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The different understandings of forgiving…

October 21, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

Yesterday I linked to a post by Carlos Whittaker about forgiving.

This started to draw some debate from some of my friends on Facebook, saying that for certain kinds of ‘sins’, they will not forgive the person. In this case specifically a child molester.

Now, if we look at the example (Jesus) we have when we need to gauge how we need to react in certain situations, it becomes clear that irrespective of what the person did, we need to forgive 7 times 70.

Then came Peter to him, and said, Lord, how oft shall my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? till seven times?

Jesus saith unto him, I say not unto thee, Until seven times: but, Until seventy times seven.

Matthew 18:21-22

Now, should this person have committed this sin against me or my family, I am sure I would find this very difficult to do, but God truly convicted me yesterday that we need to forgive. Not for that person that committed the sin, but for our own good. If we do not forgive, the sore the person left there, will start to fester, and over time this will start to consume your life, which will then enable the enemy to take hold of you.

As long as we hold firm to our faith in Christ, and let the Holy Spirit guide our daily walks of life in a loving way, He will be able to give us the strength to overcome a situation like this.

Another example of ultimate forgiving is the story of the two criminals hanged with Jesus on the cross.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!”
But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”
Jesus answered him, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.”
Luke 23:39-43
One of my friends came out and asked if Hitler also had a free pass to heaven should he have accepted Christ as his Saviour before his death?
This screamed at me on how we as humans judge sins. We say some sins are greater than other sins, but God does not see it in that way. Sin is sin, and we need to start to understand this that way.
The only way that sin can be washed away, is by the grace and the blood of Jesus Christ.
This will definitely not be an easy thing to do, as we will be hurt along the way, but through the power of the Holy Spirit all things are possible…

The great deception

September 11, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

self_deception_lumen Over the past weekend we have been on a breakaway session with a small group of people. The focus and aim of this time away is pure encounter with God; realignment of what we believe and as a fundamental principle, what we believe.

Last night I was overwhelmed with a series of thought provoking ideas that has pointed to several incorrect paradigms in my own life. Possibly the most profound of this is my unconscious hang-up regarding the requirements (or perceived requirement I grew up with) of my salvation. When we come to know Christ we often start this journey through the knowledge of the Word and particularly as the Word pertains to the commandments. At some point this is often replaced with the knowledge of grace and how this fundamentally changes our identity in Christ. The shocking discovery I uncovered once again last night is that I subconsciously still believe in requirement, commandment and rule. My childhood was shaped through the do’s and don’t of life and I subconsciously transfer this into my relationship with Christ. I believe with all I am that requirement has been dealt with on the cross and that grace is mine. BUT every now and then I find myself looking back in thought to the yard-stick of requirement and law; somehow thinking that these equates to my worth and favour in the eyes of the Lord.

The statement that shocked my into clarity was the following:

“Jesus accomplished more (victory) on the cross that Adam ever broke (losses) in the garden.”

Think about it. If you are anything like me you will realise that somehow those had an equal measure of weight when it comes to the scales of salvation. We dull down the work that God almighty creator of the universe had completed on the cross thought His Son and compare this to our failures and shortcomings. We pick up a yardstick to measure how good we fare in our own eyes (our Adam eyes) and we miss the astonishing work completed on the cross.

When God talks about the woman who lost a coin and went looking for it in Luke 15. We very easily identify with the lost coin that God searches for. What we miss is that the coin has the same value whether it is in the Master’s pocket or lost under the bed. The mistakes we make (and Adam made) does not take away from our worth, it merely leaves a few marks and scares of experience. But when the Master finds the coin and brings it back to the rest the value bestowed on that coin is just as much as the day it was made.

Listen, you would not go out and buy a brand new Ferrari just to take it to the panel beater straight from the showroom floor to ‘fix’ it up. It might get dirty sometimes, but we wash it! J

Know today…. God does not make junk. You are valuable. Stop measuring yourself against yardsticks other the one held by God through the blood of Jesus.

