Peace in life
You can have relief and still not have peace. You can leave home to get away from your parents and find relief but in your heart, you may still not have peace. You can have an argument with your wife then go and play golf. You may have relief but not peace. We might tiptoe around the house in silence for a day. We have a truce but we don’t have peace. Real peace always begins with spiritual peace. That is where the world misses it. They want to go from trouble to peace and bypass the Prince of peace. They want peace but don’t want the source of peace. Spiritual peace: the peace that God came to give us, is always a result of something else, called righteousness. The kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. Rom 14 .17. We may find ways to cope a little better. There may be a way to mitigate some of our troubles and they could satisfy temporarily but till righteousness enters the heart of men, there can never be true peace. And unfortunately, this is why there is little you can do for broken families robbed of peace in so many ways, till they are ready to do it Gods way. We all have to lay down sin and our pride and our lives before Jesus and receive his forgiveness and righteousness.
Friend, where ever there is no peace, but friction, anger, wars, hatred or lack of peace in our hearts or home, workplace or nation, it is always a lack of righteousness, but thank God that is something he is willing to give us.
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Gods New Creation
Creation sparkled in the early dawn of life. It was a beautiful thing. When God created mankind, He made them pure, free and worthy to walk with God in a relationship with him. He gave them authority over the earth as His ambassadors on the earth, but they chose to move away from God and consequently, they were put out of the garden. The bible is the story of God bringing us back to where we fell from. If we choose to come back, he will make us re-make us. God won’t make you do anything but he will make you into something brand new. He doesn’t make people repent but He does invite and convict us by the Holy Spirit; He warns us through preaching. We had no choice about being in Adam but we do have a choice to be in Christ, and till we accept Christ we remain in Adam receiving all that he deserves. When we accept Christ as Lord, we receive all He deserves! We are either in Adam of Christ; this is the only distinction God sees. If you are in Adam you get all Adams stuff and his family traits; hopelessness, bondages, fear of dying, no sense of future and no relationship with God.
But Friend, If you are in Christ you get all Christs’ stuff; Eternal life, relationship with Father, blessing and joy unspeakable. We had no choice the first time we were born but thank God, we do have a choice to be born again!
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The work of the ministry
The fivefold is to equip the saints so the saints can do the work of the ministry. Bruce Wilkerson of “Prayer of Jabez” fame said “We don’t measure success by the number of people watching you do ministry but how many of those watching you, are doing ministry. Whatever it is that church members think pastors do: visiting the sick in hospitals, casting out devils, following up visitors to the church, ringing up the people that haven’t been seen for three weeks, teaching new believer the basics and discipline some people at lunchtime…is what they are to be doing! Jesus was modelling ministry for His body the whole church, not for the 5 fold. Ministry just means serving. Believers don’t go to church to be at a service or to enjoy a service but they go there to give service and then go out of the meeting to give service to the body and the world. Members are to edify or build the local church body up. It is not Jesus alone who is building the church, we have excused lack of availability from that verse, for far too long. It is the job of the saints to build up the church by doing the work of the ministry. That is a ministry to God in worship, ministry to the world as disciple-makers and ministry to the saints by service, love and encouragement.
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Murmuring and complaining
Another day in the desert came and went; another day to see what was in their heart. Today the people found fault with Moses and God himself. There are people who think they could teach God a few things. Lord you not doing this right. The complained about their present circumstances and they complained about their future challenge. The two who didn’t complain should have gone in but were hindered by the rest for another forty years. (sobering) but the point is that your attitude will keep you in the same circumstance you’re complaining about and until our attitude glorifies God, we won’t be delivered.
It’s not suffering that glorifies God; anyone can suffer but suffering with an attitude that glorifies God. We don’t look for suffering; it’s coming anyway. Jesus suffered gloriously without complaint, but with trust. God is looking for settled character, where we remain stable and constant in trust because the ability is shown by stability. Some people are great today, but tomorrow they are negative, critical, cynical and flaky.
God is in charge and He hasn’t changed since yesterday. He hasn’t changed his plans and purpose for your life since last week or last year.
Friend, God only needs to see us keep the right attitude before He brings the release and the increase.
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The Fear of God
Many years ago God gave us a serious financial challenge. The loss of money I didn’t mind so much but I struggled with the insecurity of being in that situation. I had been working toward purchasing my first house since I was seventeen. I felt it was my responsibility as a man; that is what I’d been taught.
God’s objective is the rearrangement of our life’s priorities, for our trust and security is in Him. I think He needed to show me that my value and worth is found in Him and not in an asset-based “net worth.”
