Living Rock Podcast

God’s creation of “heaven and earth” (Ge 1:1) was a two-fold manifestation of Himself, and His eternal purpose is the harmony of things on earth with things in heaven! This purpose finds it fulfilment in His supernatural church: people born from above; the dwelling-place of the Spirit (Eph 2:22); the Body of Christ extending His Kingdom on earth as it is in heaven. In this message we consider how the Holy Spirit is at work in the church and how He wants to lift us into a new dimension of purpose and power.

Because we belong to Jesus, we have been anointed and sealed by the Holy Spirit! As supernatural church, we can be certain of our identity and our inheritance because of this Divine Deposit of the Holy Spirit within us. It’s time for faith to make a drawdown on this Deposit and an investment to see God’s inheritance realised more fully!

On this Mothers’ Day, we look in Luke 11 at the account of Jesus when given the opportunity to praise and honour His own mother, considered it vital to redirect his listeners to where true blessing is to be found. In hearing the word of God and putting it into practice.

In these days the Lord is impressing upon us the importance of spending time around His throne together. The writer to the Hebrews (8:1-7) shows us the reality of what this means, whether we gather in twos or two-hundreds. It is a place of REVELATION - where the Lord wants to show us who He is and who we are in Him, of TRANSFORMATION – where our line of sight and our thinking comes into line with Spiritual realities, and COMMISSION – where the Lord wants to equip and instruct us, so that we can build according to the pattern He has shown us around His throne. From this place Mission becomes for us, simply an overflow of the Holy Spirit’s life within us.

The Church Jesus is building is fundamentally ‘supernatural’: its members are “born from above” (Jn 3:7); we’re “baptised by one Spirit into one Body” (1Co 12:13) and are being “built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit: (Eph 2:22) - everything about us is supernatural! The Holy Spirit is a Wonderful Person and an Amazing Creator. And He invites us to begin living in a new dimension - life in the Spirit - characterised by dynamic lives and gatherings and an overwhelming passion to join Him in His mission to reach the world!...

When John the Baptist heard that crowds were flocking to Jesus, he declared “He must increase, but I must decrease”. As Christians, we have followed a Person, not a cause or a creed. And Jesus must totally eclipse all things in our lives if we're to find our proper place and play our proper part. His offer and provision for each of us is: “all of Me, for all of you” - He is all we need! But that is also his demand: if we want all of Him we have to surrender all of ourselves to Him. It cannot work any other way, but it is the most blessed exchange imaginable!...

For many Christians, ‘stewardship’ is associated with finances and budgets, but in this message Stephen helps us to see that stewardship is so much more than this. Stewardship includes our time, our gifting, our families and our own walk with God… stewardship is about our whole lives; it is about faithfully developing and using our gifts, talents and resources within the amount of time God has allotted to us.

The story of the Israelites is the story of ‘our forefathers’ says the Apostle Paul (1 Co 10), laden with warnings and promise. From God’s first promise to Abraham, the Apostle traces the history of his own people, including the ups and the downs, to show us God’s intended fulfilment through Abraham’s Seed, Christ Jesus. It is the story of a loving and faithful God whose GRACE to Jew and Gentile alike is displayed, and of RESTORATION, as Paul shows us God’s great plan to bring a future remnant from Israel back to Him, through Jesus.

In these critical days God wants us to keep pace with what He is doing. Our job is to ensure that we practically facilitate everything the Holy Spirit wants to do. That the wineskin is suitable for the new wine!

We start this new year encouraged by the apostle Peter’s assurance that “His divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness” (2 Peter 1:3) so that we now “share in the divine nature” (1:4) - these are incredible statements and in this message we explore how we can live in the good of these truths! We discover that what God did for us at our conversion - through our repentance, baptism, being filled with the Spirit and being added to His Church (Ac 2:38-41) - are the reasons we now lack nothing. Here and now, we already have all we need to succeed in our mission, as we cultivate all the fruit of the Spirit and activate all the gifts of the Spirit!...

As citizens of The Strong City, our vantage point has changed. And this new vantage point brings a change of mindset as we look out into 2018 and beyond.

We look at the account of Simeon, a man who believed and eagerly awaited God’s promise, and who recognised and embraced the new thing God was doing.

Revelation 19 shows us a picture of the Bride of Christ, which is His church. We see that a day is coming where we will have made ourselves ready for His return, but what does that mean for us today? How do we make ourselves ready to be the Bride that Christ deserves?

God wants to pour out His Spirit on you! God doesn’t just want to refresh us when times are tough or have been difficult, He wants us to be in a place of refreshing all the time! He wants us to be those that are a well spring of life to all those around us, as we “hasten” the day of His return. The well spring of the Spirit, the Holy Spirit is the key to a restored Kingdom - The Kingdom of God! God wants to restore back to the original intention! The restoration of Eden in our lives - the perfect relationship, man having dominion, multiplying and subduing the earth, and unbroken fellowship with God. A Church where healing and miracles are common place, where believers are all filled with the Holy Spirit in abundant measure and move in a divine purpose and anointing. A Church that is a haven of health, full of blessing, provision and joy! The Acts Church was a model - we are destined to go beyond Acts. We are writing Acts 29! We have and are having a glimpse of the age to come. He is preparing His Church, His

What kind of people ought we to be in the light of His return? In this podcast, we explore the essential framework needed to be in place in order for us to be productive in playing our part in God's purposes for our lives. Viewing the world through the lens of mission means very little unless we have the frame in place to support the lenses. We explore several themes which will help us focus our time and priorities better and be more productive in our time here on earth between His ascent up to heaven and our wait for His return!

Jesus will return at the time of “the restoration of all things” (Acs 3:21), which, crucially, will include the restoration of the Church. In this message we consider what this means and explore some of the big pictures and magnificent images the apostles use to describe the mature, restored church. Jesus is not returning to rescue a weak and powerless remnant of people, but rather to be joined with His glorious Bride! The restored church is the City of God, the Temple of the Spirit and an expression of all the Fulness of Christ...

Jesus is coming back! This week we look at what Jesus Himself said about His return and we ask ourselves the question: ‘How should we live in the light of the return of Jesus?’.

Christ’s return is the ultimate unfulfilled prophecy, and when it happens it will mark the end of the Present Age and the start of the Age to Come. The 'Second Coming' will transcend and eclipse everything else in human history! However, the NT writers want us to be filled with faith not with fear and to focus on WHY Jesus will return rather than WHEN - and on what the Church should be doing in the meantime...

When God sent a great flood to the earth, He had a plan. Noah couldn’t see it physically, but he could "see" it with the eye of the spirit. We are building something wonderful and it's important that we 'see' it. The good news is it is by His strength and not our own. God doesn’t want you to miss the boat, in fact He doesn’t want anyone to miss the boat! We all need to be “on board” with Him; His presence, His people, His power! Are you on board?

Jesus Christ did a magnificent thing on the cross. Although He could have been overwhelmed by the influences of the fleshly human nature He had taken on, Christ, in loving submission and obedience to His father, overcame the flesh and defeated it completely. It was as He did this that the veil was torn in two and access into God’s most holy place was granted. In His presence we are made more like Christ and can expect to receive gladness, refreshing and forgiveness!