Author Profile
Paul Jackson
Paul Jackson is husband to Charmain, father to five children and pastor to Park Ridge Baptist Church. Paul was left ruined for the ordinary after several months of dramatic God encounters in the fellowship in 2002 and 2005. These encounters sent he and the fellowship on an outrageous adventure into the 'more' of God. The pursuit of God has brought opportunities to minister in Kenya, Malaysia, Florida, Fiji, Vanuatu and the Solomon Islands. He has a passion to see people awakened, restored, empowered, equiped and released into their Kingdom commission.
Website: www.pajackson.com
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Keys to make a Wilderness Journey Fruitful (Part 3) - Paul Jackson
(From Responding to the Supernatural Suddenlies of God)
Psalm 84:5-8
5. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
8. Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. Selah
Over the last five years we have continued to set our hearts on pilgrimage and make the intentional choice to not go back to ‘playing in the sandpit.’ The journey through the valleys of the wilderness has been filled with adventure as well as disappointments.
It is easy to lose perspective when your winding along through valleys you’ve never been through before. The inability to see the horizon or your destination can lead to many false finish lines. I experienced this in a memorable way the first time I went exploring along the Logan River which runs past the back of my property. My friend and I dropped our kayaks into the river at a point that was only ten minutes drive from my place with the expectation that we would be home in an hour or so. With expectations set, I approached every bend after the one hour mark with the thought, ‘It must be just around this bend.’ An hour later I was still expecting home to be just around ‘this’ bend. The rising of hope and expectation only to be disappointed was becoming more exhausting than the paddling. Bend after bend brought strength-sapping discouragement. After three hours of paddling and dragging our kayaks over sandbars, turning back was out of the question. Stopping also seemed counter-productive. I didn’t think I could get going again if I’d stopped so we continued. We reached home after sunset, four hours after we had set off.
Those last three hours would rank amongst three of the longest hours of my life. It’s not like it was all pain. We made some great discoveries along the way. We talked about life together. We pointed out reptiles and other creatures making home along the banks. I even had three fish jump into my Kayak including a decent sized mullet which the kids ate that night.
Keys to make a Wilderness Journey Fruitful (Part 2) - Paul Jackson
(From Responding to the Supernatural Suddenlies of God)
Psalm 84:5-8
5. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
8. Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. Selah
Key 3: “Make it a place of springs” - Let the vision/purpose change how you see. The testimony of Psalm 84 is that those whose strength is in God with their heart set on pilgrimage did not just persevere and make it through the Valley of Baca but that, “they make it a place of springs.” Having the joy set before you doesn’t just give you endurance or strength for the journey. It’s supposed to change the way you see. This change in perspective is powerful.
I was recently on a retreat with a pastor who is coming to the end of his preparations to be an army chaplain. He has been in the army all his adult life and absolutely loves it, but since his conversion several years ago, the call to ministry through army chaplaincy has captured his heart. While a healthy physical condition is probably a prerequisite for an army chaplain, I’m not sure that they are required to be in the sort of peak fitness that a foot soldier is required to be in. My friend however is so passionately filled with hope about the impact he can have for the Kingdom in the Australian Army that he gets up before the sun most days and employs someone to take him through a grueling boot camp style fitness program. Not my idea of fun but when you hear him talk about it you’d think he was going out for a round of golf with his mates. What he goes through must be painful but why he’s doing it seems to reinterpret that very pain into pleasure – he makes a valley of tears into a place of springs.
Key 4: “They make it” - Having a vision/purpose empowers you to do life rather than life doing you. Did you notice that it says, “they make it a place of springs.” Having a purpose for the journey enables you to make the journey on purpose. Every step is a passion filled choice fueled by the strength of the Lord and a heart set on pilgrimage. As you walk into adversity you see beyond the circumstances and into the realm of faith that enables you to see the unseen realms of hope and bring the influence of that realm onto your circumstances.
When God comes and does something for you (a sovereign move, a suddenly) it is supposed to activate that dimension of His life in you so that you are enabled to live in that dimension on purpose.
Have a think about your own journey. Think about the times when you thought you were at the end of yourself and didn’t know how you could go on. What brought the breakthrough? It is usually one of two things: Either the circumstances change or something in you changes the way you see the circumstances. One happens to you the other happens through you.
