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 flesh from which believers have been set free has the nasty habit of resurrecting itself. Believers have the authority to remind it and themselves that it has no right to be alive; rather, they are encouraged to reckon it as dead (Rom. 6:11), and if it refuses to listen, it must be forcibly laid to rest again and again and again.  Throughout the process, the Spirit promises to provide the courage, confidence and inner strength to succeed in this activity (8:13). At the same time, the Spirit reminds believers that however loudly the flesh claims to be their lord and master, and to be in control of their lives, it is trespassing on ground claimed by God and inhabited by the Spirit. The Spirit of life has energy and vitality to vanquish all that is associated with death (Rom. 8:2). He has enabled believers to be what the law could not achieve—that is, justified (8:4). He enables believers to do what they could not achieve—that is, be sanctified ( put to death the misdeeds o...

These glorious facts concerning the lavish commitment of the Spirit to believers are not intended to result in the readers congratulating themselves on their relationship with God, nor are they merely to encourage them.  They are to act as motivations for action, providing incentives and inspiration to be more Spirit-controlled and less flesh-friendly. Similarly, if the word ei (if) is translated as ‘since’, in 8:9–11, the positive nature of Paul’s perspective of the believer is considerably heightened. 7   The Greek word ei is capable of being translated ‘if’ or’since’ and it is often the context that determines the most appropriate meaning. In these verses, given Paul’s desire to encourage the believers to recognize their relationship with the Spirit and thus to benefit from it in their fight against the flesh, it is more likely that ‘since’ is the correct translation; it provides an explicit assurance to the modern reader, rather than uncertainty.  He is not sowing d...

  The complete relocation of believers is clearly expressed in Romans 8:9, where Paul describes them as being in the Spirit while also referring to the fact that the Spirit of God lives in them. These apparently contradictory phrases are to be appreciated for what they are—descriptions that emphasise the integrated involvement of the Spirit with the believer (1 Cor. 6:17).  The intimate association of the Spirit with the believer is heightened in that the Spirit is described as being of God (this, in 8:9, is the first occasion in Romans where Paul refers thus to the Spirit). It is none other than God who resides within the believer.  Not only that, but he lives in them (8:9), indicating a tangible experience of God, not merely an intellectual acknowledgement of divine truths. Intimacy of relationship, not merely a rational response, is the ideal expected by Paul when he refers to the Spirit dwelling in the believer. The sense of privilege but also of challenge for believe...

In Romans, Paul uses the Greek term sarx (translated variously as ‘flesh’, ‘sinful nature’ or ‘human nature’) on several occasions but in different ways, the difference in use being particularly notable in chapter 8. Sometimes, it refers to the characteristic of being human (Rom. 1:3; 4:1; 8:3; 9:5, 8), and human effort (Gal. 3:3).  However, on other occasions, it is clear that he is using flesh , not to refer to the physical body and mortality, but to describe something much more malevolent and malignant that militates against God in a way that makes it inseparable from sin; indeed, the term ‘sin’ is often synonymous with ‘the flesh’ (8:4–9, 12–13; 13:14).  In this respect, to live a life dominated by sin is equivalent to living a life controlled by the flesh. It is as if flesh and sin gang up on the believer and make it difficult to live as a follower of Jesus—so difficult that one wonders how it can be achieved.  It is in this context that the Spirit, who was mentione...

Believers are not only to avoid following the dictates of the flesh, but also to remember that the law is no longer  their guide, for the Spirit is their superior mentor. When he speaks of the law, Paul often, as in Romans 7:4–16, refers to the OT law, in particular, the Torah.  This was prescribed by God for his covenant people to set the standard for lifestyle; failure to keep it was covered by the sacrificial system. Ongoing sacrifices to cover sins are no longer necessary, since the sacrificial death of Jesus has atoned for the sins of the world.  In Romans 2:29, Paul acknowledges that the law confirms the racial identity of the Jew, particularly demonstrated by a physical surgical operation (circumcision). However, since the death of Jesus, the Spirit marks the spiritual identity of the members of a renewed Israel, as prophesied (Jer. 31:3–34; Ezek. 11:19; 36:26–27; 37:1–14), confirmed by spiritual internal surgery, not external circumcision (Rom. 1:21; 2:15; 5:5; 6:...

The Miracle of Enoch’s Translation Genesis 5:19-24; Hebrews 11:5. Coming to the brief yet blessed biography of Enoch, we discover that everything about his testimony and translation is miraculous. The first mention of this saint is in Genesis 5, a register of births and deaths and a chapter of remarkable longevity.  If we add together the lifespan of those who are named, we have a period of 8,575 years. Enoch had the shortest lifespan, 365 years, and his son Methuselah lived 969 years—31 years short of a millennium. The testimony of Enoch. The unstained testimony of this patriarch was a miracle of grace. The Enoch we are considering, the son of Jared, must not be confused with a previous Enoch, Cain’s eldest son (Genesis 4:17, 18). (1) He walked with God. Twice over we have the phrase, “he walked with God” (Genesis 5:22, 24). The repetition emphasises how conspicuous this phase of his character was. Although Enoch begat sons and daughters, he did not find family ties...