'You were running well, who hindered you from the truth? This persuasion is not from him who calls you'
'It was for freedom that Christ has set you free, stand firm therefore and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery'
Paul's heart for the church was that they didn't trade the freedom Christ had won for them for a relationship of legalism and works of the flesh
We can't do anything to please God through our own efforts, we have died and the life we live, we live by faith in Christ who loved us and gave himself for us (Gal 2:20)
Do you sometimes catch yourself like me trying too hard...trying to hear him, trying to work for him, trying to love him, trying to please him
Don't be persuaded by the the one who lies to us and accuses us...the father of lies
When I think of our children who are loved and adored by us they don't have to earn this love or try hard to please us to stay in the family... they are simply loved because they belong. Nothing they do can stop us loving them
A servant or a slave has to work to please his master but as Paul writes, you are a son and because you are sons, God sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, the Spirit who calls out, “Abba, Father.”
Remember when you received Christ. You had nothing to bring him other than your brokenness... what joy you knew, what peace filled your heart. You knew you had come home...why then having done nothing to earn his love, the love which he loved us with when we were far from him do we try to earn it now? It's foolishness Paul tells the Galatians
For whom the son sets free is free indeed!!!
Tuesday, 20 September 2016
Wednesday, 3 August 2016
Who do you think you are?
I love those times when God speaks so clearly to you it's as though he is sitting right next to you.
One of these times was when I was reading where Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. It says in John 1:42 ‘Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John…but you will be called Cephas which means Peter’
Simon was a son of Jonah (or John) and from an ordinary fishing village. One commentary says that Simon (or Simeon) meant reedlike or grasslike hinting perhaps at his human weakness and how easily he was swayed by the ‘wind of the world’. But Jesus prophetically renamed him Peter which means rock, symbolic of his changed character. In time to come his faith and dependency on the true Rock: Jesus, was what the Church was to be built upon
He was called to be different.
It was like in that moment Jesus looked inside of him and called out not just his past and present but his future, who he really was and who God had called him to be
I thought... how we are all sons or daughters of someone, we all have a natural descent, a family line but when Jesus looks at us he sees who we truly are, who He has made us to be and when He calls us by our name He calls out our destiny. Simon son of John was now going to be Peter.
I remember it was such a powerful and intimate moment as I realised when my Father looks at me he sees all the promise and destiny he wrote and sang over me before I was even born.
A friend messaged me a while ago to encourage me.
She wrote… I remember an occasion where you were meeting and greeting at the church and you stepped up and prayed for me to have words of knowledge as a beauty therapist for my clients. I remember thinking…”Oh no, that’s not me!! ha ha!! However now I seek and love the Holy Spirit prompts he gives me to pray for my clients.
Whilst my friend was looking at her inadequacies the Father was looking at her adequacy in Christ. We often look at our imperfections whilst all the time the Father is looking at our perfection. He doesn’t see how I am now but he sees me according to my destiny
When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon who was threshing wheat to keep it away from the Midianite enemies he said to Gideon, "The Lord is with you mighty warrior, go in the strength you have and save Israel out of the Midianite’s hand". Gideon’s response was "Pardon me, my Lord but how can I save Israel, my clan is the weakest and I am the least in my family". He was looking at where he had come from instead of who God said he was and that God was always with him.
It’s time to give up the small version of ourselves and believe and step into the Christ version of who we really are.
One of these times was when I was reading where Andrew brought Simon to meet Jesus. It says in John 1:42 ‘Looking intently at Simon, Jesus said, “Your name is Simon, son of John…but you will be called Cephas which means Peter’
Simon was a son of Jonah (or John) and from an ordinary fishing village. One commentary says that Simon (or Simeon) meant reedlike or grasslike hinting perhaps at his human weakness and how easily he was swayed by the ‘wind of the world’. But Jesus prophetically renamed him Peter which means rock, symbolic of his changed character. In time to come his faith and dependency on the true Rock: Jesus, was what the Church was to be built upon
He was called to be different.
It was like in that moment Jesus looked inside of him and called out not just his past and present but his future, who he really was and who God had called him to be
I thought... how we are all sons or daughters of someone, we all have a natural descent, a family line but when Jesus looks at us he sees who we truly are, who He has made us to be and when He calls us by our name He calls out our destiny. Simon son of John was now going to be Peter.
I remember it was such a powerful and intimate moment as I realised when my Father looks at me he sees all the promise and destiny he wrote and sang over me before I was even born.
A friend messaged me a while ago to encourage me.
She wrote… I remember an occasion where you were meeting and greeting at the church and you stepped up and prayed for me to have words of knowledge as a beauty therapist for my clients. I remember thinking…”Oh no, that’s not me!! ha ha!! However now I seek and love the Holy Spirit prompts he gives me to pray for my clients.
Whilst my friend was looking at her inadequacies the Father was looking at her adequacy in Christ. We often look at our imperfections whilst all the time the Father is looking at our perfection. He doesn’t see how I am now but he sees me according to my destiny
When the angel of the Lord appeared to Gideon who was threshing wheat to keep it away from the Midianite enemies he said to Gideon, "The Lord is with you mighty warrior, go in the strength you have and save Israel out of the Midianite’s hand". Gideon’s response was "Pardon me, my Lord but how can I save Israel, my clan is the weakest and I am the least in my family". He was looking at where he had come from instead of who God said he was and that God was always with him.
