Spiritual Living With Francois Fineberg

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 have. He also emphasizes the power of prayer in re...

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 Peter that would serve us well in God's presence.  ...

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 unrenewed mind, often becomes the focal point of our walk...

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' messages are delivered within the context of...

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 more about our inner person. The Pharisees of Jesus...

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 “church” from the culture of his day, he did not define...

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, many believers conform to the influences of every...

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 Word as the best resource for spiritual growth. He...

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” rhythm Paul would have us embrace in our spiritual liv...

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 spiritual life? Is that what He intended from the beginni...

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’s also that of ours in modern times. But is compl...

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 our beings for His inbreathing, too. As it was in...

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 victorious in Christ? What are we missing?    Many of...

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 spiritual victory requires us to constantly claim our...

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 surrenders all to the Lord? What is the prayer of...

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 a man that prayed the truth! Maybe that is why he...

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 in us, His house?   Many of Francois’ messages are...

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 emphasis is to train believers in the realities of t...

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 circumstances define victory? In this message, Franco...

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 of spiritual authority are addressed in this messa...

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 change in our lives? This message may surprise you. ...

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 within the context of a spiritual formation s...

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 spiritual formation school called LEGACY School Of Di...

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 becomes our reality, and we live an overcoming life...

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 formation school called LEGACY School Of Discipleship....