The Main Thing

Jesus. Nothing else. Full stop.


Stephen Covey said something in his book, ‘The 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People’ back in 1989 that it made a lasting impression on me, “Keep the main thing the main thing.” So much so, that 37 years later I still remember it!

It’s good advice for a business and for a life – but when it comes to the gospel, keeping the main thing the main thing isn’t a productivity principle. It’s the difference between good news and no news at all.

Unlike in 1989 we now live in a world of infinite options. Netflix asks you what you’re in the mood for and makes surprising suggestions based on your algorithm (who knew we’d ever have such a pernicious thing?) Even the coffee shop dangling it hook with it’s subtle smell of roasted coffee beans wants to know your milk preference, your size, your temperature, your syrup.

Everything is customisable. Everything can be added to. And without noticing, we bring that same instinct to the gospel. A little moral improvement here. A spiritual discipline required there. The right language, the right tribe, the right level of visible progress. And the message that was once dangerously simple starts to look like everything else. Complicated. Conditional. Exhausting. Tried and found wanting.

Paul saw it and he didn’t reach for diplomacy. “I am astonished (big frown, raised eyebrows and a blank stare of bewildered amazement) that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel, not that there is another one” (Galatians 1:6-7). Not a weaker gospel. Not a gospel under renovation needing a few tweaks. A different thing entirely, dressed in the same badly fitting clothes.

Here’s the thing about addition. It always feels like faithfulness. Like you’re taking grace seriously enough to build on it. But you cannot build on what is already complete. No DIY skills necessary.  The moment anything else enters the equation as a condition of your standing before God, you haven’t strengthened the gospel. You’ve replaced it.

Tullian Tchividjian, Billy Graham’s grandson, put it in a way that’s worth memorising; Jesus plus nothing equals everything. Jesus plus something equals nothing. That’s not clever spin. That’s the internal logic of the cross. The atonement is not partial. The justification is not provisional. The righteousness you stand in is not yours with some divine assistance. It is his. Entire. Given freely. Received by faith alone.

The person who hears that, really hears it, with nothing added and nothing required beyond Christ himself, that person has encountered something with actual power in it. The person who hears Christ plus their performance, their consistency, their spiritual temperature, they’ve been handed a weight none of us were built to carry. Which is, of course, if the story is told correctly, exactly why he carried it.

Keep the gospel chit-chat simple, and no matter how inadequate you feel it went, trust the Holy Spirit to apply that message to a Spirit-softened heart. Keep it uncluttered, not because simplicity is trendy like the look of my friend Christina’s new kitchen, but because the gospel has always been one thing.

Christ. And him crucified. He is the main thing.

Prophets Without Borders

Prophetic

Fasten your seat belt…

Prophetic
Grab your coffee, put your cat or dog out and say to God, “Hineni – Here I am.”

Here we go. Peter stands up in Acts 2 and does something bold and radical. He doesn’t try to explain away what’s happening around them; the noise and bewilderment, including the optics – seeing tongues of fire resting on everyone’s head. He just quotes Joel.

“In the last days, God says, I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh, and your sons and daughters will prophesy.”

All flesh. Not all Jewish flesh. Not all theologically trained flesh. Not all flesh that sounds like us or worships like us or comes from where we come from. All of it. Nothing is locked down. With eyes wide open, Joel saw this coming eight centuries before Pentecost, and Peter recognises it the moment the ball lands at their feet – the Spirit of prophecy is going, has gone, global, and nothing is going to contain it.

2026 is barely half way through. Haven’t we had enough challenges in last few years? Well let me fill your plate.

I want to suggest that we have a prophetic poverty problem in the Western church, and it’s largely self-inflicted. We’ve curated our prophetic input from a remarkably small pool – same streams, same conferences, same cultural post  codes. And we’ve called it discernment. What it often actually is, is comfort. Sip your coffee and let me ramble on a bit…

The unknown brother in Nigeria isn’t a lesser prophet waiting for Western validation. The unknown sister interceding in the underground church in Iran isn’t a footnote to the real story. You probably know more stories than me, without mentioning names and places. They are the fulfilment of Joel’s words. They are the ‘all flesh’ that Peter stood up and declared. God is speaking through them – with weight, with precision, with a perspective on his kingdom that we simply cannot generate from inside our own safe, cultural moment.

What we lose when we ignore that is not just breadth. We lose accuracy. Prophetic ministry that only ever reflects one cultural lens will eventually start to mistake that lens for the gospel itself. It happens slowly. It’s happening now in places. The encouragement is, a heart that is open to such distant challenge is a heart that draws on the providence of God for him to begin connecting those dots, opportunities, destiny.

Something else is happening too. And it matters more.

There is a rising sense – felt across multiple streams (not just Catalyst or NewFrontiers), multiple continents, multiple generations of intercessors who don’t know each other – that we are on the edge of a revelation of Christ and His purposes brought by genuine, authentic prophetic ministry that the church has not yet seen. An exhilarating fresh breath being blown into in the lungs of the prophetic community. Not a new Christ. The same Christ; but an astonishing unveiling of his rightful, immeasurable supremacy, his glory, his absolute Lordship over all creation, in a measure that will produce something we’ve largely lost: genuine awe, wonder and delight. The kind that makes you fall silent before you fall to your knees or lay on the carpet.

This is what authentic prophetic ministry is for. Not platform. Not personality. Not the ambiguous impressionism that we all know about, the elephant in the room nobody wants to name: social media. Instead, Holy Spirit-imparted revelation, carried by men and women who have been with God, that points – always, without deviation or wobbling – to the overwhelming, stunning glory of Jesus Christ. Isaiah testifies, “I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up; and the train of his robe filled the temple.”

In response Amos insists, “The lion has roared; who will not fear? The Lord God has spoken; who can but prophesy?” The Lion of Judah has roared – is roaring – will roar. The prophetic community doesn’t manufacture that sound. They carry it. Why? Because they’ve heard it.

When those Spirit-inspired words land – when genuine, cross-cultural, Christ-exalting prophetic ministry comes together in the gathered church – what it produces, is not hype or emotional manipulation. It produces worship. Undistracted, focused, costly worship, accompanied by faith that acts, courage that steps forward, obedience that doesn’t negotiate, and a servant-heartedness that makes the watching world stop and stare.

Joel’s vision was never a metaphor. It was a mandate. All flesh. Every nation. It’s nothing less than the whole earth filling with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.

Absolutely, we’re not there yet, but… the Lion has roared. And across this round earth, in languages we don’t speak, through vessels we haven’t noticed, the prophets are answering.