Have you ever downloaded a ‘free’ application for your computer only to find that it needed to be activated for you to be able to use it. The one that happens to you is like a download that still needs activation for you to continue in it. The Father is pointing to His activity in your life and saying, ‘You could activate that for future use if you want it.’
Why not make a list of the things God has brought to you that you haven’t yet activated into a flowing resource through you and ask Him to teach you how to make active his revelations in your life.
Keys to make a Wilderness Journey Fruitful (Part 1) - Paul Jackson
(From Responding to the Supernatural Suddenlies of God)
Psalm 84:5-8
5. Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage.
6. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools.
7. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.
8. Hear my prayer, O LORD God Almighty; listen to me, O God of Jacob. Selah
Key 1: “Till each appears before God in Zion” - Know what you’re digging for. The Psalmist had a joy set before him. He wasn’t purposeless in his painful journey through the Valley of Baca (lit: weeping, tears, bitterness). In his book ‘Digging The Wells Of Revival,’1 Lou Engle likens seasons of preparation for revival to digging wells. Your faithfulness in digging during the ‘dry times’ will determine how much you can receive and give away what is poured out in times of refreshing.
Digging without a purpose however is the sort of thing captors tormented prisoners with in concentration camps. It produces levels of hopelessness that can kill you, but a glorious vision of the goal will empower a person to do more and go further than anyone thinks is possible. Having a purpose for your travel through the hard times is vital for your journey.
As you travel through your Valley of Baca, keep the vision, the purpose, constantly before you. Talk about it with others who are on the journey. Have them remind you why you are doing this. If you are going to ‘appear before God in Zion’ you are going to need to nourish your hope with the vision of arriving.
Key 2: “They ... each” - the journey is more fun with other pilgrams.
Spurgen’s description of the pilgrim's journey gives insight into the communal nature of pilgrimage in ancient Israel: “Families journeyed together, making bands which grew at each halting place; they camped in sunny glades, sang in unison along the roads, toiled together over the hill and through the slough, and, as they went along, stored up happy memories which would never be forgotten.”2
This is one of the most vital dimensions to my own journey. I am so thankful for fellow pilgrims who have journeyed with us over the years. Their knowledge, testimonies, friendship and experiences in the journey has been inspiring and stretching as we make our way along the track together.
It’s a New Day - A word of encouragement from Jacob to persevere - Paul Jackson
Recently we heard the Lord declaring, “It’s a New Day”. It came from a number of source and through a variety of means. We made it the theme of several intercessory prayer nights where we received, agreed with, and declared on earth, what we heard the Father saying.
One of the revelations that came during these ‘New Day’ prayer times was through a word of encouragement Shera received from Jacob’s encounter with the Lord in Genesis 32. After wrestling Jacob all night (which included the Lord dislocating Jacobs hip) the Lord says to Jacob, “Let me go, for it is daybreak”. To which Jacob replies, “I will not let You go unless You bless me.”
Now the story raises all sorts of questions that I don’t have answers for but some of the thoughts it raised for our own situation were:
Ø I think it’s safe to assume that the Lord visited Jacob with the intention of blessing him
Ø When the ‘New Day’ dawned, Jacob had still not received the blessing
Ø When the Lord tried to leave, Jacob held on and would not let go
Ø Jacob was determined to receive what the Lord had come to deliver however long into the ‘New Day’ he had to wrestle
Ø Seeing that He (The Lord) could not overpower him (Jacob) – if not in the physical, at least in the sense that the Lord could not shake Jacob’s faith from receiving the blessing
Ø The Lord prophesies over Jacob, ‘Because you have wrestled with God and not been shaken, neither will anything man puts in your way shake this blessing from you.’
Ø Then the Lord blessed him
Psalm 24 describes a ‘generation of those who seek Him, who seek Your face, oh God of Jacob’ (or some translations, ‘who seek Your face like Jacob’). The Psalmist is describing a company of like hearted people who will hold on to the Lord with joyful expectation like Jacob did. “We do not want you to become lazy, but to imitate those who through faith and patience inherit what has been promised.” (Heb 6:12)
I am so excited about what stands before us. And what about the enthusiasm and joyful expectation of the Lord as He challenges us to press on. And can you here the cheer of creation itself and the great crowd of witnesses who have gone in faith before us. The encouragement to us is to not stop once the ‘New Day’ has been declared but to keep holding on till you have received what He came to give.
