Firm Foundation Focus

In this episode of What Is He Building?, we follow the story from Cain’s city to Babel and see what humanity bearing Adam’s nature is capable of building while living independently from God. Cain’s descendants raise livestock, make music and work with metal, Nimrod establishes a kingdom, and at Babel humanity brings its knowledge, skill and ability together in its own version of oneness, building from its own resources and saying, “Let us make a name for ourselves.”We look at the hierarchical systems that develop within human civilisation, the ancient background of Babel and the ziggurat, and the question of source: where did this come from, and who initiated it? We also ask what it means when the Father places His sons inside systems He did not originate but is well able to use for His purposes, before the story turns towards Abram and the extraordinary contrast between humanity’s “Let us make” and God’s “I will make.”Listener Guide - ⁠⁠https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharing⁠The ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by ⁠Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers.⁠ ESV Text Edition: 2025.

In this second episode of What Is He Building?, we go back to Adam, whom Luke calls “the son of God,” and ask what it means that he was created in Their image and likeness. We look at image as representation, likeness as resemblance, and why understanding ourselves as spirit, soul and body helps us see where Their image is borne in us.We look at the Tree of Life in Genesis and what it reveals about God’s intention that man would receive his life from Him, bringing us into Christ as Life. From there, we come to Adam’s Declaration of Independence and what entered the human race through him, before seeing that same independence appear in the next generation through Cain, who goes out from the presence of the Lord and builds a city.Listener Guide - ⁠https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingThe ESV® Bible (The Holy Bible, English Standard Version®), © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. ESV Text Edition: 2025.

In this opening episode of What Is He Building?, we begin to open up many of the things I talked about in the Feature Episode, 'An Ox in the Ford,' beginning where I believe we always have to begin: before the foundation of the world, with the question you have heard me ask many times on Focus, what have They always wanted?We look at the purpose that was already in the Father, in Christ, before Adam, before sin and before anything needed fixing. Romans 8 speaks of the Son as the Firstborn among many brothers, and Jesus says, “I will build My church.” He is building people because He has a certain kind of person that He is after. He is building someone because He is building something.Listener Guide - https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAmplified Bible, Classic Edition (AMPC) Copyright © 1954, 1958, 1962, 1964, 1965, 1987 by The Lockman Foundation

In this special Feature Episode of Focus, I’m sharing the message I gave at Oasis Church in Portsmouth on Sunday 9 August 2026, An Ox in the Ford. Over recent months, the Father has been developing my understanding of building, and I’ve found myself returning again to the words of Jesus, “I will build My church.” What did He actually mean? And what kind of people is He preparing through whom He can accomplish what He intends?Beginning with Nehemiah and the rebuilding of Jerusalem, and moving through the picture of an ox carrying a load through a ford, I share some of what I have been processing with Him about the preparation of the person, Christ being formed in us, and the Father developing sons who can carry the load. This message has become part of what I’m continuing to process on Focus, and I share it with you for your encouragement as Holy Spirit continues His work of growing, developing and maturing the new man.

In the final episode of our In Christ series, we come to the question at the end of Watchman Nee’s chapter: How are we actually in Christ? We discover the significance of believing INTO Christ, being baptised INTO Christ, and Paul’s extraordinary statement that it is from God that we have our life in Christ Jesus. We also look at unbelief as the resistance of self to what the Father has already declared to be true, before finishing with Hudson Taylor’s discovery in John 15:5: Jesus never said that one day you might become a branch, He said, “You are the branches.” The Father has placed you into Christ, Christ Himself is your life, and whatever is Christ’s is also yours. The question is whether we will believe Him and come into agreement with what our Father says is already true of us in His Son. Workbook link (series 26): https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingThis series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What kind of love is Paul talking about when he says that nothing can separate us from the love of God? In this episode, we continue reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross as we explore the difference between agape and eros, why so many believers still live from the wrong source, and how the Father has brought us into the very relationship that His Son has always enjoyed with Him. This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What if everything the Father has ever desired to give you is already found in Christ? In this episode, we continue reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross as Watchman Nee shows us that redemption, forgiveness, justification and sanctification are all found in one place: in Him. This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, but what does that really mean? Continuing through chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross, we discover that the Father's verdict over the old man has never changed. Self remains under the same sentence, yet the new man, born from above and one with Christ, has never stood under condemnation because the Father has already placed us into His Son.We also explore why Holy Spirit will never help self live the life of Christ, how victory rests upon what the Father has already declared rather than what we feel, and why the renewed mind learns to agree with the mind of Christ instead of the mindset of self. As our thinking comes into agreement with the Father's Word, we begin drawing upon the victory that has already been accomplished in ChristThis series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

