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Kingdom skills

The battle for the mind

For several posts now we have been looking at the various causes of emotional problems from a spiritual perspective with the aim of equipping people to help those who are challenged in these areas.  (More of the tools in a later post.)   The ground where the battle needs to be won is the inner… Read More

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Kingdom skills

The 5 “S’s” that give Satan a legal right

Continuing the series on Kingdom skills: helping those with inner pain and problems. In the last post we looked at the first of the 5, rather contrived, "S's" that allow Satan access to our lives–namely sin.  Here are the remaining four.    Seance: This “S” refers to where we have given Satan access to our… Read More

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Kingdom skills

Kingdom skills: causes of emotional problems #5 (when Satan has a legal right)

Continuing the series on skills for Kingdom builders: dealing with emotional problems. The last four posts have dealt with different categories of causes of problems in the inner man: our sin, inherited tendency to sin, where we are sinned against and griefs and sorrows.  Satan loves to supercharge any of these areas, taking them to… Read More

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Kingdom skills

Kingdom skills: causes of emotional problems #4 (griefs and sorrows)

Continuing the series of skills for Kingdom building: inner healing   Diane came to see me with depression.  The cause was obvious.  About five years previously, her young son, around 2 years of age, had drowned in their swimming pool.  He had only been out of sight for just a few minutes while she was… Read More

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Kingdom skills

Kingdom skills: causes of emotional problems #3 (when one is sinned against)

I once had a word of knowledge about a person who had been repeatedly raped by her father and an uncle as a young child.  As I looked at the people present at the gathering, I was fairly sure I knew who it was; a young woman had been glowering at me for most of… Read More

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Kingdom skills

Kingdom skills: causes of emotional problems #2 (inherited sin)

  Continuing the discussion on Kingdom skills: inner healing. We had known Faith and her family for many years.  Faith had a wonderful husband and two delightful kids.  Yet one day she told us that she had problems with uncontrollable anger.  For no apparent reason, she would lose her temper with the family, shouting and… Read More

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Kingdom skills

Healing: our choice?

Continuing the series on Kingdom skills–inner healing There are some interesting verses in Proverbs 15.  Verse 13 says, “A glad heart makes a happy face; a broken heart crushes the spirit.”  And verse 15 says, “For the despondent, every day brings trouble; for the happy heart, life is a continual feast.” The implication, especially from… Read More

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Kingdom skills

A physician’s perspective

In a former life back in the UK, I was a physician. Patients would come to me with various physical problems. I would take a history of their symptoms, examine them and make a provisional diagnosis that I would confirm if necessary with diagnostic tests, and then treat whatever condition I had diagnosed. The treatment… Read More

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Church planting House church Organic church Simple Church

My questions about discipleship

For some years I have pondered the question of discipleship.  I have to confess, discipling others has been something of a mystery to me.  I know the theory, but have always had questions about it.  Discipling someone is usually portrayed as helping a baby in Christ towards maturity.  Maybe my questions are because I became… Read More

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Church planting House church Organic church Simple Church

A new kind of disciple

Aaron Snow of Intentional Gatherings recently posted this on his blog (http://bit.ly/cae2Jh).  I use it here with his permission as a great example of the kind of thing I've been blogging about recently. “…Can you imagine what it would look like if college students who claim Jesus as Lord were equipped and released to lead… Read More