Tag Archive - grace

Dead Faith

November 23, 2010 in Challenges with 1 Comment

This morning on the radio I listened to an excerpt from The purpose driven life, by Rick Warren. In this particular section, he made the comment, that someone who says they are a Christian, but do not serve, are contradicting themselves.

This made me think of a meeting I had last night at church, where we just gave some input into each other’s lives at our Life Center, a place where we try to love the struggling people out there to life…

What good is it, my brothers, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him?

James 2:14

I just realised reading this,  and experienceing the love last night, where everybody is volunteers to help people struggling with big things in their lives, that we as Christians need to step up and help.

If we simply just look at the example set by Jesus, we can’t help but be compelled to step out in service, and love our neighbours.

We need to ask the Holy Spirit to soften our heart to the things that breaks God’s heart, and then we NEED to act on that. When you feel in your gut that you need to do something, simply DO it. Stop having 60 excuses why you do not want to step out of your comfort zone, and just do it with the power the Holy Spirit gives you.

I have a motto for myself in this season of my life which is the following…

People tend to think that they need to sort out their lives, before they can turn to God, but we need to show each and every person the love of Christ, where He wants you just as you are, with all your baggage, so that He can carry it for you!

I love it to see the difference made in people’s lives through people simply loving them, with no strings attached. May we all be compelled by God to live with a GRACE attitude, and LOVE PEOPLE TO LIFE!

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.

Majesty

June 4, 2010 in Challenges with 5 Comments

This morning, during our weekly get together of three friends, we were only 2 this morning, my friend Danie made the comment whether we always realise how blessed we are to be able to call God Abba?

He is the majesty of majesties, and here we, sinful humans have the opportunity to go sit at His feet, and call Him Father?

Why is this?

Only through the blood of Christ. Through Christ we are seen in the same light that God sees Jesus, and that is simply amazing.

We need to start to realise that we have been created to worship, and in that we have only one goal on earth, and that is to worship God. This need to worship is exactly the reason why so many people that does not know Jesus, worship money or fame, and we need to show them Who it is we were created to worship.

We need to show them the Majesty, Mercy and Grace of God, and introduce them to Jesus, to enable to grab this wonderful gift.

Wearing the veil

January 14, 2010 in Challenges with 10 Comments

As you all know, I have been going through a bit of a slump the last month in my relationship with God. Getting to comfortable in my ways, and getting back some of my old habits I had before committing my life to God.

This all while keeping up the front of not going through the slump, like Moses wearing his veil.

Exodus 34:33-35 (NIV)

When Moses finished speaking to them, he put a veil over his face.  But whenever he entered the LORD’s presence to speak with him, he removed the veil until he came out. And when he came out and told the Israelites what he had been commanded,  they saw that his face was radiant. Then Moses would put the veil back over his face until he went in to speak with the LORD.

Now, we generally make the mistake of thinking Moses put on the veil to hide his radiant face, but we learn in 2 Corinthians 3:13 that this was not the case

We are not like Moses, who would put a veil over his face to keep the Israelites from gazing at it while the radiance was fading away.

Well, I am ashamed that I was wearing a veil for a couple of weeks, but thanks to God’s grace I was able to drop my veil once more.

Unconditional Love

November 26, 2009 in Challenges with 34 Comments

Smile

What a fail from me this morning. I let my temper get the better of me and I screamed at my baby girl because she couldn’t sleep due to cutting teeth.

I was so tired I didn’t know what to due, and lost it. My temper is something that I have been working hard at to keep under control, as it can get the better of me very quickly. And now this morning I had to loose it on her.

I felt so bad, and didn’t know how I could remedy the situation, as I could see that she was really shocked at my reaction.

In any case, after some pain medication for her, she finally went back to sleep, and I was able to get in another hour, to tally my sleeping hours at about 4.

When she got up a couple hours later, what did I get? The BIGGEST smile ever. It really knocked me. How is this little girl able to forget her fathers reactions so quickly, and just show love towards him?

Thinking about this after dropping her off at day care, it hit me that that is exactly how God is towards us. Even if we do the worst thing possible, His grace is still big enough to love us. We don’t deserve it, not for a second, but He does.

This is the amazing thing in following Christ for me. Thinking about grace just gets me every time.

We’re sinking

November 13, 2009 in Challenges with 57 Comments

ocean

Last night at our Worship Team band practice, we really felt the spirit moving in BIG way, to bring healing to people in the team with hurt and sorrow.

For once in my life, I listened, and really prayed for the people that God placed on my heart, and I really just felt that He was moving at my request, as strange as it may sound.

All the while, while we were praising and praying to the Lord, we listened to a song, that repeated the words

Call His Name

Jesus

Call His Name

Jesus

…

While we were singing this the song, How He Loves by John Mark McMillan kept coming into my mind, and especially a certain section. The word are

Verse 1:
He is jealous for me,
Loves like a hurricane, I am a tree,
Bending beneath the weight of his wind and mercy.
When all of a sudden,
I am unaware of these afflictions eclipsed by glory,
And I realise just how beautiful You are,
And how great Your affections are for me.

Pre-Chorus:
And oh, how He loves us so,
Oh how He loves us,
How He loves us all

Chorus 1:
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Verse 2:
We are His portion and He is our prize,
Drawn to redemption by the grace in His eyes,
If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking.
So Heaven meets earth like a sloppy wet kiss,
And my heart turns violently inside of my chest,
I don’t have time to maintain these regrets,
When I think about, the way…

Chorus 2:
He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Oh how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Verse 3:
Well, I thought about You the day Stephen died,
And You met me between my breaking.
I know that I still love You, God, despite the agony.
…They want to tell me You’re cruel,
But if Stephen could sing, he’d say it’s not true, cause…

Chorus 3:
Cause He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us.
Whoa! how He loves us.
Whoa! how He loves.
Yeah, He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves us,
Whoa! how He loves.