For many believers, the words in Christ are very familiar, yet few have stopped to consider what they really mean. In this episode, we begin reading chapter two of The Messenger of the Cross by Watchman Nee and discover the Father's solution to the problem of Adam.Rather than improving what belonged to Adam, the Father placed us into His Son, where everything He intended to do for us has already been accomplished. We explore what it means that all is in Christ, why faith receives what the Father has already done, and how we begin appropriating what is already ours in Him.This series draws from Chapter 2, “In Christ,” in Watchman Nee's The Messenger of the Cross, published by Christian Fellowship Publishers.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this third episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we ask three questions. Who determines the people in our lives? What should our encouragement strengthen? And why has the Father given us one another? As we answer those questions, we discover a completely different way of relating to one another, where Christ stands between us, the Father determines every relationship, and every word we speak is there to strengthen what He is already accomplishing in another person's life.As Christ is being more fully formed in us, we begin seeing people from the Father's point of view, learning to agree with the Father's words because we don't want to say anything He isn't saying and hinder what He is already doing in another son. We also discover why the Father has given us one another, so that He can speak His living Word through us, giving courage to continue with Him and leaving every son more firmly established with the Father.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this second episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we expose why flattery is so attractive to the flesh, and why Paul immediately recognised what was happening in the churches of Galatia. Beginning in the Garden of Eden, we trace the origin of flattery through the nature of Adam, discovering how it changes the way we speak, reveals the genuine needs the flesh is still trying to meet, is driven by self interest and ultimately works ruin. We discover why counterfeit encouragement creates unhealthy dependency, toxic relationships and a life that looks to people for what the Father has always intended to give Himself.Are you in the early days of sonship, where the Father is beginning to expose the flesh and you are just starting to wake up as a son and see it as He sees it? Is there somebody whose approval you long for? Do you find yourself looking for their validation, hoping they will notice you, encourage you or affirm you? Do their words have the power to lift you up or leave you discouraged? Do you find yourself going back to them because there is something in you that still needs what they are giving?Or are you further along the spectrum of sonship, where the Father has already brought many of these things into the light, and now you are finding that flattery is coming after you in a different way? Are you beginning to recognise when somebody has a hidden agenda? Can you discern the difference between someone who is strengthening what the Father is already doing in your life and someone who is trying to win you over? When somebody encourages you, do you find yourself looking more to the Father than to the person who spoke? Does that encouragement simply confirm what the Father has already been saying and doing in your life?About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

Paul warns the Galatians about people who were making much of them, paying court to them and trying to dazzle them. But why did he react so strongly? What did he see that they couldn't yet see? As we place Galatians 4:17 back into its setting, we discover that Paul wasn't simply listening to flattering words. He could see where these teachers were leading people. They wanted to draw these young believers away from the freedom they had found in Christ and back towards themselves.In this opening episode of A Different Breed of Encouragement, we begin by asking what it really means to "make much of people," why flattery and encouragement are not the same thing, why flattery so often comes after sons who are awakening to who they are in Christ, and how Jesus immediately recognised the same hidden motives when the religious leaders came to flatter Him in Luke chapter 20.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

As we come to the final episode of Walking in the Spirit, we return to one of the most life-changing truths in The Normal Christian Life: God has only one answer to every human need, His Son. Through the gospel, we have been taken out of Adam and placed into Christ, receiving His life, His nature, and His indwelling presence. Looking back over the themes of this series, Watchman Nee brings us to the practical outworking of that reality and asks a simple question: do we know Holy Spirit as a living Person, and do we know Him as Boss?Through Nee’s story of a newly converted couple in China, we explore the confidence that both Nee and the apostles had in the indwelling Christ and the resident Holy Spirit. The early church did not depend upon constant supervision, endless teaching programmes, or human oversight. They trusted that Holy Spirit would teach, guide, sustain, and mature the sons of God. Along the way, we consider the difference between the apostolic gospel and much of what passes for gospel preaching today, and why the greatest need of the church remains exactly what it was in the first century: a fresh revelation of the indwelling Christ.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode of Walking in the Spirit, we begin the final section of Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life by Watchman Nee and spend some time looking at a word that Paul uses repeatedly in Romans 8: walk. Nee draws attention to the fact that Paul tells us to walk after the Spirit, and that immediately raises a question. Why walk? Why not work, strive, achieve, accomplish, or produce?As we work through the passage, we look at the difference between a walk and a work, between trying to do something for God and learning to live in dependence upon Holy Spirit. Romans 8 presents the Christian life as something very different from self-improvement, religious effort, or personal determination. The life of a son begins with dependence and continues in dependence. The Father never intended us to produce the Christian life for Him. He gave us Christ as our life, and Holy Spirit is committed to bringing that life into expression as we learn to walk with Him.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What does Watchman Nee mean by hypocrisy and playacting?In this episode of Walking in the Spirit, Alex continues through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life and opens up a conversation around two words that have stayed with him since first reading this section: hypocrisy and playacting. They are words we usually associate with religion, pretence, and putting on a show for others, but Nee uses them in a way that reaches much deeper than that.As the conversation unfolds, Alex reflects on the difference between trying to live the Christian life and allowing the life of Christ to be expressed through us. Drawing from Colossians 3, personal experience, and Nee's teaching on the law of life, he explores why so much of Christian living can become an effort to maintain an appearance, and why the Father's intention has always been something far greater than behaviour management. The issue is never whether we can imitate Christ well enough, but whether we are trusting the life that He has already placed within us.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

