I will never leave you nor forsake you

Living in the present.

God will never leave me. He is ALWAYS present. His presence is experienced where I live right now. Here in the present, in the now. Fears only come in when I begin to live in the future or past. There I don't experience His presence.. But whatever I may go thru, I can rest assured that God will be right alongside me, His presence embracing me.

'The LORD replied, "My Presence will go with you, and I will give you rest."'(Ex 33:14)

Everything begins with God

It is often tempting to begin devotional times with praise, prayer in tongues anything that will help get in the 'zone.' But to do this is to think that our relationship with God is all to do with how much we try. We must remember no amount of trying ever got anywhere with God. The first verse of the Bible, 'In the beginning God....' Everything starts with God. Devotional times are not to start with trying. Rather they are to start with surrender, with listening to His will, His voice, His inner promptings. They are to start and continue by letting Him flow through us, in Word and in Spirit. And the rest of the day can continue in this same way. Everything starts with Him.

Your faith can move other peoples' mountains

Mark 2
I've often heard it preached that my faith can move mountains in my life. I.e that my faith in God can remove the obstacles that I face or that it can restore my life in the way God wants it to be. That through my faith I can be saved, healed, set free from sin and fear, made whole. And this I believe.
But the above passage takes things into a whole new realm.
An exciting realm.
Because of  verse 5:
 "When Jesus saw their faith."
It was not the faith of the paralysed man that caused Jesus to act.
It was not the faith of the paralysed man that prompted Jesus to move powerfully through his life, forgiving, healing, setting him free, making him whole.
It was his friends' faith.
It was their faith that brought this man to Jesus, their perseverance that took him through the obstacles and brought about a tremendous salvation, spiritually, physically and no doubt emotionally.
And so a huge message to us through this story is that our faith can move other peoples' mountains.
Our faith can bring people to Jesus.
Our faith can see people restored, healed, made whole.
As James put it "The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and avails much"
God's kingdom comes in power when we pray with faith. Seeing with the eyes of our heart the very things that God wants to bring to pass on the earth. 
There are huge numbers of people on this planet - many of whom we know - that are in a similar position to the paralysed man in the story. So let us use our faith, let us pray boldly, and believe for major breakthroughs in the people that surround us. And we will see God's kingdom come and His will be done. On earth as it is in Heaven.

 

Love - the top priority

Often the busyness of life confuses our priorities. Certain jobs demand to be made top priority and we obey because they make the most noise in our minds.
But Jesus was very clear in the top priority.
Love.
First God, then others. Because if we get this right everything else falls into place anyway.
It is love that will change the world. Loving people will cause them to see that they are valuable, and worth something and in turn fills their hearts with God's love. Every time we pause in life and give someone some of our time we are telling them they are valuable. Every time we smile at someone, every time we give of ourselves and make someone else a bigger priority than ourselves, we are transmitting love into their hearts and making a difference on the world.
So may God's love flow through us every day and impact those around us. May we go out every day to give out love before we think about the multitude of tasks that need to be done.

Enjoy every minute! (or Trusting in God)

It is very easy to let ourselves get anxious about life. Be it our current issues or things that may occur in the future. But God does not want us to live with a heavy heart. He came to bring life in all its fullness. He said 'come to Me you who are burdened and I will give you rest.'
God wants us to enjoy every minute of our lives in His presence.  It is not God's will that we live worrying or in fear. Worries and fears take us away from dwelling in His presence.
How do we get rid of worries of fears?
Jeremiah 17:7 -8 gives us a huge clue.
"But blessed is the one who trusts in the Lord ,
whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water
that sends out its roots by the stream.
It does not fear when heat comes;
its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in a year of drought
and never fails to bear fruit."

Let us cast our burdens onto God and trust Him with them. So often we want to handle everything by ourselves, but God desires us to trust Him with our issues and troubles. it is as we trust God with our problems that we open a door for the peace of God to reign in our hearts!
Enjoy every minute.

