“I wonder how they’re doing back home?” I caught myself saying the other day. England has suffered badly with Covid, with still no sign of relief. We have friends there who’ve recovered from the virus.
My wife and I moved to New Zealand in 2005. Surely, it’s home by now? How long do we live in a place before it becomes more than a residence? The distant British Isles remain the home-country for generations of Scots and Irish settlers.
Maybe home is not where we live after all
We lived in Buenos Aires for a year. Home was a tenth-floor apartment—a haven from the thirteen million Porteños, until terrorists bombed the nearby Israeli embassy one Sunday, while we ate lunch.
Home in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, was a duplex penthouse commanding dramatic views over the city from its roof-top swimming pool. In Porto Alegre, we stuffed newspaper in the window gaps to keep out the snow. All were home. For a while.
Perhaps home is our birthplace? Visiting family last year, we returned to my village, Ebbesbourne Wake, in Wiltshire. I was born in a thatched cottage across the street from the Horseshoe Inn. “Hello, John,” the publican said, “Nice to see you home.”
It didn’t feel home—we’d drawn a line under it when we sold the farm there thirty years ago. So where is my home?
When we surrender to Jesus as our Lord, we become aliens and strangers here on earth. We’re called to another city; the city of the living God; to thousand upon thousands of angels in joyful assembly; to the church of the firstborn.
For home is not where we live—it’s where we belong.
My home is neither New Zealand nor England. My home is in heaven.
Guest post by Julie Young, Canterbury Evangelism Network
Demons can put thoughts, songs or images in
your head or give you feelings (e.g. fear). Any negative thought is usually
from them. Over time you will get faster
at distinguishing between what is your thinking and what is not and getting rid
of it.
My experience
I used to think the words in my head were all mine and every now and then God would speak. But I have come to realise there are more voices; these include mine, God’s and the naughty angels. All the negative thoughts weren’t mine at all.
This has been great news! My days are much happier without all the negative thoughts in my head.
One of the biggest breakthroughs came the day I realised the devil and his naughty angels could speak into my mind. After five months of being really sick, some friends came around and prayed for me and anointed me with oil.
I believe their prayer helped me to realise a naughty angel had slipped up with his words.
I was thinking: How I would manage to get to the women’s conference for our denomination? I had attended six years in a row and didn’t want to miss it.
But now even having a shower was a problem. As I lay in bed planning how I would have a shower that night so I didn’t have to in the morning, and what I would wear, and how I would drive across town and find the room and walk into the conference, a voice in my head said, “You don’t want to do that again do you?”
I had a horrible vision of how I had got so unwell in the last conference; I even had my doctor friend taking my pulse, as I hadn’t been able to stand, thinking I would faint.
But . . . I realised the words had been in the third person “You don’t want to do that again do you?” I don’t speak to myself like that, and I’m sure it wasn’t God as he would want me to go to women’s conference.
So I learned that naughty angels can put thoughts into my head. Later I learned they can also put songs, images, dreams, and feelings into my mind. Anything negative is usually from them.
Over time I have learned more and more to distinguish between what is my thinking and what is not and have therefore shut them down more quickly.
Any thoughts not in accordance with how God thinks about you, and/or if it is accusing, it’s very likely the devil or his demons.
What to do
Say, “Stop it in the name of Jesus Christ.” You need to use Jesus’ name to stop the bombardment. He is much more powerful, having conquered and overcome.
Rebecca Brown suggests if we try saying “stop it” in our own strength, the demon’s persistence is likely to outdo ours. [1] Using Jesus’ name sorts it out.
Some people who have written about these things think you should speak out loud to demons (e.g. Rebecca Brown), while others such as Derek Prince think you can speak to them in your head as that is where they are speaking to you. If you’re in public it’s probably best to do it in your head.
Declare what God thinks by finding verses from the Bible or a
Christian song that declare God’s truth.
This is fighting with the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17).
Be persistent. If they are persistent then you need to be persistent using the name of Jesus and declaring the truth.
Only think about good things. Philippians 4:8 says, “Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.”
Here are some common lies and verses of truth.
You can use www.biblegateway.com or a
Christian friend/pastor to help you find verses.
Lie I’m believing / being told
What God says (Bible verse)
I
am a nobody
Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God. John 1:12
Life
sucks
Jesus said, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” John 10:10
I
can’t escape the devil
Submit to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. James 4:7 The one who is in you (God) is greater than the one who is in the world. 1 John 4:4
Letting
others down
Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters. Colossians 3:23
I
am a failure
The Lord makes firm the steps of the one who delights in him. Psalm 37:23
I am not lovable
I have no worth
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well. Psalm 139:13-14. But whoever loves God is known by God. 1 Cor 8:3 Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Matt 6:26 Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care. And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Matt 10:29-30 Whoever has my commands and keeps them is the one who loves me. The one who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love them and show myself to them. John 14:21 God has said, “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” Hebrews 13:5
[1] Rebecca Brown, He
Came to Set the Captives Free.