What does it mean to be harnessed by Holy Spirit?In this episode of Walking in the Spirit, Alex opens up a conversation around a picture that has become increasingly real in his own life over recent months. Drawing from Watchman Nee, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, and personal experience, he reflects on the tendency to become involved in situations simply because we care about people, have an opinion, or believe we can help. Yet Holy Spirit is already at work, already dealing with hearts, already arranging circumstances, and already accomplishing what He intends to accomplish.As the conversation unfolds, Alex considers Bonhoeffer's observation that Christ stands between every believer, and why there are places in another person's walk with the Father that do not belong to us. The challenge is learning to recognise what Holy Spirit is doing, identify with Him, and remain within the measure He has given, rather than stepping beyond it with the very best of intentions.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

Habakkuk declared that the earth would be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.Here's my question: what if much of our talk about the glory of God, and much of our pursuit of the glory of God, has never been preceded by a clear understanding of what, or rather who, the glory of God actually is?"There is certainly no shortage of teaching on glory. There is no shortage of pursuit of glory. We sing about it, pray for it, preach about it, and long to see it. Yet over the last few years, as the Father has been teaching me to live as a son, He has also been showing me Who His glory is.In this Feature Episode, I want to challenge some deeply held assumptions and ask whether we have built our understanding from the substance, or from the shadows that pointed towards it. When Paul talks about the glory of God, who is he talking about? When John talks about the glory of God, who is he talking about? When the writer of Hebrews talks about the glory of God, who is he talking about?And if the New Testament writers are all pointing to the same answer, what does that do to our understanding of Habakkuk's prophecy that the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea?Download the 'Companion Workbook' herePart One: Who Is The Glory Of God? (00:28)Part Two: How Is That Glory Revealed Throughout The Scriptures? (13:54)Part Three: Where Is The Glory Now? (29:06)Part Four: How Does The Knowledge Of His Glory Fill The Earth? (41:18)About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this more conversational and slightly messy episode of Walking in the Spirit, Alex shares some personal reflections after reading another section from Chapter 10 of Watchman Nee's The Normal Christian Life. What begins with Nee's comments about Bible reading soon opens up a much bigger conversation about consistency, why so many of us start things and never finish them, and why determination always seems to run out eventually.Using his own experiences with Bible reading plans, unfinished projects, and the constant cycle of enthusiasm followed by exhaustion, Alex reflects on a simple but challenging question: if there is no consistency in the self life, where does true consistency come from? This episode is an honest and unscripted conversation about spiritual hunger, the life of Christ within us, and learning to trust the One who remains consistent when we are not.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We genuinely want to please God, and because we genuinely want to please Him, we have spent years believing that the answer must somehow be found in becoming a better version of ourselves. So we watch our behaviour, analyse our failures, measure our progress, make fresh commitments when we fall short, and then wonder why the Christian life feels exhausting. In this episode, we continue through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life as Watchman Nee exposes the role of will-power in the Christian life and shows why so many sincere believers remain trapped in repeated failure, discouragement and self-condemnation.Nee reminds us that the law of the Spirit of life is not something new that God is waiting to give us. It is a fresh unveiling of what has already been given through Christ. Together we explore why self-management interferes with the law of life, why so much of church culture keeps turning our attention back onto ourselves, and why the Father's answer is remarkably simple: let go of confidence in self and trust the life that already dwells within through our oneness with Holy Spirit.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode, we continue through Watchman Nee's teaching on the law of the Spirit of life and begin looking more closely at the law of sin and death. Nee shows that our problem reaches much deeper than individual failures. The law of sin and death continually finds expression through the flesh, through all those familiar patterns by which we learned to meet our own needs independently from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.Nee then brings us to the Father's answer. One law is overcome by another law. Just as the life within a tree can lift paving stones that seem immovable, Holy Spirit brings the life of Christ into expression within us through the law of the Spirit of life. At the same time, Holy Spirit applies the reality of the Cross to the flesh, separating the son from the flesh by the law of the Spirit of life. The death side and the life side of the Cross work simultaneously together as Christ Himself becomes the source of our living. About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode, we begin exploring Watchman Nee's teaching on “The Law of the Spirit of Life” from Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life. Nee shows that the Christian life is governed by spiritual laws just as surely as the natural world is. The law of sin and death continually draws us back into self-reliance, while the law of the Spirit of life works through Holy Spirit to bring the life of Christ into expression within us.We also spend time looking at the mind of the flesh and the mind of Christ. Drawing from Romans 8, 1 Corinthians 2, and Hebrews 12, we consider where weariness, discouragement, condemnation, and burnout really begin. The writer of Hebrews says, “Just think of Him,” because the mind of Christ never loses confidence in the Father. As we learn to turn our attention away from ourselves and toward Christ, we begin discovering the liberty Nee is describing throughout this chapter.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

