This is the way, walk ye in it!

'You shall hear a voice behind you saying, 'This is the way, walk ye in it'.' God has a time and a season for everything. At my age, looking back on my life, I see order, direction, planning and purpose; His timing is perfect. Not everything I have lived through has been easy, but not every season listed in Ecclesiastes 3 is. How else would we learn to appreciate joy without also knowing sorrow? All I know for sure is, 'the steps of a righteous man are ordered and planned by the Lord' (Ps 37:23). We just need to follow and do what He says.

All my life I have heard God's voice behind me. Sometimes it has been a whisper, other times God has used dramatic events to alter the course of my life. I have always searched for the power of God, I have longed to live within His will. In 1961 I went to Jerusalem seeking a new anointing, a new fire - three and a half years later I got the beginning of the answer when God healed my throat cancer! Without that miracle I would never have known the power of God in my life. I don't want prophecy, I don't want emotion, I don't want to party. I want the Hand of God to touch me.

God is always a God of miracles! Yes, looking back over my life, I have experienced the power of God, but it was never some emotional experience in a conference, it was just step by step walking closer to God: my teenage cry for the Holy Spirit, my miraculous release from a communist prison, my healing from the two cancers - and many other problems and miracles. What will it be next time, what will happen this year? I'm still not satisfied that God has answered me fully. For me, walking by faith is step by step, and I have not reached the end of the road yet!

That is why Peter said we have a living hope, an inheritance which is incorruptible that cannot be defiled, that does not fade away but goes on increasing and increasing until the moment when we see Jesus in all power and glory (1 Peter 1:4). Every step is another miracle towards experiencing the power of God in our lives! As for me, I will seek God every day until I am in the Kingdom.

Reasonable Service

Is this reasonable? Get to work for the Kingdom. 

God so impressed Romans 12:1 on me when I was a teenager: 'I beseech you to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God, which is your reasonable service.' God is talking about reasonable service, nothing exceptional - for every believer - the norm. Today the churches are talking about being normal, taking care of yourself, not working too hard... But the challenge is 'reasonable service' - giving your whole life as a 'living sacrifice'! Everything! God didn't call me to be an evangelist or a preacher - He said He wanted all of me!

A few years ago to celebrate my 60th anniversary in ministry, I revisited the place in Brighton where God first spoke to me when I was 15 years old. I was with a group of young Christians walking along the beach, but God was speaking to me, challenging me. God was saying, "I want you David!" And the devil was saying, "Don't you realise you're saved, you got baptised in water, filled with the Holy Spirit - that's enough!" But God was saying, "I want you!" He didn't say, "I want you to be a preacher, I want you to be an evangelist, a missionary..." God said, "David, I want ALL of you, EVERYTHING! - Your life, your family, your time, your house, every single thing - I want the lot!" People talk about tithing, the Biblical pattern of giving a tenth of your income to God, but a long time ago I tried the opposite, keep a tenth and give God 90%! You cannot out-give God! Give everything! The more I give Him, the more I receive in return! - Give and you will receive 'pressed down and running over!' - This is why God says, the only 'reasonable' thing is to present your body as a living sacrifice, wholly acceptable to God! - And this is only the beginning, the norm, the 'reasonable' bit! I want the un-reasonable, the extra-normal! I don't just want to receive the Holy Spirit like everybody else, I want a double portion, a treble portion, ten times, a hundred times more! I'm hungry for God! I need that anointing, that power! Jesus told the servant who did everything that was expected of him, what was reasonable - but the master did not thank him - he only did what he was employed to do (Luke 17:7-10). But I want to receive! The more you give, the more God gives back! I remember that tremendous challenge when God said to me, "David, I want YOU!" That night I had to say, "Lord, I'll give you everything!"