“So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised.” (Hebrews 10:35-36)
The promises of the New Day require faith, patience and persistence. You were made for this!!!!
Receiving Fresh Bread From Heaven - Paul Jackson
‘What Is It?’
It’s nothing new for God’s people to be overwhelmed, confused or even offended when God reveals something new about Himself or what He wants to do (which usually carries a corresponding revelation of who we are and what we are doing), but His intention is always to bless, draw us nearer and conform us to the image of His Son.
The Lord came to Moses and said, ‘When the new day breaks you will be filled with bread. Then you will know that I am the Lord your God’ (Ex 6:12). When the people of Israel received the bread that rained down from heaven for them on that first morning, there initial response was, “Manna?” (Literally ‘What is it?’ Ex 6:15). Without any understanding of what it was, but an assurance they could trust Who it was from, they gathered up as much as they needed for that day and ate. Verse 18 goes on to say that “he who gathered much did not have too much, and he who gathered little did not have too little.” That’s amazing. Even those who only gathered little still had enough.
‘Who Is This?’
Jesus was faced with a similar situation to Moses but the people’s response wasn’t quite as good.
In John 6 Jesus is asked a question about the manna that came down from heaven in Moses’ day. Jesus responds with a nice, “the bread of God is He who comes down from heaven and gives life to the world”. They think they understand this and ask Him for some of this bread. Jesus clarifies further, “I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry.” At this they began to grumble about him – ‘who is this?’ (or to draw a parallel – ‘what is it?’ - manna). In contrast to Israel in the desert, Jesus’ crowd puts there effort into analyzing ‘what is it?’ instead of into gathering and eating. Jesus encourages them to take and eat, “The one who feeds on me will live because of me.” Even with the assurance that the words he had spoken are “spirit and they are life”, many turned away. So Jesus turned to his closest twelve and asks, “You don’t want to leave too, do you?” To which Peter responds, “To whom would we go? You have the words of eternal life.”
In the face of fresh ‘What is it?’ Peter and the twelve renew their commitment to Jesus as the Holy One who has come from the Father. Their commitment is to follow Him beyond their ability to understand Him.
It appears to me that the disciples were drawn along through three years of trusting relationship without very many times where they felt like they understood everything that was happening. They constantly misunderstood or just completely missed what Jesus was saying, and yet continued to trust Him. My conviction is that they were totally convinced that He is good and trustworthy and that they didn’t need to understand before they were willing to step out in faith-filled obedience. The twelve constantly gathered and ate ‘What is it?’, and it was life to them.
Living from the inside out
This is so essential to growing in the Christian life. If we only say yes to what we understand, we will tend toward a shallow, faithless life that is easily offended and threatened. It is my conviction that the Christian life is one that is to be lived from the inside out – ie Spirit-Soul-Body – and that by only saying yes to what our soul (mind, emotions, will) or our body understands is going to severely stunt our growth. Instead we are taught to live by the spirit (walk by the spirit, etc.) and that the Spirit will teach us all things.
When we say yes to what the Spirit is saying and continue to walk in agreement with what He has said, our soul will catch up as understanding unfolds. When our soul is in agreement with our spirit-man and begins to declare with our mouth what we believe with our heart, it begins to manifest in the physical realm as well. The fallen nature wants to live Body-Soul-Spirit but we were created, and through the cross, redeemed, to live Spirit-Soul-Body.
The Father provides ‘what is it?’ for every new day. Will you take and eat what you don’t yet understand based on His trustworthiness? Or pull back into what you know believing that it will sustain you? Hebrews was written to a generation that was finding it difficult to hold to the promises of a previous generation. The author’s solution to their questioning, doubt and offence was, ‘but we see Jesus’ (2:9), ‘fix your thoughts on Jesus’ (3:1), ‘fix our eyes on Jesus’ (12:2), ‘consider Him’ (12:3).
Let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and
Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us.
Let us fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith. Heb 12:1-2
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