As we continue through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life, we begin uncovering one of the biggest shifts in the Christian life: Christ Himself is the answer to every human need. Holy Spirit has not been given to help self improve itself, but to bring into expression the life of Christ within us. “He is our patience... He is our purity... He is the answer to every need.”This episode also explores Nee’s line, “Christ my life is the secret of enlargement,” and what it means for Holy Spirit to enlarge the inward life of the believer so that Christ can increasingly be expressed through them. Drawing from Isaiah 54 and the enlarging of the tent, we look at how the Father widens our inward capacity before He entrusts greater territory outwardly.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this opening episode of Walking in the Spirit, we begin working through Chapter 10 of The Normal Christian Life and move from the frustration of Romans 7 into the liberty of Romans 8. Many of us understood what it meant to be “in Christ,” while still trying to live the Christian life through self effort, natural strength, and the self life with its fierce independence. But this chapter begins unveiling another way altogether, walking in the Spirit.In this episode we unpack the difference between being “in Christ” and actually walking “in the Spirit,” and begin looking at Galatians 5:17 in a completely different light. This is not a war between Holy Spirit and the new man. We are not our flesh. Holy Spirit has been given to deal with the flesh, while we learn what it means to remain hidden in Christ and depend upon the One who we are joined to in spirit.Definition of the flesh: “Flesh is all of the ways, both good and evil, that I met my own needs, from my own resources, independently from Them (Father, Son and Holy Spirit).”About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 9 today by reading the final section, “Spiritually Receptive,” where Watchman Nee brings everything together around one confronting reality: brokenness opens a person to receive life from the rest of the Body. We look at how an unbroken intellect can leave a believer spiritually untouched for years, even while sitting faithfully in meetings, listening to teachings, and gathering knowledge, because the outward man is still resisting the inward flow of Christ through His people.Alongside Nee’s reading, we continue drawing from Bonhoeffer’s Life Together, looking at the difference between humanly built Christian community and the actual life of the Body through the released spirit. We end with some very serious questions about what we are actually building together, whether we are truly receiving life from one another, and whether much of what we currently call church bears any resemblance to what the Father originally intended for His Son.Questions at the end of the episode:When we gather together, is it actually the Body of Christ expressing the life of the Head, or have we accepted something far below what the Father intended for His Son?Have we built gatherings around personality, intellect, gifting, presentation, charisma, and preference, while the released spirit remains almost completely absent?Are we truly receiving life from one another through the shared Spirit of Christ, or are we simply exchanging information, doctrines, opinions, and polished teachings?When we listen to others speak, are we contacting the spirit, or are we sitting there inwardly analysing, evaluating, comparing, and measuring everything through self?Has intellectual Christianity left us spiritually untouched while convincing us we are deeply mature?Have we become so full of our own understanding, our own preferences, and our own conclusions, that there is almost no openness left in us to receive from the rest of the Body?And honestly, when the Father truly gets what He has always wanted in His Son, a corporate expression of shared life through broken and open vessels, will much of what we currently call church even resemble it at all?About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, moving into Nee’s section on “Mutually Corporate,” where he shows that true Body life only becomes possible through brokenness. A person may be active in church life, deeply involved with people, and passionate about fellowship, and yet still remain inwardly closed because self is still protecting, preserving, reacting, and resisting. Nee shows that only the meek and broken can touch the shared inward life of the Body, because the released spirit becomes open to the common life of Christ flowing through His people.Alongside Nee’s teaching, we also bring in Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s warnings from Life Together about “human” community and the danger of self trying to build Christian fellowship around its own expectations, ideals, and demands. Both men expose the same root issue: self ultimately resists the Father Himself. This episode looks at spiritual sensitivity within the Body, mutual inward awareness among broken sons, and why the outward man must be dealt with if we are going to live together from the mind of the Head rather than from self.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, looking at spiritual receptivity and the openness that begins to appear when the outward man has truly been dealt with. Nee continues showing that a broken person becomes teachable, receptive, easy to help, and able to receive from others without resistance, defensiveness, or the constant need to protect themselves.We gather together many of the hallmarks of meekness and brokenness from these sections, and continue looking at how the Father produces openness, honesty, fellowship, spiritual sensitivity, and receptivity in sons who are learning to live from Their shared life rather than from self.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, looking at another quality of meekness, what Nee describes as being “highly sensitive.” This section focuses on spiritual awareness, responsiveness, and the ability to recognise what is happening around us because the soul is no longer dominating everything through self interest, opinion, reaction, and independence.We talk about dullness, bulldozing ahead with our own ideas, missing what Holy Spirit is saying, and the difference between living from self awareness and living from oneness with Him. A meek son becomes receptive, aware, and responsive because Holy Spirit has worked this sensitivity into them over time through the dealings of the Father.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We begin Chapter 9 of The Release of the Spirit, ‘Meekness and Brokenness’, where Nee starts looking at the qualities found in a broken person. In this first section we talk about being approachable, accessible, open to fellowship, easy to talk with, and willing to receive instruction and correction. Nee shows that when the outward man has been dealt with, people no longer encounter walls, defensiveness, distance, and self preservation every time they come near us.We also begin talking about confession, responsibility, openness with others, and what it means for a son to live openly before the Father and before people, because the self no longer needs to constantly manage its image.Quote from The Blue Letter Bible: “Meekness toward God is that disposition of spirit in which we accept His dealings with us as good, and therefore without disputing or resisting. In the OT, the meek are those wholly relying on God rather than their own strength to defend against injustice. Thus, meekness toward evil people means knowing God is permitting the injuries they inflict, that He is using them to purify His elect, and that He will deliver His elect in His time (Isa 41:17, Luk 18:1–8). Gentleness or meekness is the opposite to self assertiveness and self interest. It stems from trust in God's goodness and control over the situation. The gentle person is not occupied with self at all. This is a work of the Holy Spirit, not of the human will (Gal 5:23).”https://www.blueletterbible.org/lexicon/g4239/kjv/tr/0-1/About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 3 with something very clear. There is a law in how the Father works, and prayer does not change what He is doing. Nee brings it right down to something we can all understand, if you put your hand in the fire, you will get burned. And in the same way, if I continue in independence, holding onto what is in my hand, there are consequences to that, and I can’t pray my way out of it. So the question begins to change, from asking Him to fix things, to recognising what He is doing and why.And this brings us straight back to the same point we’ve been coming to all through this chapter, the inward man must come through the outward. If the outward man is still strong, still holding, still deciding, then what is within stays shut in, and there can be so much going on, and yet very little life. And so there comes a place where it is no longer more prayer, but agreement with Him, placing ourselves under His hand, and allowing Him to do what He has set out to do.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We stay in chapter 3 of The Release of the Spirit, with the focus on the “thing in hand,” and Nee brings in Balaam, which is very exposing. Here is a man recognised as a prophet, someone who speaks on behalf of God, and yet in this moment he cannot see what is right in front of him. The donkey stops because it sees the angel of the Lord standing in the way, and Balaam keeps going until he is forced to stop. That puts everything in the open a man with a recognised place, and yet no sight in the moment.Nee brings this straight back to the person. The “thing in hand” is something being carried that has come from ourselves, something still under our own hand, and because of that, it stands in the way of what He is doing. This reaches into leadership, where what is in hand can be treated as something to use or build with, and yet the question is whether the person themselves has been dealt with. And so there are moments where everything is brought to a halt, and through people and circumstances, what is in hand is exposed, and we are brought back to Him.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

