Discernment

(1 Corinthians 2:14) “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” 

It’s a new day, a new year and the call of God remains the same for all, repent and be saved. Why does the call repentance elude so many? To most it is foolish behaviour and the truth of Spiritual things elude them. Simple put they cannot understand what they cannot see. But for the Christian we see and understand through the eyes of faith, which is a gift of God and we are never to forget that. Be patient with family and friends but never buckle on the message of repentance. Pre adventure God may just give them sight.

Although the voices out there are doing their best to try and accommodate tolerance as the Christian thing to do, which it is, so long as acceptance does not become a reason to excuse our sin? The expression behind the wave is driving mankind into a lull of false security, with a flag hoisted high, which clearly reads “acceptance for all”. However the small print is overlooked by so many. How many of you actually read the terms and conditions of any given contract from start to finish? But even if your intention was to uncover any trickery it would be impossible, as the ink use here is invisible, unseen to the naked eye and foolishness to believe we are being duped. The singlehanded way to uncover the trickery, is to put on the “mind of Christ”. The only way to have access to the “mind of Christ” is to cry out to Jesus Christ the Lord and ask Him to save you from the looming destruction that is just over the horizon.

Once you are forgiven and that spiritual miracle takes place, you are then given spiritual eyes, all this simple means is that the unknown which was once in the dark is now quicken and the mind is able to make sense of certain unseen truths. It is a phenomenal gift from God. And as in any walk of life, there will always be someone in our path to make life difficult. Nevertheless take joy in this truth, as Christians we have more for us than against us. God will always be victorious. Ask yourself this question, will God have the final say? Which is an obvious conclusion, why do so many shirk His call to repentance, outside of it appearing foolish? Although it would be impossible to separate deception and foolishness as they are interlinked. Stay here a while, mull it over, explore the depths of it all and you will arrive at my conclusion, trickery rules the way. However deception with a feel good persona energizing it all, quite brilliant in fact. But then again did you know that Satan was created by God full of wisdom? Mankind is no match for him, but Jesus defeated Him on Calvary, that is why we need the “mind of Christ”. I trust I have made sense and you are able to understand the urgency of it all. We must make a conscious decision in the mornings to put given time aside and to do whatever it takes to find the grace of God to put on the “mind of Christ”. Just one day at a time. This is what we have been called to do. Without time spent in the Word of God sitting at the feet of Jesus, we begin to wither away, no differently to people marooned on a desert island trying to live off the bare provisions of the land; we have all see those TV episodes and in just a short time people lose astronomical amounts of weight. Christian discipline is crucial for our growth in the Spirit.

As Christian we will fall and fail, one the reasons for this is to remind us that we have been saved by grace, which is a gift of God and without failure in our lives we would certainly become puffed up with pride. However this will never excuse our sin as acceptable, forgiveness we will find, when we fall to our knees seeking out God’s mercy. We have been called to a life of holiness, wow! How far I have yet to travel. While we have breath we have hope, and each morning as we wake let us make it our priority to “put on the mind of Christ”. Christians all have the mind of Christ; “For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?” But we have the mind of Christ.” (1 Corinthians 2:16) – It needs to be triggered, switched on if you like, and activated by prayer and the Word of God. And what better time to do this with the rising of the sun, not the end of the day, we don’t write an exam and then study for it afterwards.

Signing off

Tyrone 

             

Survival, the art of war or outwitting the nemesis we come against is surely what life is about.

The devil's schemes

(Ephesians 6:11) “Put on the whole armor of God, that you may be able to stand against the schemes of the devil.”

It is good for us to realign our perspectives with God’s Word, it nourishes the soul and redirects our steps after they begin to wander down carnality’s path. God’s Word pushes us towards the dam of faith, which in turn feeds the trees of hope, nourishing our souls.

The devil has his schemes; simple put, to trip up the Christian and bring a berating accusation against our God. The war in the heavenlies is fierce and we are the pawns that fuel the fire. We are not privy to the sight of it all and yet we know it is as real as the rising of the sun, for the Word of God has declared it to His children. We know it to be true, but often forget the pressing issues at hand; when we are caught up by our own selfish wants. I do not make reference to material gain, although that has its part to play. However sinful natures crave satisfaction no differently to a heroin addict needing their fix. This is the devils playground and how often do we play into his hands? This is why it is imperative to dress for battle, we must put on the whole armour of God. Without it we have no hope, zero chance of surviving the onslaught. 

