Let go and let God...

We all have perceptions and arrive at conclusions in accordance with the way we as individuals think on a particular subject. We have an assessment to most things in life, and when we land on neutral ground we have shown our hand. However we are often blinded to the bigger scheme of things, the deeper unseen truths that is as real as the setting of the sun. When we do not listen to that small still voice which whispers into our ear, which steers us towards a deeper understanding, which if allowed, often lands on a tile which fills in the blanks. Listen me must! Perceptions and clarifications never land on a full stop. Accept when it comes to God, nothing of value can be added to His Character, He is perfect! However there is always more for us to learn when it comes to the goodness and brilliance of our God.

The Holy Spirit plays a vital role in unearthing God’s genius and so when we shut Him out, it is at our own peril. A thought, a notion or a prompting to do something for someone and even ourselves at times may often be triggered and sadly we disregarded it as not that important.

Was it not a though we acted upon when responded auspiciously to the glorious Gospel message? An event which changed our lives; a prompting, that showed us our sin and our need for a Saviour; I remember the day I understood that God cared for me, and quickened my mind to understand that He had saved my soul. There is no way I deserved His favour and yet I found it, thank you my heavenly Father! There was absolutely no good thing in me that drove God to choose me to be saved and yet I find myself amongst His number. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch (rubbish) like me”. God is all-powerful! The universe and all of creations bows before Him. He has it in His power to do whatever He pleases within the realm of His character. Sin has no part to play in His makeup, praise His name! Lying comes easily to us but it is impossible for God to lie, think on that! “So that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us” (Hebrews 6:18)   

How far apart our characters actually are and yet He chose to make a way for me to have a relationship with Him; the Love of God personified in my life and all because of the Lord Jesus’ faithfulness to the cross of Calvary and all which that entailed, WOW! And to be blown even further into orbit, He made this decision prior to the foundations of the worlds coming into existence, even in spite of so many sinful slip-ups along the way.

I am in the process of re-evaluating my life over the last thirty years as I re-examine the many blunders I have made and why. It is becoming extremely clear that as much as I would want to search out some positive contribution that I made and influence God’s decision to save me, it does not exist. Outside of His love, goodness, mercy and grace I would still be dead in my trespasses and sins, no differently to a bat in a dark dingy muggy cave blind to its surroundings. God shone his light into my life and only because He decided to do it can I cry out “I can see, I can see!” If you are one that believes God saw some good in you prior to salvation you are terribly mistaken. We are righteous on the merits of what the Lord Jesus did on our behalf, He took our sin upon Himself and for this reason and this purpose alone God now loves us.   

The sooner we learn this lesson the better; we are all cogs in His hands and we need to understand our minuscule roles and become pliable clay in the potters hands, for when we rest there it will change us and the lives of those we come into contact with. Imagine if our lives could resemble a steering wheel, a slight tweak to the left and the vehicle moves in that direction, whilst we keep the car on the road with God navigating our lives we remain nontoxic and we keep those travelling with us safe. If we ignore the rule of the road (God's rule) it will be at our own peril. Who played the biggest role in the gospel message, obviously the foundation was laid by our great Saviour, but it would have to be the Apostles. They left everything behind and yet so many of us battle to put off the luxuries that this life has to offer. No wonder we are so ineffective. It’s all about being in control of our little worlds, this must change! If not it will cost us and those we have an effect on.

Signing off

Tyrone

The struggle of Christianity...

When I consider the cross and the effect the Lord Jesus has had on my life, I often find myself getting lost in my fight, but what I had come to notice is that a man like Charles Surgeon’s, although at times may have fixated on his life and his struggle, the substance of his diary entries did not have that focus but clearly shifted to the Word of God and Christ’s tussles. It was positioned on Christ’s brawl as the pinnacle of all things and not his own moves to appease His God. This is where the power of salvation rests. We often feel forsaken and then forget to reflect on what Christ actual endured. It ends on being about us and not Him. Let us seek out God’s grace to rectify our wrongs. Our struggle is but a pinch on what Christ actually endured. When we are freed from inward focus we become far more effective.   

Observe…

“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”

- Psalm 22:1

“We here behold the Saviour in the depth of his sorrows. No other place so well shows the griefs of Christ as Calvary, and no other moment at Calvary is so full of agony as that in which his cry rends the air-”My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” At this moment physical weakness was united with acute mental torture from the shame and ignominy through which he had to pass; and to make his grief culminate with emphasis, he suffered spiritual agony surpassing all expression, resulting from the departure of his Father’s presence. This was the black midnight of his horror; then it was that he descended the abyss of suffering. No man can enter into the full meaning of these words. Some of us think at times that we could cry, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” There are seasons when the brightness of our Father’s smile is eclipsed by clouds and darkness; but let us remember that God never does really forsake us. It is only a seeming forsaking with us, but in Christ’s case it was a real forsaking. We grieve at a little withdrawal of our Father’s love; but the real turning away of God’s face from his Son, who shall calculate how deep the agony which it caused him?

In our case, our cry is often dictated by unbelief: in his case, it was the utterance of a dreadful fact, for God had really turned away from him for a season. O thou poor, distressed soul, who once lived in the sunshine of God’s face, but art now in darkness, remember that he has not really forsaken thee. God in the clouds is as much our God as when he shines forth in all the lustre of his grace; but since even the thought that he has forsaken us gives us agony, what must the woe of the Saviour have been when he exclaimed, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”” (Charles Spurgeon)

Signing off

Tyrone

Judge not!

