My greatest strength

I was pondering on my life as I was driving home from a meeting last night and realized I am only as strong as I am leaning upon the Lord. It’s so easy to mistake the grace the Lord gives us as something we did ourselves, and then have confidence in our own ability to walk out the Christian Life.

However the reality is I am completely dependent on the Spirit within me to help to walk out this life of love. I don’t want to be like the church in Galatia who started out in the Spirit and ended up in the flesh, what I want is to continually declare to the Lord my complete dependence on him. After all that is what the first Beatitude is about “Blessed are the poor in Spirit”. Happy is the one who admits they cannot do it alone and cry out for the Maker of Heaven and earth to help them.

Also when we trust in the Lord for our lives we are putting him in the rightful place and remember that he is the one in control, and he works things out for our good.

Therefore my greatest strength is that I have none! The more I depend on the Lord the stronger I will be because he is so much stronger anyway!

Thoughts on Paul

Lately I’ve been reading over the books written by Paul the apostle, over and over and over again. I have a bible that takes away chapters and verses so I can read his letters like they really are letters and there are a couple of things I’ve noticed that I thought I would share.

Firstly I have to be honest in that I have heard a lot of different thoughts on what apostles are and are not, however a lot of the time these are mainly based only taking from the book of Acts, which I like Acts, great accounts of the Holy Spirit doing what only He can do, however if we want a full picture of Paul we cannot merely look at his ministry, but his letters give us an insight into his heart and even his life.

While reading through Paul’s letters a few things have really stood out to be, firstly Paul is very thankful, thanking the Lord for the different churches, thanking the Lord even when circumstances are difficult, he seems to keep his heart without offense though severely mistreated by people he is trying to help.

Secondly, Paul prays a lot. Most of the prayers in the New Testament are written by Paul, he just appears to pray for people a lot, not only that but he appears to also really care about the people he is writing to, I would like to make a little assumption that in giving himself to praying for the churches he has the Lord’s heart towards the different churches he writes to.

Thirdly, Paul is about working with others. He talks about sending people to him as encouragement, he talks about needing people, he encourages believers to all work together, he is all about everyone working together, his aim was never to elevate himself but to go as low as possible in order to build others up, which leads me to my next thought for this post.

Paul lived a life that was laid down for others. Paul did not believes in having any rights, he willingly laid them down just to win one person to Christ, he wasn’t interested proving that he could still love Jesus and do this, that or the other thing if those things could cause someone to stumble in their faith Paul would let it go – amazing.

And I’ll end on this, Paul was a man who cared deeply about the birth, death, resurrection, ascension and second coming of Jesus, these were the things he was willing to fight for, he lived to preach full gospel of Christ and in the end he would die for it

Embracing every season

In this journey of loving Jesus well it’s important to love him in every season that comes our way. Many times we can find ourselves wishing that we were still in the last season, or wishing that a new one would begin. However this is when a thankful heart and being like Paul who is content in all circumstances comes to mind.

It’s good to reflect on good memories of what the Lord has done, in fact it’s a vital part of keeping our hearts alive in love is the remembrance of his name and it’s also good to think about, pray about and look forward to the future, however both these things must be unto living in the present well.

Just like the natural season on earth each one serves a purpose, I’ve often thought in the middle of a hot summer how it’s hard for me to remember what winter is really like, and in winter what summer is like, both are important but serve such different purposes.

There are seasons where it feels that we are stripped of almost everything, when we are down to the bare minimum, but remember every tree gets pruned by the Father good or bad! There are other times that we see the fruit of hard labor, like spring, what joy there is in new growth, it’s a time to celebrate with thankful hearts.

The reality is the Christian Journey is learning to depend on our Father more and more, that every season of life has a purpose, which in the end will always be for our hearts to have a greater measure of love for Him and for others.

Eternal changelessness.