Who we are now

There are many times in life that we can feel lacking in energy, where the difficulties of life dampen our spirits and that surviving from one weekend to the next is the best we can hope for.
A big part of this is our self perception.
Who do we believe we really are?
What do we think we are made of?
We must be careful not to allow our feelings to dictate to us who we really are. there may have been a time in the past where we were incapable of standing strong through the difficulties of life, where surviving was all we could hope for and looking to bless others was a distant dream.
But now all things have become new. God has made us new on the inside. Our DNA has been changed. Christ lives in us. And through him we can do all things, through him we are more than conquerors, through him we are mighty warriors, able to shift mountains and overcome all obstacles that life throws at us.
So if we hear the voice that says 'this is too difficult I cannot, ' let us finish the sentence with 'but in Christ I can!'

To the ends of the earth spreading His love....

"A Prayer by Mother Teresa":

Dear Jesus, Help us to spread your fragrance everywhere we go, flood our souls with your Spirit and life. Penetrate and possess our whole being so utterly that our lives may only be a radiance of yours. Shine through us and be so in us that every soul we come in contact with may feel your presence in our soul. Let them look up and see no longer us but only Jesus. Stay with us and then we shall begin to shine as you shine, so to shine as to be light to others. The light, O Jesus, will be all from you. None of it will be ours. It will be your shining on others through us. Let us thus praise you in the way you love best by shining on those around us. Let us preach you without preaching not by words, but by our example by the catching force the sympathetic influence of what we do the evident fullness of the love our hearts bear to you. Amen.

Mother Teresa
(1910 – 1997)

What do we seek? Popularity or righteousness?

Luke 6:22-23 NKJV

Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you, and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, For the Son of Mans sake.    Rejoice in that day and leap for joy!  For indeed your reward is great in heaven, For in like manner their fathers did to the

 prophets.'

There is an issue with the heart that needs to be addressed. Do we seek to be popular

 or do we seek to do the right thing. Do we seek to live for God and his ways, do what is

 right in his eyes?

Our hearts cry out to be liked, to be loved, to be accepted. This means that flattery, being part of the "in-crowd" and the praises of people are potentially dangerous. If we seek the praises of people then to choose righteousness, to choose God's will becomes harder. Our hearts will be divided. A heart devoted to the will of God will not be concerned about how others' may view us or how liked we are.

These are needs that need to be satisfied in Christ rather than sought after in people.

Doing God's will and being popular all of the time is mutually exclusive. We cannot seek both. We must resolve this issue and be prepared to be out of the limelight, and even unpopular should it glorify God and advance his purposes greater.

The fuller we are of the unconditional, never-ending love of God the more our hearts are satisfied and the less we look to others to satisfy it.

And the only way to do this is by spending time in His presence, seeking His face,

listening to His still small voice.

A very good prayer!

"A Prayer for Spiritual Revival":

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly, To venture on wider seas Where storms will show your mastery; Where losing sight of land, We shall find the stars. We ask You to push back The horizons of our hopes; And to push into the future In strength, courage, hope, and love.Because we have dreamed too little, When we arrived safely Because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when With the abundance of things we possess We have lost our thirst For the waters of life; Having fallen in love with life, We have ceased to dream of eternity And in our efforts to build a new earth, We have allowed our vision Of the new Heaven to dim. Amen.

Sir Francis Drake
(1540 - 1596)

What do we transmit?

'from the overflow of the heart the mouth speaks.'
What we believe in our hearts we will transmit outwards. What is in our hearts will flow out of us into other peoples' hearts- in speech (verbal or non-verbal) or in action. Our hearts are constantly transmitting messages to other people. Others hearts' are constantly being affected by what we have in our own hearts. This can obviously have positive or negative consequences. If we value other people, if we love others , if we cherish them, then we will transmit a message of self worth, of love and importance.