I was busy wiping a cow’s backside when the Lord spoke.
On our farm in England, we kept 150 dairy cows. We struggled to make money, so we decided to keep pedigree Holsteins, worth several times an ordinary cow. Their daughters could fetch thousands of pounds.
The only thing was, you had to take them to
livestock shows. If they won, their value increased.
Showing cows was an art. We began halter
training as calves, so they were tame. We gave them the best food; the cows had
to be in glowing health for the show. But one thing you cannot do is
house-train a cow!
On the day we rose early and clipped,
washed, polished and sprayed. Ethel, my favorite, was ready for the ring. We’d
spent hours with her, and she sparkled.
Then she lifted her tail, about to poo.
Disaster! I grabbed the prong and piled straw behind her to catch the splashes.
When she’d finished, I picked up a giant loo roll and wiped up. That was the
moment the Lord spoke.
“John!” His voice echoed in my head as
clear as a bell. “Do you want to do this for the rest of your life?”
He got me! I loved farming and I loved my cows, but God’s Kingdom was far more important. I think that was the moment I decided to sell the farm. Was it easy? No.
But the Lord promises, “Everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life” (Matthew 19:29).
Our life has been an adventure ever since, traveling the world, seeing thousands saved and healed. What a privilege to work in the Lord’s harvest fields, and I no longer have to clean cows.
The worship service seemed to dissolve. I
became aware of a small church on a broad rise, set in rolling countryside. A small
crowd emerged from the south door, laughing together.
To the right, beneath the sun-bright sky, a gentle breeze wafted the scent of elderflowers from the verdant hedgerows. It was a perfect English day in May. But not on the left of the church . . .
St Martin’s Church Fifield Bavant Wiltshire
Here all was grey and red and black – a stark and arid landscape of canyons and cliffs. A narrow lych-gate guarded its awkward entrance.
Was the Lord giving us a choice? For nine
months since we’d put the farm on the market in 1989, we’d prayed for
direction. “Lord, what do you want us to do?” We were willing to go
anywhere―but where?
On the left side of the vision, a huge
silver cross dominated the black sky. The choice was clear. “I must go the way
of the cross,” I told the Lord. “But didn’t you promise to bless our choices?
What about the right side?” Hanging in the right-hand sky was a tiny cross.
“Lord, I’ve chosen the left, but it looks
bleak. Can you show me more?”
Zooming into the picture, I flew past rocks
and gullies towards a vast black forest. As we neared, the forest became people
gathered around a pimple of light. Closer still, the light became a blazing preaching
platform―the people an immense, black crowd. Tropical trees surrounded the
throng.
Beyond the trees, we approached another gully, down which I had to leap, and beyond that, a distant landscape of further adventures. “Thank you, Lord,” I said. “I’ve seen enough.”
Two weeks later, we received a call from Reinhard Bonnke’s team, Christ for all Nations, inviting us to be their international crusade directors.
I stood surrounded by thirty thousand others, watching the impossible. The biggest tent in the world soared seventy feet above me. Outside, Soweto, South Africa. Inside, holy chaos. People danced. People jumped and sang and praised God, their faces alight. No one praises God like Africans. Too reserved to join in, I merely grinned.
Then I heard these words. “Now put your
hand in the air.” In the row in front of me, a girl of about twelve raised her
right arm. An older African man stood facing her, smiling. “No, not that one,
the other one,” he told her.
The girl’s left arm was twisted and
withered. She turned to look at it. A frown clouded her face. She held her
breath and her mouth tightened. Her left arm quivered, the fingers straightened
and the arm grew. Her eyes opened in astonishment. Within ten seconds the arm
appeared normal.
The
tears that changed my life
I was a scientist. Miracles had explanations. Arms don’t grow. She must have a real arm underneath, and the crippled one is a toy. She must have a balloon in the shape of an arm. She must have, she must have . . . my set mind scavenged for plausible solutions.
Standing beside the girl, a lady stared at
her, a picture of radiant joy. Tears cascaded down her cheeks and dripped off
her chin. She wrapped the girl in a wild hug.
Those tears nailed me.
How hard it is to change our minds! “Be
transformed by the renewing of your minds,” the Lord tells us. “Set your minds on
things above,” he says. God is bigger than our imaginations. He created the
universe. He knows how to grow an arm―and recast the concrete of our minds.
