Month: January 2021

His ways or other ways; who’s influencing us most?

The Psalms, David’s Songs, are about his heart love and not so much head knowledge of God. He wrote at least half of the psalms, the longest book in the Bible, with the longest chapter psalm 119 (176 verses) and the shortest, psalm 117.

David’s psalms may have been birthed through a life under constant threat from enemies. Many of David’s psalms begin with him crying out in distress for God to help, have mercy and deliver him. Many also end, or contain statements of faith that God will rescue him and not give him over to his enemies. He encourages himself to rise above the threats of those around him and trust in the Lord.

The opening words of the Book begin with the phrase,

‘Blessed is the man’, there are blessings for those who are willing to partner and walk with the Lord.

Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on His law he meditates day and night. He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not whither. Whatever he does prospers. Ps. 1:1-3

(No name is given for the writer of the first psalm).

David constantly calls to God to ‘teach him’ His ways, as if his heart is longing to be closer to God. David sought hard after God, because his life depended on hearing and obeying God! Things may have begun to change for Western Believers today; we may have to be a lot more focused and  no longer be careless, in our own personal walk with the Lord.

I DO NOT SIT WITH deceitful men, nor do I CONSORT WITH hypocrites; I ABHOR the assembly(company) of evildoers and REFUSE TO SIT WITH the wicked. Psalm 26:4, 5

David avoids wrong influences and chooses instead to be around His God and talking to people about Him.

I wash my hands in innocence, and go about your altar, O Lord, proclaiming aloud your praise and telling of all your wonderful deeds. I love the house where you live, O Lord, the place where your glory dwells. Psalm 26:6, 7, 8

In the previous psalm, Psalm 25, we see David asking God to teach him His ways;

SHOW me your ways, O Lord, TEACH me your paths; GUIDE me in your truth and TEACH me, for you are God my saviour and my hope is in you/wait for all day long. Psalm 25:4, 5

Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he INSTRUCTS sinners in his ways. He GUIDES the humble in what is right and TEACHES them His way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant. Psalm 25:8, 9, 10

David wouldn’t allow himself to be under ungodly influences but he called out often for God to Teach, Instruct, Guide, Direct him.

Who, then, is the one that Fears the Lord? He will Instruct them in the way chosen for them Psalm 25:12

God wants to help and guide us in our lives today, just as He did for David.

God bless and keep you today.

Today is the twelfth day of January 2021,  12.1.21 (UK date, a symmetrical number, reads the same forward and back).

The number ‘twelve’ is very significant in the Bible and occurs from Genesis right through to Revelation (mentioned 22 times in the last book, but the number 144 and 144,000 which is 12 X 12 also occurs).

Jacob had twelve sons Genesis 25:23-26 and each one became a tribe in the nation of Israel. (Likewise Ishmael also had twelve sons, each one a Prince Genesis 17:20).

Jesus appointed twelve of His followers after spending the night in prayer on the mountainside. Luke 6:12, 13 He first delegated His authority to the Twelve to drive out evil spirits and heal sicknesses. Matthew 10:1

Peter told those gathered in the upper room that according to the Word of God, Psalm 109:8 they had to appoint another to take the place of Judas, the number of the twelve apostles had to be maintained.

In Revelation 21(this New Year, 12 reversed) right at the end of the Bible, we read about the New Jerusalem;

It had a great, high wall with 12 gates, and with 12 angels at the gates. On the gates were written the names of the 12 tribes of Israel. The wall of the city had 12 foundations and on them were the names of the 12 apostles of the lamb. The 12 gates were 12 pearls, each gate made of a single pearl.

One of the main meanings of ‘Twelve’ is the Perfect Government of God. There have been times in my own life when I’ve seen God do things and thought that was perfect! Perfect timing and a perfect answer from a perfect God.