This episode continues Chapter 3 as we read further into The Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee, and I share some very personal reflections alongside the reading. From the illustration of The World’s Strictest Parents, to real-life examples, this shows that He does not circumvent the outward man, He deals with what is coming out of you, your reactions, your decisions, your resistance.We then look more closely at the “thing in hand,” and how easy it is to believe we are doing something for Him, especially when there are visible results, and yet still be the one holding it, sustaining it, and directing it. This leads into the breaking of the will, where independence is exposed at its root, and our ability to decide apart from Him is brought to an end, so that what comes through is truly from Him.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We begin Chapter 3, reading the opening section, Recognising “The Thing in Hand”, where Watchman Nee brings this into something very direct, showing that even after the outward man has been broken, what a person is already holding onto can still stand in the way. This “thing in hand” is whatever is already taking up attention, strength, and response when the Father calls.As this unfolds, he shows how this appears across the mind, the emotions, and the will, where thoughts, affections, and decisions are already occupied, leaving little capacity to respond to Him. This brings it into clear view, raising the question—what is already in your hand, and what answers first when He speaks?About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 2 today by reading the final section, Dividing the Outward from the Inward, and then I share one thought from Hebrews 4:12, where the Word of God, wielded by Holy Spirit, separates soul and spirit and exposes the true source of what is coming out of us.I open up a very personal area from my own life around the need to be seen, how that developed, and how Holy Spirit has dealt with it by bringing truth from within and separating me from what was built in my soul over many years. This is that ongoing work where He holds the self life in a place where it no longer expresses itself, and what comes through is from the inner man, joined to Him.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode, I read the next section of Chapter 2 from The Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee, titled “Launching Out and Retreating,” where Nee describes the unstable pattern of advancing and withdrawing that often marks an unbroken outer man.This section is longer, so I let the reading stand on its own—trusting the One joined to you in spirit to make clear what needs to be seen and understood as you listen.The Release of the Spirit https://dci.org.uk/zipped/ReleaseOfTheSpirit.pdfAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue Chapter 2, opening the section Some Practical Problems. This episode looks at the gap between what can be produced through preparation, thought, and even “revelation,” and what actually carries life, drawing from both the reading and a personal story of the Lord dealing with what was built independently from Him.As this unfolds, the focus comes back to the breaking of the outward man as the first lesson in serving God, where everything we rely on is brought to nothing so that, as Paul writes, “death is at work in us… life… in you,” raising the question—what is actually being released through us?About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We begin Chapter 2, reading the opening section, Before and After Brokenness. This episode looks at what is produced through thought and emotion, and what is released when the outward man has been dealt with, bringing a clear contrast between these two.As this unfolds, we come to the question, which spirit is it?—and the reality that His Spirit and our spirit have become one, as we see the difference between initiating something in self and joining what He is already doing, and His life coming through as the outward man is broken.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We finish Chapter 1 by reading the final section, where Nee identifies two reasons the outer man remains untouched. This brings a direct close to the chapter, helping us recognise what holds this process back and why it continues for so many.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 1, reading The Timing in Our Brokenness and The Meaning of the Cross. This episode is split into two parts, first looking at how the Father carries out this work over time, and then what the Cross is actually doing within us.As this unfolds, it becomes clear that delay in this work affects far more than our own lives, and that the Cross is not only something that has already taken place, but something that is working within us day by day — dealing with the self life so that the spirit can come through. About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We continue through Chapter 1, moving into Nature Has Its Way of Breaking, where Watchman Nee shows that this is something God Himself undertakes through situations and circumstances over time. As we read, I reflect on recognising His hand in these moments, and how easily we can misunderstand what He is doing. This leads into some honest thoughts on prayer ministry, learning to stay with the Father and discern what He is doing in a person’s life, rather than stepping in too quickly and getting in the way of that work. About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