It’s time to give up the small version of ourselves and believe and step into the Christ version of who we really are.
Friday, 22 January 2016
Evangelism is loving people
Evangelism is about loving people
I believe 2016 is a year when we will see an even greater increase of Gods Kingdom breaking out around us. I believe God is raising up an army of ordinary people like you and me who know their identity and who will naturally move in the supernatural in supermarkets, on buses and trains and in the everyday places of life. This our mandate to bring the love of the Father and see his kingdom come to those who don't yet know him.
People need not just to hear of God's love for them but to experience it. My experience on the streets of Bedford where I live and elsewhere is that people are disillusioned with religion but are very concerned about the cruelty and injustice in the world. Many think God doesn't care and have closed their hearts to him either through what they see around them or through personal loss and disappointment.
God is giving us a wide door of opportunity to show people He does care. He is kind and merciful, full of compassion and he has not come to judge or condemn but to forgive and show love and mercy.
I can't convince someone to believe and it's not about about winning an argument but loving the person in front of me whatever that looks like in the moment I have been given.
Sometimes it may be helping them practically, listening to them selflessly, buying them a coffee or a meal or praying for them. I want to share a story of a lady I stopped in the street today
I asked her the question 'If God could do a miracle in your life what would you ask him to do?' At first she was guarded. As I suggested that perhaps there were dreams or desires she had for things to change she began to well up. She was embarrassed and said "I've had the worst year possible and I don't think even God could help me" She began to cry and said "I think I need to walk on". I begged her not to walk on and that God really cared about the year she had had and he cared about her. She then began to tell me about it. How she was a single mum who had nearly lost her legs through diabetes and she had also lost her mum recently who had died from mouth cancer and clearly suffered so much. She also told me of a time when she had felt so ill she had cried out to God to help her and to put her in hospital and she woke up and found herself in a bed in hospital. I knew God was reaching out to her and I asked if I could pray for her. She let me and said I think I was meant to meet you today. Twice she commented on the kindness I was showing her. It was amazing watching the power and presence of Gods love break in to her life. At the end I said to her this may be a bit presumptuous to ask you but would you like to meet again for a coffee and she replied I would love that. We hugged each other and exchanged phone numbers.
This is just one of many stories from today when a group of us spent a couple of hours talking to people on the street. We saw someone come to Jesus, someone's shoulder instantly healed, we got to prophesy and bring hope and hopefully help shift people's perspective about who Jesus really is.
I came away feeling alive knowing this is what I was made for and I was reminded again of Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners
I encourage you to look for opportunities every day wherever you are to love people and see what God will do through you.
I believe 2016 is a year when we will see an even greater increase of Gods Kingdom breaking out around us. I believe God is raising up an army of ordinary people like you and me who know their identity and who will naturally move in the supernatural in supermarkets, on buses and trains and in the everyday places of life. This our mandate to bring the love of the Father and see his kingdom come to those who don't yet know him.
People need not just to hear of God's love for them but to experience it. My experience on the streets of Bedford where I live and elsewhere is that people are disillusioned with religion but are very concerned about the cruelty and injustice in the world. Many think God doesn't care and have closed their hearts to him either through what they see around them or through personal loss and disappointment.
God is giving us a wide door of opportunity to show people He does care. He is kind and merciful, full of compassion and he has not come to judge or condemn but to forgive and show love and mercy.
I can't convince someone to believe and it's not about about winning an argument but loving the person in front of me whatever that looks like in the moment I have been given.
Sometimes it may be helping them practically, listening to them selflessly, buying them a coffee or a meal or praying for them. I want to share a story of a lady I stopped in the street today
I asked her the question 'If God could do a miracle in your life what would you ask him to do?' At first she was guarded. As I suggested that perhaps there were dreams or desires she had for things to change she began to well up. She was embarrassed and said "I've had the worst year possible and I don't think even God could help me" She began to cry and said "I think I need to walk on". I begged her not to walk on and that God really cared about the year she had had and he cared about her. She then began to tell me about it. How she was a single mum who had nearly lost her legs through diabetes and she had also lost her mum recently who had died from mouth cancer and clearly suffered so much. She also told me of a time when she had felt so ill she had cried out to God to help her and to put her in hospital and she woke up and found herself in a bed in hospital. I knew God was reaching out to her and I asked if I could pray for her. She let me and said I think I was meant to meet you today. Twice she commented on the kindness I was showing her. It was amazing watching the power and presence of Gods love break in to her life. At the end I said to her this may be a bit presumptuous to ask you but would you like to meet again for a coffee and she replied I would love that. We hugged each other and exchanged phone numbers.
This is just one of many stories from today when a group of us spent a couple of hours talking to people on the street. We saw someone come to Jesus, someone's shoulder instantly healed, we got to prophesy and bring hope and hopefully help shift people's perspective about who Jesus really is.
I came away feeling alive knowing this is what I was made for and I was reminded again of Isaiah 61
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me,
because the Lord has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted,
to proclaim freedom for the captives
and release from darkness for the prisoners
I encourage you to look for opportunities every day wherever you are to love people and see what God will do through you.
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