In the Garden of Gethsemane, when the soldiers came to arrest Jesus and Peter struck the servant of the High Priest, cutting off his ear, Jesus healed him. But Jesus also said,

Do you think I cannot call on my father and he will at once put my disposal more than 12 legions of angels? Matthew 26:53

Jesus was in ‘perfect control’ in the Garden, but He chose to  submit to His Father and not call upon the angels. He put Himself into the hands of treacherous men so that men could be rescued out of a lost eternity.

I believe today, the twelfth of January, that God is in control and that His plans and purposes will be worked out in these days, just as surely as they have been in past Bible’ times. Don’t lose faith, but stand still and see God’s victory in your own lives.

God bless and keep you today on this twelfth day of 2021.

 

 

We have to run to the finish line, don’t stop prematurely.

The reason I (Paul) left you in Crete was that you might straighten out what was left ‘Unfinished’ and appoint elders Titus 1:5 NIV

The Bible has much to say about Finishing what’s begun;

By the seventh day God Finished the work (creation) Gen 2:2

Jesus also had the mind set to Finish His work;

My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to Finish His work. John 4:34

For the very work that the Father has given Me to Finish… John 5:36

Finally on the cross, ‘It is Finished (paid in full)…’ John 19:30

Paul the apostle left Titus in Crete to ‘straighten out what was left unfinished’. Things were lacking in the Church and Paul wantedTitus to address them. The Bible says that apostles and prophets lay the foundation (which is Christ) for the Church, a ‘building metaphor’. But there are other offices; evangelists, pastors and teachers. Eph 4:11 Their duty is to build on the true foundation and finish the work! In the construction industry there are ‘finishing trades’ who don’t come in until the end of a project e.g. painters and floor layers. Some people are good at starting things and getting projects off the ground, that’s their strength, but others may be better at finishing, slower and more detailed work.

My second mentor, Kjell from Sweden, once gave a message on being faithful to finish things we’d begun. He said that it wasn’t honouring to God to leave a trail of unfinished tasks behind us. Some of us need to break the habit of starting things and leaving them too early. It may be that others who are good at finishing can help us. Paul also told Titus to, ‘straighten things out’. There may be problems or the enemy may be blocking something (things repeating, tasks left half finished) and specialist help may be needed. God sent my friend Kjell to many lands to resolve problems in churches and nations, he was a specialist in the realm of the spirit.

For most of us though, we may just lack the will to press through and finish the tasks we’ve begun (see anew the importance of completing our work, satisfaction for us and Glory for the Lord). We may need to address this and ask the Lord to help us. Half the battle is recognising the problem and then setting ourselves to finish whatever we start.

Speaking to the Corinthians Paul said, ‘ now finish the work, so that your eager willingness to do it may be matched by your completion of it‘. 2 Cor 8:11 NIV Being eager to start was good but it had to be completed.

Near the end of Paul’s life he also said triumphantly;

I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. 2 Timothy 4:7

Paul had Finished well and by God’s grace so can we.

Get into the habit of finishing what you begin and finishing well.

God bless and keep you today.

 

 

 

 

Let My people go so that they may worship Me. Exodus 5

Moses, God’s Deliverer, spent 40 years in the desert, away from the seat of power in Egypt. God heard the cries of His people Exodus 2:24 and remembered His Covenant with them. So God met with Moses, and sent him to Egypt to deliver ‘His people’ from the hand of a tyrant and from the gods of Egypt. Exodus 12:12 Moses was no longer a young man, now 80 years old but God had preserved his strength and most importantly he knew the Lord. He was not chosen from the ranks of those in authority over Egypt, he’d been in God’s training place, the desert. The only sound he heard were the sheep and the wind in the desert.

Moses confronted Pharaoh with the demands of the Lord, ‘Let My people go’. Pharaoh and those around him laughed and made the lives of the Israelites worse than before. A power struggle ensued between the God of Israel and the gods of Egypt. The Israelites suffered during this confrontation, but if we’re in any doubt who wins and will always win, read the story again in Exodus.