But note this: these messages cannot be forced. If we do not believe that people around us are valuable, are important, are lovable, then we will not be transmitting these messages of love no matter what words we use.

Therefore let us pray to God and ask Him to help us see other people around us the way He does , as important as they are and with an all consuming , unconditional love. Let us ask Him to fill our hearts to overflowing with His love. And may our light shine into others'darkness.

Christianity without limits

For a long time now I have limited ministry to Sunday meetings. Prophesy, healings, words of encouragement, preaching/ teaching the Word into peoples' lives have all been boxed up and put into the Sunday morning compartment. The box whereby I give to the church. The box where the only beneficiaries are church people.

Is this what Jesus intended?

He said ''you are the light of the world''

and also ''Go into all the world and make disciples.''

Jesus' intention, it appears, is for all people to be beneficiaries of the Spirit inside me. In fact whereas the mentality often has been 'invite people to church so that they can connect with God' we can connect people to Jesus ourselves as we go out into the world.

Consider this.

God is love. So when we love people with the love of God we give people an experience of Him.

Jesus is the Word. So when we speak the word into peoples' lives (speak words of truth, of encouragement) we connect people to God.

Jesus is the light of the world inside of us so as we allow our light to shine onto them we give people a taste of His overwhelming light.

A Christianity like this means there are no limits. That God wants us to take His light into a dark world and that this is where the emphasis should be. Going out and bringing life where there was none, hope, light, grace, love, peace, joy into a world that desperately needs God.

So let us expand our horizons and see beyond what is right in front of ourselves.

A life of love, or a life of tasks?

The greatest two commands in the Bible are to love. Firstly God, then others. Yet I'm finding that the busyness of life, the huge number of tasks that need to be accomplished try to crowd in and dampen the love in me. In these times I adopt a task based mentality. It is an inwardly focussed mindset. The goal of my life changes from loving and giving to a survivalist goal of trying to make it through the day. My only thought is getting all the tasks finished for the day. I rush through the day and finish it exhausted, cramming as many activities as possible into every waking second. Multi-tasking, working whilst out with the family just to get as much done as possible. And getting stressed in the process.

Jesus did not live this way. He prioritised love over stuff that needs to be done, and by doing so His life had a massive impact on those He came into contact with.

Application? - people are more important than tasks. Take every available opportunity to give, to bless, to impart God, to love. Prioritise people. And know that one of the subtlest enemies of living a life of love is living a life of tasks. It is often our agendas and lists that prevent us from seeing the real needs.

Even so there will still be essential tasks that need to be done each day.

So, how do we do these tasks without losing a giving, loving attitude.

For me, I need to learn to refuse the voice that demands I rush through as many activities as possible. To slow down and make the purpose of the essential tasks about love. For example, only today I was making the evening meal for everyone but instead of treating it as a chore to be done I reflected on the people that were to be blessed because of it. And thus my heart motive changed from doing a task to one of giving out love. And weird as it sounds I much more enjoyed doing the cooking! It really is more blessed to give than it is to receive as long as our motive is of love and not chore.

The right perspective of God - the key to enriching our relationship with Him.

Relationship with God is the most important thing we can have. It is God's number one priority with us and it is to be ours with Him. However, to make sure that this relationship is the most rewarding and the most fulfilling it is essential to have the right perspective of God. Here I will talk about just a couple of important attributes:

 John 8 v 2 - 11

God is always seeking to remove every barrier that stands between us and God. God's grace breaks through every barrier, every obstacle in order to break into our lives.Whether it is barriers that we ourselves are putting up or barriers that other people are putting up God's grace is sufficient to break through. In this story the barrier was condemnation. But then as now Jesus stands up to every voice that accuses and brings grace and offers restoration and hope. God's grace is always pouring out on us, His arms are always stretched out toward us. Intimate loving relationship with us is the most important thing to Him. God's grace meets us exactly where we are. We don't have to perform any better to meet Him, we don't have to pretend we are, somewhere that we are not. He knows us completely and He accepts us completely. His grace is stronger than any force that seeks to disconnect.

