Episode Transcript
[00:00:05] Oh, Lord God, just like this freshing rin, just brushing through this place. Now I pray, holy spirit, that you will come like a breath of freshing, refreshing wind and come and blow in this place, Lord.
[00:00:17] Father, I come before you this morning just as I am. I need to trust and have faith that what you've given me is what you want to share today.
[00:00:25] But, Lord, I know that it's not about how I share it, but it's about what you are saying to us this morning and what responsibility we have to hear and to put into action what you're calling us to do.
[00:00:38] So I pray, Lord, that you'll give us ears to hear and a heart to receive.
[00:00:43] I pray that you'll touch my lips and may every word that flows from it, Lord, be from you. Lord, I cannot do this without you. I need you.
[00:00:54] Come, Lord Jesus. Come and have your way with each one of us standing here this morning, Lord, and my ears are open.
[00:01:03] Yes, you've given us a plan what to share.
[00:01:06] But, Father, if you want to redirect or say something new, may my ears hear what you are saying today.
[00:01:13] In Jesus name, amen. Amen.
[00:01:19] Right. So this morning, I'm going to give you, and you could put the first flight on. That's kind of a little gesture where we're going. But I really want to, first of all, take you on a bit of a journey.
[00:01:36] And I'm really trusting that as I share a testimony and a journey, that you'll start to see the thread of what I believe God is going to, what he's trying to say to us today, that it will all start to come together. So just go with the flow and let us see what the Lord does in our hearts and minds. This morning at the end of 2018, I realized I was working, and I realized that it was sitting in December and I hadn't taken all of my annual leave. I actually still had about eleven days that I had forgotten to take a. That's how much I loved my job. I forgot to take annual leave, which brought me to the question of where to, God? Where do you want me to go? And to my surprise, the Lord answered me and said, I want you to go to Macedonia and help support. And he mentioned two people's names who were out there, who he wanted me to go and support.
[00:02:30] So I was, wow, okay, Macedonia. I said I needed to really? I wasn't expecting a quick answer, and I wasn't expecting one to pack my bags either. But later on that afternoon, I met up with a friend and I said, oh, you know what? I've forgotten to take eleven days of my annual leave. And then I asked the Lord what I should do with it, and he said I needed to go to Macedonia.
[00:02:51] And we were just like tongue in cheek, laughing about how this all came about. But that evening, when I picked up my word, now I read my word systematically. I read it from beginning to end, day, day where I left off. I pick it up tomorrow. That's where I pick up again. And so I do that every single day, whenever I pick up and read. So that evening, I picked up the word to continue my reading. And you can imagine the sound of my jaw hitting the duvet as I started to read from acts 16 six, when the Lord said to me, paul had a vision, and a man was standing, begging him to come and visit him in Macedonia to go help.
[00:03:30] So, like, we all do when something surprises us, we take a snapshot. So I took a photograph of this scripture and I sent it to my friend, and I said, oh, man, what would you do following the conversation I had with you about my leave and going to Macedonia, and then you pick up the word and you get this scripture, what would you do? And she just texted me back saying, pack your bags, sister. So I knew that I was going to to Macedonia, but I needed to work out when. And was it a now word or was it a later word for the future? I needed to work out what that meant.
[00:04:03] Having turned just going into January, every January I set it aside as a new year to fast and pray. And I just began a 40 day fast and prayer waiting on the Lord. And the call for Macedonia grew so loud that eventually in July, I stood in Macedonia for my eleven day trip. Haven't a clue what I was there for or what I was even supposed to do, but I needed to trust that the Lord was going to show me what it is he wanted me to learn when I was out there.
[00:04:39] So one of the things that really started to question me, and I think it's because I went there with no agenda and I really had no idea what I was meant to do. The biggest question on my heart was to ask the lord, lord, if we were going to be walking in a park and I see someone sitting on a bench and a very devout, let's say a muslim man, goes and sits next to him and shares his testimony and his story and his passion and then leaves, and then maybe a hindu man goes along and sits on the same bench with the same Mandev and shares his story and his passion. And his beliefs and all that, and then leaves. And then I come along and I sit next to the very same man to share my testimony. What is the difference going to be? There has to be a profound difference and a different experience when I sit there and share. Otherwise, I'm wasting my time.
