Marriage is really good when blessed by God

Dawn and I have been married for forty two years, Yes, 42 years! She says I need a medal, I say I just need more of her! We have been blessed in our love for each other because it has grown stronger through the years.
The joy of good times has unlocked the treasure within each of us. I love Dawn's smile and the light in her eyes as she talks to people, and jokes at times. I love her enthusiasm with people, and her little laugh when she explains what happened with our Grandkids or with friends. I often say when you meet Dawn you'll hear her before you see her, and when you see her you'll never forget her. She is so young at heart she has kept us both young. I think that's why most of our close friends are much younger than we are.
The stress of traumatic events brought us closer. I remember the time I carried her out of the door in the middle of the night, feint from loss of blood from a blighted pregnancy. I remember going to the blood bank before it opened, waiting to get five pints of blood to save her life. I remember our joy at the birth of each one of our precious sons. It far surpassed the eight years of struggle with five miscarriages, praying for Our Lord to give us children, and holding on until He did.
I remember when we lost everything after moving to Cape Town, how we walked the dog through Lourensford Park, collecting pine cones to use as fire-starters. How one night we found a building site where they had cut up the branches of trees and laid them aside for us to take for firewood when we had no money to buy any. I remember how I couldn't get a cell-phone contract because of our financial record then, and I couldn't get finance for a car when an accident wrote off our only car. So I walked and borrowed vehicles for six weeks, trying to keep the business going, until we bought another car for R26000 cash, and borrowed R12000 from a personal friend to make that payment! I remember how Dawn used to walk from our house down to Checkers at the other end of Fish Hoek Main Road for groceries, and carried the bags all the way back, in the winter time. I remember how, a few years later, Dawn suffered such severe depression that one day she couldn't make up her mind whether to have coffee or decaff!
And through all of this, we were able to say, "Well, we still have each other. And we have the Lord in our lives!"

I remember how Our Lord supernaturally helped us to start TCA Engineers in our home, and how He helped us build it up to have 15 people working in it. And when we were able to sell the business into PDNA, we sang that Psalm "When the Lord turned again the captivity of Zion, we were like those who dreamed! Then our heart was filled with laughter, and our mouth with singing!"

And now that Our Lord is restoring our fulfilment in serving His Church in an expanding way again, we are so happy that we have a lasting love that has kept us together in Christ, and that we can be a testimony to His grace. Our love has been rewarded with wonderful relationships with our sons and their amazing wives, everyone, Brett & Jane, Vaughan & Marian, Craig & Edwina, for whom we have deep gratitude to our Lord. We have awesome Grandkids, and we delight in each one of them; Daniel, Caleb, Cayla, Jude, Jonathan, Zoe, Senna and Erin.
Thank You Lord, that we are part of Your vision to fill the earth with Godly Families.

And it all started with a special love that He put in our hearts in marriage, so we give Him thanks, as Tony & Dawn, still in love with Him and with each other, after forty two years.

Times of Intimacy with Our Lord

Intimacy in worship lifts our souls to be in line with the flow of the Spirit from within us, reaching upwards to the Throne to bless Our Father and Our Saviour.
Our Spirit is one with the Lord since we were born again, but often the affairs of life will draw our emotions and our will away from the heart of Our Father, and our mind away from the Mind of Christ. Worship helps us as we focus our attention on Jesus to express our gratitude and love to Him. It aligns our mind to be thinking of Him with deep affection. In worship we have chosen, by using our will, to say within ourselves "I want to worship You Lord, with all of my heart, and with all of my mind!" And soon our emotions get aligned to that focus of our will and of our mind. That is what Paul meant when he said " We all.... beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord..." It happens when we worship Him anywhere, especially when our heart and mind are aligned, or get tuned in, to worship Him.
Intimacy in worship links our spirit to the heart of Our Father and to the mind of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and there is a transformation that takes place, every time we worship like that (in spirit and in truth), we are "changed into the same image, from glory to glory, even by the Spirit of the Lord." Worship makes us a little more like the One we love, time after time.

Intimacy in intercession lifts us up to the throne to sit together with Our King Jesus, to share in His ministry of intercession for the saints. We go into the throne room humbly, on our knees, in petition. But when we sit with Him we gain faith and know His mind so we can decree things that He has shown us. Then we come out standing strong in authority.

There is a new authority for those who draw near like this. They hear his voice and so know his mind. They feel His heart beat, and are filled with His compassion for others. They have entered the Presence, and will leave changed, and made able to repeat the royal decrees of the King in a world out of order.