The final plague of the 10 plagues released on Egypt was the ‘Death of the First Born’, even down to the servants and livestock. After this the Egyptians were so keen for Israel to leave their land that they paid them/gave them all their valuables just to go. But the Lord hadn’t finished with Egypt, their army pursued Israel across the desert up to the Red Sea. God told Moses to part the sea (Exodus 14) and Israel crossed on dry ground. The chariots and the whole army of Egypt tried to follow them and perished.

And when the Israelites saw the great power the Lord displayed against the Egyptians, the people feared the Lord and put their trust in him and in Moses his servant. Exodus 14:31

Israel trusted the Lord and His leader, Moses, after He’d given them victory over a more powerful enemy.  It was a new day for Israel, there was nothing of the old left to which they could return.

I’m not political at all, but I believe Donald Trump has been called as a deliverer for America today. I am aware of how the situation is developing, but God will have the final word as He always does.

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God bless and keep you in these days.

 

Better to be right in your heart and love the Lord.

He (Jesus) replied, “Isaiah was RIGHT when he prophesied about you hypocrites; as it is written: “These people honour me with their lips (lip service) but THEIR HEARTS are far from me. THEY WORSHIP ME IN VAIN; their teachings are about rules taught by men”. Isaiah 29:13, Mark 7:6, 7

Lip service; insincerity, saying something but not really meaning it.

Luke 7:36-50, tells of Jesus’ visit to the house of Simon the Pharisee for a meal. Straight away, V37, a woman enters the scene. It’s interesting the NIV states, ‘when a woman who had ‘LIVED A SINFUL LIFE’. This version DOESN’T call her a ‘sinful woman’ and neither did Jesus at the end of the Biblical account. We have all sinned, but God sees us in Christ.

Jesus allowed the woman to weep over His feet, dry them with her hair and pour perfume on them ( actions of deep contrition). There’s no record of her saying anything, nor of Simon criticising anything she said (sometimes sorrow can be too deep to express in words).

Alas, Simon the host, did judge the woman and the Lord Jesus in his thoughts. He judged her character and Jesus’ own discernment and righteousness for allowing her near Him.

Jesus, then told Simon a parable about a money-lender owed money by two different men, neither of whom could pay their debt. They were both forgiven, but which was forgiven more – the one who owed more. Jesus then compared Simon’s hospitality, no water to wash His feet with that of the weeping woman.

Regarding the woman Jesus said, ‘her many sins (again NOT A SINFUL WOMAN) have been forgiven, for she LOVED MUCH’.

Jesus’ final words to Simon were, ‘he who has been forgiven little loves little’.

He spoke twice directly to this humiliated woman, ‘your sins are forgiven’. ‘Your faith has saved you, go in peace’.

The Lord looked on the sorrowful woman’s heart and ‘forgave her many sins’. The self righteous Pharisee didn’t receive the same blessing.

May God give us humble and honest hearts today as we come before Him.

God bless and keep you.

Religion or Reality – it’s never too late to obey the Lord. Matthew 21

Matthew 21 begins with Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem. The scene moved to the Temple Matt 21:11, 12 where Jesus ‘drove out all who were buying and selling there. He overturned the tables of the money changers and the benches of those selling doves’. Jesus then began to heal the blind and lame at the Temple and the children shouted, “Hosanna to the Son of David”. The chief priests and teachers of the law were angry at Jesus healings and the childrens’ shouts of joy, Life released in the place of religion.

Jesus spent the night at Bethany, perhaps at the home of Martha. Early in the morning, on His way back to the city, Jesus was hungry and went to a fig tree, but it had only leaves, no fruit. Jesus cursed the tree and it immediately withered. The ‘fig tree’ often represents the nation of Israel and the fact that it had leaves, ‘religious activity’ but no fruit, ‘no substance’ may have depicted the religious state of the nation. Much Religious observance but NO FRUIT.

The authority of Jesus was then questioned by the chief priests and elders of the people. ‘By what authority are You doing these things’? Jesus in turn asked them where John’s baptism was from, heaven or from men? They wouldn’t answer. Jesus didn’t leave it there, He told all around Him the Parable of the Two Sons.