[00:05:33] That was for me, and that was on my heart. And there was a real cry for the Lord to show me what the difference would be. So the Lord started to take me on a journey now.
[00:05:45] Absolutely. What filled me with dread was walking around a park, picking on random strangers and having to share about Jesus. It really did. It filled me with dread. How am I going to do this? But our first trip was to the local area and surrounding parks, and I was with an amazing team of people. So my whole thing was just to follow what this team was doing. I sat back and I just followed the team around and watched what they did.
[00:06:14] And then in the evening, I'd get home, and then I'd reflect on what the Lord was trying to show me. And this evening, I reflected, and I heard the Lord say, so what did you see today?
[00:06:26] And I said, lord, I saw graffiti. Oh, my goodness. There was graffiti everywhere, on everything. I don't know if any of you have been to Macedonia. There was. Everything was graffiti. I said, in fact, there was so much graffiti that if I stood still long enough, I probably would have been graffitied myself.
[00:06:42] And the Lord said to me, look beyond the graffiti.
[00:06:47] The next day was a trip to the city and the outskirts.
[00:06:51] And again, we did our little thing. I sat back. I watched the team. I was learning, listening, watching.
[00:06:58] And that evening, I went home. And again, on reflection, Lord asked me, what did you see today?
[00:07:04] And I said, lord, today I saw wealth and poverty all blended together in architectural confusion.
[00:07:12] And the Lord said to me, look beyond the architecture.
[00:07:17] Finally, a day trip planned to a drug rehab center. Now, that caught my curiosity and my interest. I was, wow. Okay, I'm interested in my western head. I'm thinking a rehab centre. Clean, pristine, white little building clinic, little nurses walking around, helping little addicts, and all is well, right?
[00:07:39] And. But before even coming to Macedonia and even knowing about a trip and even possibly going to a drug rehab center, I was given a book, a testimony of Jackie Pullinger, and it was her trip, who had gone to Hong Kong, and the power that she was demonstrated through Jesus Christ working with addicts in Hong Kong, that testimony challenged me.
[00:08:04] And then also crossing the switchbade by David Wilkinson, that really, those things really challenged me. So, nevertheless, it was a day to go to our drug rehab. So, tucked away down an alley past a local community school, it was literally just an open piece of land full of sand, tufts of grass, a few trees, a few benches, and a tiny, tiny little outbuilding just sitting, hiding in the middle of nowhere where one person was dispensing methadone to the recovering addicts.
[00:08:35] And as I walked up the stairs in this view, is what I was seeing, what I saw in front of me. I absolutely had a lump in my throat, and I was trying to fight back the tears.
[00:08:46] And then I heard the Lord say, now what do you see?
[00:08:50] And all I saw was aimlessly people walking around. Some were just fallen on the floor and just sleeping where they last fell. Some were sitting propped up on a tree, syringing themselves. Some were just. There was just no purpose. There was just nothing. And I said, lord, I see brokenness. I see hopelessness, and I see broken, broken people.
[00:09:16] So the team just said, ushered me in and said, come, we're just going to stand there next to the bench, and we don't need to do anything. I just want you to relax. And if they want to engage with us, they will come to us. So all we did was stand next to this bench. And sure enough, a whole lot of people just started coming around us to start engaging. And a lot of interaction started as I just stood back again out of my comfort zone. And this dialogue started between the various people there and the team. But the Lord drew my attention to one man. He was really engaged in what was being said. And I heard the Lord say to me, share with that man the story of Jackie Pullinger, her testimony.
[00:10:01] So I said to the team, I said, I believe the Lord is wanting me to share with him. And they went, oh, absolutely. So in broken English and a lot of interpretation because they didn't speak English. I shared the story of Jackie Pullinger and the power of Jesus Christ through her testimony. And this man started saying, I want, I want, I want, I want this Jesus. So we all stopped, and then the interpretation came back because I didn't know what he was saying at first. But when he was like, I want Jesus, we were like, absolutely, he's here for you today.
