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As a massive Darlington Football Club fan, the journey of following them has required an immense amount of faith! My first ever game was when they sealed promotion back to the football league. This sparked scenes of wild celebrations, people running onto the pitch, singing, lifting players in the air, it was an incredible atmosphere! On that day, you felt like you supported the best club in the world (madness I know) who were unbeatable and would go on to achieve great things.
There have been many other amazing moments too, a last minute winner at Wembley, 4 promotions in 5 seasons...high scoring victories along the way and you dream that anything is possible for this football club. However, this has not always been the case when supporting Darlington. We have suffered relegations, been put in administration several times and even currently, we are not in a good place football wise or structure. In these moments, you feel like you can’t see the point in supporting them, in fact, you wonder why the football club bothers to exist at all. In the same way, this speaks to me about my own journey of faith in God. There has been moments of seeing people healed, like a leg actually growing right in front of your very eyes, to people who had blindness being able to see. I’ve witnessed people come to faith, had their lives transformed by accepting Jesus. I’ve seen people feed the homeless and look after people who have been released from prison. I’ve seen God do so many amazing things in my own and other people's lives that you can’t help but to believe, praise His name, worship, pray and truly believe that all things are possible with God. In the same way, I’ve seen some of those coming to faith drift away, to even have no faith at all. I’ve seen people pray for healing and it’s not happened, even to the point where even that person has died. I’ve been through times where I don’t feel like I’ve heard from God or I don’t see how God is even working in a situation. At these points, I sometimes ask myself, is God even real? You can see this in the Bible too! I often laugh at the disciples and think, how could they not understand who Jesus is when they are walking with Him? How can they not believe when you look at all the things they have achieved through Him? I think it’s madness, until it suddenly dawns on me, that I am exactly the same as a disciple myself, in fact, it’s probably more laughable because at least I have the New Testament to read first where they didn’t! Like supporting Darlington, being on the journey of discipleship requires faith and grace. The faith to believe God is who He says He is in EVERY situation and the grace of God to save us and deliver us when we get it wrong. There are many times I need a full on kick up the backside from God to sort my own faith out, but then there is this story that I love in the New Testament, that reminds me in the chaos of life, sometimes we just need a gentle shoulder! In Matthew we read these words, “Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” You can imagine it can’t you, Peter stepping out onto the water, walking towards Jesus and with every passing step he would be thinking about how incredible this was and that all things were possible with Him. Peter, full of faith, is walking on water, making his way to Jesus...wow!!! Until that moment when he gets distracted by what’s going on around him, which makes him afraid of the wind, causes him to panic and begin to drown...how often do we do the same? We can be full of faith one minute and then overcome with fear and doubt the next, but what does Jesus do here? He simply takes Peter by the hand, walks him back to the boat and gently asks on the way across the water, “Peter, why did you doubt?” He doesn’t scream and shout at Peter, doesn’t just let him drown for his lack of faith, doesn’t turn His back on him! Instead, Jesus takes Peter by the hand step by step, back aboard the boat where everyone, including Peter can see that Jesus truly is the Son of God! What faith, belief and praise must have followed on the rest of that journey. Be encouraged that faith is a journey, that there will always be moments of unrivaled praise and worship, times when you believe all things are possible for Him who made us, when you feel closer to God than you have ever felt. Also remember that life will throw up storms, where you too will feel like you are drowning, like God isn’t there and if it causes us to doubt. In those moments, allow Jesus to take your hand and guide you back to the boat. It’s a crazy journey, but it’s a worthwhile because God is who He says He is and He will never let you down and He will never let you go, His grace is sufficient for us all, at all times and in all situations! Just remember to keep talking to Him, to keep lifting His name up high and watch as He works through you!
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It’s true to say that our brain has so much to process during anyone time. We can be processing different sounds, everyday sounds, like the human voice, the bark of a dog or the sound of a passing car. That alone is quite a lot to process, same with visual images taking in everything the eyes see and processing it into our memories. If that’s not enough our brain processes touch and smell too! Not only do our brains process this information but it has to process the emotions that come with them too. In fact, our brains have to process emotions that we feel about ourselves, our appearance, our careers, our families, maybe our pets, our aspirations, our anger, our joy, our pain, our happiness...you get the idea!
