Dr Paul Allen

REMEMBER TO PRAY USING A.C.T.S Adoration Holy God, You are patient. You persevere. You are kind. You are holy. Your compassionate love covers me. And yet You are also just. You are also righteous. And so You become weary of evildoing. You become tired when my words are empty and when my heart is far away. You are not just a stoic being with no emotion. Rather, you care so deeply that it offends. You, when I keep on sinning in light of Your overarching grace. Lord, I worship You as I fear You, in honour of who You truly are. I’m grateful that You allow me to see this side of You, not only the side that’s giving, kind, and forgiving. I need to know all of You in order to give You the authentic praise due Your name and to rightly reflect Your character with the spirit of my worship of You. Confession Holy God, I confess that I don’t consider how I’ve wearied You as often as I should. I confess that I depend on the kindness of Your character to such a large degree that it borders on a spir...

When we think about rewards, we often think of getting what we deserve. We work in such a way to get a reward that corresponds to our effort. But the reward Jesus is referring to is not meritorious. Fasting does not put God in our debt. It is not a technique that puts us in good standing with God. God offers, as a gift, the satisfaction of our desires—desires that are ultimately for him. David explains this reward further in Psalm 63. He begins the psalm by saying to the Lord,          O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you;             my soul thirsts for you;          my flesh faints for you,             as in a dry and weary land where there is no water. (v. 1) David has developed a hunger, an appetite for God. He goes on,          So I have looked upon you in the sanctuary,             beholding your power and glory...

The question of who Jesus is is crucial to the validity of the Christian faith. It was a question important to Jesus himself, so in Matthew 16 we find him asking his disciples, ‘Who do people say the Son of Man is?’ The answers are interesting and, if spoken of anyone else, would be highly flattering.  Common opinion held that Jesus was either John the Baptist, Elijah or Jeremiah. People were so impressed with him that they thought he must be one of these great servants of God come back from the dead. Flattering though the answers were, they were totally inadequate to describe who Jesus is; the Bible leaves no doubt about Jesus' uniqueness and exclusivity. • ‘He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created’ (Colossians 1:15–16). • ‘In Christ all the fulness of the Deity lives in bodily form’ (Colossians 2:9). • ‘The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and the exact representation of his being’ (Hebrews 1:3). Jesus is sp...

Instinctively, we think of confession as a gloomy, dour, introspective activity that, by focusing on all the things we have done wrong, makes us (quite literally) miserable sinners. And there is a grain of truth in this: Our sin is terrible, and we should never trivialise it or excuse it. But David takes a much more positive view of confession in Psalm 32. Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit. (Ps. 32:1–2) When I stayed silent and did not confess my sin, David elaborates, life was truly miserable. My bones wasted away, I groaned all day, and my strength was like dry ground in a summer drought (Ps. 32:3–4). But then I acknowledged my sin. I confessed it all to God. And he forgave it all (Ps. 32:5), fully releasing me from my debt and causing me to “be glad in the Lord and rejoice” (Ps. 32:11) rather than experiencing “the sorro...

When we have wrong thoughts about God, the consequences can be disastrous for every relationship – especially within the church. Many problems arise when believers’ actions are guided by inaccurate or unbiblical thinking about God. The church at Corinth is a case study in what goes wrong when people’s minds are led astray from the truth of God’s Word. The very first issue crippling the Corinthian church was disunity, which stemmed from these believers thinking with a fleshly mind, rather than with the mind of Christ. Rather than submitting to God’s wisdom and applying the mind of Christ to their daily walk, the Corinthians were enamoured with man’s thoughts, philosophies, and opinions, leading to church conflict and division. Paul, therefore, exhorted them in 1 Corinthians 1:10 to agree. When we come to 1 Corinthians 2:6-11, we discover that Paul wanted the Corinthians to adopt the very mind of Christ. As Christians, we have access to the way Christ thinks, and we know God’s wisdom. B...

Speaking or praying in tongues is a form of prayer in which the Christian yields himself to the Holy Spirit and receives from the Spirit a supernatural language with which to praise God.  It is a miraculous manifestation of God’s power, but one which combines both human and divine elements that expresses both human and divine initiative. It is truly a cooperative effort between the Christian and the Holy Spirit. Many people misunderstand what takes place when they hear someone praying or speaking in tongues. They are apprehensive over what might happen to them if they “let themselves go like that” or “let some other power take over.”  They assume the person is completely passive and that the Holy Spirit is doing it all. This is an erroneous impression of what is taking place. The person himself is actively participating in the experience. As someone once put it, “Without the Holy Spirit, you can’t, but without you. the Holy Spirit won’t.” Simply stated, man does the speaking;...