Intimacy can also be enjoyed through meditation of the scriptures. In times like this His Word is opened up to us and our spirit, which is joined to the Lord, rejoices in the truth. Then His Word becomes flesh in us as He feeds us with its wisdom and truth. Through it we receive revelations of Who Jesus really is, and what He has done for us, and what He is doing in us - now. Our experience of Him is expanded as our revelation of more of Him overwhelms our previous limitations. We didn't know He could be so near to us! We did not know His Word could change us so much! We know things abut Him that we did not know before. And because of that we could not believe Him to be what we now KNOW Him to be. And that encounter with Him, through His Word changes us into people of faith in the Living Christ, Who has become all we need, and all we want, through intimacy.

Company of the Prophets - a Word received by Nick Groves

Nick is an amazing worship leader and has a heart after God. 

I found this prophetic word to be significant in its timing, so here it is:

“Company of the Prophets”:

I felt the Lord drop into my mind very sharply this phrase- “The company of the prophets” (strangely enough, it was while Beks and I were hanging around in a mall!).

It led me to the story of Saul:1 Samuel 10 ¹ Then Samuel took a bottle of olive oil and poured it on Saul’s head and kissed him, saying.....”When you leave me today, you will ...(skip to v5).. meet a procession of prophets coming down from the high place with lyres, timbrels, pipes and harps being played before them, and they will be prophesying. ⁶ The Spirit of the LORD will come on you in power, and you will prophesy with them; and you will be changed into a different person.”

¹⁰ When he and his servant arrived at Gibeah, a procession of prophets met him; the Spirit of God came on him in power, and he joined in their prophesying.

 ¹¹ When all those who had formerly known him saw him prophesying with the prophets, they asked each other, “What is this that has happened to the son of Kish? Is Saul also among the prophets?”

This leads to a few main points:

·         There is always a connection and flow from an outpouring of The Spirit to the prophetic. 

Isn't it interesting in church life that the watermark of The Spirit is often attributed with prophetic activity?                                                  There’s a real sense in this story that the prophets were carrying the atmosphere of Heaven with them, because of the anointing that filled them as a company(which seems to be initiated with music!).

·         Saul then came into this atmosphere and began to prophesy as if he is one of them! 

The Holy Spirit  (described in Ephesians1:17 as “The Spirit of wisdom and revelation”) released the same revelation and wisdom to Saul, and simply because he happened to be in the same space as the group of prophets!

·         He was changed into a different person. I really feel that the prophetic group will cause people to get aligned with heavenly perspective – the mind of the flesh is at war with the mind of The Spirit, and I believe that the presence of the company of Prophets will initiate by The Spirit a new mind in the life of the church as a whole- a mind set on heavens reality, causing change in people’s lives.

So to sum up, I feel that the presence of a company of prophets will preserve the word of God in the church because:

1.       Their presence will cause others to prophesy like them – people in the church will learn how to prophesy in a spiritually mature way

2.       They will carry an anointing that will affect the atmosphere, and will assist times of worship to become times of encounters

3.       The result will be transformation in the church- a greater awareness of heaven's perspective.

Blessings

Nick

The Cross, the Throne and the Door

The cross is the one meeting place that Our God has made on earth for the salvation of mankind. There were many crosses in those days when thousands were executed by the Romans. But there was only one cross, only one sacrifice for the sins of man; only one cross, only one man who could save us, only one Christ crucified for us. He was the perfect man, the only one with the nature of God in Him, the One with the Spirit of the Father in Him, the One with the Spirit of God upon Him. He was the perfect sacrifice - a ransom given for mankind, to pay the price for all man's sins; to pay the price for all men to be saved and healed. He died so that they all could live with eternal life! 


The throne is the one meeting place in heaven where the King of Kings reigns. There is one throne; there is one King; there is  only one who was raised from the dead to be exalted to the highest place of authority; only One - the Lord Jesus Christ. Only He has passed from earth to heaven to make a way for us to be seated together with Him.


There has been preaching and revelation which has opened the window for us to see through into the kingdom realm. But now there is a door that is opened to let us enter the kingdom and to live in the realm of the kingdom. Jesus is standing beside the window and He says "I am the door. if any man enters by me, he shall be saved!" Jesus is the way, the truth and the life; He is the forerunner, He is the first born from the dead, and we are recreated in His likeness, born again by the holy Spirit implanting the Spirit of Christ in us! His life is given to us! The life of God the Father; the life of the God the Son has been given for us, and to us!