[00:10:32] And we gathered around and we started praying, and we literally watched his light up and beam, and the smile came across him as he accepted Jesus Christ for himself. That morning.
[00:10:45] We later moved to another area, and there was a couple that came towards us, and this couple could speak English, and they came to talk, and he noticed that I had an accent so he said to me, where are you from? So I said to him, you know, actually, my story begins in South Africa. I'm from South Africa, and I really believe that the Lord called me to pack up everything and move to the UK. And I shared a little bit what that was like. I said, now I'm living in the UK. And I said, you know, at the end of the day, I must be honest with you. I don't understand drug addiction. I don't have any training on it. I said, but I can stand here today truly believing that we have an emotional connection and it would have stemmed from something. So I know that somewhere in your life you would understand what hurt is, what loss is, what pain is, and what grief is. And I have those feelings and emotions, too. So I got to share a little bit of my testimony about living in the UK.
[00:11:45] I said, it wasn't long ago, actually, where I heard the Lord speaking to me again and said I needed to come to Macedonia. I said, and here I am today, standing with you because of what the Lord said to me. And he looked at me and his tears were just rolling down his face. And he says, what is this? What is the story that you tell me? I have never heard such things. He said, in fact, I think you should be going around the world telling people about your story. And in my mind, I'm going, hey, mate, I could barely get to Macedonia in obedience. Please don't be sending me anywhere else. But he was absolutely captivated. He says, you know, he says, I walk down the street, he says, no one even looks at me. No one takes a second glance. He says, but you came over to be with me. He says, nobody will touch me because look at me. Scabs, hands. Everything is just absolutely destroyed from what's happened to his body. He says, but no one will even touch me. He says, but here you are. He says, holding my hands.
[00:12:47] So after that, we kind of left the area. There's lots that goes on with it. We just leave him there. But the story must go on. We left the area and we headed to a viewing spot that overlooked this whole area that we've just been ministering in. And we went there to pray and to reflect.
[00:13:06] And again, as I was busy praying, the Lord drew my attention to a single poppy growing out of a rubble heap. And the Lord said to me, look at it. So I kind of looked at it and I thought, hmm, single poppy. That's amazing. Heroin addicts, poppy rubble, something still growing. This is all going through my head.
[00:13:25] And he said, no. He says, look at it. So I started to walk up towards it and had another little bit of a look, trying to work out what the Lord is saying. And then the prompting really came. Look at it. And I just realized I've had three things you need to. Yeah, I'm having my own revelation as I'm talking.
[00:13:44] So I got down and I really looked at it, and I started to separate the petals, and in the centre was this perfect cross. And the Lord clearly said to me, preach the cross and Jesus Christ and I will do the rest.
[00:14:02] And that was my answer to the question when I arrived in Macedonia, what would the difference be when I sat next to somebody on a park bench and shared my story?
[00:14:14] Well, the difference is that as a believer of Jesus Christ, I am sealed and filled with the Holy Spirit.
[00:14:23] And it's the Holy Spirit who will be leading me in conversation and demonstrating the power of the cross and the name of Jesus Christ, bringing glory to goddess. And that will be the difference when I sit next to somebody at the next park bench.
[00:14:42] Yeah.
[00:14:46] So when I got back from Macedonia, it didn't quite end there. I thought that was it. But the Lord brought a challenge and said, don't for once think that when people ask, how was your holiday in Macedonia? You go, it was wonderful. Instead, I want you to correct them. I want you to say, I didn't go to Macedonia for a holiday. I went on a mission trip. And now I don't only know of the Lord, but, man, do I know the Lord. And that's how you do it. Now, at the time, I used to work in a residential development. I had 64 residents, all of their friends and family and carers, and I was right at the entrance of this building. And moment by moment, I'll have people coming past and dropping in and going, Cindy, how was your holiday in Macedonia? And I'd go off very reluctantly and very nervously going at first saying, well, it wasn't really a holiday.
[00:15:39] I went on a mission trip. And you know what? It was so amazing. I don't only know of the Lord. I really know the Lord now. And then some of them will tickle you out and whatever.