Read these words, and just soak in the awesomeness of the line “If grace is an ocean, we’re all sinking”

In my opinion, I have drowned a long time ago in this ocean of grace, and I praise the Lord for His mercy, without which I would be a different person today.

Don’t hit back

November 9, 2009 in Challenges with 4 Comments

This morning during Bible study I was working my way through Romans 12, and these verses jumped out at me.

Romans 12:17-19

Don’t hit back; discover beauty in everyone. If you’ve got it in you, get along with everybody. Don’t insist on getting even; that’s not for you to do. “I’ll do the judging,” says God. “I’ll take care of it.”

These verses hit me particularly hard after the last couple of days, of really to put it simply, judging people.

Acting in such a way as to justify my actions to myself, and trying to make me feel better about it.

The biggest one for me was going to our previous church yesterday morning for a Christening, and walking out of there judging the whole thing, and saying thanks for not having to be there any more, etc.

Who the heck am I to judge a corporate worship service like that? Yes, it may not be the place for me in the current season of my life, or for that matter ever again, but that was the place that I had the priviledge of  meeting my wife, or rather to realise that the two of us will spend eternity together, and where I discovered my calling to worship through music.

Yes I have moved on since we left there, and I have grown immensely in faith, which caused me yesterday to look down at everything going on in that place.

I thank God today for opening my eyes to my wicked ways in judging people and places that does not do things exactly the way I want them to be done, and I praise Him for His grace in forgiving me for these stupid things that I do sometimes.

Real Religion

October 1, 2009 in Challenges with 0 Comments

James 1:13-27 (The Message)

Don’t let anyone under pressure to give in to evil say, “God is trying to trip me up.” God is impervious to evil, and puts evil in no one’s way. The temptation to give in to evil comes from us and only us. We have no one to blame but the leering, seducing flare-up of our own lust. Lust gets pregnant, and has a baby: sin! Sin grows up to adulthood, and becomes a real killer.So, my very dear friends, don’t get thrown off course. Every desirable and beneficial gift comes out of heaven. The gifts are rivers of light cascading down from the Father of Light. There is nothing deceitful in God, nothing two-faced, nothing fickle. He brought us to life using the true Word, showing us off as the crown of all his creatures.

Post this at all the intersections, dear friends: Lead with your ears, follow up with your tongue, and let anger straggle along in the rear. God’s righteousness doesn’t grow from human anger. So throw all spoiled virtue and cancerous evil in the garbage. In simple humility, let our gardener, God, landscape you with the Word, making a salvation-garden of your life.Don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are a listener when you are anything but, letting the Word go in one ear and out the other. Act on what you hear! Those who hear and don’t act are like those who glance in the mirror, walk away, and two minutes later have no idea who they are, what they look like.

But whoever catches a glimpse of the revealed counsel of God—the free life!—even out of the corner of his eye, and sticks with it, is no distracted scatterbrain but a man or woman of action. That person will find delight and affirmation in the action.

Anyone who sets himself up as “religious” by talking a good game is self-deceived. This kind of religion is hot air and only hot air. Real religion, the kind that passes muster before God the Father, is this: Reach out to the homeless and loveless in their plight, and guard against corruption from the godless world.

Reading this passage has so many different meanings in my life.

I have been lately agitated by Organised Religion, in it not being real. It being people that goes to church on Sundays and pray to the Lord, and then when they walk out of the church service, they carry on with their lives, and not give anything to anybody.

I have a huge issue with this dualism in life. How can we, as believers, think that we can separate God from daily lives? How can we get onto the golf course and cuss like it is nothing, and the very next day, walk into church and make as if we are holier than thou?

I have been guilty of this for a very long time in my life, being the biggest two faced person I knew. I served in the worship team at church, but for the rest of the week, I would be worldly in every way possible.

I have been saved by grace, since then, and just realised yesterday, that satan doesn’t like this at all. He is pulling out all the stops to try and get me to turn off the road I am currently on, and to go back to my old ways. Thank the Lord for the fact that I know He loves me, and is standing by me, in every situation.

I do want to ask all of you however to pray for me, to stand strong in this journey of mine, and to go after my studies with fervour, and me seeking the Lord in all that I do.

I love all of you, and if there is anything that you need prayer for in your life, please let me know, and I will set up a specific time every day to pray for each and every one of you.

The Wretch that needs Grace

September 30, 2009 in Challenges with 30 Comments

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…

Grace

August 14, 2009 in Challenges with 1 Comment

Galatians 2:19-21

What actually took place is this: I tried keeping rules and working my head off to please God, and it didn’t work. So I quit being a “law man” so that I could be God’s man. Christ’s life showed me how, and enabled me to do it. I identified myself completely with him. Indeed, I have been crucified with Christ. My ego is no longer central. It is no longer important that I appear righteous before you or have your good opinion, and I am no longer driven to impress God. Christ lives in me. The life you see me living is not “mine,” but it is lived by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I am not going to go back on that.

Is it not clear to you that to go back to that old rule-keeping, peer-pleasing religion would be an abandonment of everything personal and free in my relationship with God? I refuse to do that, to repudiate God’s grace. If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily.

This is just a piece of scripture that is really shaping my life at the moment.

I am at a place in my life, where I can only say thank you for all the grace that I am receiving. This stretches into everything in my life at the moment, from waking up to going to bed.

We are also busy pondering this very theme of grace in every part of our Christian Community. Be it at church, home church or discipleship group, and I am loving every moment of it.

The one thin however for me is, how complex this whole thing around grace can become, when one wants to start and mix it with the law.

These are just some thoughts from me on this topic, and please feel free to leave your own views on this, as you feel like.

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