A while back, over a year ago, my flatmate and I went through a time when we did evening prayers together, one of our favorite prayers was “we who are wearied by the changes and chances of this life rest in your eternal changelessness”

It’s one of my favorite prayers because so much of the time as much as we plan, pray and prepare we never quite know what is going to happen on this journey of faith and love, but what we do know is that the One who is leading us does not change. He is always the Good Shepherd. He always keeps his promises, you know those ones about him never leaving nor forsaking us? The ones about how when we seek first His kingdom all those things we are prone to worry about will be taken care of.

We all like the idea that we are in control, and yet the journey of the Christian walk is to let go of everything we cling to and cling to the One who loves us unconditionally. Who knew that leaning took so much work? That’s one of the reasons why change is difficult, things that would cause us to feel comfortable are gone, and many times they are not even bad things. However this is just a divine moment to trust in the Lord even more than we did before.

Who causes the changes in our lives doesn’t matter as much as who we lean into when they happen.

The joy of enjoyment

There’s something empowering about feeling enjoyed. Going into a room knowing that people in the room will be happy to see you causes you to want to go into that room. Knowing that God enjoys us causes us to want to go into our room, shut the door and pray to our father who sees in secret and enjoys us.

What is important to remember is the enjoyment God has in us is because we have come into his family, through the blood of his Son and he can now enjoy us. This is why we don’t have to compare ourselves to other people because whatever we do for him matters to him.

That’s why comparison which leads to jealousy, competition and envy doesn’t make sense because we just don’t know what is going on with the person next to us, half the time we don’t even know what’s going on in our own hearts! But as long as we continue to compare we will not be able to let God enjoy us as we’re too busy dealing with our emotional issues.

We enter into joy when we agree with the Father’s love for us and accept his forgiveness and mercy through the blood of his Son. This really is the way to be happy on the inside, no matter the circumstances.

One of the hardest things to do is let someone love and enjoy you when you know you’ve just been in the wrong, but that is what we are called to do, let God love us in our weakness and be strengthened by his love to continue loving and obeying him.

Starting the day

One of the most helpful little disciplines I have developed over my life is to prayer first thing in the morning, not so much through my prayer list but more welcoming the Holy Spirit to my day and asking him to help me. I’ve noticed when I do this that my awareness of the Lord throughout my day increases.

Because I am not a morning person there are two ways I have done this. The first is to ask the Lord for help in the major areas of our lives to be able to reach maturity. I ask him to help me with my eyes, my speech, to give, to use my time wisely and to help me fellowship with the Spirit all day. The second is to pray through the “fellowship prayer” that Mike Bickle (www.ihop.org) set out. I prayer for

F – fear of the Lord

E – endurance

L- Love of God

L- Light of his glory to shine on me

O – One thing, for my heart to kept in alignment

W – Walking worthy of him

S – Speech

H- Humility

I – Intimacy with him

P – Peace and Joy

The reason why I do these preplanned prayers in because first thing in the morning it’s so easy to start to think about my day, however taking time to put myself and my day before the Lord helps so much to set my heart. Sometimes it’s 2 minutes, sometime it’s 20 minutes but knowing the Lord hears all prayer, the short and long ones I found this to be one of the best ways to set my heart before the day.

Sometimes it’s those simple things that make the big difference!

thought on the cross

Accused by his enemies and abandoned by his friends, Jesus hung naked and bleeding before a people who cried out “crucify him” the first words he utters are not to defend himself but on behalf of those who killed him “Forgive them father they know not what they do”.

There is no love like this on earth, because it is a love that is from eternity, the one who is love, manifested in the flesh, and now we see love. Jesus cries out for his enemies because he desires them to become a bride. Not many would die for a righteous man; Jesus dies for a harlot. Jesus died for a people who hated his name, mocked his divinity and abandoned him. Because that is what love does – it covers a multitude of sins, it keeps no record of wrong.

As they cry out “If you really are the son of God, save yourself” he displays the love that does not seek it’s own, he did not save his life on that day, though he could of called on the angels, no, he become the one sacrifice needed for the remission of sin, the debt was paid by the innocent one.

So when Jesus invites us into love “pick up your cross and follow me” what does that mean?