Not everything that enters our brain can be healthy though, we can have negative thoughts, horrible experiences, see things we shouldn’t or don’t want too. We can have bad thoughts about other people, which can be a real struggle. These thoughts, if allowed to enter our hearts, will mould the type of people we become. In fact, the Bible tells us to to guard our hearts (Proverbs 4:23, Genesis 6:5). as the word heart is mentioned over 800 times which relates to our emotions and how we are moulded as a person. Therefore, the heart and mind need to be heavily protected to help us become the people God has called us to be. I often feel like it doesn’t matter when I have unhealthy thoughts, but actually, I couldn’t be more wrong and it sometimes feels like, as Christians, we don’t take this seriously enough. Despite all the information the brain processes, we can get to the point where we actually do have a choice in what enters our hearts and in time, we can control things that enter our mind to avoid these negative things into our hearts. This is why the devil attacks the mind because that shapes our hearts, so we need to be able to change the way we think so we can stop negative things entering our head and ultimately our hearts. We need to have hearts and minds that are full of God, this doesn’t mean we have to cut ourselves off from the world, not watch certain TV, music, activities that help us relax etc, but we are called to be transformed by the renewing of our minds, to be in the world and not of it, so how can we do this? Sounds simple, but can get really complicated. Read the Bible, pray and worship Him in EVERYTHING we do. Sometimes, we often try to fit these things in when actually, they are essential to living a right life. Each one of them is literally life changing, the Bible is the word of God Himself. Praying is communicating with a loving Father and worship is dwelling, enjoying and being at peace in His presence...do them regularly and you will be filled with God in your head and heart. It’s not quick and easy, but it’s a life-time and a life changer. When your mind is clear and right with God, when you think the thoughts of Christ after Him, when you have the mind of Christ, when you’re being transformed by the word of God and the power of God and the Spirit of God in your thought life, then you’re going to be doing the will of God. God has a plan for you, a wonderful plan. The book of Proverbs shows you His plan for having health, wealth, and wisdom. It begins in your thought life. How hard is it to praise God when you’re in a place on despair and uncertainty! How hard is it to praise God when anxiety feels like its eating you alive! How hard is it when you cannot lift your eyes anywhere but where you are physically! It’s HARD!
God told me that ‘thankfulness opens doors that fear shuts’. Moreover, The Bible encourages us to praise Him through despair and that He is strong when we are weak. It’s all great stuff, but extremely hard, and seemingly impossible when you go through a hurricane season of life. I have had a spell in hospital recently with a relapse of Bipolar. It has been around 10 years since my last hospital stay. Having a fresh insight into the depths of despair and of ‘Why me God?’, my whole self (body, soul and spirit) was shutting down and fast and although I knew to praise and to thank, shutting down was the only thing happened. That is until I saw a resident patient as I walked back to my room. She didn’t talk, move, get dressed, eat, use the bathroom unaided, she was in a catatonic state. Staff where by her side 24/7 encouraging her and talking to her to trying and get through, for her just to respond in some way. Seeing this, my stomach did an unexpected summersault and I became frustrated and passionate for her to get well. In my room, I cried out to God for her, asking Him to reach out to her and let her know that He was there. My stomach prompted me to continue to pray pray and more pray for her. I asked God that He would show me something in her that would let me know that He was on it. The next day, forgetting what I had prayed, walking past my room, her eyes caught mine and she SMILED! Gosh my heart jumped for joy and I praised God I sang and thanked him profusely. I carried on asking God to breakthrough, I didn’t see evidence for a while that He was doing that until a few weeks later I saw her putting her hand to her mouth to eat! WOW. During the waiting time of seeing more Godly evidence of improvement, God showed me shadows of ungodly darkness that surrounded another resident. That feeling in my stomach returned, and so I again went into my room and did some business with God asking what it was I could see and what was He going to do about it. I regularly talked to God about other residents and talked with the residents and could feel myself returning although I hadn’t asked God to help me at this point. I thanked God, praised Him for his goodness in what I had seen so far in others. Until, I sat on my bed and searched for Jesus in my mind, I looked at Him and asked in my heart ‘What about me?’ At this point I had fed on other people and what I saw God doing in them but not for me. I spent 2 and a half months in hospital until I was well enough to come home full time. During that time, I had seen my family love me, care for me, be with me, take care of my work business and look after my husband. Moreover, my husband visited me every day, was encouraging and normal with me, he loved me and told me, it will be ok. This was the hand of God. Being home and being re-introduced to life hasn’t been easy, I have been in despair and wondered about life its self and my place in it. However, I have praised God even in despair and I can vouch, it works. Fixing your eyes on Jesus and His goodness to His people, is like talking bitter cough medicine. It’s like medicine that you know will make you better but tastes foul, in that you don’t want to do it/take it, but heals you. To who ever is reading this, God loves you and wants the best for you whether you feel it or not. He makes provisions, sometimes in the most unlikely places, and when you come through it, you will see you are God’s treasure and although He has lots of followers He always comes back for that 1, and that is You! Toni Many of us long to see revival break out, a Church that spreads like wildfire just as recorded in the book of Acts! We long for wonderous signs of salvation, miracles, prophetic words, people speaking in tongues, a love, joy and peace like never experienced before. These are some of the outpourings of the Holy Spirit and it sometimes sounds so simple in Acts 2, so what are we supposed to do when it doesn’t seem to happen, when is the right time?