His daughter was dying, and Jesus had been diverted. Jesus looked directly at him and said to Jairus, "Only believe"   This means shifting our focus from the size of your problem to the size of your faith in God. It is a practical choice to trust Jesus when you feel overwhelmed. 1. Identify and Name the Fear: Acknowledge the anxiety . Do not ignore your panic, stress, or doubt. Surrender it: Visually or mentally hand that specific problem over to God, admitting that you cannot fix it on your own.  2. Guard Your Atmosphere. Filter the noise: In the Bible story, Jesus removed the mocking, weeping crowd from the room before performing the miracle. Limit negative inputs: Step away from voices, media, or advice that breed panic and hopelessness. Seek encouragement: Surround yourself with people who speak life, hope, and faith into your situation.  3. Replace "What-Ifs" with God's Word. Stop the spiral: When your mind starts inventing worst-case scenarios, intentio...

The gifts operate by faith in God, not faith in a specific theory. They are not channelled through any doctrine except that of redemption. The Holy Spirit only glorifies the crucified Christ. Testimonies that this or that formula has brought success are always to be found, but they do not prove what they are supposed to prove. God’s mercies are “broader than the measures of our mind.”1  There is only one secret—faith. “This is the victory … our faith” (1 John 5:4). New techniques and highly publicised methods may seem to bring results, but they do not. God separates the techniques from the faith and responds only to faith. In the New Testament, whenever healings and miracles are attributed to anything at all, it is invariably to faith. Otherwise it is the sovereign action of God. “Thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace,” Jesus said to the woman with a hemorrhage (Luke 8:48, KJV).  Her “method” could not have been more simple and childlike. Those seeking healing can be he...

From the outset, the church looked doomed, stillborn. To bring His message to the nations, Jesus had only a few ordinary men from Galilee. None of them showed any brilliance or personal qualities that would make for success, and they displayed a generous share of human failings.  They were as unqualified as world conquerors as men ever could be. The Jewish leaders wrote them off as ignorant and unlearned. Their message should have appealed to nobody.  It had no element of intellectual wisdom, political promise, or immediate social benefit. Its worst disqualification for popular acceptance was that it was centred on a leader from a seedy Galilean backwater who had been executed as a common criminal. Mission impossible? Against all expectations, it became “mission accomplished.” How? These nobodies advanced with a new secret. God personally worked with them with signs and wonders.  More than that, He barbed their simple words with conviction and guided them to the hearts o...

People under the old covenant knew nothing of speaking with tongues, casting out demons, and healing by the laying on of hands (Mark 16:17–18). These signs were reserved for the age of the Spirit. A new kingdom, a new covenant, new features, and a new gospel for spirit and body describe the Christian age.  Jesus used a new word for the Holy Spirit, parakletos, used five times in John’s Gospel. It is translated “Comforter” (KJV) and “Helper.” It belongs to the Greek word parakaleo, which means to call for somebody, to enlist their sympathy. Think about the promise of “another Helper.” To understand, we need only emphasise the word another. Jesus had been the parakletos to His disciples and had said to them, “I will not leave you orphans” (John 14:18). Jesus regularly used only one word for God—Father. For those who are in Christ Jesus, that one word also describes their relationship to almighty God.  So when Jesus gave His last assurances to His disciples, He told them to “wai...

God never anointed anybody twice. David was anointed of the Lord through Samuel; later Israel’s elders did anoint him a second time, but that was confirming their acceptance of his kingly authority. The anointing through Samuel was a divine anointing. Jesus was anointed by God. Afterwards, a woman poured ointment on Him, which He said was for His burial. Normally priests and kings had only one anointing, and that was at the beginning of their career. Some sing “Oh, for a new anointing” and pray for “another Pentecost,” but the whole concept of another and new anointing, as if the original anointing had faded away, is strange to New Testament thought of the eternal Spirit. The anointing is self-renewing—it renews us, not we it. He is the Spirit of newness.  First John 2:27 says, “The anointing which you have received from Him abides in you.” Exodus 40:15 says, “You shall anoint them … that they may minister to Me.” Second Samuel 1:21 speaks of the “shield of the mighty” being anoint...

We should particularly remember that anointing is likened to perfume. Psalm 45:8 is often quoted to refer to Christ: “All your garments are scented with myrrh and aloes and cassia.” Cassia came from the distant Far East. Israel probably obtained it in the wilderness from passing traders. It provided a distinctive fragrance associated only with the dwelling place of God and its priests—it evoked thoughts of God. Scripture calls Jesus “the anointed One”: “Peter answered and said ‘You are the Christ, the Son of the living God’” (Matt. 16:16). Jesus is the Christ, the anointed One. He is as exclusively anointed as He was exclusively the Son of God. Christ is from the Greek word christos , which has the same meaning as the Hebrew word for Messiah . Everything denoted by the anointing of the tabernacle, priests, and kings is fulfilled in Jesus. Christ is our Priest-King. “Your robes are fragrant …” (Ps. 45:8, NIV ). He carried the purity and odour of heaven, that evocative and subtle beauty...