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Meditate can also mean to ‘Mutter’, speaking something over and over ‘to ourselves’, until it becomes a part of us.

Keep this Book of the Law always on your LIPS(in your MOUTH); meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. (Many want the results without the application!) Joshua  1:8

God’s command to Joshua was ‘keep it on your lips/speak it out often’. When we repeat something our minds will inevitably be drawn to think about we’re saying, so God told Joshua to speak or mutter His Law.

In yesterday’s blog we recounted how the first generation of God’s people failed to enter into their inheritance, through ‘fear of man’. They wouldn’t face the giants in the land God had promised them.

Major General Frederick C Blesse (US Air Force) wrote a fighter tactics manual in 1955 with the stirring title, ‘NO GUTS, NO GLORY’. He was a highly decorated fighter pilot who’d often lived out what he’d written.

I came across a short article based on this title by Daphne Delay, (theinspiredwoman.org). Excerpt from the article;

“There’s a reason the devil pushes so hard to make you and I feel inferior. If he can get us to focus on our mistakes, or challenge our courage, he has hit us right in the gut.

NO GUTS! NO GLORY!

And this is why I’m so passionate about helping you understand your righteousness in Christ. If you and I remain ignorant of how God sees us (through the blood of Christ and the exchange of His righteousness for our sin), we will also continue feeling inferior and we’ll never fully see the glory of God in our lives.
So, take up this motto with new inspiration today! You are the righteousness of God in Christ and you are crowned with glory and honour!”

In yesterday’s blog I stated that we would either be directed by the ‘Fear of God’ or the ‘fear of man’. God warned Joshua as leader of the people to continually focus on His Words and NOT LISTEN TO THE MAJORITY OPINION, FOR EXAMPLE THE 10 SPIES. It’s so easy, particularly in this age, to be influenced by the words of others who know nothing of God or His Plan for the close of this Age. Joshua needed to be ‘in step or in tune’ with God and His Plans and so will we!

Let us therefore brace ourselves to our duties, and so bear ourselves that, if the British Empire and its Commonwealth last for a thousand years, men will still say, “This was their finest hour.” Winston Churchill

It’s interesting that I’ve quoted two military sources today, without any such intention. Joshua and Israel needed courage to go in and TAKE THEIR INHERITANCE AND I BELIEVE SO WILL WE IN THE CHURCH.

May the praise of God be in our mouths and a double-edged sword in our hands. Psalm 149:6

We’re almost at the end of another week and we’d ask again for those being blessed by Father’s Love Ministry for your support. Please donate today on our webpage;

fathersloveministry.co.uk

The worker is worthy of their hire.

We’re available to seek personal words of encouragement and guidance for those who want them. We also counsel online for those wishing input. Please contact us on our webpage, a donation is normally required for this service.

God bless and keep you today.

 

 

 

 

The latter part of Joshua’s life was a battle, the conquest of Canaan, Israel’s God ordained inheritance.

The second occurrence of the word ‘meditation’ in the Bible is in the first chapter of Joshua. Israel came out of Egypt, (symbolises the world system) and headed for the land of Canaan, but as we know that generation failed to take the land. The ‘slave mentality’ may have been too deeply rooted in them after 400 years in Egypt, they couldn’t face the giants in Canaan, the land God had promised to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Their eyes were too focused on the enemy and not on the Lord!

Joshua and Caleb were the only 2 spies who brought back a positive report about the land promised by God;

7 and said(Joshua and Caleb) to the entire Israelite assembly, “The land we passed through and explored is exceedingly good. 8 If the Lord is pleased with us, he will lead us into that land, a land flowing with milk and honey, and will give it to us. 9 Only do not rebel against the Lord. And do not be afraid of the people of the land, because we will devour them. Their protection is gone, but THE LORD IS WITH US. DO NOT BE AFRAID OF THEM.” Numbers 14:7-9

Joshua had fought the Amalakites Exodus 17:9 under Moses command, he knew about hand to hand fighting. He also knew that when Mose’s hands dropped before God, the enemy began to win. He’d experienced battle against real enemies and knew the dangers.