Simple answer is, in God’s time, everything is always in His time, so what is our part in His perfect timing? You only need to read the Gospels and more of the book of Acts to know that it wasn’t all plain sailing, people didn’t just appear like in Acts 2 and it just happened. There was prayer, preparation and proclamation on the Gospel. I believe currently that some of us as Christians have been caught up in the trap of waiting for God’s timing and therefore become inactive or ineffective. We’ve told ourselves all things will happen in His perfect time (which is true) so we will just sit on our hands and wait it out (which we shouldn't do). We also convince ourselves that we are not good enough or become bound by fear, fear that stops us from sharing our faith or inviting people to church or even round for a meal which could lead to conversations of faith. We tell ourselves we are not good enough for these things, so we just won’t do it. It’s not a negative statement, I myself fall into this so often and all it leads to is disappointment and missed opportunities, thankfully we have a God who keeps giving us a chances to build rather than to fall. We are good enough, we need not fear, when Jesus said, ‘Do not be afraid.’ He didn’t say fear would not come but just not to let our hearts be overcome when it does. So for revival there is much exciting work to be done. Our first and foremost mission is to spread the Good News, Jesus told us, “Go into all the world, baptising people in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.” Matthew 28. When Jesus ministered to people His primary concern for people was not just to serve or heal people, but it was to ensure a person’s eternal destination, it was to deal with sin. Therefore, we all have a story to share and we should share it at every opportunity. I love reading the Bible in One Year as we are hearing that Paul was arrested and imprisoned numerous times! He was beaten and chased out of towns, to which he left filled with the joy of the Holy Spirit, which sounds a bit crazy, but it’s true. I often think Paul spent every day just living happily for the Gospel, travelling from place to place and seeing thousands come to Christ, but as we are reading, that’s not always the case. As we read later on in the book of Acts, that Paul is actually put in prison and on trial, in fact on death row really as he is almost killed several times. When taking to the stand in court, he would take every opportunity to share his faith and tell people about Jesus, did everyone listen and respond? Nope, in fact that sometimes led to further persecution. He was sent from place to place to be put on trial in front of numerous officials and each time he would share his story about Jesus, which in fact went on for around 2 years. It seems like a total waste that he would spend so long in prison, fighting for his freedom, but no, he just remained faithful to the Gospel. I often feel afraid to share my faith from fear of what others might say, I often wonder why I’m in a certain situation and wonder why it’s taking so long, how about you? Does that mean the story ends? No, we still have an amazing God, we don’t just become inactive because our story of how we met Him can still be told. That’s when we see change in our lives and that of those around us. Will we have persecution for sharing our faith? Yes, but it’s worth it. Will everyone come to faith there and then? Probably not, but it’s still worth sharing as some will respond either straight away or over time. The next part of what we can do other than sharing our faith, is growing in our relationship with God ourselves. Revival starts in our own hearts and if we want to see an outpouring of the Holy Spirit, then it can pour out from us as we are filled to overflowing! This involves reading the Bible, it involves prayer where we talk to God and it involves listening to Him as well. Not because we have to, not because it’s the holy thing to do, but because we love God so much that we want to bask in His splendour through all of these way’s. This becomes infectious, it creates faith, opportunities to share and serve others, it changes lives! Let’s be participators and facilitators in bringing the Kingdom of God into our homes, our streets, our workplace, our friendships, our neighbourhoods and our towns. We don’t need to wait, we just need to get involved in all that God is doing with us and through us. It’s an absolute rollercoaster ride, it has its highs and lows, its challenges and it’s frustrations but it’s worth it as we live a life that is supernaturally natural, countercultural and ultimately pleasing to the one who created us! As I am writing (typing) this blog, I am sat in the lounge of a Hospital. I want everyone to know that God is good even in difficult circumstances. I obviously am in a difficult situation (as is my immediate family) but I feel incredibly blessed much of the time because God is Good where ever you find yourself!
