The world is spending a lot of time arguing about freedom these days, but not a lot of time reflecting on what real freedom is. For us as Christians, freedom is a gift which operates regardless of our circumstances or what external restrictions we are under. It is something much deeper than which party is running the government, or whether you’re for or against masks. It means we shouldn’t get quite as worked up about some of these issues as we do. And it certainly means none of them are worth pursuing at the cost of dividing the body of Christ.

For the last four years, I’ve been praying a very simple prayer: “Lord, open doors and close doors.” It all started with a time of major reset in our lives. We had transitioned from pastoral ministry to full time travelling and teaching. So it was a good time to pray this kind of prayer.

A friend called me the other day to ask for prayer. He felt he was coming under severe demonic attack — one arrow after another was flying at him. Not only that, his children were experiencing demonic visitations at night while he was away speaking at a conference at which a large number of young people came to Christ.

There’s an intriguing paragraph tucked in at the end of Acts 2. It gives a brief description of the first church in Jerusalem. I wish it were longer, but I suspect God kept it short because he didn’t want everyone to try to make an exact replica out of it. But the principles listed there are important.

It starts with this statement: “And they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.”

Occasionally the Bible presents us with a puzzle. Matthew tells us the disciples couldn’t cast a demon out because of their “little faith” (Matt. 17:20). Then he adds something which appears to be a contradiction: “If you have faith like a grain of mustard seed… nothing will be impossible for you.” But Jesus himself told us that the mustard seed was the smallest of all seeds on the earth. So first he says their problem was their small faith. Then he says you only need small faith to do the impossible.