God said to Joshua 4 times in chapter 1, before they entered Canaan, ‘be strong and courageous, don’t be afraid of them’. But God also said to His chosen leader;

7 “Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Keep this Book of the Law ALWAYS ON YOUR LIPS, MEDITATE ON IT DAY AND NIGHT, SO THAT YOU MAY BE CAREFUL TO DO EVERYTHING WRITTEN IN IT.  Then you will be prosperous and successful. Joshua 1:7, 8

KEEP DOING WHAT I SAY AND EVERYTHING WILL BE OK.

God couldn’t allow Israel to turn back a second time, they had to fight and win! So I believe it will be for the Church (Christ’s bride) in the coming times. Situations and circumstances may become difficult but we are also called to fight and win. God led Israel to victory after victory in the Land of Promise and He will do the same for the Church, but we’ll need to hear and obey His leadership. Things ahead may seem difficult, but if WE KEEP LISTENING AND LOOKING TO GOD AND NOT THE BAD REPORTS OF MEN AND THE MEDIA, He will bring His people through to a spiritual inheritance, the greatest harvest of souls in history. The outcome for the Church may well be determined by whom we’re taking our lead from, the FEAR OF GOD or the fear of man. God has planned a glorious climax for the end of the Age and Jesus return for His victorious bride.

God bless and keep you today.

Come apart, outside the camp, to commune (share one’s intimate thoughts or feelings with (someone), especially on a spiritual level) with God.

The first mention of meditation in the Bible was to bring comfort to Isaac, miracle son of Abraham. Gen 24:67

Isaac had put himself in a position to receive from God, he’d come apart outside the camp in the evening time. He saw the camels bringing Rebekah, his bride to be, as they approached. As we said yesterday, COMING APART from people allows us to COME TO GOD. Coming apart onto God may well mean that we perceive and know things before those in the clamour of the camp.

We also looked at Jacob’s return to the land of Canaan, with his children, servants and livestock. He’d fled from his uncle Laban, whom God warned in a dream not to say anything to Jacob. Then he met his brother Esau in weakness (with a dislocated hip socket) and in fear for his people and possessions. Jacob had to face his past with Esau, but after 20 years Esau was willing to forgive and forget, though Jacob blessed him with a generous gift. Genesis 33:10, 11

God had given Jacob family and livestock and he had to move at their pace

But Jacob said to him, ‘My lord knows that the children are tender and that I must care for the ewes and cows that are nursing their young. If they are driven hard just one day, all the animals will die. So let my lord go on ahead of his servant, while I move along slowly at the pace of the flocks and herds before me and the pace of the children, until I come to my lord in Seir’. Genesis 33:13, 14

Some of us may need to SLOW OUR PACE (or in some cases quicken it) and get back in step with the Spirit of God.

Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit. Galatians 5:25

The whole world has been impacted by Covid today and much activity has been brought to a halt. Today more than ever we need to get in step and stay in step with God’s Spirit. The TIME OF ENFORCED STILLNESS AND SLOWER PACE is our chance to turn back to God! Who knows what the future will hold, but it’s we who need to correct and get in step with Him.

My wife Anne was blessed as she read the opening verses of Psalm 105 today in the Amplified Bible;

3 Glory in His holy name; let the hearts of those rejoice who seek and require the Lord [as THEIR INDISPENSABLE NECESSITY].
4 Seek, inquire of and for the Lord, and crave Him and His strength (His might and inflexibility to temptation); seek and require His face and His presence [continually] evermore.

May the Lord bless and keep you today.

God calls us to Meditate, consider deeply, His Word and His ways.

The first use of the word Meditate (exact meaning is uncertain NIV) in English Bibles comes in Genesis 24:63 concerning Isaac;

… for he was living in the Negev. He went out to the field one evening to Meditate – to ponder, consider, reflect on.