You maybe asking yourself, ‘how can she say God is good when she’s in hospital?’ I can say it because, to me, it’s a fact. God has used me abundantly here, I can pray and seek for patients, witness to staff and all the while getting the rest and treatment I so desperately needed, now only God can do that. Moreover, I was in a position a few days ago that left me desperate in my emotions. I read a post on Facebook, that indicated everything I felt. I contacted this person out of desperation, I needed her help and her help came at the perfect moment. She offered me understanding, she offered me Words of Wisdom, she pointed out victories that I had forgotten, she reminded me of the love of Jesus. I had never heard her voice at all, it was all via messenger and that was Gods provision to me. I am so grateful that she is a follower of Jesus, she through God saved me that night and I woke up the next morning feeling much better and have climbed ever since. Have you heard the saying, ‘if life gives you lemons, make lemonade?’ That’s exactly how it is in this life, we can be victorious in whatever circumstance you find yourself in and I truly believe that! This hasn’t been my choice to be here, but what I do know is God had prepared me. He indicated to me months ago that I might find myself in a place where I could not leave without secular authority and boy was He right! I will be put anywhere God chooses, although it was through ill health I got here, it is not irrelevant, and I am not irrelevant to other people. God can use us where ever and whenever He chooses if we allow Him to. The only reason I can be this way is because I know who I am in God and although I don’t wholeheartedly understand this situation I am in, I trust Him and I know He loves me with a full heart. God loves me now and God loved me then. Where God is you cannot lose and I truly believe there’s nothing in life that is wasted. Its amazing how many people are open to prayer, people here don’t know me from Adam, I’m a nobody to them. However, God is everything to them and the majority of them have not had prayer from anyone before, Jesus was their first encounter through me! Wow! The whole gospel has been portrayed to one poorly person, this is important stuff. I am not saying this out of proudness or for gratification (not at all) but rather for you who is reading this understand God can use you, no matter who you are or where you are! Sometimes all a person needs is a hug, sometimes Allan person needs is a soft hand on their shoulder to let them know you’re for them. One staff member who kept following me around, had her faith clarified, she now knows the underpinning knowledge that is required to be a follower of Jesus. All this happened naturally, I have made no effort, I have had no rapid heart beat indicating stress in delivering the gospel, non-what so ever. You are loved, now what you need to do is pass it on! Pray Station Father God, you are good all on the time, ALL OF THE TIME! Even when we don’t understand circumstances, you are still good all the time. I want to ask you God that you lift people up where they are to make lemonade out of their life’slemons. Help them to see with your eyes of pure love. Help them to see that you are certainly not fazed by their circumstances and neither should they have to be. Help people to remember who they are in you Lord. It says in the Bible ‘be still and know that I am God’ the add on to that it ‘even if life gives you lemons’. Amen. P.S I want to personally thank the persons who have been helping us through this difficult situation. You all are God sends and I am so happy to have such a loving church of family and friends around me. Thank you all for your prayers and your physical hands on support. Please keep them coming! Thanks Toni What would life be like without peer measurement?
