Repost: The Moka Effect…

This is a repost of a post I did in the beginning of starting to blog, and this will still, over time, grow into a book I am planning to write. Hopefully within the next couple of years, but it is more of a personal project than anything else.

Moka Pot

Last night, before we had our worship service at church, to end a wonderful weekend of games, and social gatherings, I had to lead the team in prayer.

Arriving there, I still wasn’t sure what I was going to speak to the team about, but God placed this previous post of mine, on my heart, with a new twist.

So, taking the workings of the Moka Pot into consideration, I want to change my original analogy a bit.

The water, is you.

The coffee, is your faith and God.

The heat, is the world.

Now, when things get hot around you, pressure builds up within you. Up to the point where you need to either explode, or go up, through the funnel, containing the coffee(faith), and into the pot in the top.

As we were practising, and I were worried about what to tell the team, and all that goes with that, I just had this realisation that the only way we can get to the top, in this situation, is when we go through God in hot and sticky situations. And the best part when you get to the top, is that you will get there a changed person. You will be what everybody was looking for in the first place, and you will have the joy of having reached your destiny, through Christ.

Now, when things get sticky in you life again, turn to God, and work through Him to reach your destination.

Repost: Extending your basic faith

What is your basic faith? Is it believing that God created the heavens and the earth, or is it believing that Jesus died for OUR sins on the cross, or is it simply believing that everything happened by chance and there is no eternity waiting for us?

If your basic faith is the last one, I want to commend you, in really having great faith, as this is a bigger stretch of faith for me, than having faith in a Creator and an Omnipotent and Omnipresent God.

To really believe that we humans, and other animals, have just happened form nothing, and to be passionate about it, really is amazing to me. How emotions, and all that goes with it, could just happen. That the drive that all of us have in us, is just because…

I have great faith in the fact that God created everything. That I am not here by accident, and that God really has a plan for my life, which He is already putting in place. By having this faith, I want to extent it by doing what Peter tells us in 2 Peter 1:5-9 (The Message)

So don’t lose a minute in building on what you’ve been given, complementing your basic faith with good character, spiritual understanding, alert discipline, passionate patience, reverent wonder, warm friendliness, and generous love, each dimension fitting into and developing the others. With these qualities active and growing in your lives, no grass will grow under your feet, no day will pass without its reward as you mature in your experience of our Master Jesus. Without these qualities you can’t see what’s right before you, oblivious that your old sinful life has been wiped off the books.

By doing this, I really want to develop and grow in my relationship with God. I want to be able to get up in the morning, and tell the person on the street corner that Jesus loves him, and pray for him, and be able to, confidently, lead that person to the cross, and give him/her eternal salvation.

I want to be able to take my musical talents, and be able to play to people in such a way, as that they will want to know what is different in me. I want to be able to bless people just by playing music.

A guy in our worship team came to me one day, and said that me and my wife brings healing through our music that we make, and I want to start seeing that. Not just play and be recognised, but to start making a difference for the kingdom, by using my talents that God gave me. To live my calling, and to be able to lead people to the cross.

I believe that we all have a certain thing that God gave us, that we need to use for His glory, to lead the unsaved to the cross. Let us all go out, spend time with God, and hear from Him how we are going to be able to do these things with our talents, and let us change the world one day at a time, through the power of Him that gives it to us.

Omega

Revelation 1:8

“I am the Alpha and the Omega,” says the Lord God, “who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.”

I listened to a sermon the other day, going on about how easy it is to see God in the beginning of things, but on the flipside, how difficult it is to see Him at the ending of things, yet He says He is the beginning and the end of all things.

I was once again reminded of the seasons of life last week, when we had to attend the funeral of an old friend, who died in his sleep, at the age of 26.

All seasons of life, is ordained by God, and we very often see Him in the beginning of those seasons, because the start of things are usually exciting and new and it makes it easy to see God in them. But the ending of things, are usually hard or sad, and that makes it SO difficult to see God in the ending of things.

The funeral service last week, was very apt in this regard for me, since this friend of mine was saved, but he had influence in people’s lives that was not saved, and the sermon was used in a  way to help these unsaved people, and I really believe that God used that ending of his life, to start something new in many other people’s lives.

May we start to focus on God in all things, and not just the easy starts in life, but also start to celebrate Him in the difficult endings that occur in our lives.