Isaac went out alone, to be by himself in the evening when the work of the day was over. Sometimes we need to get still and quiet, so we can hear God’s voice more clearly. In Genesis 3:8, it states that God was walking in the garden in the ‘cool of day‘ or evening time. God came down to meet with Adam and Eve in the evening of the day, so He expected them to be available.

Isaac would have known that his father’s chief servant had gone off to get a bride for him away from the women of Canaan and perhaps he was anticipating her arrival. He may just have been enjoying some peace and quiet after a busy day, we don’t know. But he looked up and saw camels approaching, Rebekah, his wife to be, had arrived and he may have been first to see her out in the field. Sometimes it’s the people who get away from the crowd who are the first to know when God’s saying or about to do something new, but it takes discipline to get up and go out alone.

Jesus spent much of His Ministry besieged by crowds of needy people, but at times even He had to go up to the mountainside alone and get away from the crowd. He said He only did what He saw His Father doing, keeping that connection was vital to all He did while on earth.

Paul also warned the believers in the NT Church not to loose connection with Christ, the head of the Church;

They have lost connection with the head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. Colossians 2:19

Isaac brought her into the tent of his mother Sarah, and he married Rebekah. So she became his wife, and he loved her; and Isaac was comforted after his mother’s death. Genesis 24:67

Isaac found comfort in his new wife after his mother’s death; he was possibly first to see her and then found comfort with her. Does God want to comfort someone today? Is He calling  us to come apart and be with Him?

When Jacob met his brother Esau, he wouldn’t go off at the pace of Esau’s men on their camels, he walked slowly and protected all the young. God knows the pace that’s right for each of us today and it may be different from those around us.

God bless and keep you today.

When we accuse one another, we do not see our brother’s faces (division separates us) or GOD IN THEIR FACES. Kjell Sjoberg, on Crete, 1993

… I had only my staff when I crossed this Jordan but now I have become two groups. Genesis 32:10

Jacob fled Canaan alone and God met with him and spoke to him in his dream at Bethel. He made a Covenant with God there, that he would give God a tenth if God would bless him and bring him back to his own land. He’d also fled from his uncle Laban, whom God warned not to ‘say anything to him, good or bad’. Now he’s ready to cross back into the Land of Promise, but he has to FACE something from his past!

God had prospered Jacob and given him livestock and servants and also his large family – it wasn’t easy for him to be alone now. But Genesis 32:23 records that Jacob sent all he had across the stream at Jabbok (the Hebrew can mean ‘to empty itself’, a prophetic name!)

So Jacob was left alone and wrestled with a man until daybreak. Genesis 32:24

Jacob left the Land alone and came back and met God alone, both times. The first time in the dream with the Promise and again at the ford of the river. This time he wrestled with the man, much closer and more personal. The man eventually touched Jacob’s hip and wrenched it, but Jacob still demanded a blessing. ‘Your name will no longer be Jacob, but ‘Israel’, because you have struggled with God and with men and have overcome’. He received a New Identity before he went back into the Land and he became a Patriarch for the whole nation of God’s people.

Jacob’s natural strength had been greatly weakened (‘poured out’, like Jabbok) in the confrontation and he still had to face his brother, whom he’d robbed twenty years before. OUR PAST LIFE HAS A WAY OF CATCHING UP WITH US, especially when God’s hand is upon our lives. Jacob still devised a plan to meet with Esau and appease his anger, but he was once again totally vulnerable. When he met Esau he bowed 7 times to the ground as he approached his brother. Genesis 33:3 God defended Jacob and Esau received his brother after the long separation. Unity was restored.

Jacob had to MEET ALONE WITH GOD to receive the personal things that God had for him and as we’ve seen this week, they involved many struggles in the natural and spiritual. He also HAD TO FACE THE THINGS OF THE PAST to have reconciliation with his brother and continue with God’s plans and purposes for his life.

We too may have to deal with outstanding issues from our past, asking forgiveness, to allow us to move on with our futures in God.

Once again we appeal to those who are being blessed to support work of this ministry. Please Donate today at our webpage;

fathersloveministry.co.uk

The worker is worthy of their hire.

We are willing to seek personal words of encouragement and guidance for those who need them. A donation is required for this service.