We begin Chapter 1 by reading the opening sections, The Importance of Brokenness and The Inward Man and the Outward Man. As this unfolds, Watchman Nee exposes how much can be done outwardly, even with sincerity, and yet still come from the outer man, leaving the spirit shut in. I share some reflections on how much of our zeal, worship, and activity can come from that place, including the tendency to gather around people and giftings, and why we continue to look for something external when the reality of His indwelling life has already been given. About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

This episode opens a new series working through The Release of the Spirit by Watchman Nee. I introduce where we’re heading, and then read the book’s introduction, which brings us straight into the central theme—why the outer man must be broken for the spirit to be released, and how much of what we call Christian activity can still come from the wrong source.About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this third episode of His Nature, My Nature, Alex takes us into one of the most revealing places of all—what actually comes out of us when pressure hits. Opening with Romans 8:35–39, the focus shifts from the idea of pressure to its purpose: not to separate us from the Father, but to expose the source we are living from. As Paul declares his deep persuasion, formed by revelation, we begin to see that pressure does not create something new—it reveals what is already within. And so the question becomes clear: when the moment comes, when there is no time to manage behaviour or present something polished, what is it that comes out?Through the contrast of Peter and Jesus, this episode brings sharp clarity to the difference between the nature of Adam and the nature of Christ under pressure. Peter speaks with certainty before the moment comes, yet denies when the cost becomes real. Jesus, fully settled in the Father, walks through the same kind of pressure in quiet agreement, with nothing to defend and nothing to protect. And then we see the turning point—Peter in Acts 2, no longer reacting from self, but speaking from a completely new source. This episode draws the line clearly: pressure reveals the nature, and the life of Christ within is the only life that can stand, discern, and go with the Father, whatever comes.Participant Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this episode, Alex continues the series His Nature, My Nature, building on birth determines identity. In John 2, Jesus makes it clear that He knows what is in human nature. Many believed when they saw the signs, yet no change had taken place at the level of nature. What is in man is exposed, not by behaviour alone, but by the source within. From Cain to the Pharisees to Paul, both the evil and the good sides of the same nature lead to the same outcome, because the source remains the same.This episode draws a clear line between the two natures. The old, hostile nature formed in Adam, shaped by the power of sin, and the new nature in Christ, received through new birth. The Cross did not come to improve what was already there, but to bring it to an end and establish an entirely new man. Participant Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this opening episode of a brand new series, Alex introduces the central reality: birth determines identity. If you are born again, then you have received a new origin, a new source, and therefore a completely new nature. Alex traces what happened in Adam, where humanity shifted into independence, self-consciousness, and separation, and contrasts that with what it means to be in Christ—where His life, His nature, and His relationship with the Father have become yours by new birth. This episode brings clarity to identity at its source, showing that what you are comes through birth, and that a new birth introduces an entirely different nature.From there, Alex sets the direction for the series. If His nature is now your nature, then the focus becomes discovering what is already within you and how that life is expressed. This episode establishes that discipleship is the development of what is already present in the new man—the life of Christ being brought into maturity and expression. As the series unfolds, Alex will look closely at Jesus—His relationship with the Father, His responses to people, pressure, and opposition—so that in seeing Him clearly, you begin to recognise what is already true of you and what Holy Spirit is bringing into full expression.Listener Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this Conversation episode of the Focus Podcast, Alex reflects on John 14:23 and the extraordinary promise that the Father and the Son make their home within those who belong to Christ. Sharing from a recent Firm Foundation gathering and drawing on the New Covenant reality of being in Christ, the episode challenges familiar worship language that speaks of inviting God to come and visit His people. Instead, Alex explores the miracle of sonship—that through new birth we share in the Son’s own relationship with the Father and have become the very dwelling place of the Godhead. If the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit already live within and among His people, what does it mean for the way we understand His presence when we gather together? About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this ‘In the Field’ episode from Poland, we confront what happens when self is exposed. Luke 18 shows us that self can justify, self can condemn, and self can stay at the centre in both success and failure. Bonhoeffer calls it a “wish dream,” and he warns that the one who clings to it “stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren.” When self refuses exposure, it blames, it accuses, and it hardens.Sons who have awakened to their sonship do something different. They recognise their flesh patterns. They see when silence is judgment and when distance is accusation. They stop pushing responsibility onto people, circumstances, or the Father, and they own what came out of them. This episode draws a clear line: will you stand adamant as a living reproach — or will you take responsibility as a son?Quote from Life Together (Dietrich Bonhoeffer) “Innumerable times a whole Christian community has broken down because it had sprung from a wish dream. The serious Christian, set down for the first time in a Christian community, is likely to bring with him a very definite idea of what Christian life together should be and to try to realize it. But God's grace speedily shatters such dreams. Just as surely as God desires to lead us to a knowledge of genuine Christian fellowship, so surely must we be overwhelmed by a great disillusionment with others, with Christians in general, and, if we are fortunate, with ourselves.