Chisel

My good mate showed us this video tonight at Worship team rehearsal.

This followed after a VERY inspiring talk he did about worship, and what it means.

Now, back to the video…

This spoke to me on so many levels, it is not even funny.

Thanks for this guys, it really gave me the kick up the backside that I needed.

PS: Al and Alide, congrats on the news of the baby. I pray that God is going to bless the little one in every step it takes in life, and I know you guys are going to be awesome parents.

Harbourlight

Last night, this new Christian Rock Band, Harbourlight, came to bless us with a great worship set, during our evening service at church.

Check them out, and support them, if you can.

You can find out more about them at their website.

Worship

Last night, our worship leader mentioned something that really got me thinking.

We Worship so we can encounter God!

Once we start to comprehend this statement, life starts to get a new meaning.

Traditionally we have the viewpoint that worship, is the singing of songs before, during and sometimes after a church sermon, or at worship events, where we sing, but think about this statement for a while…

Some people encounter God by doing the dishes, and thus blessing their partner by doing it, or you encounter God by jogging every morning.

In this way, your life becomes an act of worship.

Think about it, and start to implement it. Your life WILL be changed.

Your Surrender

I just stumbled onto this music video, by Joe Niemand.

Joe is one of THE most inspiring Christian artists in South Africa to me, and after meeting him a while back, my admiration towards him has only grown.

He is the type of person that radiates the Love of God to the people around him, in everything he does, and then he is such a gifted artist on top of that.

Enjoy this video, and I am sure each and everyone of us will see something of ourselves in this video…

Show the LOVE!

Marriage, a sacred institution in the eyes of God…

So why do so many of us, take it so lightly, and break this bond so easily?

Friends of friends, is going through a VERY tough patch currently, and since I came to hear about this, I have had this nagging feeling within my gut that I need to do something radical to get them out of this tough patch.

However, every time I think about it, the logical part in me starts to take over, and makes me drop it, saying that it is their problem, I don’t know them well enough, so stay out of it.

I really feel called to show people the LOVE of God, in the way that He showed us, when He became sin for us, to save us from eternal damnation, but how do you show this love to people in a situation like this.

As far as I can tell, it is mainly an issue of trust that was broken, and then some forgiveness.

If anyone has some advice around situations like this, please let me know, otherwise please just pray for them, and for wisdom from my side, to know what it is that I must do.

Dad

So, yesterday was Father’s Day, and even though we as a family did not make a fuss about it, due to us visiting some family to go watch a Soccer World Cup game over the weekend, I truly did experience the joys of being a father, and to experience some of the love that our Father must feel for us, every single moment of life.

I was sitting with my 3 month old son, sleeping in my arms, and I just simply got this overwhelming feeling of love for my kids again.

After thinking about his for feeling I got for a while, I started to realise, that this was a feeling that God gave me, just so that I can experience a piece of His heart towards us.

Since He IS Love, this truly must have only been n small piece of His heart, since I don’t think we can handle the love that He has for us, and how His heart breaks for us, when something bad happens to us.

Thank you Dad, for loving us sinners this much, and thank you for sending us your only Son to come and show us your love.

Unfathomable love

Read the following passage, and ponder on it for a while…

I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Ephesians 3:16-19

So, what do you know. The love of God surpasses knowledge.

Why do we still try to measure God’s love for us in human terms?

I have been on a  journey with God the last couple of weeks around what His love means, and every time I try to place it in terms of human love, I have been disappointed.

We need to just let God love, and stop to try and measure His love in the way we measure the love we have for each other, like by the size of gifts we give to each other, or the amount of time we are willing to spend on someone.

The love of God is so big, that He was willing to carry all our sins on the cross for us, even though we did not deserve it?

Would you die on a cross, the most humiliating way to die, for someone that does not know you? You might know them, but they do not necessarily know you.

That is what our Father did for us, and we need to simply accept that.

Works will not, and I repeat, will NOT get us in heaven with God, but only accepting Jesus, which is His love for us, will get us there.

Through accepting this love, the works will come naturally, and it will not be a forced act of love, but a genuine act of love.

This is the difference to unbelievers doing good works, and a reborn Christian doing works through faith.

I pray that God will reveal His love for you today, and that this will transform your life, in ways that you will never imagine.