[00:15:51] But eventually that just became a norm. I sounded like a stuck record because I had so many people coming in and out. But eventually one lady kept on coming back, and she wanted more and more. And after sharing a bit more information with her, she reaffirmed her faith in Jesus Christ. And then she asked me, please, I really want to be baptized, but I'm a bit nervous about being baptized in a swimming pool. I said, don't worry. I said, I've got this. I said, I'll baptize you in your bath.
[00:16:22] So a friend and myself, we got it together and we filled that bath, and we got into the bath and we baptized her, 86 years old, baptized in her bath. So we not only watched a recommitment to her faith in Jesus Christ, but the second miracle was watching her get out of the bath safely. At 86.
[00:16:52] Yeah. So I think my journey to Macedonia really, really encouraged me and gave me a new confidence and a boldness to start sharing.
[00:17:05] But also, I think this is mostly important, and this is where the thread starts to come, come through. Now it's listening and being aware of what the Holy Spirit is saying to you, because this is what I believe the Lord has laid on my heart the last few days. It's. Do not grieve. The Holy Spirit.
[00:17:29] The Holy Spirit was sent to us by the Father, an advocate, to. To help us and be with us forever.
[00:17:40] He is the spirit of truth.
[00:17:43] You will know him because he lives with you and in you.
[00:17:51] And that comes from John 14. And I can't say that any slower. And I think it's really about grasping what we're saying here today, what the scripture is saying. The Holy Spirit is your advocate. He is a spirit of truth. You will know him because he is with you and he lives in you.
[00:18:15] The Holy Spirit is a major, major part to living and walking a fulfilling life in Jesus Christ.
[00:18:23] The spirit himself intercedes through wordless groans the spirit of God.
[00:18:31] Sorry. The spirit intercedes for God's people in accordance to what? In accordance to God's will for you.
[00:18:40] He guards us, but he's also very gentle.
[00:18:46] He will nudge us, he will prompt us, and he will encourage us, but he'll never, ever, ever force his way onto you.
[00:18:55] Like every relationship, we have to learn about the one living inside of us.
[00:19:02] We have to learn about his character, how he talks to you, how he leads you, and how he prompts you.
[00:19:09] We need to learn to discern.
[00:19:13] We need to learn to discern.
[00:19:16] Building a relationship takes time, and it is. It takes years, in fact, because we're always learning about someone. Something new will always crop up, and that's okay. But that's with people that we can see, touch and feel how much more with the Holy Spirit that we can't even see and touch. This relationship is built purely on faith and trust.
[00:19:40] Faith, commitment, obedience, surrender, and humility are the key attributes that you need to develop this relationship, I say them against faith, commitment, obedience, surrender, and humility.
[00:20:00] Quiet time, pray, the word, and fasting.
[00:20:05] These are the practical things that you need to be doing on a daily basis.
[00:20:13] So recently, over the last holiday that we had the summer break, the Lord really started to highlight to me how distracted people have become.
[00:20:24] They seem to have the inability to focus and be in the moment, in the presence, and in the now for a single minute. In one time, they are doing two or three different things at once. They are busy. They are busy bodies. They are unable to focus and be undistracted on one given thing. They are unable to sit in the stillness and the presence, just being still, because stillness these days has now been translated into boredom.
[00:20:57] So my training ground, where the Lord speaks to me a lot, is the gym.
[00:21:02] And over this time, he was showing me various people doing this thing. He's showing me people doing physical gym, listening to music in the ears while tapping a foot, gym in music, tapping, and texting messages at the same time.
[00:21:21] These behaviors have become so normal to us that we don't even realize that we're doing it them ourselves.
[00:21:29] We are forgetting how to be still, to be in the presence and to be in the now.
[00:21:37] And unfortunately, being still and in the presence totally undistracted. That means doing nothing else is critical.
[00:21:49] Walking with the Holy Spirit in one kings 1911, the Lord said to Elijah, go out up onto the mountain and stand in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is going to pass you by.
[00:22:07] So Elijah goes up into this mountain, and he stands in the cave. And I'm paraphrasing now, there was a great wind, but the Lord was not in the wind.