“By sheer grace, God will not permit us to live even for a brief period in a dream world. He does not abandon us to those rapturous experiences and lofty moods that come over u s like a dream. God is not a God of the emotions but the God of truth. Only that fellowship which faces such dis illusionment, with all its unhappy and ugly aspects, begins to be what it should be in God's sight, begins to grasp in faith the promise that is given to it. The sooner this shock of disillusionment comes to an individual and to a community the better for both. A community which cannot bear and cannot survive such a crisis, which insists upon keeping its illusion when it should be shattered, permanently loses in that moment the promise of Christian community. Sooner or later it will collapse. Every human wish dream that is injected into the Christian community is a hindrance to genuine community and must be banished if genuine community is to survive. He who loves his dream of a community more than the Christian community itself becomes a destroyer of the latter, even though his personal intentions may be ever so honest and earnest and sacrificial.God hates visionary dreaming; it makes the dreamer proud and pretentious. The man who fashions a visionary ideal of community demands that it be realized by God, by others, and by himself. He enters the community of Christians with his demands, sets up his own law, and judges the brethren and God Himself accordingly. He stands adamant, a living reproach to all others in the circle of brethren. He  acts as if he is the creator of the Christian community, as if his dream binds men together. When things do not go his way, he calls the effort a failure. When his ideal picture is destroyed, he sees the community going to smash. So he becomes, first an accuser of his brethren, then an accuser of God, and finally the despairing accuser of himself.”About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this ‘In the Field’ episode, I read an entry from Oswald Chambers that exposes something many believers have never questioned — how humility can actually be the voice of good self. We have been taught to admire the tax collector in Luke 18, to stay low, to stay conscious of our unworthiness, and to speak carefully about ourselves, and yet if that posture becomes your defining identity after you are in Christ, then self is still at the centre.Sons live from assurance before assignment. Sons agree with the Father about who they are in the Son. And when someone actually speaks from that place of belonging, certainty, and shared sonship, it sounds like arrogance to those still trying to be good. In this episode we expose the difference between religious humility and agreement with the Father, and we ask the question — who is really defining you?My Utmost for His Highest - https://utmost.org/updated/getting-there-2/About AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this final Unfolded episode of Firm Foundation Lite, I stay with one thread from Monday’s session — the call to impossible living, and what it actually means to live by the life of Another. Many believers are still trying to live the Christian life from the same source that shaped life in Adam, unaware that self was never designed to carry this life. The frustration many feel is the exposure of independence, the realisation that self was never capable of living the Christian life in the first place.We look at what it means to be called by name for Himself, and why the Father never intended to help self live this life. The Christian life is not improved self, it is exchanged life. Christ as life, or self. There are only two sources. Everything else is shown to be self.Participant Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this final session of Firm Foundation Lite, we gather up everything that has been opened across these weeks and bring it into the question that eventually faces every believer: how do we actually live this life we have received. From the beginning this series has pulled us back to the Father’s original desire, away from a man-centred starting point, and into His intention for sons who share in the life of His Son. Now the focus turns to the indwelling Holy Spirit, given as the One who makes Their shared life real within us, leading us beyond effort, beyond self-management, and into a life sourced in Christ Himself.This episode brings together the threads of new birth, identity, the Cross, and oneness, and places the spotlight on the life, the love, and the faith of Another lived within ordinary people who belong to the Father. The call here reaches further than activity, gifting, or outward Christianity, and brings us into a way of life where sons learn to live from the One who dwells in them. Firm Foundation Lite may be coming to a close, yet what has been opened here serves as a doorway into a lifelong maturing where the Father gains what He has always desired: sons who live unto Him, by the life of His Son, through Holy Spirit.Participant Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk

In this Unfolded episode I return to something we opened up in Session 5, and I tell the story of being handed a book back in 2022 that dismantled my entire inner world, because it exposed just how self centred and me focused my Christianity had been, even while I was using all the right language and doing all the right things. Reading one chapter a day, walking the streets of a Polish city, I found myself face to face with a gospel that self could never carry, and with the realisation that my zeal, my sacrifice, my prayer life, and even my move to another nation had all been sourced by me, and not by Christ as life.As that centre was exposed, line by line, I began to see from Their viewpoint what They have always wanted, and I realised I had missed Him, missed the tree of life, and missed the glory by living from a gospel that was still about what I got out of it. In this episode I open up Ephesians 1 and sit with a very familiar passage, because alongside our inheritance in Christ there is another inheritance altogether, the Father’s inheritance in the saints, and when that begins to open up it changes how we see the Cross, discipleship, and what the gospel has always been moving toward.I read Ephesians 1:3–23 from the ESV, and then I leave you with words from DeVern Fromke’s Ultimate Intention, chapter 25, and I simply let them speak for themselves.Participant Guidehttps://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1CghKe2NP9ZMslL3fq12ijjq6DhciUFuh?usp=sharingAbout AlexAlex is from the UK and he teaches and disciples across nations after years serving in Poland. His heart is the maturing of sons, believers growing into the fullness of Christ and revealing His life on earth. He serves within Firm Foundation, a work the Father is unfolding, joining partners who carry the same call. Through the Firm Foundation Focus podcast, Alex helps sons mature in Christ, discover the Father’s eternal purpose, and live Their way of life.Check out the Firm Foundation website for more information ffdiscipleship.co.uk