OK, going through my normal early morning blog reading spree, I came about this brilliant post on Katdish‘s blog.
This post goes about what it means to really receive grace, and how we, as Christians need to embrace this fact, and stop trying to be holier than thou.
Follow the link, and enjoy the reading…
This is what I am feeling like today, as far as blogging goes.
With life happening, and not getting around to everything that I need to be getting around to, as far as my faith goes, I have not had any inspiration to write a blog post in the last two days. But, sitting here surfing the net, I thought that maybe the best way to break writers/bloggers block, is probably only to start typing, so sorry if this post is a bit of a rant, but this is what I need to do.
I do however know, that this is Satan trying to keep me from working on my ministry, and to do my bit for growing the Kingdom, so I will simply carry on, and blog about my faith, and my journey. So Satan, get behind me, and let me do the work the Gad has put before me, in order to glorify Him.
So, last night we had a bit of a long night with BabyGirl that would be crying every other hour. And not just crying, but you can really hear that something is hurting somewhere. All would be allright, if she was able to tell or show you where what is hurting, but alas, she is only starting to learn some word at this stage in her life, and through all the crying, she is unable to show you what is hurting.
At 3 in the morning, this is moments of nightmares for me. I hate it to feel helpless. To be standing next to her cot, trying to console her in some way, whichever way possible, just so that she can get a good nights rest, as well as me.
Sitting here, I was just thinking how God, our Father, must feel sometimes, when we are crying, unable to hear His voice, and unable to help ourselves? How do you get back to that point where you can just keep quite, and listen. God always has an answer, not like us, that sometimes simply don’t have a clue. But the fact that God has the answer, means nothing if we can’t hear what God wants to tell us.
My way of getting to that place of quite again varies quite a bit, depending on the place I am, as well as the situations in my life, but more often that not, it help me to just sit down and PRAY! Just confess, and talk. It sometimes feels for me like I am babbling at God, but I know that He doesn’t care. He just loves to hear what we have to say and ask, and more often than not, He will give you the answers that you are looking for. Maybe not right away, but they will come.
May I just get to that point, when I am feeling helpless in helping my own child. To just take a moment, get silent, and focus on God, and let God do the helping in that situation, and not try to do it on my own.
Colossians 3:1-2 (The Message)
So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ—that’s where the action is. See things from his perspective.
This piece of wisdom from Paul is pretty much where I am at currently in my life. I have been very caught up in what was going on around me, right in front of me. I would get to a point where I simply couldn’t see where I must be in a year or two, and I was getting disjointed in what I did. I would get upset at the smallest of things, and I would get dejected about what other people said to me, but in the process missing the point of why I am here on earth.
The last couple of months, and through this blog, I have been able to remove these visors from my eyes, and started to see the bigger picture. I am able to focus on my calling, and where God wants me to be, rather than to focus on something somebody said to me 5 minutes ago, which they have already forgotten about.
I praise the Lord for this journey that I am on, and for all the growing that is happening within me and within my family in the process as well. I praise the Lord for having a bigger picture. For creating a purpose for each and everyone of us, we must just go out and seek this purpose.
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.
Came about this music on Steven Brewster‘s blog this morning. I love this sound, very much like Bruce Springsteen. Now I simply hope I can lay my hands on a copy as the words is really moving.
Yesterday at worship team practice, we had a bit of time where we came together in groups to just pray for each other. I love these moments where you can really invest some time in the people that you worship the Lord with, and our group just had this amazing moment going.
I had the feeling of all of us standing together as one, in the Lord, actually being part of each other and not just praying for each other. Then one of the guys in our group gave some scripture for the one lady in our group, which is just so amazing when you start to realise how the Lord reveals His plans for you.
1 Corinthians 2:9-16 (NIV)
However, as it is written:
“No eye has seen,
no ear has heard,
no mind has conceived
what God has prepared for those who love him”— but God has revealed it to us by his Spirit.
The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who among men knows the thoughts of a man except the man’s spirit within him? In the same way no one knows the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man’s judgment:
“For who has known the mind of the Lord
that he may instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.
If you have not had this experience of the Spirit revealing your calling to you, then I urge you to really go out and pursue this, as it really just takes all the weariness of the world of your shoulders, and you will just have this amazing conquering feeling, as well as peace for the future.
I have only received this in the last couple of weeks myself, and I can only confess about the lifting feeling I have had towards my work and everybody else that was able to get me down in the time prior to that.
Psalms 1 (The Message)
How well God must like you— you don’t hang out at Sin Saloon, you don’t slink along Dead-End Road,
you don’t go to Smart-Mouth College.Instead you thrill to God‘s Word,
you chew on Scripture day and night.
You’re a tree replanted in Eden,
bearing fresh fruit every month,
Never dropping a leaf,
always in blossom.You’re not at all like the wicked,
who are mere windblown dust—
Without defense in court,
unfit company for innocent people.God charts the road you take.
The road they take is Skid Row.
I simply love this last verse, ‘God charts the road you take’.
The reason for loving it, is that I see that as the ultimate position in life. When you don’t try to do it on your own anymore, but just let God take over en care for you.
At what point in time do you reach that point? To really surrender everything, and to stop worrying about money, food, or anything else for that matter.
I finally reached a point at my job that I surrendered, and it made a world of difference. I can smile again in the mornings when I get up, I can do my job with a good attitude.
BUT (and this is a big but)
What will it take, for my sinful nature to take over again? What situation must satan throw at me, to make me not focus on God in everything that I do, and start to do it on my own again?
I know this will come again, if I don’t guard against this each and every day. I must arm myself with the weapons that the Lord gives us to ward of the attacks of the enemy, each and every day, and not just when I feel like it.
Tell me, how you guys do this, and how you protect yourself from the attacks of the enemy.
Yesterday during our morning church service, Brett Solomon preached about what Christianity should be, and what it has become. Without wanting to go into too many points on his service, he had it all summed up in one sentence…
Christianity is the innocence of man kind…
What this comes down to is that once we accept Christ, and become born again, there is nothing, and I say again, nothing, that we can do to get to heaven. From that point on we are washed clean by the blood of Christ, which He spilled on the cross, and that means that we as mere humans can do nothing out of our own power to get ourselves to heaven.
How do you see this statement, as this is changing my life every minute that I think about it.
