The Celtic Christians had a name for the Holy Spirit, they called him the “Wild Goose”. The name gives us a hint of the mysterious nature of the third member of the Godhead.

A wild goose, (hence the name Wild) cannot be tamed. So it is with the Holy Spirit, he is unpredictable, and you never know where you are going to end up if you start chasing him, but unlike the name suggests, it is not a pointless chase.

The present day church have this mind set that to follow the Spirit is pointless,  and regard it is a wild goose chase in the traditional sense of the concept.
They try to fit God into the confines of their thinking, and the grey matter that surrounds their understanding of the Spirit cp. Prov. 3:5.

The Spirit of God cannot be tracked or tamed, there is always an element of danger in the air and unpredictability, when you seek to take up the chase and follow Him.

We have tried in vain to clip the wings of the wild goose and as a result, have ended up settling for something far less than what God originally intended for us.
Hence the reason why so many people are bored with  church service, its endless programs and upbeat music, often a substitute for the Spirits Presence, which cannot and will not replace the thrill of the chase, when it comes to following the leading of the Spirit of God in our personal lives.

Jesus when answering Nicodemus, incidentally,  a religious leader of the jews, was surprised that He Nicodemus, did not understand this principle of the wild goose, and told Nicodemus that the Spirit was like the wind, “you don’t know where it comes from and you don’t know where it goes”. John 3:8.

If you chase the Wild Goose, he will take you to places, (I am speaking from experience) you never could have imagined and by paths you never thought  existed.

Purveyors of man made Religion are those people who teach man made philosophies.  The Apostle Paul, in his letter to young Timothy called it for what it is, “teachings and doctrines of demons” [1Tim. 4:1]

Their teachings, consist of self help strategies, which portray the idea that man with a little, or a lot of human effort, can achieve his destiny and goal without the grace  of the Lord. When in truth, man cannot achieve anything of eternal value, apart from the regeneration of God’s Spirit in his inner man.

Their teachings  are devoid of any  revelation of the Spirit, or motivation to encourage the listener, to seek wisdom and revelation that can only come  from above.

In forty years of walking with the Lord, and learning how to receive prophetic revelation (by the way I am still learning) with the apostle Paul I have to confess that I have not arrived, that the depths of God are so deep that truly with the psalmist I have to declare ‘New every morning are your mercies O God” there is a time to laugh, a time to cry a time to be sorrowful and a time to be full of joy, a time to sow and a time to reap.

One of the words that the Lord had me proclaim over the last decade was That He, The Lord is changing the culture of the Church. I love this definition of the word “Culture”…….culture is the by-product of consistent behaviour!

I have a dream of a church that is passionate about its Mission! where giving is a joy. Where the offering is an investment not an expenditure

We encountered a flock of sheep on the drive from Bulgaria to the town of Stip, Macedonia.

It is not popular today in our High Tech age that we live in, to believe in a literal devil–a personal devil.  But, the more I study and read the scriptures and see the diabolical things that are happening in our world, I do not need convincing of an unseen power at work to destroy all that is good and wholesome in our society.

This places the urgency of prayer as a top priority.  The fact that the scriptures teach us that the believer has an adversary, and that the Lord, himself, when teaching on prayer included the phrase…”deliver us from evil”, establishes the fact that there is a literal enemy out to destroy us.

The New Testament gives him many names: “tempter” Mt. 4:3; “ruler of this world” Jn.12.31; 14:30; 16:11; “The prince of the power of the air” Eph. 2:2; “The god of this world” 2 Cor. 4:4; “Abaddon,” and “Apollyon” both of which means “destroyer” Rev. 9:11; and “the serpent of old” Rev. 12:9.

The reality is that there IS a literal personal devil and the scriptures warn us to be on our guard, to be vigilant.