So many of us really do need God to interfere and to heal in our lives, our memories, our present times and our futures. Nothing wrong with that!
Needing God is nothing to be ashamed of, In fact it is perfection itself. It would be the saddest thing of all if any of us went through life without discovering that we need God. Every blessing - Mike
I hope this is interesting for you – in the OT it seems generally regarded by Moses etc that God's greatest work was getting his people free of slavery. The biggest thing was the Exodus. Pre-Jesus the nation understood salvation slightly differently than we do – they understood it to be a work of God that sets us free from those things which enslave us.
It may be today that we sometimes have a somewhat smaller view of salvation, that it's something that happens when we die, a setting free from enslaving sin and death. But Biblical salvation also concerns our being set free from what might enslave us in everyday life.
The enemy has come to steal and kill and destroy but Jesus has come that we might have abundant lives. Jesus asks us to pray that the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven. On earth? Jesus knew that salvation is for now. It is a trusting in Jesus that prepares the way for his setting us free from those things which enslave our lives.
I'm not sure if a few unsightly freckles quite make the grade, but if a part of your life has overtaken the whole then now's the time to speak with the God of the burning bush who set the children free from the slavery of Pharaoh!
Every blessing - Mike
Do you know, I've been quite struck lately by the number of my fellow Christian leaders who appear to keep their trust in God's works inside the limits of scientific understanding. If science doesn't understand something then that 'something' cannot be from God, either, so they say! If some extraordinary kingdom healing occurs it's too easy to think to oneself, 'I wonder then if the original diagnosis was wrong?'
Mind you, science has always been slightly suspicious of what it doesn't understand and a lot of we Christians seem a bit suspicious as well. I recently published a witness statement from a husband whose wife became happily pregnant and gave birth very successfully and healthily, and all this was years after she had her womb surgically removed. The examining surgeon reported later that he could "find no evidence of the original procedure"! Do you like that?
Well, one or two leading churchmen announced it could not be so as healing miracles are only a speeding up of natural processes. In this case science says, "No womb, no babies".
If healing is only a speeding up of natural mechanisms I wonder how those lovely ones feel about Incarnation, Virgin birth, transfiguration and Resurrection?
I wish we could learn that science was invented by God, not God invented by and restricted within science! My God really can do anything!
Please from now on let's not restrict God to doing only what we understand. He can do anything! All blessings you need - Mike
"Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with all your might, for in the grave, where you are going, there is neither working nor planning nor knowledge nor
wisdom." Eccl. 9:10
There is so much to do in this world and everyone is needed to help in the doing of it. There is something for every one of us to do.
The command: "Do it with all your might" implies putting your whole heart, and your back, into your work. It expects you to do it in a way that anticipates
your making a success of it.
God has a job for each one of us that comes into the world. This means that the world is going to be a little better by your having come into it, or it
could be made worse. Which one will it be?
None of us can do the work allocated by God to someone else, because everyone has been given all the work they can do.
Do not think you are adding to your own load when you fulfil the command to bear one another's burdens. I am supposed to help you with your burdens; that
is part of my work and duty. In the same way, you are supposed to help me. We need each other. But I cannot do for you what you ought to be doing yourself;
I have enough to do. What you overlook will simply have to go undone.
A farmer who had five sons left them a list of jobs to do when he went away to market, organising the workload according to each son's strengths and abilities.
Coming home he found that four of them had finished all their duties and done them well, but the fifth son had only done a few of his allotted tasks. This
resulted in there being a neglected spot - a dropped stitch - which remained on the farm for everyone to see. If we neglect to do the work that God in
his wisdom has assigned to us, there will be a blank space in the Father's great plan that will show up for eternity.
Do not let any of the precious moments of your life fall away empty. Everywhere Jesus went, he left evidence that he had gone that way. What are you leaving along your way to show in the years to come that you have passed this way? Are you planting flowers and sunshine to lighten other people's hearts?
The size and scope of the part of his great work that is assigned to you is irrelevant. Whatever it is you should do it and do it well. It is your part.
If that work is not done well, the divine plan will not be complete. A single stitch dropped shows a flaw in the garment, so the most menial work is sacred.
The Qur'an tells of Gabriel's being sent to earth to do two jobs. The first was to keep King Solomon from becoming too busy with the affairs of his kingdom
and forgetting the hour of prayer. The second was to help a small ant who was trying to carry its load of food up a steep slope. To Gabriel the one task
was as important as the other one because both came into God's plan.
You should pay as much attention to helping a child get the knot out of a piece of string as you would in building a fine cathedral. Leave some footprints
here on the sands of time; in the years to come they may guide someone to doing something great and noble.
When you get to the end of your life, your greatest satisfaction will be in knowing that you have done what you could. Make something good out of the moments of time while you have them. They are going swiftly by; they will not wait for you.
Above all, beware of letting go the spirit of peace because of your faults. Humble yourself before God because of them, repent, make such reparation for them as you are able, and then do not dwell upon them any more.
It is often mere pride which frets at finding itself beset by the same often renewed faults,
and at its lack of spiritual progress. Do not deceive yourself into the belief that such disquiet is humility. A really humble soul accepts its faults with patience, and goes afresh on in confidence and hope.
Jean Nicolas Grou (1731-1803), The Hidden Life of the Soul, London: Rivingtons, 1870, p. 147-148
Long, long time ago a famous international Christian speaker told me: "If you hold a 'Lord, bless me' meeting you will always get lots to come. But if you hold a 'Lord, bless me so that I can go out and bless others' then you will get hardly anyone to come to the meeting.
Now this is super-important to me. I'm a Bible teacher trying to help ordinary Christians become extraordinary disciples and kingdom walkers, each seeing tons of kingdom advances and loads of healings etc. And all to the glory of His Highness.
Wouldn't you suppose everyone in the world of Christianity should be enthralled? I reckon faith without works is a pretty poor sort of faith, don't you?
Jesus had 5K turn up on the hillside for food, healing, teaching about the kingdom. But only 12 and then 72 went out training for kingdom ministry. Can't do the maths, but 84 is a pretty tiny percentage of 5k!
It's a lot easier to not get involved. So do we Christians go to church for what God gets out of it or just for what we get out of it? Ten lepers got healed but only one gave glory. This Grasping spirit that rules the world, has it infected holy church? Every blessing - Mike
kingdom thinking 003
To get healing going, we first need to understand the main purposes of God. Otherwise we can't trust him in what he's trying to do?
Going back to the other day and we were listing all the great good bits of Eden life. The blueprint of Eden looks fab....then there was the fall and things got terrible. Now we live in a mess of broken relationships and distrust and ill health and self-seeking and ignorance of God and insensitivity to him and to each other etc, etc, etc!
But, and here's the first bit of good news, at the end of time Jesus will come back and there will be no more mourning and no more sickness and no more tears. In other words, this is Eden restored. This is god's original blueprint reconstructed. Wonderful!
And Eden is at the start of the bible and the New Jerusalem, Eden restored, is at the end. Everything else and the cross is in-between these two. Jesus warns us not to get too clever about all this kingdom stuff but to look at it like little children or we'll miss it!
So here's that kid's-eye view – God's main purposes are to get us from Genesis to Revelation. His main purposes, his fundamental driving wisdom, is to see his blueprint working the way he intended it. His big idea is to get us out of this mess, to get us from the fall back to the kingdom.
And wow! In his grace, out of his grace, he says we don't have to wait till the end of time! He sends Jesus. Can't wait to write the next bit! Every blessing – Mike