What I found also was that the change brought me into a certain fear of God. Psalm 55:19
I become awed, dependent and reverent before him as we were now out on a limb because of this change. What I also found was a new focus on the things of God, a change of direction for my affections. I’d come home at night and have nothing but God, my wife and my family to love.
Everyone wants a brighter future but they think it can happen without change. It is a fantasy to believe you can have a different future unless something changes in your life now. We want the promise but not the process. We may want a house with a better view, but we don't want to change. A better job, but we don't want the pain of change. Israel had wanted the Promised Land, but not enough to change their unbelief to faith.
Friend, every good thing God has for you, is on the other side of change.
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If you knew Me
One day when the disciples had gone to town to buy some food, Jesus being weary sat by a well in the middle of the day. He was waiting for a Samaritan woman who was a sinner. When she arrived and was greeted by Jesus, the woman of Samaria said to Him, "How is it that you, being a Jew, ask a drink from me, a Samaritan woman? For Jews have no dealings with Samaritans?” Jesus answered and said to her, "If you knew the gift of God, and who it is who says to you, 'Give Me a drink,' you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water." John 4:6-10. Here is a Samaritan woman from the wrong culture, the wrong side of the tracks, definitely the wrong lifestyle and she is a woman! She was the wrong gender to think that she could ever know God for herself. She was out of covenant, out of style and out of favour, but Jesus was waiting for her. Jesus is waiting for us; He is waiting for you. We are never too far out, too far wrong or too far gone. And this is what He says to you “If you knew me you would ask me ... for the living water of the Spirit and I would give it.” If we knew Jesus we would ask....If we know His heart; had a true understanding of His heart and love for you, His willingness, you would ask! If you knew his heart toward you the first thing you’d do is ask because he’s for you, he’s waiting for you there at the well. And he would do it too, he would give a spring that bubbles up to eternal life.
Friend, He wants to activate that spring within us, more than we do! The springing up of the Spirit of God in every person’s life and the reality of hearing his Spirit directly communicating with us is actually what both Him and us both want. There were two people at the well that were satisfied that day.
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Change can be good for you
The woman in Samaria knew she needed to change but it took Jesus to bring her to a breakthrough moment. It was a bit embarrassing and a bit frightening but what a change it made. The events that brought the woman caught in adultery to Jesus was something she never planned at all, maybe she hoped she would never be discovered but she was, in the end, indebted to the circumstances that finally bought change to her life.
We don’t usually invite change into our life, but it happens anyway. Sometimes it helps us get unstuck. Zacchaeus the taxman was stuck in his life. He thought he could never be accepted or respected, but Jesus changed his life. Paul was stuck in religion.
I think of Jacob; a mummy’s boy who needed to grow up. His mother dressed him and told him what to do till he was probably 40! He was the boy who liked to stay at home with mum. He was the first metro-sexual. His mother told him what to say and when his mother said to lie to his father, he did just that. He loved God I guess, but life was all about him. He needed to grow up and stand strong in God. After seven years of serving his father in -law to be, he was tricked into taking the older daughter before he is given the one he really loved. Laban, the father in law also changed his wages seven times. But God was helping him to overcome his insecurity and to become a prince that could wrestle with a man and finally God himself. He was setting Jacob up for his destiny.
Friend, maybe you're stuck in something and it will take the changes that Gods wants, to bring your release.
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Afflictions of the righteous
God doesn’t prevent every trouble; He doesn’t step in and stop every difficult time coming our way but He will help us out of the troubles or through those troubles. God often does not intervene before the trouble comes but he will intervene when you ask him to. When we see disasters happen we wonder, why didn’t God stop it from happening, but here’s the thing - God doesn’t keep us from suffering because He doesn’t even keep himself from suffering. Only beings that feel love, can suffer. If you want to love in the world, you have to have the possibility of suffering. He never stopped Adam from disobeying but when Adam realized his error, God quickly moved to forgive and to redeem him. God always warns but doesn’t coerce or force anyone to obey and he doesn’t stop people from disobeying either. For God to stop every sin, crime or event that might create suffering, like an argument between husband and wife, he would have to override our free will every day. He is not a controlling demigod, who takes away our personal freedom and personality but He gives us the dignity and responsibility for our own lives. He allows us to live in a world that is broken because of the results of bad decisions and actions both by others and by ourselves. He chooses to help the weak and restore the broken by empowering us with His own strength and grace that we might overcome in this life. Whoever loves the most, suffers the most and God suffers to see the choices we sometimes make but loves us enough to give us the freedom to do it.
Friend, this is the way God works. God does not control things on the front end but he restores the repentant person on the back end. The bible says “many are the afflictions of the righteous but the Lord delivers us from them all.”
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