May God bless and keep you today.

 

God rescued Jacob ‘out of’ all his troubles. Genesis 31

“Then the Lord said Jacob, “Go back to the land of your fathers and to your relatives and I will be with you”. Genesis 31:3

God had brought Jacob out of the land of Canaan for twenty years to his mother’s people and increased him greatly there. Now it was time to return to the Promised Land, the land where their destiny lay, but Jacob feared Laban. Jacob left secretly with his large family and flocks to return to Canaan, but Laban heard after 3 days and pursued them. He journeyed for 7 days and finally caught up with Jacob and his family in the hills of Gilead. Before they came together God spoke to Laban in a dream and warned him, ‘Be careful not to say anything to Jacob, either good or bad’.  (Don’t touch the Lord’s anointed!)

We shall never know this side of Heaven, how many times God or His angels have delivered us from harm, maybe much more than we imagine. I knew of someone who had been a drug user but God was calling them to Himself. Under the influence of the narcotic they could actually see some things in the spiritual realm. They were standing on a bridge over a large river, contemplating jumping into the water and they could see two angels, a light one and a dark one fighting over them. The person came to know the Lord and helped many later in life.

Jacob knew fear (interesting that the Bible refers to the Fear of Isaac – what we fear can become our god!) as he fled with his family and flocks. Laban said he’d been foolish and that he had power to harm him, BUT GOD had visited him in the dream. God had warned Laban not to even ‘say’ anything to Jacob or there may have been a different outcome. Jacob had to step out and obey God, commit with all he had to the journey away from Haran. God may also demand of us to put everything on the line, like Abraham with his son. What’s in our hearts is often revealed in ‘times of challenge’.

God rescued Jacob from his uncle, but very soon he’d face the next challenge when he met his own brother Esau, whom he’d robbed of his father’s blessing.

Jacob was God’s man to form a nation through which all the nations or peoples would be blessed, but God tested Jacob many times during his life. He was called to be a Patriarch and that’s what he became after God’s dealings with him. God knows His plans for us and He can just as certainly bring them to pass if we cooperate with Him.

God delivered/rescued Jacob ‘out of’ all his troubles.

God bless and keep you today.

 

We have to walk through the reality to come into the vision!

In yesterday’s blog we saw how God not only kept but increased His sons/servants in adversity. I want to take a closer look at this in part of Jacob, the Patriarch’s life.

God orchestrated Jacob’s life (his name means the schemer/plotter), so that after stealing his older brother’s blessing he had to flee to his uncle Laban and seek a wife. So his journey (our lives are journeys, not destinations!) began and he stopped for the night with a stone pillow and had a dream about heaven, angels and the Lord speaking to  him;

“I am the Lord, the God of your father Abraham and the God of Isaac. I will give you and your the descendants the Land (Land of God’s Promise) on which you are lying. Your descendants will be like the dust of the Earth and you will spread out to the west and to the east to the north to the south. All peoples on Earth will be blessed through you and your offspring. I am with you and will watch over you where ever you go and I will bring you back to this Land. I will not leave you until I have done to you”. Genesis 28:13, 14, 15

This was the vision God gave Jacob at the beginning of his journey, alone and away from his family and all he knew. God works with us all individually (not like other religions), He has a personal plan created in eternity for us on earth and it may mean coming apart onto Him. On a personal note, a mature apostle gave me Genesis 28:15 back in 1993 and I’ve gone through some good times and some tough times until today.

At the other end of the journey, Jacob left Laban without telling him and began his return to Canaan. Laban caught up with Jacob, but God warned Laban not to ‘say anything to Jacob’. Gen 31:29 Jacob recounts his time with Laban;

“I have been with you for 20 years now. Your sheep and goats have not miscarried, nor have I eaten rams from your flocks. I did not bring you animals torn by wild beasts; I bore the loss myself. And you demanded payment from me for whatever was stolen by day or night. This was my situation: the heat consumed me in the daytime and the cold at night and sleep fled from my eyes. It was like this for the 20 years I was in your household. I worked for you 14 years for your two daughters and 6 years for your flocks and you changed my wages 10 times. If the God of my father, the God of Abraham and the Fear of Issac, had not been with me, you would surely have sent me away empty-handed. But God has seen my hardship and the toil of my hands and last night he rebuked  you”. Genesis 31:38-42

God is not in a hurry in the refining process, Jacob spent 20 years in this situation. As I said, we’re only looking at this one part of Jacob’s life. God continues to work with us and mould us for His purposes and our destiny.