(Matthew 7:1)  “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

A little leaven leavens the entire lump; Judgement can become an infectious leaven if not checked. But it does not stand alone; the point of yeast is that not much is needed to influence the entire loaf of bread. Just the slightest habitual sin in our lives that we have never been able to shirk works its way into our survival and has the desired effect of handicapping those caught in entrapment. If and when it is exposed even more damage is done. We must learn to take our eyes off one another’s faults and focus on the Lord Jesus’ achievements. He alone was the spotless Lamb and without His sacrifice we would all be found wanting, there would be no exception. The sooner that becomes our reality the freer we will find ourselves to serve Him. It is an obvious conclusion that sin needs to be dealt their blows; we cannot excuse our sinful behaviour as acceptable. However I believe we have often forgotten from whence we have fallen when it comes to pointing out the sins of others and excusing ourselves for the sake of making ourselves feel better about ourselves.   

But what I find rather intriguing is how often those closest to us come against any progression we make as Christians, as they look to breakdown and not encourage. There could be numerous reasons why this happens, and we may be guilty of exactly the same mistake when dealing with others, in fact I am convinced that we have mostly erred in this area of our lives. We know that the devil goes around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour and I know he likes to sow discord amongst family and friends and even brothers/sisters in the Lord. Our character (old nature) is still something we all need to work through in our lives; sometimes we walk victoriously, whilst other times we fall privy to it; outbursts, anger, pride and the like. Nevertheless although we can never commend these traits we must accept the fact that we are still living in bodies that have a fallen nature. It is true that we no longer should be slaves to it. It is also true that we should no longer habitually practice what we once were slave too i.e. sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. If we look honestly at the list, we will all realise that we fall privy to some of those traps at times. We must however seek out grace to overcome, but if we fall, we have a high Priest who is touched with the feelings of our infirmities and we are encouraged to repent and seek out God’s forgiveness as He is a forgiving God, He will forgive our sin: - “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (1John 1:9)

But forgiveness is a two sided street; it is not a one-way! We pray “forgive us as we forgive those who trespass against us”, let us be sure not to miss that crucial bit of information. Let us take to heart the purpose of a day like today, “Good Friday” the day the man Jesus died so that we could go free, it was a day filled with forgiveness. He took the punishment of sinful men and women and yet he had no sin, phenomenal! And so He taught, “Judge not, that you be not judged.”

Signing off

Tyrone 

The Brilliance of God!

The brilliance of God; who will ever be capable of working Him out?

We like to believe that as children of God we have a good measure of that genius, however we are clueless when it comes to the depths of who He is. Paul explains it like this; “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” (1Corinthians 13:12)  

The depths of that statement is far reaching, pride often drives us to believe that we know more they we do in many facets of our lives. We are in fact clueless when it comes to the bigger scheme of things, until God opens our eyes to His existence we remain in darkness. The Lord Jesus put it like this to a man that by position and title claimed to understand who God was and what He demanded from His creation. Obviously, he too was clueless. Here is the account of their conversation; “Now there was a man of the Pharisees named Nicodemus, a ruler of the Jews. This man came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher come from God, for no one can do these signs that you do unless God is with him." Jesus answered him, "Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God."” (John 3:1-3)

In order to explain something or someone in detail, sight is crucial. Otherwise we are left to our imaginations. Can a murderer be condemned of that crime by an eye witness if they are blind? It would be far harder to condemn him using the other senses. Imagine a blind witness before a jury with the strength of their testimony hinging on smell; “I smelt him enter the room”.  Sight is the key! It is the strength of the eye witnesses that brings quick and concise justice to a particular perpetrator. Obviously other evidence has its place, but an eye witness is the strongest witness of all! Did you know that there were many eye-witnesses that saw the resurrected body of the Lord Jesus?

The point here is that until we are born again, we may think we feel and sense God in our lives, when in fact we are far from Him. Religion is not enough! Nicodemus was a religious man and yet he struggled to receive the Lords instruction, why? He was blind! Not physically blind but spiritually blind. Here is the proof; “Nicodemus said to him, "How can these things be?" Jesus answered him, "Are you the teacher of Israel and yet you do not understand these things?” (John 3:9-10) - He believed in the God of Abraham. Isaac and Jacob and yet he understood very little about God and His character. Saul a murderer of the early Christian who eventually became Paul the Apostle was another who by example and in typology gives us insight to his blindness and then sight is given to him to see God for who He is. And yet in his blindness he thought he could see, how many people have you met like that? The Christian sees only because we understand that we too were once blind but now through conviction and repentance are given sight to see.

The point Paul makes is that although we can now see, we see through a dark blurry glass when it come to God. We most certainly see enough to motivate us to serve God, to love Him and to be driven to seek out Christ and heaven as our final reward. However we have barely scratched the surface when it comes to the only true God and His genius. So much about Him has been kept from us.

Our lives are filled with so many unanswered questions; this is only a transition phase and this is where faith is required to help fuel our onward stride toward God and His righteousness, which is a gift from God.

The long and the short of it all, is whatever the struggle is, it will be worth it all, of this I am completely persuaded. This will eventually be our reward, so digest these words and use them to motivate us towards good works; “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, "Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away."” (Revelation 21:3-4)

Signing off

Tyrone