A man went to his son and told him, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard. I will not he answered, but later he changed his mind and went.’ Matt 21:28, 29 ‘Then the father went to the other son and said the same thing. He answered, I will sir, but did not go. Which of two did what the father wanted? The first they answered’.

Jesus then gave the explanation of the parable, which should have been quite shaming for the priests and scribes.

I tell you the truth, the tax collectors and prostitutes are entering the Kingdom of God ahead of you. For John came to you to show you the way of righteousness, and you did not believe him, but the tax collectors and prostitutes did. And even after you saw this, you did not repent and believe him. Matthew 21:31, 32

The first son represents the sinners, who didn’t want to come but changed their minds and repented. The second son represents those who say they ‘will obey’ but don’t – a pretence. Jesus said the despised and disreputable in society are the ones who are entering the Kingdom of God.

The sinners didn’t get it right at once but they did turn to the Lord. The respectable, religious refused to turn back to God. The call is to ‘come and work’ in the vineyard. Harvest time needs every pair of hands and harvest is here now but a huge harvest is coming. Let’s seek the Lord for our place to work for Him, He gave much for us.

God bless and keep you today.

 

…he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand. Romans 14:4

In 1 Samuel 16:12, 13 we read how Samuel anointed David, the youngest of eight brothers, to be king of Israel. In the next chapter,  1 Samuel 17 we see that this young boy/youth found himself in single and mortal combat with the Philistine giant Goliath. David was called to be a warrior king and deliver Israel from their enemies. Straight away he was thrust into a major battle, which he helped his beleaguered nation to win.  Soon the women sang;

”Saul has slain his thousands and David his tens of thousands”. 1 Samuel 18:7

The women soon recognised that the greater ‘anointing’ or victory lay with David.

In Luke 3:21, Jesus was baptised along with many people in the River Jordan by John the Baptist. The Spirit of God descended on Him like a dove and the Father spoke from heaven (all three members of the Godhead present), “You are My beloved Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased”.

The next words at the beginning of Luke 4 are quite different from the blessings spoken to Jesus at the Jordan.

Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the desert, were for 40 days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing during those days and at the end of them He was hungry. Luke 4:1, 2

Jesus, praised and loved by His Father at the time of His baptism at the Jordan was immediately led into the desert for a full blown confrontation with the devil. He too, like David emerged victorious and ‘Jesus returned to Galilee in the power of the Spirit’. Luke 4:14 Jesus calling described in the first epistle of John;

The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the devil’s work. 1 John 3:8

In both examples, David and Jesus (God in the flesh), were thrust into situations of extreme confrontation. God sustained them, but both had to fight their battles and win them before advancing with their calling. We all prefer the safe place, but early and late in our Christian Walk, the Lord may call us to fight a battle against the enemy of our faith. To all seven churches in Revelation 2&3, the Lord addresses them, ‘to him who overcomes’, hence the expression ‘fight the good fight of faith’.

Finally a quote from the Lion, Witch and Wardrobe by C S Lewis;

Safe? …Who said anything about safe? Course He isn’t safe. But he’s good. He’s the king I tell you.

God bless and keep you today.

 

God has a measure/portion just for you, seek Him for it!

In 1 Samuel 25 we read the account of David, Abigail (relates to Joy) and Nabal. David had protected Nabal’s men and flocks in the wilderness but when he sent his young men to Nabal for a gift at shearing time they were rebuffed, by the surly Nabal. Nabal was a wealthy man, he had a thousand goats and three thousand sheep. A gift to David’s men would have meant little to him, but he chose to confront and belittle David’s men in front of his shearers and servants.

One of the servants told Abigail what Nabal had done and that ‘disaster was hanging over our master and his whole household’. 1 Samuel 25:17

In a previous blog (Naaman’s trip to Elisha) we noted how the Bible sometimes lists very specific amounts of goods used in certain situations.

