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Over the years God has worked to drive the self out of me. My personal success and pride of achievement has been somewhat dented by two bankruptcies! Some of us - actually, nearly all of us - are slow learners! It takes much time for us to change, particularly our ingrained attitudes.

Outward sin can often be relatively easily repented of when we truly come to Jesus. We can appear to be living a new life - and we are. That is tremendous in His sight and a testimony to others of God's goodness and His power to change us. This is as the Scripture says;

Or is it?

It is not!

The Scripture says, with ever-increasing glory or as the King James puts it, from glory to glory.

Yes, as I continue to discover and experience, for me (and you) that in order to grow from glory to glory, our ingrained attitudes need to be 'expunged' (a beautiful, descriptive word, even sounding like what it means; 1 : to strike out, obliterate, or mark for deletion 2 : to efface completely : destroy 3 : to eliminate (as a memory) from one's consciousness) from my (your) life.

For me, my first bankruptcy brought me to Jesus and I dealt with many of my OUTWARD SINS. eg. lying, theft, pornography, etc., etc. However it has taken the second bankruptcy to start dealing with the INWARD SIN in my life. eg. selfishness, pride in achievement, etc., etc. Ask Kathy for more! These things can be hidden form those who know us only superficially eg, even in ministry, and also, to some extent, but much less, to those who know us better such as spouse, family and close friends.

Today I want to illustrate this through the place of money in my life. Even where we think it doesn't, the reality is, money (or property or possessions) plays a hugely important part in all our lives. 24% of the parables of Jesus are directly about money, for He was a very practical teacher, and 80% of them incorporate it indirectly, in one way or another.

As mentioned earlier, I came into relationship with Jesus through bankruptcy, from a lack of money to feed my family, while waiting in the queue to register for the unemployment benefit.

When the Lord re-established us in a successful business, we double tithed, gave away heaps, and paid out lots of money for 6000 copies of the discipleship course, 'Walking With Jesus', to be printed, recorded and distributed. As an aside, just this Friday, a lady came into our shop, saw a copy of the course, and told 'the other Kathy' on the counter that 12 years ago she had written away for it, having seen it advertised in our garden product mail order catalogue, and had become a Christian through it! Praise the Lord!

I just want you to see that while my attitude to money had changed for the better, and Kathy and I were generous with it, I was still working in the domain of kings, using MY money for God's work. The ultimate example of this was when, being called into full time ministry, I attempted to use MY money to build a property portfolio to finance the ministry, so we wouldn't be dependent upon others. A kingly attitude.

I still had much to learn!

For God needed to teach me to be truly dependent upon Him, not myself, for my provision.

So came a second bankruptcy and we started the 'adventure' of the past 7 or so years where we have had a new and different lifestyle and my attitude towards money has completely changed to more of a kingdom orientation, where my money has become GOD'S money.

For the past 20 years or more we have lived on the wages from my wife Kathy's 4 day a week job as a theatre nurse at our local public hospital.

For nearly 7 of these years I worked (hard!) in Walking With Jesus Ministries, producing the teachings the Lord gave me, primarily on the end time church, and available for free download on our website, as well as visiting and ministering through Africa and Asia, as the Lord provided.

Then running a chain of Charity shops for no salary. Which have now been sold, and mainly back to ministry.

We simplified our lives, of necessity, living on less than a third of the income we could normally have expected to receive had we both been working fulltime. After losing our home in my bankruptcy, we now live in a rented unit or flat, and personally own only our household furniture. We gave away all the money we had left and now literally live from day to day, or fortnight to fortnight, as that is when Kathy is paid.

We therefore do understand the reality of the Lord's Prayer where it says,

Under kingly thinking, living a kingly lifestyle, we give God perhaps our tithe plus maybe gifts of some of what we own. To fully inherit the kingdom however, we must come to the understanding (in practical reality and living, not just in theory) that everything we have is Gods, provided to us for His use and purposes.

We have simply been obedient to what God called us too in ministry, His ministry, not our own. When I was disobedient by trying to provide for ourselves in a kingly fashion through my own efforts, I ended up bankrupt! A hard way to learn a lesson, but a good point at which to start off a new way of life, as we had little left to give away anyway!

Please, I am not saying that God is calling you to the same walk as we have and that you need to sell up and give away everything. He may, or may not, be calling you to this.

What I am saying though, is that every one of us needs to genuinely commit to give everything that God has entrusted to us back to Him. Then be open, with 100% obedience, to do whatever He tells us to do with what is now His property, His bank accounts, His possessions. For the kingdom is His and His alone.

Over the past weeks, before writing, I have experienced bad spiritual attacks, which to me is normally I sign that I am doing the right thing! However this week, I am writing with a freedom and joy in my heart that I have not experienced for some time. It is as if a barrier has been broken through. I pray that you might have a similar experience of joy and relaxation in your discipleship destiny when you give over everything to Him.

No, it is not easy, for it goes against every grain of our human nature. That is why I have shared as honestly as I can. Jesus was called to the Cross, a place He did not, in His humanness, want to go.

....... as we look at an unexpected turn in our lives.

Reality is, the nature of our heart is revealed ion what we do with our wallet and our time. (ie. earning power)

Where do you stand?

Chief Priests, Priests, and Levites

THE ORDINARY PRIESTS

Below the chief priests were the ordinary priests of the temple. There were probably about 7,200 of them in Jesus' time. They formed an exclusive hereditary community of men who could trace their descent back to Aaron, Moses' brother and the first high priest. Unlike the chief priests, most of them lived outside Jerusalem in the towns and villages of Judea and Galilee. They were divided into 24 priestly clans, each of which served a week at a time at the temple. Their duties included lighting the altar fires, attending to the offerings of incense and unleavened bread and killing the sacrificial animals.