It was prophesied of Jesus that He would be a comforting figure to all peoples. His comforting nature is undoubtedly easy to enjoy and appreciate. However, it was also prophesied (in the same text) that He would be a sword piercing through one’s very soul. In other words, there would be pain involved in following this Messiah. This piercing aspect …

According to Isaiah 55, God's ways and thoughts are “higher than our ways.” This stark contrast between God and man's perspectives raises a profound question: how do we navigate a God who operates in ways that are so different from our own? How do we handle a God who is beyond our understanding and control? Can we ever find comfort in a God who is …

Steal. Kill. Destroy. To this day, these are still the Satanic agendas of the Devil towards all people, and indeed the people of God. Scripture teaches numerous ways to stand against the negative influences of the Devil. However, our Lord Jesus Christ Himself modeled for us four things to inoculate us against the Satanic. These are humility, connec…

Committing to our promises is a matter of integrity on a human level. However, on the spiritual plane, our self-imposed vows, promises, and commitments to God often lead to burnout in our performance-driven spirituality. The fulfillment of our promises to others is important, but we must question the origin of our supposed promises to God. Are they…

Our spiritual lives flourish in a healthy rhythm of intentional faith in God. This faith in God fortifies our inward man into the realities of the "kingdom of the heavens." However, it's possible that our outer manifestations may not always align with our inward realities in God. This discrepancy is not a cause for alarm. We are not at a loss, as t…

The greatest sermon in Christendom, the so-called "Sermon On The Mount," perplexes many believers for its impossible standards of spirituality. And herein lies an unknown fact: it's not a sermon for us to live up to, but rather a description of Christ Jesus Himself. Instead of imitating the beatitudes, Francois teaches that Christ alone––who Himsel…

A deeper reading of the New Testament will reveal that Christ is not simply asking us to believe in Him versus other deities but to unite with His Person experientially because of faith. This experiential aspect of faith is crucial, because New Testament faith is not simply to believe in God at a distance, but rather for faith to realize God into o…

Even in our spiritual lives, we all have agendas, some of which may be hidden. It's important to take a moment and reflect on these motives. Francois, in a discussion around the breakfast table with fellow believers, suggests a series of questions we can ask ourselves in God’s presence. These questions can help us uncover any flawed motives we may …

As we grow spiritually in Christ Jesus, we will also be taught by Him how to posture ourselves in God's presence. We cannot have a cavalier attitude before God any more than we have one in the presence of human dignitaries. In Matthew 17, we see how Peter acted foolishly and naive in God's presence. At a minimum, we can learn three protocols from P…

Essentially, every religion recognizes that something is wrong with us that needs correction. What differentiates religions is their methodologies for the reformation of our person. As a New Testament believer in Jesus Christ, it’s tempting to presume this is also true in the Christian life. Pursuing good and avoiding evil, according to our unrenew…

Our God is a speaking God. But can His children accept His limited speaking when He doesn’t exhaustively explain Himself? Instead of listening to what the Lord says to us specifically, we often fixate on what He doesn’t tell us. This desire to know more than we need to is a fundamental problem in our trusting relationship with God. Many of Francois…

From the moment of our spiritual birth, God begins a lifelong process of influencing His children with His holiness. Holiness, essentially, is just God Himself added to our person. Holiness is more than just “behavioral improvement spirituality.” Holiness is also the reconstitution of our inner man. It’s not just about our outward person but even m…

It’s undeniably a wonderful thing to get saved as an individual. However, this remarkable experience can intensify when we learn to live in a communal setting. That “communal” setting is revealed as the Body of Christ in the New Testament. Paul explains the Church less as an organization and more as an organism. Although he borrowed the word “churc…

The spirituality of the New Testament has one focus: Jesus Christ. However, the first-century believers got just as distracted from their focus on Christ as many of us do today. In fact, numerous letters in the New Testament were intentionally written to distracted believers, persuading them back to a singular focus on their Lord. Like a chameleon,…

Solomon said it best, “Of making many books there is no end, and much study is wearisome to the flesh.” However, one particular book has stood the test of time when it comes to boosting one’s spiritual life. Surprisingly, this “best seller” has been frustrating and intimidating for many throughout the ages. In this message, Francois presents God’s …

At the core of practical spirituality are an Athenian poet’s words that Paul quotes in his ministry to them. “In him, we live and move and have our being.” What rendering of the spiritual life could be more profound than these simple words by a Grecian poet, no less! However, there are countless hindrances to this “living and moving and being” rhyt…