What if we don’t endure the full process? In Jeremiah 18, God told the prophet to go to the potter’s house and watch him. The potter reshaped a vessel into a different pot because it was marred. ‘ O house of Israel, can I not do with you as this potter does’? Jer 18:6 God can and does change what He wants for us, but our response should always be “Yes” to His work in our lives.

Jacob had to endure God’s Process to live in His Promise.

God bless and keep you today.

 

Know for sure that GOD CAN KEEP YOU until He gets you where He wants you, your land of promise.

God doesn’t always work in straight lines, the shortest distance/most direct way, to our destination. He could do that because He’s God but He’s got His own reasons for doing things the way He does.

God told Abram, “Leave your country, your people and your father’s household and go to the land I will show you (destination unknown)”. Gen 12:1 God then gave Abram a blessing, good things to anticipate, motivation for the journey and He may do the same for us today.

As we saw yesterday, God blessed Isaac in the Promised Land, but Issac’s wife Rebekah had to come from outside the Land.

Jacob, at Rebekah’s prompting, deceived Isaac and stole his brother’s blessing. Gen 27 Jacob had to flee his household and go back to his mother’s land and work for his uncle Laban many years. Jacob went out as a hired hand, watching over someone else’s stock, but in God’s time returned to the Promised Land with four wives and their families. God took him away as a single man and built a family line through him and prospered him.

Joseph went out alone, was sold into slavery and became ruler of Egypt. God had promised Abram,

Know for certain that your descendants will be strangers in a country not their own and they will be enslaved and ill-treated for hundred years. But I will punish the nation they serve as slaves and afterwards they will come out with great possessions. Genesis 15:13, 14

God took Israel out of their land and increased them to become a nation in Egypt, God’s blessing on them. Both Jacob and Joseph faced struggles in their new lands, but God INCREASED THEM IN THEIR DIFFICULTY. God has a place of blessing/promise for His people, but He trains us and builds us up in adversity before we come into the inheritance He has for each one of us.

Israel were scattered among the nations, their diaspora, after the time of Jesus, their Messiah. God has been regathering them back to the Promised Land in these days and once again they’re prospering in the Land. Jesus will return to His people in their Land and the Kingdom of God will come on Earth, God’s plans will not be defeated.

Don’t be disheartened today if you’re in difficulties and far removed from promises spoken over your life. God has not forgotten His children, He increases us in our time of adversity, before bringing us into His destiny for our lives.

God is able to keep us and increase us and ultimately He will bring us to Himself.

God bless and keep you today.

 

Are we (the Church) about to enter into an ‘Isaac Day’?

Isaac planted a crop IN THAT LAND and the SAME YEAR REAPED A HUNDREDFOLD because the Lord blessed him. Genesis 26:12

Genesis 26 begins with another famine, as Abraham’s time. Isaac was in the land of Abimelech, king of the Philistines in Gerar. God appeared to Isaac and said,

Do not go down to Egypt(in a time of famine there is a temptation to ‘go down’ to Egypt, the world system around us), live in the land where I tell you to live. Stay in this land for a while and I will bless you. Genesis 26:2, 3

It was important to God that Isaac trusted and obeyed Him. God was about to show Isaac that He could and would bless him even in a famine. Just because others are in want doesn’t mean you/we should be in need;

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want/lack. Psalm 1

Isaac planted IN THAT LAND (we need to be in the place where God would have us to be – maybe in our own hearts) and the same year reaped a hundredfold. Are we willing to receive all that God wants to give us, or do we have a doubt that He could be so kind and bless us so mightily? Many believers have lived so long in lack that it may be difficult for us to receive all that He has for us. Maybe we should stop now and tell Him, and keep telling Him, that we want all that He has for us. It’s not a one time blessing,

The man (Isaac) 1. BEGAN to grow WEALTHY 2. His WEALTH continued to GROW 3. Until he became very WEALTHY.

