It's likely that you've noticed the Wind Farm being here sometimes and not at others over the past week. Well, about a week ago our server decided to crash. We recovered from it fairly easily at the time and our problems were over .. or so I thought!

A week later (just a few days ago), the server crashed again. After a hard reset, all was well .. until two hours later .. yet another crash. Another hard reset and another two hours later, and another crash!  Gees Louise!  What was going on?? This happened seven times across the one day, and I was panicked. The idea of rebuilding sites because of a possible hardware failure was not something I was looking forward to. However, I got in touch with our outstanding Systems Administrator who worked tirelessly for almost 19 hours to get things stable again.

The wash-up?  We now have three new hard drives in place providing us with more than double our original capacity, and we have rebuilt the server from the ground up in terms of its software environment. And I'm pleased to report that we are now incredibly stable and moving much faster, plus we're pretty much bullet-proof for the long term.

Now, a part of the reason the Wind Farm was offline for so long over the past week is that I decided to forego the restoration of this very large site, in order to ensure that all of the other clients on our server were back online as quickly as possible.

To those who kept visiting wondering where we had gone .. thanks for checking up on us!  All is well now and the Wind Farm will be around for a long time to come.

Kerry

God, you have prepared in peace the path I must follow today. Help me to walk straight on that path.

If I speak, remove lies from lips.

If I am hungry, take away from me all complaint.

If I have plenty, destroy pride in me.

May I go through the day calling on you, you, O Lord, who know no other Lord.

Note from Kerry:  J. Lee Grady is the editor of Charisma magazine. You can visit his blog at www.fireinmybones.com. It's well worth your time.

The Holy Spirit has provided a way for us to sort truth from error. But in this season of spiritual compromise, discernment is not popular. 

When I began making regular ministry trips to Nigeria a few years ago I learned that a peculiar Nigerian minister named T.B. Joshua was causing quite a stir in that country. Often referred to as “the Man of God” or “the Man in the Synagogue” by his followers, this African preacher founded a massive religious compound in Lagos called The Synagogue, Church of All Nations. He began attracting big crowds because of his healing powers.
 
I was initially excited to hear about a new healing ministry on the international scene, but when I talked to pastors in Lagos I learned that no mainstream Christian church or denomination in Nigeria embraced Joshua as authentic. In fact, Pentecostal leaders had denounced him publicly because of his occult background and because he mixed Christian terminology with pagan healing methods.
 
I finally sat down with Joshua in 2003 to confront him about his story (including his claim that his mother carried him in the womb for 15 months because he was “special”). After being in his offices, talking with his zombielike followers, interviewing ex-members of his cult and watching videos of his bizarre methods (which include a form of magic writing), my own gut feelings confirmed what I had already been told by countless pastors in Lagos, Port Harcourt, Abuja and other cities: This man was not operating by the Holy Spirit’s power.

“God gave us spiritual gifts in a package, and discernment is part of the set. It is not optional.”

What was even more shocking was seeing planeloads of Christians from South Africa, Europe and North America arrive in Nigeria to attend this man’s meetings. The excited pilgrims came to receive a touch from God. They wanted a spiritual impartation. Some left claiming they had been healed.

Just a quick note to let you know that this Saturday's Breathing Space (quiet day) has been cancelled.

In fact, I'm having to slow down the frequency of these days simply because there are not enough people regularly attending to make it financially viable. If I could afford to do it each month just for myself, I would, but I can't.

At this stage, the only other Quiet Day for 2008 will be on Saturday 29th November, and then next year's Quiet Days will only be held once a quarter. More on that later.

It's interesting to me that the purpose of these days is to give people "breathing space"; an opportunity to intentionally slow down in order to be alone with God in quietness and peace, and yet the consistent reason people have for not been coming is that they are just too busy ... and I find that very telling.

In my own life, I realise I am somewhat addicted to noise and turbulence. I hate it, but I struggle to live without it, even when I know doing so will benefit the quality of my life. But the Bible is true in every way, especially as it relates to the Kingdom of God. The King James version of the Bible says that ...

"The Kingdom of Heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force."
Matthew 11:12

Now, my good ol' Pentecostal training would tell me that this is about militantly laying hold of God by violently coming against the devil and his schemes to outdo God. That may be true, but it isn't what God has been saying to me for some weeks now.

Firstly, what is the Kingdom of God all about?  Well, the apostle Paul says that ...

"... the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the (Spirit) Holy Ghost."
Romans 14:17

What Paul is saying is that the Kingdom of God isn't about stuff. It isn't about temporal, earthly, natural things. It isn't about "meat and drink". The Kingdom of God is a life of righteousness, peace and joy when lived in the Spirit!

And Jesus said that this very Kingdom of Heaven is within us, and it is this Kingdom that suffers violence again and again, day in, day out. It suffers violence through the insanity of 21st century life .. that is, the incessant noise, internal turbulence, frentic activity, work demands, family demands, church demands, personal demands, friendship demands, demands you didn't ask for, go looking for, and demands you didn't even expect to find. In fact, these are all things that keep us away from our relationship with Jesus!  And yet, I hear God saying that the only response to this is for us to be equally violent in response .... but it is a Kingdom violence I hear Him speaking about.

Here's some of what Jesus said the violence of the Kingdom looks like ...