When Jesus invited us to become like “little children,” He was inviting us into a spirituality of simplicity. Children, and notably older people, thrive on simplicity. It seems that for many of us who are neither children nor elderly, complexity is the name of the game when it comes to knowing God. But is complexity God’s requirement of the spiritu…

Spiritual simplicity is not something many of God’s children are comfortable with. Like the religionists of Jesus’ day, we erroneously suppose that to walk with God and to love Him with sincere devotion requires complexity. Complexity was the Pharisee’s view of religion. It was also that of the Gnostic Philosophers of the second century onwards. It…

When God created the first man, Adam, He breathed into him His very breath. Divinity and humanity mingled as a pattern of what God wanted to do with every human since. The Bible narrates numerous instances of God breathing Himself into humans. It's important for us to see the thread of God's breath throughout the Scriptures as motivation to open up…

Everything we need to live the overcoming life will spontaneously manifest in our lives as we continue to abide in Christ. The harder we work to manifest certain victories, the more elusive those breakthroughs will be. The more we focus on the overcoming process, the more frustrated we become with our failures. Why is it so challenging to live vict…

Spiritual victory should not be as elusive as many suppose it is. Especially victory over our sins––what we have done––and victory over sin––who we are. Regarding our acts of sin, Christ made us victors through His blood that took away that sin in His forgiveness. Regarding our person of sin, Christ crucified us with Him. Therefore, to live in spir…

There is an aspect of the spiritual life that the spiritual mystics of old explained well. In our days, we call it “surrender.” They called it “the dark night of the soul" in their era. The Psalmist refers to it as the “death of God’s saints.” What does it intrinsically mean to “surrender?” What is the spiritual calibration of a person who says he …

We do not need to read far into the Psalms to see a frustrated man, angry, vengeful, hopeless, bitter, and deeply hurting. David wasn’t afraid to expose the uglinesses of his inner condition before God in prayer and song. We can learn from David what it means to be raw and honest before God. He had no pretentiousnesses or denials before God. He was…

Jesus alluded to prayer as the house of God for all nations. Apparently, God was not satisfied with the services of religion. He wanted more! He wanted to gather His children into His arms as might a father his own family. Have we complicated prayer by making it a transactional encounter with God? Could prayer be as simple as allowing God to dwell …

A most outstanding benefit of our salvation is intimate communion with God. Can anything be sweeter than to walk and talk with the Lover of our souls? Why, then, is prayer such a burden for many of us? Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual formation school called LEGACY School Of Discipleship. The school’s empha…

Believers often resist the devil and all known Satanic influences and seldom see change. Believers clothe themselves in the armor of God to stand against the enemy and find that life remains a struggle and circumstances rarely change. Are believers to conclude that they are defeated and lack authority and victory in Christ? Does the ease of our cir…

Does authority in God mean we are invincible? Does it mean we are greater than Jesus, who, when tempted to jump from the temple, remained within the confines of His humanity, even though He was fully divine and wholly capable of jumping without getting hurt? Does authority mean we always get what we want, when we want, without fail? The boundaries …

Yes, believers have been granted authority over Satanic influences. Therefore, we can resist the devil and restrict his power in our lives. But what happens when we rebuke and resist the Satanic and nothing happens? Does that mean that we have lost our authority in Christ? Does it mean we are not yet free? Does darkness prevail when things don’t ch…

Knowing God is the key to authority in God. Faith is the turning of that key. The more we understand who God is, what He has done in the Messiah, and how He realizes Himself into us through the Holy Spirit, the more we will experience victory in Christ. Victory is very much an issue of knowing and believing. Many of Francois’ messages are delivered…

What do you do when you sense there is an assignment against you from the realm of darkness? How do you go about the overcoming Christian life when temptation knocks on your door? How do you gain God’s authority in areas where sin seems so pervasive? The answer may surprise you. Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within the context of a spiri…

The reality of spiritual victory and authority is based on the principle of identification with Christ, not the imitation of Christ. Victory, authority, and the overcoming life are facts from God’s perspective. To experience God’s those facts necessitates our identification with Jesus Christ. Through His grace and our faith in Him, His authority be…

Lesson number one to live an overcoming life is not to focus on Satan! Our union with Christ constitutes us as overcomes, not our fixation on the works of darkness. This message starts a series of messages on the reality of spiritual authority in the believer’s life. Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual formati…

Spiritual growth happens best when we remain under the Lord’s direct influence. Our spiritual growth can be imminently stunted when we succumb to the culture’s influence. It takes immense focus on our part to stay within the leading of God. But when we do, growth and transformation will accompany that focus organically. Many of Francois’ messages a…