Go evaluate and examine your faith. Make sure you are not being driven my deceptive patterns from the past the enslave you. The Bible says – Those the Son has set free are free indeed. Believe that!

Verses to look at for further reading: 2 Cor 3:8, Romans 8:15, Heb 2:10-11, John 17:22

My prayer for today

September 8, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

This song, by Charlie Hall, remains one of my favourite songs to sing as prayer, as it keeps on challenging me each and every time I listen to it.

To Save A Life

September 8, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

OK, so let me start off with saying that this is not a review of the movie, but more of a continuance of my previous post on accepting people for who they are.

The title however comes from the movie, and my topic comes from the question the movie asks in the end.

If, at this stage, you have no clue what I am talking about, go and watch the movie, then you will understand, as I do not want to get into describing the movie here, but talk about the question.

Now, I am going to put the question like this:

I you can save a person’s life, but acknowledging that person, then why not?

I really think that if you are of the popular type of people, you can really make a bit of extra difference by associating yourself with the not so popular people.

Since we, as Christians, should pretty much make an effort to be ‘nice’ to all people, irrespective of who they are, we sometimes tend to focus on out little comfort group of friends, and when you get to a place where there are many people, we miss those people sitting alone somewhere, be this at school, work or church.

What we also don’t always know, is if this person is going through some kind of trauma or issue, that we can help get the person over, if we are just willing to step out of our comfort zone, and go and speak to that person.

We, and especially I, tend to miss these opportunities to go and be Jesus to somebody else, since we are comfortable with our friends, and in turn we are comfortable with just making our silly little jokes with each other, and not reach out to those people in need…

The rejection

September 4, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

Don’t we all just want to be accepted for who we are?

Don’t we all just want to be able to live our lives, without having to worry about what other people think of us?

Then why is it, that most, if not all, of us, are basically living to fit into the mould the world has created for us, which is supposed to be normal?

Even in and at the church building, we tend to try and fit in. We want to be accepted by the “COOL” crowd, and we want to be known by the pastor and all the church staff, and so forth…

Why is that?

We have been created by God to be unique in every way, so the question is, does normal exist?

In my personal opinion, I want to say that normal is not a Godly word, and is something that has been placed on us by the enemy. As long as he can keep us focused on trying to be normal as far as worldly standards go, we tend to forget who we are within Christ, and thus our relationship with Christ suffers, and is that not exactly what the enemy wants?

Another thing is, why are we always so afraid to speak what we really feel? To really be able to say what we want to say in church, to our friends, our family and generally everybody around us?

When someone says something that we have a big issue with, in church or wherever, we usually just keep our mouths shut, and bury it inside. Then this thing starts to grow within us, and eventually we are unable to look beyond that thhing, and see the person behind it anymore.

I saw this happen this week to a dear friend of mine, who has been going through really dark valleys in his life lately, and he simply does not need negative or synical people around him. He needs people that he can speak to, who will listen to what he has to say, and who will validate his views. I have decided this week, that I should probably be that person.

We really need to, as Christians, start to accept people that does not believe the way we do, for who they are, and stop to try and force them into our little mould of what a Christian should be.

The only mould we can try to force anyone, including ourselves, into, is the mould of Jesus Christ. And quite frankly, while we are mortals here on earth, that is going to be impossible. Every other persons view of what we should be, look like, and think like, is skewed, since we are all uniquely created by God, and we cannot be someone else, even if we try to.

So, let us all stop this general rejection of people different than ourselves, and start to love them for who they are. Even if they look like this…

Repost: The Moka Effect…

August 30, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

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

August 25, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

I stumbled upon this post of mine again today, and really felt moved to repost it here for everybody to mull about it again…

jesus-cross

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

August 24, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

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

August 5, 2010 in Challenges with 4 Comments

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

August 2, 2010 in Challenges with 0 Comments

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.

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