WATCHING AND WAITING
It’s now nine months since I stepped down as the International Director of Ellel Ministries. But there is no retirement from being a follower and servant of the King, so I have been watching and waiting to see in what direction God would lead me.
During the first week of Advent I was invited to speak at Pierrepont’s Friday morning communion. God gave me a message unlike any I had previously given. It felt as though God was sounding a bell so large that it’s sound would echo right round the world. I was more conscious than at any time I can ever remember of the Holy Spirit filling my lips with His words.
The Advent message – Resurrection Life – began with a brief look at how Lazarus was raised from the dead, but quickly moved on to the second Advent. There was an urgency in my spirit to warn the Church that the time is very short and that the Body of Christ needs to be stirred into action and be ready. The culture of the Kingdom of God must become the culture of God’s people here on earth. Jesus’s return feels very near.
In recent months the world has experienced one crisis after another – Covid, Ukraine, famines, energy crisis, cost of living etc, etc – and I have become more and more focussed in my thinking on the Advent yet to come and the urgency of the season. Matthew 24 and 25 are getting very heavily marked in my Bible! And the parable of the ten virgins is a stark reminder to each one of us that when the Bridgeroom comes for His bride, the only question that matters is whether or not there is oil in our lamps.
Here is a link to the message and I pray this will be a blessing to you sometime during this Advent season.
I love the Christmas season. I’ve never lost the childlike simplicity of looking forward to the coming of Jesus or, to be perhaps a bit more truthful, to the pillowcase of presents that was always there at the foot of my bed on Christmas morning! And I’m still excited by the prospect of celebrating the greatest gift the world has ever known as a family and rejoicing in the salvation that unites us in the love of our amazing God.
But there’s now a deeper excitement in my spirit about the age that is to come and I know that the focus of my spiritual attention is shifting from teaching how to minister healing as I have done for the last 36 years, to living the reality of God’s dynamic healing message in the life of the end-time Church! In future blogs I will be unpacking what this might mean.
With love and prayers that the joy of Jesus will fill your home as you celebrate and give thanks for His first coming and look expectantly at the spiritual skies, waiting for the first streaks of eternal dawn – Yes, He is coming again – and soon!
Peter and Fi
Christmas and New Year Greetings to you all