Furthremore, God is faithful. He will never leave us nor forsake us. He will always fight for us, He will never give up on us, even when we give up on ourselves.

Video - Footprints in the sand  - Leona Lewis

To get a better perspective of God we must look only to his word to see who He is and not let our experience of dealing with people taint this view. God is holy. God is pure. He is totally trustworthy.Totally good. The more we meditate on these truths the better our perspective of God will be and hence the better our relationship with Him will be.

Pride - a deluded opinion of who we are.

John 5:44 How can you believe, you who receive honor from one another, and seek not the honor that comes from the only God?(KJ2000)

Receiving honour and praise from each other and not seeking it from God seems to be one of the biggest hindrances to belief. But why? Belief is in the heart. So how can receiving honour, affect our hearts?

Is it that by doing so our egos get massaged into such a state that we believe we are better than we are, more important than others, that we think too highly of ourselves. Is it that by doing so we let pride into our hearts? 

Pride is most dangerous. Usually we concern ourselves with low self-esteem. But pride is worse. Pride is an over-inflated view of ourselves. Pride is a state of our hearts that says "I don't need God, I can do this on my own." Pride stops us relying on God and puts a huge barrier between us and God. Pride says "I have no need to pray, I can do this just as well myself."

Humility leads us toward God. It reminds us that we have need of God. A humble heart is a healthy heart. Humility is the true perspective on ourselves and our abilities. Pride is a deluded opinion.

And in this verse, tucked away, is one of the biggest sources of pride. Seeking and receiving the honour, the praises of people, seeking popularity, reflecting on just how important others' may view us. All of these things feed our hearts with pride.

The opposite of this is to reflect on how God views us. He is the truth, after all, and by seeing things through His eyes we will remain humble.

John 15v 5 "Apart from Me, you can do nothing (of eternal significance)"

Phil 4v13 "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me."

 

The truth is we are incredibly important and  incredibly valuable because Christ died for us. We are incredibly able because Christ lives in us. (Gal 2v20)  

So let us feed our hearts with nutrition by reflecting on God's view of us and our relationships with Him with prosper. Let us be wary of believing others opinions.

John G Lake quote

'We may never get 1 half or 1 quarter of the way towards the ideal. But never try to degrade God's purpose and bring it down to your level. But by the grace of God put the standard up there where Jesus put it and then get as near to it as you can.'

So let us never get discouraged by times when we fail, let us never lose heart when we take risks and step out and don't see the success we wished for. Rather keep believing, keep expecting for by so doing we will achieve great things for God's kingdom.

Pursuing righteousness

'blessed are those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.'
Matt 5 v 6

There is a holy satisfaction that comes from a pursuit of living the way God wants us to. As we listen to the promptings of the Holy Spirit and are obedient to Him we are filled with a joy and a peace that comes only from walking His path. Jesus described doing the will of God like eating food in John 4. So let us listen, obey and may our souls be delighted.

Love changes the world - forever!

Love endures all things 1 cor 13

Ever wondered why Jesus said loving God & loving others were the top 2 commands?

Many reasons probably but one that struck me today was that love is eternal. Love spreads and lasts.

E.g. As I love someone with the love of God that love is transmitted into their heart and they then love out themselves. One act of love could last for eternity -  as I love someone, they love someone else and that love is passed to a younger generation and so on. The love that I give out can last far longer than my lifetime. When I have left this life and am in heaven, the love that I have given out can still be living on in peoples' hearts- people that I have never even met.

Indeed there may well be love living in my heart that originated from a person's initial loving out centuries ago.

Remember, it all starts with allowing God to fill my heart with His love, then seeking opportunities to spread it out.

The purpose of life: to connect ppl to the love of God. Amazingly, I can still be having an effect here beyond the grave!