Abigail lost no time. She took 200 loaves of bread, 2 skins of wine, 5 dressed sheep, 5 seahs of roasted grain, 100 cakes of raisins and 200 cakes of pressed figs and loaded them on donkeys. Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you”. But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 1 Samuel 25:18, 19

Abigail realised the danger and started at once to try and redeem the situation. She met David and his men in the ravine coming towards her. I’ve also written before about, the Lord bringing us into a ‘ravine’, a tight place with no way around. God deals with us or confronts us in the ravine. Don’t be surprised if we find ourselves in such a place when God is dealing with us.

This meeting was God’s way of preventing David from taking revenge and blood guilt. Abigail was able to stop David from murdering Nabal and his household. She also gave the gift she’d brought to him and his men and repeatedly humbled herself before them. The gift was very precise and I BELIEVE IT WAS THE EXACT AMOUNT GOD HAD DETERMINED DAVID SHOULD HAVE!

God is not unjust, He knows when we’ve helped others and done something for Him. God remembered Cornelius for his prayers and giving to the poor in Israel. It may well be that God, who is a generous God, wants to reward some of you His faithful ones, just as He rewarded David. He knows our needs and though His blessing didn’t come early in this matter, there was a good reason. The most important item, NOT ON THE LIST, was the ‘beautiful and intelligent’ Abigail, who became his wife after God took her husband.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you”. Matthew 7:7

Ask God that He would open His hand and release that which He has for you today.

God bless and keep you in this New Year.

 

 

God blesses hearts and lives that are yielded to Him.

Solomon, derived from Shalom, meaning Peace, was the third and last king of the ‘united nation’ of Israel and Judah. God gave him peace and blessed him greatly and he built the Temple of the Lord in Jerusalem.

From the Biblical narrative, Solomon’s life was greatly impacted by women. His mother Bathsheba was very beautiful, but married and was stolen by king David, though they later married and Solomon was born. He was visited by the Queen of Sheba, with all her spices. Finally he got into trouble with God because of his many foreign wives who led him astray, into idolatry.

Nevertheless, (despite God’s commands) Solomon held fast to them in love (he couldn’t or wouldn’t give them up). 1 Kings 11:2

There’s another significant story regarding two women in the account of Solomon, centred around a ‘Baby’. 1 Kings 3 Solomon had asked for and received wisdom from the Lord to rule God’s people. The dispute between the two women over the parentage of the baby was to prove God’s gift of wisdom.

‘And so they argued before the king. …bring me a sword and cut the living child in two’.

The real mother (tender hearted) pleaded for her son’s life. The other woman (hard hearted) wanted the baby killed. Solomon knew the true mother, the one who was willing to sacrifice/hand over her son that he might live.

Lydia Prince, the first wife of Derek Prince, had established a work among Arab women north of Jerusalem and the Lord had blessed it abundantly. But then a missionary claimed that his denomination had been in the area first and the prospering work should be theirs. What would Lydia do? She eventually went to the women and told them to attend the denomination’s meetings and be faithful to them. She gave up her right to the ‘baby/ministry she’d birthed’ and sought the Lord for her next assignment. (The work among the Arab women eventually failed).

Lydia’s house and her extended family of eight adopted daughters became a centre for allied service personnel during World War 2. Many were blessed there and Derek found his wife. In the culture of the Middle East it wouldn’t have been possible for the Arab women to meet with the service men. It could only happen after Lydia gave up the ‘Baby’. (I attribute this story to Derek Prince Ministry).

Solomon refused to give up the Love of his heart and the ‘baby’, the nation of Israel, WAS CUT INTO TWO PIECES.

Is God asking us to give up something for Him as we step into this New Year? No one else can take our blessings (NB this is true) and what He has, the next step, will be greater than before. This may be a key for some of us, a New Step in the New Year.

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The labourer is worthy of their hire. Luke 10

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May God bless and keep you in this New Year.