[00:22:18] Then there followed a huge earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.
[00:22:24] Then there was a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.
[00:22:30] Then there was a gentle whisper, and Elijah moved out from the cave and stood at the entrance.
[00:22:40] Elijah was able to discern between the chaos and the stillness and was able to respond accordingly. And so must we learn how to discern between the noise and the chaos and the stillness so that we can respond accordingly to various situations that are happening in our lives.
[00:23:08] And this can only be done with the help of the Holy Spirit and by truly knowing him.
[00:23:15] Isaiah 32 21 whenever you turn to the right, and whenever you turn to the left, there will be a voice behind you saying in your ears, this is the way. Walk in it. I just find that so amazing that we could be walking in all this chaos, but in the stillness of the storm, there's a voice that we can hear in our ears saying, this is the way. Walk in it.
[00:23:39] Maybe somebody needs to know that one today.
[00:23:43] One corinthians, two nine. What no ear, no what no eye has seen and no ear has heard and what no human mind has conceived. The things God has prepared for those who love him. These are the things God has revealed to us by his spirit. Isn't it amazing that God has revealed and planned so many amazing things that no man, you haven't even seen it yet. You haven't even conceived it yet. But how is he going to reveal it to you? By his spirit?
[00:24:16] The spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God.
[00:24:21] We are in a complex relationship with the privilege of the spirit, revealing the mysteries of the father's heart to you and I.
[00:24:33] So at that point, some, he might be sitting here going, well, I don't understand how the spirit's talking and how I hear and all these things so very quickly, I just want to take out from ephesians. Sorry, sorry. Across the Bible, this one, different ideas and different ways that the Lord spoke to his people.
[00:24:52] I've just grabbed a hold of random ones. First of all, God spoke to Noah and actually gave him a very detailed plan on how to build a boat.
[00:25:02] God used nature to confirm that the flood waters had receded. He used a dove.
[00:25:10] God used Gideon's fleece, a jumper, to give him confirmation for something.
[00:25:16] God wrote a message on a wall to bring a warning to Nicodemus.
[00:25:22] God sent an angel to Joseph to reassure him to take his wife, Maryland to take Mary as his wife.
[00:25:31] God used nature to confirm the birth of Jesus Christ, used the stars to alert the wise men.
[00:25:41] God spoke to Saul in a very loud voice and using an extremely bright light that actually blinded him for three days.
[00:25:50] God sent angels to speak to and rescue lot.
[00:25:54] God caught Jonah's attention by putting him in a whale's belly for three days.
[00:26:00] And God even used the drawing of lots to determine the name of the next disciple that was going to take the place of Judas.
[00:26:09] So God speaks in countless ways and in many various different ways.
[00:26:16] But the most important thing that you can take away from this is God is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow.
[00:26:23] Nothing has changed. And therefore we know he still speaks and he wants to speak to you individually today.
[00:26:32] So my question is, are you being still, are you waiting in the waiting? That is really hard to wait in the waiting.
[00:26:47] The Lord told Saul to meet the prophet Samuel, and Samuel would do a sacrifice, build an altar and sacrifice to the Lord.
[00:26:58] Saul arrived to the meeting spot, Samuel hadn't. Saul got frustrated, so he went ahead and built the altar and did a sacrifice before the Lord. All sounds wonderful until Samuel arrived and goes, what on earth are you doing?
[00:27:14] And at that very moment, Saul lost his kingdom because he didn't wait.
[00:27:23] Not waiting can be costly. Learn to discern.
[00:27:31] So in my account of Macedonia, there was a lot of faith and trust and learning to discern. And that's our journey. Our journey is never going to stop doing that. Whenever we face with something new, we will have to reface the learning part, the discerning part, the trusting path. And that's how God is growing us and developing us.
[00:27:50] So for me, it started by asking a simple question, what to do with my time? And then I had to trust that I had heard the Lord's instruction.
[00:27:59] Then I had to put into place and try to work it out. Was it now or was it for later? What does this look like? So I spent time and fasting and praying.