There is an unseen war happening and the sooner we make this truth a priory in our lives the sooner we will be able to deal with the froth of it all, but until then we will keep looking for our fix and always looking for justification for our actions. A reason why we are behaving like an unbeliever, it is seldom our fault, really! We always have our part to play in any given circumstance. We have the greatest example to mirror our actions off, Jesus Christ our glorious Saviour. Was he ever at fault? And yet he was crucified, silencing principalities and powers and glorifying his heavenly Father. That is the example of what it takes to defeat the enemy. 

If we find ourselves not willing to forgive others, then we have not put on the belt of truth, that part of God’s armour that helps us recognise our sin and all the areas that still need active repentance.

In conclusion; it’s the will of God, for us to live holy lives and the devil’s purpose to get us to fail. That is the nuts and bolts of the equation. Our behaviour will determine where we are at any given time. Our example depicts our understanding and growth in Christ. It’s only when we understand our lives and what is needed from us that we find productivity in them. The fruits of the spirit is what we are after, not fleshly recognition. We look to please our God, period! We need much grace for this to happen, but happen it must.   

New Year’s Eve is happening shortly, we are the salt of the earth and we are being watched, let us remember to put on the whole armour of God. Our example may just play its part and lead someone in repentance to call upon the name of the Lord. And so let me leave you with this though; “For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”” (Romans 10:13)

Eternity hangs in the balance…

Signing off

Tyrone

The belt of truth

(Job 27:4) “My lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.”

My goodness, considering Job pronouncing these words when his life was falling apart around him leaves me dumbstruck, I am almost unable to process the truth behind it all, wow! How a man could uphold such integrity when the pressure was on is beautiful. His mind consisted of exactly the same matter we all have, flawed matter driven by its fallen nature, sin. This is the Apostle Paul's conclusion; “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.” (Romans 7:25)

How often do you find yourself in a pickle and before you have time to blink falsehood becomes part of who you are, a little lie to easy the situation. Some may even be thinking, “I do not lie” and then we are taken deeper, God shines His glory into our lives and we soon see ourselves for who we are. As soon as we are put on the spot and even the smallest of lies will make life easier for us, what happens? This is why we have been instructed to “put on the mind of Christ”. We need to dress for battle, the war is fierce and if you are not privy to that truth then you must be still wearing nappies. To be a babe in Christ is a beautiful thing, to have God the Father in our corner is a phenomenal privilege. But when a person has been saved for many years and still wears diapers, well not such a pretty display. But when that nappy is replaced with “the belt of truth” what a glorious spectacle. How that must please our God and Father.

Satan had challenge God about Job and how he would get him to buckle. When the pressure was on, this was Job’s retort; “My lips will not speak falsehood, and my tongue will not utter deceit.” His example silencing the enemy but above all things, bringing glory to God.

“For everyone who lives on milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, since he is a child. But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil.” (Hebrews 5:13-14) 

May we all arrive at the resolve of Job and learn to distinguish “good from evil”, as there is no such thing as a white lie finding a pass from God.

When we move on from here and we bomb the test, if we are caught off guard, which is as real as the rising of the sun, let us be quick to acknowledge our fault and confess our sin, this is where the scale of our growth can be managed. Our understanding must be tested, it is the trail of our faith, it will be put to the test and I thank God for this truth in my life, to be like Jesus is all I am after, praise His name and thank you my King for your example. The road in long but the end is near and eventually we will take our last step, look up and we will be there; God the Father, heaven and all its glory, Amen! And what a day that will be.

Signing off

Tyrone

Comprehension

(Matthew 7:11) “If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

How often I have heard believes pray, why is this happening? Or please make this horrible situation go away. When we become desperate in our prayer we are often in danger of losing sight on God’s will and our wants take priority. We lose perspective, but before we can pray with the right motivation we need to understand how we should pray. Our foundation to prayer must spring from our new life in the spirit. We once were dead in our trespass and sin but now have been quicken and made alive in and through the finished work of Calvary. The Lord Jesus Christ is our illustration; to find a solution in a maths equation an example is normally used by the teacher to educate a scholar on how to find the result. When the student understands the theory they can then apply the formulation to the problem and will end up with the correct answer. The theory commands attention and must be plainly understood; now for all those who have received the spirit of adoption whereby we are able to cry “Abba Father” must learn God’s formula for our prayer life.

I appeal to all of us who love to fall on our knees and pray to God our Father; how He loves to hear the prayers of the saints, in fact their prayers all being stored in heaven to be used upon the golden altar. They are deeply treasured; “And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before God out of the angel's hand.” (Revelation 8:3-4) - When we get to heaven and the angel offers up the prayers of the saints on the golden altar you may even hear your voice reverberate to the glory of God. What an overwhelming thought! Bless the name of Jesus Christ my Lord and Saviour, how precious He is to me.