Jesus tells us to come to Him all who are heavy burdened because He will give us rest. He didn’t say, ‘come to me all who are heavy burdened, and I’ll show you people who can do better than you!’ He doesn’t do that, and neither should we! Think: What would it be like to life without peer comparison? What would it be like if we only looked to God for measure? Just meditate on that for a minute! Furthermore, what would life be like without the ability to second guess ourselves? Would it mean there would be less self-justification in your life, less of digging holes to bury oneself in? Would it benefit us or hinder us? Jesus says, ‘come to ME all who are heavy burdened, and I will give you rest’. There appears to be an epidemic of anxiety and depressive disorders nowadays. However, put on your spectacles and look at how God sees you. Behold, I have come so that you may have life and life in its fullness. He says, ‘I am the way the truth and the life,’ not your neighbour, not your work colleague, not your shop assistant, not you parents of guardians, not the professor you know, not MR and Mrs Bucket, only Him, almighty God. We so easily sync ourselves into what we see or what we perceive to be true. Our society/culture has us playing an unwritten rule of ‘anything You can do I can do better, anything you can do I can do better than you! no you can’t, yes I can, no you can’t, yes I can!!!’. ‘Or ‘if I think you're better than me, then I’m going to rubbish you’. (I’ve gone to extremes there) God says that when we become Christians we are transferred from the dominion of darkness into His great light, i.e. them competitive rules don’t measure up anymore! We acknowledge our wrongs and understand that Jesus death was the payment of our wrongs, whether past, present or future and moreover when we commit to following Him, then and only then do we have the choice to life and dwell in the kingdom of love rather than the kingdom of false measurements and mis-guided self-satisfaction. Switch on your Bible and there it is, the first chapter says, ‘In the beginning God’. Moreover, In Matthew, Jesus teaches us to put first things first, i.e. put the Kingdom of God first. He is our perspective, He is our food, He is our perspective, He is our parent, our Father. When we stop functioning in the secular it is then we see how awesome our God really is! We can see a different set of directions. We understand that he is much bigger, powerful than what our cultural norms dictate. He says the Holy Spirit that dwells within us is activated when we sync into what the Word says. Think on this, do you really want the Holy Spirit who dwells within us being bored. Earthly Struggles I used to hate my thighs. I’m short (5 foot 3 inch), when I look down on them, to me, they seem HUGE. However, after a bit of parental questioning I realised that my thighs are actually similar to a 5 foot 8 person, aka my Spiritual Mam! Our measure is this, if I eat healthily, and look after the vehicle God has given me to live here on earth, then nothing I can do will change the shape or size of my thighs. Almighty God knit me together, it’s His fault. I may as well accept it. If you are overweight for whatever reason, don’t make it your life focus. Make Jesus your focus, allow Jesus to guide you into wholeness, healthiness. If like me, you like crisps and cake, then go on a diet from crisps and cake. It is that simple! Also, If you are underweight, don’t make that your life focus, unless it is affecting your functionality, allow God to guide you. Make the Holy spirit work! Phillipians 4: says think on what ever is true, what ever is noble, Here’s another example of peer measurement: My husband is a primary school teacher and he is awesome at his job. Everyone loves him. We can’t go into town without a parent or child getting excited about seeing him walk through town. This has made me feel somewhat inferior in the past as I tag along un-noticed! However, in my employment it would be useless for me to be able to teach but to not be able to interpret. In my area of work, I am all I need to be as is he. My husband has the patience of a saint (most of the time coz he’s human) however I haven’t. His measure of patients outweighs mine, easily. The devil makes light work of us if he can get us to compare and dislike what we have. If I try and measure myself against him, I will feel inferior every time. However, He says if he tries to measure up against me he feels the same. How can that be? We both feel the same about each other. The truth is we have been given different roles in our life. My character can be somewhat feisty whilst his can be passive. Because we have both opposite aspects we have all we need in our marriage. It's not that his passiveness is correct and mine is wrong, its we work together. If we had the same gifting his passivity would get us into trouble because he would have the tendency to allow a lot to happen to him us without interjection. On the other hand, if he was like me, then we would have the police at our door because I tend to be blunt and direct often (historically) without filter (tongue in cheek there) Obviously, they’re extremes I’m using to get my point across. The Bible says we are all members of the same body. Were meant to be different from each other. The correct perspective is, to thank God for who he has made you and thank God for who He has emade them. Thank God for our differences, thank God that were not all the same. That way everyone's a winner! Amen! Prayer: Almighty God, everyone’s a winner when we sync into being who You created us to be. Lord I’m sorry for comparing myself with your other children, please forgive me. I turn away form that way of being. I follow you, you are my guide now and forever more. Amen. This week’s challenge is based on Philippians 4:6, “Do not be anxious...” Can I ask you all to write ‘Do not be anxious’ on a piece of paper and place it somewhere it will be seen regularly. For example, I have placed it on the steering wheel of my car. It could be placed on a mirror, in your wallet etc. I want us to consider this Bible verse in relation to our circumstances. Please feedback:
Consider:
Let’s pray: Father God, thank you so much for your goodness and wanting us to be whole and restored. Thank you for your care and attention in wanting us to be freer in our walk with you than ever before. Guide us Lord and give us all the gift of stillness in this crazy world. In your precious name we pray, Amen Happy Monday to everyone, I hope it was a good one!