We will need resources to harvest the hundred fold harvest. We’ll all have different roles to play and we need to be supplied for that to happen. The world economy around us will be shaken, but God can still supply us abundantly for all He has for us to do.

He had so many flocks and herds and servants that the Philistines envied him. Gen 26:14 They blocked the water for his livestock several times and he had to move on. Isaac had the blessing of God and he had wells but he had to move on and God allowed that. God may allow disturbances in our lives to get us to move to the place where He can bless us (and not others). In a recent blog I told the story of how Lydia Prince, wife of Derek, left a group of Arab women she’d ministered too and seen a mighty move of God with them. A man from a denomination claimed they had been there first and the work(well) was theirs. God opened up a new work with WW2 service personnel from all over North Africa. She moved and began to dig the new well that God had for her, she was flexible and obedient.

I believe that the Church is about to enter a time of great blessings and that the world system may be shaken. People may begin to look to the Church in the days ahead to have their needs met. It’s important that we’re in the place where  God can bless and use us to reap the hundredfold harvest. Our vision may have to expand dramatically for this to take place. Ask the Lord to help us to come into that place where He can bless us.

God bless and keep you today.

 

 

We saw in yesterday’s blog how Rebekah accepted the invitation to go to Isaac, son of Abraham and become his wife. A huge step into the unknown, with people she’d never met, how courageous she was. It was no ordinary invitation, there was a Divine destiny attached to it. The Chief Servant, representing the Holy Spirit, wouldn’t even permit her own family to delay his return, the call was urgent.

In Matthew 22:1-14 and Luke 14:16-24, Jesus told the Parable of the Great Banquet, about another wedding feast (perhaps referring to His own wedding with the Church).

Luke’s account begins with a promise of a blessing from an unnamed person dining with Jesus in a Pharisee’s house.

Blessed is the man who will eat at the feast in the kingdom of God. Luke 14:15

All who attend this Heavenly feast will be blessed!

Jesus related the parable to all those present at the meal, it spoke exactly to their situation. A man was preparing a large banquet and invited many guests. At the ‘time’ of the banquet he sent his servant to tell those invited to come, as all was now ready. There’s a time for doing things and if we miss it, we may never get another opportunity (Rebekah had only one chance to go back with the Chief Servant to Isaac, no one else knew his whereabouts). ‘But they all alike began to make excuses’. It didn’t suit them, it wasn’t convenient at the moment (NB not one of their excuses was accepted). When the servant returned and told the master, he was angry and told the servant to go out into the public places and bring in whoever would come. The servant obeyed but was sent out again so that his master’s house would be full (God will have many people for His Feast) Luke’s account ends with the master’s final decision;

I tell you, not one of those men who were invited will get a taste of my banquet. Luke 14:24

Matthew’s account though very similar has a couple of additional points.

‘But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, “How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?” The man was speechless.

‘Then the king told the attendants, “Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”

‘For many are invited, but few are chosen.’ Matthew 22:11-14

A man had come to the wedding dressed incorrectly. Revelation speaks of those in white robes Revelation 3:4, 7:13, 19:14. We need to be wearing righteous clothes and deeds now, to be welcomed into the Great Banquet.

The final line is a warning to us all, ‘Many are called, few are chosen’. Now is the day of salvation! 2 Corinthians 6:1, 2

We would appeal again to those who are being blessed by the ministry to Donate today on our webpage,

fathersloveministry.co.uk

With the measure you use, it will be measured to you.

We’re available to seek the Lord for those who wish personal words of encouragement and guidance. We’re also available to counsel online for those wishing it. Contact us on the webpage with your request. A Donation is required for this service.

God bless and keep you today.