We fall into a dangerous trap when we begin to misuse this privilege that God has afforded us. I think the apostle James gives us the best teaching on the misuse of prayer and explains why we find life frustrating at times. He tells us that we often pray expecting a favourable answer but our requests elude us. I have often heard people explain it away like this, “in God’s time”, but if our prayer is outside the will of God, it will never be answered to our liking, how could it ever be? The deceiver may have permission to lure us by the deceitfulness of sin and we may even think our prayers have been approved by God, when in fact they could never have been as they are outside His will, that request was never penned by the quill that God held in his hand before time began. It was never scripted. Receiving a grant at the obvious expense of others it is flawed prayer; foundationally we must build correctly to end defined. Let’s look at how James puts it; "... you covet and cannot obtain, so you fight and quarrel. You do not have, because you do not ask. You ask and do not receive, because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions. You adulterous people! Do you not know that friendship with the world is enmity with God? Therefore whoever wishes to be a friend of the world makes himself an enemy of God. Or do you suppose it is to no purpose that the Scripture says, "He yearns jealously over the spirit that he has made to dwell in us"? (James 4:2-5)

We must understand and grasp that our existence as believers is to find God’s will for our lives. So when we look at the Lord Jesus’ paradigm we see the attitude “of not my will but thine be done”. We will always be tempted to pray and ask amiss until we understand the importance of God’s will in our lives. Why must it be this way? God is sovereign and therefore is in control of all things, yes choice is afforded us as we can align ourselves with His will or we can be driven by our own wants. However it is only His will and purposed that will carry with it a true blessing with honour.

Let’s use history to tell us the same story; the destruction of God’s creation; “So the LORD said, "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the land, man and animals and creeping things and birds of the heavens, for I am sorry that I have made them." (Genesis 6:7) We see that God had determined that the time to judge the world had arrive and He was about to destroy it and all who lived in it with a flood. What if Noah pleaded with God to change His mind and he prayed day in and day out that God would repent. It would have been a futile prayer and obviously outside the will of God. God has already made up His mind. Some may say but Moses got God to change His mind, my retort would be when where you summoned to sit with God in the flesh for forty days? Although destruction loomed, Noah found grace in the eyes of the Lord and he followed God’s instruction to the tee and built an ark. He settled his understanding, I am not sure what that entailed, we can ask him when we see him in heaven, but he got on with the task at hand. His prayers must have revolved around building the boat, how to gather the animals, and what provisions to take along. All these prayers hinged around the outworking of God’s will and not his selfish wants. In like manner when we pray in accordance with God’s will, how will our prayers be answered? Does a father give his son a gift that he knows will cause damage? Therefore we must put others before ourselves and pray with earnestness to find grace in time of need to apply ourselves to His will for our lives and if that is our persuasion, will we not find grace to walk in the spirit in accordance to His will. We have God in our corner, Amen! He will never be against His children, nevertheless we must learn to find His will in our lives. I understand that this is a process and will happen over time but we must shoot for victory. Our aim must be to glorify our God and Father with our lives. Let us store this glorious quote into the forefront of our minds; “How much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!”

Signing off

Tyrone

The grace of God

The inconsistencies of mankind verses the perfection of God. A topic well worth understanding as it will free the mind from some of their strongholds. There needs to be a breaking down in the formation of the building blocks that sin has cemented to our thought patterns. The book of Romans is of great assistance when unpacking this subject.

Let’s do some self-reflecting; how often do you find yourself saying I will do this or that but wane due to some interference? It may or may not be a valid reason why you cannot kick the ball  in the garden with your son, but to him all you have done is broken your word; the times I have said something and for one or other reason gone back on my word, actually disgusts me. And yet sin has taken care of that attribute in our lives, it is who we are! Here are some verses to back this up; “For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.” (Romans 7:18-20) – Now some astute scholars would suggest that Paul is making reference to us prior to salvation, which I cannot accept, why? Test it against your own life after salvation; have you never again failed in that area? If you can which honestly say “I haven’t”, then by all means take the teaching of those verses and appropriately apply it to an unsaved person. If not and you have been found wanting as I have, then we must in my opinion conclude that this reality is still relevant to us after salvation. However with that said we must not isolate our understanding as we are instructed to put on the mind of Christ, so although this war is real we have the tools now to put the flesh under. Does the Spirit of God ever fail? Obviously not! Christians now have God's Spirit living in us. So what then is my conclusion; walk in the Spirit and we will not fall in the flesh.