[00:28:09] I had to discern the intensity of the call. There was no running away from it. It grew and grew and grew. And the only way to overcome it was to respond to it.
[00:28:19] I had to step out in faith and trust into something completely that was out of my comfort zone.
[00:28:25] I went with a hungry heart to learn and to see what God was going to show me and why the call to Macedonia.
[00:28:34] So, as mentioned earlier, there is this incredible, mysterious relationship of intercession between the Father and the Son and the Son and the Holy Spirit and the Holy Spirit and you. It is amazing.
[00:28:50] But scripture is clear.
[00:28:53] There may be many things that we may do, be doing or holding onto, refusing to let go or acting out on that not only feed and build that old self within us, but it also grieves the Holy Spirit.
[00:29:15] So I have taken a few things from Ephesians on the things that grieve the Holy Spirit, starting with falsehood, unwholesome talk, bitterness, rage, anger, brawling, slander, malice, sexual immorality, impurity, greed, obscenity, and foolish talk.
[00:29:45] I, for myself, went into the dictionary to open up each one of those things, to really get an understanding what each of them meant and to ask the Lord what's happening in my heart. With any of these things, it's so easy to read something from scripture and it looks like a shopping list, and we just brush it over and go, that's not me, and just carry on. And we're wondering why we're not hearing, we're not seeing breakthrough. We're not living in this place of bondage.
[00:30:15] It goes without saying that if we're doing any of these things, we need to stop, to stop it. It's as simple as that. I can't say it any other way.
[00:30:25] Acknowledge what it is before the Lord.
[00:30:29] Repent from it and turn around and pray. Pray that the Holy Spirit will help you to overcome these things, because he will. And it says in scripture, he helps us in our weakness.
[00:30:45] So we don't do this journey alone. He's with us.
[00:30:55] I think, just before I move on with this, if you have found in your past perhaps one of these things or two of these things, whatever, we've all been there, we've all done that.
[00:31:08] It's something that you've maybe engaged in and you have, and you have asked the Lord to forgive you. That is amazing. What my message is for you right now is to let that go and do not be bound by condemnation, because there is no condemnation in Jesus Christ. If you were bound by any of these things and you have repented and you are absolutely sorry, you know that God has taken it away from you. He has separated it from as far as the east, as the west, and you are free from that. So this is not to condemn you and rake that up again and go, oh, my goodness, no, you're not in condemnation. You have been set free.
[00:31:47] And for maybe some people who are still stuck in this, we've all been there. As I say, we've all done that.
[00:31:54] But there is freedom and there's hope. And my thing to you is to take it before the Lord. And if you need to take it further with others where people come around you and pray to bring you into that spacious place of freedom.
[00:32:09] So I don't think it's any harm in us praying the following prayer.
[00:32:14] God, search my heart and deal with any unclean thing.
[00:32:20] Give me a revelation of your holiness so I can be transformed to be holy. As you are holy.
[00:32:28] Let me know what it is to have a reverent fear of the Lord.
[00:32:34] Because fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.
[00:32:40] So when we live according to the spirit of truth, our old self and our misdemeanors of the body, they are starved and they are put to death.
[00:32:50] Our old self becomes insignificantly in comparison to the greater spirit who is living in us.
[00:33:00] And a mind controlled by the spirit is life and peace. And then we will continually experience the following. We're continually being made new in the attitudes of our mind. We are putting on the new self.
[00:33:18] We're speaking truthfully, talking only what is to help and build others and to benefit those who are hearing a or her listening.
[00:33:28] We are continually being kind and compassionate, forgiving, being imitators of God, living a life of love, living as children of the light, living wisely, making the most of every opportunity. We are continually being filled by the spirit, with the spirit, speaking to each other in songs and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making music in your heart, always giving thanks to God for everything in the name of Jesus Christ. And we're continually finding out what pleases the Lord, and you will understand what the Lord's will is.
[00:34:11] And finally, as I come to end in one Thessalonians 516, it says, be joyful, always pray, continually give thanks in all circumstances for this, for this is God's will. For you in Christ Jesus, do not put out the spirit's fire.
[00:34:35] Amen.