We have been born again to live in the realm of the kingdom, to live in the heavenly realms. The famine of the Word is over. The drought of the rain from heaven is over. The revival has begun. The Word of the Lord will be released from the throne in these days to give life to people, to open the way to live in this life, to live in Christ with Christ in us. 


The time has come for us go through the door into a new and fresh sense of His Spirit. There is a new power of the kingdom for those who will go through the door and make their way to the throne. There is a new dimension to live in; to live in Christ with Christ in us! To have an integrated life - naturally spiritual and spiritually natural.

Fresh Revelations of Grace

I'm excited about a vision experience that Jenneth had recently and want you to know about it, so here it is:

Here is the vision I had of Supernatural Grace, it was on 17 July 2011 during the worship at the Sunday morning meeting.

I felt Jesus really speaking to me about certain theology I had picked up along the way, the theology that says it is ok to speak to Father God and to Jesus, but that you shouldn't really pray to the Holy Spirit.  I felt Jesus say, if I gave Holy Spirit to you as your Counselor & Comforter, then how are you going to manage that by not being able to chat?  It is a wonderful liberation!  So I had a vision of myself walking into ocean waves towards the Holy Spirit, a Dove-like being of Light.  Then we flew up into the sky together and he took me up into a heavenly realm.  There I walked towards a door and above the door there was a sign, Supernatural Grace.  I walked into the room and it evolved as I was there, the room transformed as I experienced it, I will describe how it looked at the end.

It was a most beautiful circular shaped room, extremely massive and high walls, lined with shelves of millions of books, in many tiers or levels reaching up to a huge skylight dome above.  There were ladders at the different levels of shelves and angels were climbing up the ladders to reach the books, or to return books.  It reminds me of the scripture, "Even angels long to look into these things." 1 Peter 1:12. In the centre of the room was a large pool with a crystal clear pure spring, ever fresh like a fountain in the centre of the pool.  There was an exquisite round stained glass window of many colours positioned high on the wall opposite the entrance, the light shone through the window throwing colours into the room.  So there was golden light from above and colours from the stained glass window in the room.   Beneath the stained glass window, there were glass doors which opened onto the Gardens of Grace.  I turned to the left and picked out a book, the title was "Grace and Peace"  I opened it and read, "Grace and Peace are Friends". I thought about the scriptures which so often say, "Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" and realised where you have grace, you have peace, where you have peace you have grace!  Then I picked out another title, The Grace of Giving (2 Corinthians 8:7).  Across the room, I picked out another, and it said, "Grace Takes Effect", I thought of the scripture, "But by the grace of God I am what I am , and his grace to me was not without effect." (1 Corinthians 15:10).  I felt there is so much to explore!  I realised that the room was filled with the keys of Grace and that every one of these millions of books was all on a different aspects of grace.  I felt that every scripture on grace would somehow be found in these books.  As I reached out and took hold of the books, there was a release of electricity, like mini-bolts of lightning in the room.  I realised that as you access Supernatural Grace, Heaven's power is released.

I walked through the pool, through the spring.  I saw that all of us need to constantly be cleansed, refreshed and renewed in the ever pure, constant flowing waters of grace, bought for us as a spring of purifying waters at the cross.  That is what I felt to be central to the pool, that it was there because of the work of the Cross.  I came out the other side and walked through the glass doors into the Gardens of Grace and there I saw my brother Paul approach me.  My brother passed away in 2002.  As Paul approached me I felt a bit wary (due to the nature of our not so great relationship while he was on earth).  I felt Jesus standing a little behind me to the right and Paul came over to my right side, leaned towards me and said, "There is no hurt here, no misunderstanding, there is no fear in relationships, no need for forgiveness."  I felt that Jesus wanted me to take this heavenly reality to earth with me, your kingdom come on earth as it is in Heaven.  That so often we allow misunderstandings between us, and obstacles arise between God's children that create barriers to relationship.  I felt that Jesus wants those barriers to come down so that we can flow in open communication with each other, misunderstandings can fall away and forgiveness can flow freely. 

I then walked with Jesus along a grassy avenue with a hedge to my left, which became a vineyard.  I saw that there was pruning, fresh green growth and incredible fruitfulness all on the same vine. I felt John 15, "I am the vine;  you are the branches.  If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit;  apart from me you can do nothing." John 15:5.  That was where the vision came to an end.  I had such a sense of anticipation as I knew that the vision would continue coming alive to me as I go through the scriptures of Grace.  I wrote a poem out of this vision (below).

Thanks Guys!  Looking forward to all our wonderful Jesus has in store.

Many blessings,

Jenneth