Go on with our oratorical theatrical sermons. Go on with our well-choreographed shows utterly devoid of the Presence and power of God.

When the glory cloud fell on the temple that Solomon built, the priests could not even stand to minister! Has the Presence ever brought us to our knees? God has left the building. The church has become a dead academic institution of biblical doctrinal propagation. Tragic.

There is something called the existential reality of God. Few have experienced it. God can be felt, heard and seen. Saul saw a blinding light and heard a voice. That encounter so transformed his life that he left behind the Christian-killing Pharisee of Pharisees Saul and became the apostle Paul – commissioned by God. This existential reality of God has practically left the planet and the responsibility for that tragedy falls squarely on our shoulders.

My exhortation to us today is, “Do not settle!” Do not settle for dead religion. He has promised that if we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him! Let us make an unbreakable oath with ourselves to become lifelong seekers! Whatever little caresses of the Spirit that I have felt, have left me hungry for more. Whatever little tastes of His love that I have sampled, have left me completely wrecked and longing for more of Him and Him alone. Whatever whispers of His voice that have broken through my consciousness, have left me yearning just to hear His voice.

Do not settle for church as normal! Do not settle for a mediocre Christian life! Do not settle for being a good Christian with a happy family and a pet charity. God is so much more! Seek Him until you find Him. We are meant to live in the unspeakable joy of the Presence of God! Anything else is a wasted existence. Any other life pursuit is a side-issue.

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.

To receive more content like this in your inbox and to receive a free e-copy of my book, The Primacy of The Voice of God – Elevating the Word of God to Its Rightful Position, please subscribe to www.authenticjoy.org.

Posted on

The Real Pandemic

The spread of the Covid-19 virus has been described as a pandemic because of the extent of the spread of the disease. Currently, it has affected every major continent and many countries around the world. However, there is a more deadly and pervasive pandemic threatening the church – idolatry. We have been worshiping a god fashioned by our own hands. A god that is primarily concerned with keeping us rich and happy. A god that keeps us from suffering once we are good, obedient children.

Ironically, what is most insidious about the idolatry pandemic is the same factor that makes Covid-19 particularly dangerous – their victims can appear asymptomatic. Hence, the number of ‘believers’ living in idolatry is much greater than we think. We look healthy, but we are not. The good news is that crises like the current Covid-19 pandemic may be exactly what we need to bring to light our true condition and allow us to take the necessary steps to a healthy faith.

What do I mean? To explain, let’s turn to one of the oldest books in the bible – Job. The bible, especially the books of Numbers and Deuteronomy, contains many instances of plagues that decimate the population of Israel. Typically, these have been sent by God in response to disobedience and rebellion. However, Job is the only book that documents in detail an instance of tragedy poured out on an upright and blameless man.

Job faces the death of his children, loss of his wealth and serious illness, all at the same time. So, it’s not surprising that bubbling up from his heart we near this cry, “I am a righteous man before God so this should not have happened to me!” This same cry is being heard in many quarters today as Corona touches the lives of Christians around the globe. The faith of many are being shaken as more and more bad things are happening to good people. Why is God allowing this? Why did God allow Corona in the first place?

Job’s friends reacted in the same way many Christians are tempted to react today. They call for repentance as this virus must have been sent by God because of something bad that we did. In contrast, there is a popular sentiment right now that God does not judge like this anymore and to ascribe this pandemic to God would be a grave mistake. Frankly, I stay away from any statements that claim to know exactly what God would and wouldn’t do, and the reason for that is because of what I have learned from Job.

As a younger man studying Job and Romans 9 one of the questions I had to wrestle with was, ‘Does God send bad things our way?”. I came down firmly on the side of YES. Some argue the semantics of God doing evil versus allowing evil. I won’t. I think we can agree due to the overwhelming evidence that He at least allows it. The second question I had to wrestle with was, “Does He allow evil as a consequence of free will? Has He given up sovereign control over the affairs of men and thus, our bad choices are the real cause of evil being prevalent on the earth?” After pouring over the evidence in Job and Romans I had to concede that this was not the case. God is still sovereign, and He sovereignly allows evil in our lives. This is clear from the story of Job. Job was righteous not by his standards but by God’s standards; he did nothing to warrant the tribulations that was meted out against him. In addition, satan was clearly operating under the authority of God. Romans 9:14-18 also makes the compelling argument:

14 What shall we say then? Is there injustice on God’s part? By no means! 15 For he says to Moses, “I will have mercy on whom I have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I have compassion.” 16 So then it depends not on human will or exertion, but on God, who has mercy. 17 For the Scripture says to Pharaoh, “For this very purpose I have raised you up, that I might show my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” 18 So then he has mercy on whomever he wills, and he hardens whomever he wills.

The ground-breaking truth here is that God was in control of Pharoah and in fact raised him up for the specific purpose of persecuting Israel so that God could show His might and power as he brought out the Israelites, Wow. If you have never considered this, you may need a moment here to take it all in.

So, there I was having to hold in tension that God is good, yet He allows bad things to befall good people. This was a watershed moment in my faith. I had to let go of the god I wanted and embrace the God who is. I had to destroy my idol. I had to relinquish my definition of what good is and let the One who is good be the standard. This was strangely empowering. The strength of my faith increased exponentially. I could genuinely meet trials knowing that God was in control and would make it all work for good in the end because he was in ultimate control. Further, I had to conclude that bad things, even death, served a higher good that I could not see or comprehend. I had to see things from God’s vantage to accept that suffering and even death were smaller matters than they appeared to me. They were not outside of God’s scope and ability.  In fact, they were part and parcel of the tools of creation that He used to craft a bigger, better picture and bring glory to His name!

Essentially, I learned what Job learned without having to go through the Job experience. For some, who refuse to learn from Job it may take tragedy to wake them up and this is the good news in the Covid-19 pandemic. I know it doesn’t sound good, but it is exceedingly so! The revelation that Job received out of tragic circumstances was, I believe, the treasure that God thought was worth more than all that Job had lost. To be able to stand in the face of horrific tragedy and trust that God has a purpose in that; to elevate His purpose and love as truer and bigger than your pain; is priceless! It is the mountain of faith from which Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego were emboldened to say, “Our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and he will deliver us out of your hand, O king. But if not, be it known to you, O king, that we will not serve your gods or worship the golden image that you have set up.” If you think about it, a Christian afraid of dying and meeting Jesus is an absurdity and a Christ-follower who expects to follow Christ in everything except suffering is an oxymoron.

Who is the God that you believe in? Job found out that He was different than who he thought He was:

Job 38:1-7

1 Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind and said:

2 “Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?

3 Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me.

4 “Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding.

5 Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it?

6 On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone,

7 when the morning stars sang together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

“Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb,

9 when I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band,

10 and prescribed limits for it and set bars and doors,

11 and said, ‘Thus far shall you come, and no farther, and here shall your proud waves be stayed’?

12 “Have you commanded the morning since your days began, and caused the dawn to know its place,

13 that it might take hold of the skirts of the earth, and the wicked be shaken out of it?

14 It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment.

15 From the wicked their light is withheld, and their uplifted arm is broken.

16 “Have you entered into the springs of the sea, or walked in the recesses of the deep?

17 Have the gates of death been revealed to you, or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

18 Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth? Declare, if you know all this.

Job 42:1-6

1 Then Job answered the Lord and said:

2 “I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted.

3 ‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know.

4 ‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you make it known to me.’

5 I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you;

6 therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”

Are you serving the true God or an idol of your own design? Have your eyes seen Him?

Copyright 2020, Matik Nicholls. All rights reserved.