This week’s challenge is to know that God is good even in hard times and to consider His goodness through your situations. This is not easy, but it is incredible freeing to look at Gods goodness and seek his counsel as opposed to relying on our past experiences or worse, our own bright ideas! Think on this: The Bible says in 2 Corinthians 4:8-9, “We were crushed and overwhelmed beyond our ability to endure, and we thought we would never live through it. In fact, we expected to die. But as a result, we stopped relying on ourselves and learned to rely only on God, who raises the dead” (NLT). We have all faced hard times; no one is exempt from this in life. If you are a follower of Jesus then you are indeed a target for God’s haters both physically and spiritually. However, if you know the serpents tricks (aka the haters) then you can learn the strategies they use because they haven’t changed from Adam and Eve’s time. If you understand, as The Bibles tells us, the evil one comes to seek steel and destroy then you could take a step back from your situation and ask yourself, am I believing something false, am I basing my thoughts on factual information or how things seem? You see the Devils tricks have never changed as in John 10 it says, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. God is good and He is good all of the time, He says ‘...but I came that they (YOU) may have life and have it abundantly.’ Good news ey! Have a look at this scripture from Genesis, it shows us how serpents operate. It’s not just a good story, it’s our lesson too. You see scripture has life in it, God speaks through it and He helps us to see. The Fall 3 Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?” 2 The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, 3 but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’” 4 “You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman. 5 “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.” 6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. The trick of a serpent has not changed!
So, what should you do when you’re going through difficult times? First, you refuse to be discouraged, then you remember God is with you and finally, you rely on God’s protection and guidance. You see we all go through difficult times, the difference for those who believe in Jesus is not the absence of the shadow but the presence of the Light. Take time to talk It over with other people! What stressful or difficult experiences in your life have you seen God use for good? How have you learned to rely on God through the difficult times of your life? Let us pray together: Father help us to see through your eyes. Help us to know when we are believing rubbish. Speak clearly Lord. Still us, we pray. We love you, we worship you and we commit to you Almighty God who is the giver of life. Have a great week Wow, the feedback from last week’s challenge was incredible, people finding new ways to express themselves and feel God’s presence with them and also just taking time out to rest, be still, knowing that God is in control. We have such an incredible God, who is a living, who is personal and who loves us more than we could ever think or imagine!
So onto this week’s challenge…I was listening to Sue Omerod’s talk on line last week (which you can find by going to the talks section on our website) and I had an overwhelming sense of inspiration that lead me to this challenge. The challenge is to purposely ask God what He thinks about situations in our life but not just to ask Him, do not forget to wait for him to answer us! In all situations, find out what God’s perspective is, be expectant of Him to answer. It might not be the answer we thought or wanted but like last’s week challenge we need to remember to be still and know that He is God. He knows what is best for us and He ALWAYS works for the good of His children, even if it’s not what we expect or want because He knows what we actually need! Let us pray: Father, thank you for your love for us. God give us ears to hear and eyes to see your love and mercy for us. We want to tune into you rather than ourselves and others. Father, give us fresh insight to our situations let us see circumstances from your perspective rather than our own. Lord we commit to you, longing to know you more. You’re our biggest fan Almighty God! Lord we want to function in accordance to who you created us to be. Help us Father we pray. We love you Jesus, and we look forward to this week’s encounters. Amen OK, this week’s challenge is to be still and know that He is God (Psalm 46:10). If ever you need an excuse for a cuppa, here it is, God tells us to be still ourselves. How often do we go onto auto pilot when things happen around us? We can look like a pinball machine sometimes bouncing from one decision/thought to another with no real aim other than to bounce and to be bounced (sometimes by others).
Let us pray: Father God, 'Thank You' that you love us and that Your love is tangible. In our quite time this week Lord, feed us. Let us put aside our pinball machine ways of doing things and just be still in your presence not being or doing anything other than sitting with you. We love you God and we worship you, your name will ever be on our lips. God wants us to use these words below and to ground ourselves in the truth. Ephesians 6:11-24 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood,but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people. |
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