If you do this to God, you might find that your spiritual life will begin to lose its vitality. Instead, do precisely the opposite, and you might experience an ongoing rhythm with God that is fantastic. Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual formation school called LEGACY School Of Discipleship. The school’s emph…

It is erroneous to presume that the spiritual life is entirely a matter upon our shoulders. It’s just as wrong to think it’s all on God. The Scriptures teach a mystical union between God and man, not God replacing man or vice versa. Ingrafted spirituality means that man is ingrafted into God by the Holy Spirit, yet he remains a man with all the fac…

The New Testament uses a complex term to describe the condition of our person before God because of Christ. That term is “righteousness.” But what does it mean to be righteous before God? Even more, what should our spiritual experience be now that we’re righteous? In this message, four (4) word pictures are explained to describe the depth of the te…

No matter how long you have walked with God, there is always more of God to discover, experience, and enjoy. So what does a believer do with his insatiable desire to go “deeper” with God? Must he acquire more religious practices to go deeper with God? Must he know more truths? What exactly does it mean to go deeper with God anyway? This message mig…

The Holy Spirit is just as available to us as He was for those in the first century. We can likewise experience His nourishing supply and His dynamic empowerment. What did those early believers do to gain more of the Holy Spirit in their experience? What did Jesus have to say about it? Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within the context of …

All throughout Scripture, some men and women were undeniably God's friends. They knew Him well. They loved Him wholeheartedly. They obeyed Him sacrificially. It's because of God's friends that we have the privilege of knowing God ourselves. Will we, too, become the friends of God now that we know Him? Many of Francois’ messages are delivered within…

God deposited a mystical testimony deep within a person’s spirit who has been born of the Holy Spirit. While we cannot see that testimony with our natural eye, we can nevertheless experience it. We can grow in that inner testimony. However, we can also hinder that testimony from growing within us if we maintain a lifestyle out of sync with God’s Sp…

God's burden is to redeem sinners and introduce them to the realities of a brand new life in Him. However, He is not intent on pampering our flesh in the process of sanctification. In fact, God has a grim view of our flesh. While religion may emphasize our flesh in the growth process, God does not. He calls for its denial, not its dominion, termina…

The Bible is full of miraculous accounts where God showed up in supernatural ways in people’s lives. There is one account, however, that is rich in the miraculous, although in unexpected ways. There were certain men selected to take care of feeding people bread. It’s a tedious and mundane job, but not for these men. They dared to believe God could …

The spiritual man has learned to see things from God’s perspective. Jesus was such a person. At one time, He said of a little girl that was dead, “she is only sleeping.” The crowd must have thought Him crazy. And we will as well unless we learn to see things the way He does. Many of Francois' messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual…

There was a man once who thought that his fleshly abilities could serve the purposes of God just fine. However, he was in for a rude awakening when God surprisingly crippled him. God did not cripple him to punish him. Instead, God touched him to transform him. To be a part of God’s purposes requires a transformed man of the Spirit, not a capable ma…

Sooner or later, the spiritual man has to learn that encountering God is not confined to “green pastures” only. Life is not a perpetual “green pasture” experience for anyone on this planet! Life can be downright difficult, especially when we lose the controlled predictability thereof. The Bible tells the narrative of a man who encountered God, not …

The Bible is replete with stories of men and women who had life-changing encounters with God. In fact, their effectiveness in life often sprung from their unique encounter with God that altered them as individuals. For example, in Genesis chapter two, we have such an encounter already when God put Adam to sleep. Many of Francois' messages are deliv…

There are numerous spiritual dynamics that the teachings of men cannot impart into the core of your being. In other words, God would like to teach specific aspects of the spiritual life to you directly. After all, He is an excellent teacher, and it is your birthright in God to learn from Him. For example, have you learned from God about the things …

In Matthew 5, Jesus confronts the culture of His day with seven indictments. It’s not too difficult to discern that the very things He spoke out against are the same things still hindering us from coming into the fullness of His Kingdom’s reality. Our traditions are as cemented into our culture as was theirs! Will Jesus’ alternative approach to hum…

Jesus was very discerning that people do not need more religious formulas. What they needed was a relationship with His Father. And so, instead of teaching more religious jargon, He cut straight to the core of interaction with God, who ached to be known as a Father. Many of Francois' messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual formatio…

In this continuing message on inward spiritual “stability,” Francois shares several principles we have to pay attention to for the realization of this inward “stability.” Many of Francois' messages are delivered within the context of a spiritual formation school called LEGACY School Of Discipleship. The school's emphasis is to be trained within the…