A Broken Telephone

Communication with God was never meant to be one way. We just made it so.
So often we pray and start rattling our prayers, prayer request, petitions etc etc and we end it abrubly with the magic word- AMEN.

So you understand how God feels. Imagine a wife calling her husband over the phone and starts rattling and rattling request on the line and abruptly hangs up the line. How would the other party feel ?

Yes God listens. But many a times, He wants to talk to us as well, to provide advice, counsel or simple just chat with us. But we hardly give Him time to speak nor are we prepared to wait for His reply.

If we would only pause and wait upon the Lord. He will speak.

To hear from God, man has to learn to first keep quiet.

A Love Letter

Not many years ago couples used to hand write love letters and send it by post to his significant other. I was no different. I remembered the excitement as I opened up this special love letter from this particular girl with such anticipation, reading through the words and lines trying to sift through if there were other hidden significance embedded between the lines.

Such was the passion that I would read it over and over again. Before I slept, when I went about my chores and it went where ever i went, safely hidden in my wallet.

To many, the bible is a book or a complilation of books written by men of God.
To me, its a love letter from the Lover of my soul.

If the bible was a textbook, it would be a chore to read.
But if we realise that it is really a love letter from our greatest Love, wouldn’t it be a pleasure just to go through the pages and scrutinise each line and word and hold it close to our hearts ?

A desperation that seperates

Like the woman with the issue of blood. Matt 9:20, Mark 5:30

She had terrible odds :
1 ) She was a woman in those times
2 ) She was a woman with a 12 year issue of blood

Under the law, she was unclean. Knowing her odds, a normal woman would have held herself back from reaching for the hem of Jesus’s robes. But her faith and desperation defied all these odds and she reached out.

It was not the robes, it was her faith and desperation that made the Lord pause.  A desperation that prevails against her situation, all the odds, all the opinions of others. Nothing mattered anymore. A sole focus to touch the Master changed everything.

Multitudes thronged Jesus and many would have came in contact with His robes. But  this “unclean” child’s simple desperation seperated her from the multitudes, catching the attention of the King of kings.

Foolishness To Men

Being foolish for God is better than being wise in the eyes of men.

When you dare to believe God for great things, people come against you, relatives come against you and many times even Christians will come against you. They will tell you how impossible it is or a hundred reasons why it cannot be done.

If God’s work can be done by the hands of man alone, man will take the glory.
But if its impossible by man’s standards, and it is accomplished. God takes the glory.

Show me the passage !

Sometimes when God moves beyond our understanding, we hear unbelieving Christians saying “show me the passage” It is important to know that the bible does not have a direct reference to all situations.

In cases such as these, i refute simply by saying “not everything is written in the bible”. And of course saying that fundamentalist will be jumping mad.

So my next question :” When Jesus walked on earth. Did he use the toilet ?”

Believers have no issues and they are certain of his humanity.

I’ll just seal in my point by asking them their question :”Show me the passage”

How do you ?

Gen 22:2   “And He said, Take now thy son, thine only son Isaac, whom thou lovest, and get thee into the land of Moriah; and offer him there for a burnt offering upon one of the mountains which I will tell thee of.”

Now, let me walk on thin ice again.

If you read in this chapter, God spoke to Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his only son Isaac. Now Abraham’s faith was tested beyond measure and beyond theoretical understanding. Why ?

Because God commandment was never to murder. Its against the grain of theoretical understanding for a sacrifice of innocent blood.

Let me reiterate. The God we serve is the same God which Abraham served – And God does not change.

Many Christians struggle in their daily walk because they receive an authentic word from the Lord, but they refuse to obey arguing and telling God about their theological beliefs. When God calls, its our job to obey.

Obedience is better than sacrifice.

Lyrics : Take Me In

Written By : Dave Browning

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VERSE:
        Em                        Cmaj7
Take me past the outer courts and thru the holy place,
D                              Em                 D
Past the brazen altar; Lord, I want to see Your face.
        Em
Pass me by the crowds of people,
        Cmaj7
And the priests who sing their praise;
   D
I hunger and thirst for Your righteousness
         Am7               C/D
But it's on-ly found one place.

CHORUS:
            Em                 D/E
So take me in to the Holy of Ho-lies,
        Am7       Am7/D          Em   Cmaj7
Take me in by the blood of the Lamb;
     C/D    Em                 D/E
So take me in to the Holy of Ho-lies,
         Am7   Am7/D      A/B   B+7     Em
Take the coal, cleanse my lips, here I am.

Imagine Me Without You

A beautiful song by Jaci Valasquez entitled “Imagine Me Without You”

Remembering my past and how His love transformed me from an anti-Christian to a believer, how His love gave me the strength to live on when I was at the end of myself.

This song just brings tears to my eyes, truly knowing that I’m nothing without Him.

Verse:

As long as stars shine down from heaven
And the rivers run into the sea
Till the end of time forever
You’re the only love I’ll need

In my life you’re all that matters
In my eyes the only truth I see
When my hopes and dreams have shattered
You’re the one that’s there for me

When I found you I was blessed
And I will never leave you, I need you

Chorus:

Imagine me without You
I’d be lost and so confused
I wouldn’t last a day, I’d be afraid
Without You there to see me through

Imagine me without You
Lord, You know it’s just impossible
Because of You, it’s all brand new
My life is now worthwhile
I can’t imagine me without You

When You caught me I was falling
Your love lifted me back on my feet
It was like You heard my calling
And You rushed to set me free

When I found You I was blessed
And I will never leave You, I need You

Chorus(2):

When I found You I was blessed
And I will never leave You, I need You

Calloused Grace

I do not know about you. But the depth of a believer’s relationship of God can be so clearly seen in simple day to day actions.

How many times have you sat down with Christians over meals and heard the most insincere prayers prayed called “GRACE”.

Maybe its the way the church has indoctrinated christians to say grace, maybe its just us getting too calloused with the certainty of God’s provision that we have taken things for granted.

When I was younger, I had fallen into that vicious trap and go “rattling” my pre-meal prayers without even meaning a single word.

I remembered a time which God stopped me in my “rattling” and rebuked me gently. He said “Do you really mean what you just prayed?”

I sat there on the table and just wept.

Lets remember to keep our hearts tender towards God and examine the small things we do in our Christian walk. Sometimes these gives us a good indicator of where we are heading.

The Promise Land

In Exodus chapter 32, the people sinned against God by worshiping a golden calf as they grew impatient waiting for Moses’s return. The anger of the Lord came down and Moses interceeded for his people asking for forgiveness.

In chapter 33, the Lord told Moses to depart and bring these people into the promise land, a land which He has promised Abraham, Isaac and Jacob- A land flowing with milk and honey. Not only that, the Lord will even send an angel before them and give them victory among all the tribes.

You see, despite the sin of His people, God’s promises to us never fails and He wants to give His people all their dreams.

But in Chapter 33:3 the Lord said, “But I will not go with you”

God is saying “You want to change the world ?” “You want to be successful”, “You want to be an eloquent preacher”, “You want to be a great evangelist ?”

I’ll give you ALL your greatest dreams… BUT I will not go with you.

But in chapter 33:15 – Moses said “If Your presence does not go with us, we don’t want to leave this place”

v16   “For wherein shall it be known here that I and thy people have found grace in thy sight? is it not in that thou goest with us? so shall we be separated, I and thy people, from all the people that are upon the face of the earth.”

You see my friends, you can be a successful businessman, a great evangelist, a eloquent preacher. But what good is the promise land flowing with milk and honey if the Lord is not with you ?