What has change after our born again experience is that we have all been given the mind of Christ; “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. The spiritual person judges all things, but is himself to be judged by no one. "For who has understood the mind of the Lord so as to instruct him?" But we have the mind of Christ.” (1Corinthians 2:14-16) - We can now understand spiritual truths, and our thoughts deepen as we grow in Him, nevertheless to some degree at salvation we must understand who God is and what He has done for us in and through His Son the Lord Jesus Christ. He has forgiven us of our sin, which required punishment but because of God’s mercy and grace we have escaped that punishment and all because the full price for our sin was paid for by Jesus Christ! The love of God! This is a miracle and can only ever be spiritually perceived. Through this God given wonder we are now sanctified by the blood of the lamb and flawlessly acceptable in God’s eyes. We have been reconciled to Him because of His perfect grace. In His perfection He was able to free His enemies and make them allies, He achieved this through love, not malice and we (born again believers) are now sons of God! God has made a way! Praise His glorious name now and forever more, Amen and Amen!

Nevertheless the war of right versus wrong continues to bombard our minds and we need to fight for daily sanctification. And the only way we will ever get through our struggles correctly, is to find grace. Some may have learnt to somehow keep sin at bay in certain areas of their lives, though some restraint or program but if it is outside of the provision of the grace of God is will only ever leave a person boastful. Here are two beautiful verses that gives us absolute clarity; “For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.” (Ephesians 2:8-9) – The danger we face as carnal people is we like to work under the cloak of independence. We get saved and now we believe there is a certain path we should follow, which there is! However the mistake the church at Galatia made was the same mistake so many of us make, which is this; “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel-- not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ.” (Galatians 1:6-7) – We get save in the spirit and then we look to earn our salvation though the feats of our flesh. This is a common mistake amongst believers and we need to trim our sails regularly so that we do not lose our way. This is why I love the WORD OF GOD so much as it always sets us straight when we unpack it correctly.

This is where the beauty of God is most evident. In His perfection, which is complete, it’s not as if God acquired grace to give out, He is grace, He never developed it but He is perfect in grace. The human race all fall under the provision of God’s grace. Believer or not, common grace is appreciated by all, the air we breathe, the rising and the setting of the sun, the list is endless. However saving grace is a very special portion of God’s grace that the select receive. Who are these people? Again is not difficult to arrive at an accurate conclusion; those whose names are penned in the “book of life”. And the only way to be amongst that number is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ, period! It is not a complicated message;  "For “everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”" (Romans 10:13)  

It is obvious that we (mankind) are sinners. Has anyone lived a life with breaking one of God's commandments? Obviously not! God is grace and within His eternal script He is working that out perfectly; with no blemish, His perfect plan unfolds even though some curse God as they worship His creation, not acknowledging Him as the creator. God does not flinch for a second but continues in perfection to offer grace to His enemies. Wow! How big is our God! What is our natural tendency when we are attacked? To retaliate. Our characters are worlds apart.

Do you see how futile it is for us to boast about anything we achieve in Him? We are sinners saved by grace, imperfect, tainted by sin and yet God sees us as righteous in Christ. Only God’s perfect grace has accomplished this and obviously the perfect love of God completes Him to be merciful, Wow! As soon as we look to take some sort of recognition for our own feats we forget about the perfect grace of God. This is why we are so aptly taught that God resists the proud but gives grace to the humble! “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.” (1Peter 5:6-7) - His perfect grace becomes our reality when we learn to trust Him in every area of our lives. Sure we will experience grace in the areas we yield to God, but what about all the secret hidden pockets in our lives? May God help us to trust Him even more as we see that day approaching. I suppose when we understand that we cannot help God with this process, bar laying our lives at His feet, total surrender is what is required and that we will have to work out through testing, which in itself is a process, we must learn to put on the mind of Christ.  

Today is Christmas and if you are persuaded that we must celebrate today as the day of Christ’s birth, I plead with you do not then share it with other idols like Santa and the like, make sure your message is clear and concise, used today to propagate the gospel as you side-line the straw men that have been designed to take peoples eyes off God’s grace!

Signing off

Tyrone

On Guard!

(Colossians 2:10) “And in him ye are made full, who is the head of all principality and power:”

How I long for the day when I will see my King and Saviour and I will receive a body like His, it will be incorruptible and will not have tendencies that drive and urge it toward sin. It will be a body full of praise manifesting the infinite glory and wisdom of God my Father, it will continuously speak of His saving grace and yet it will be without sin. We must understand that we have been sanctified by the blood of the lamb even now as we battle with the urges of life and we fight against the tug of sin. At times we find we fall in our ability to walk in righteousness, we transgress the law of God and heaviness overshadows our joy, sin robs us of our peace. If that is where you find yourself this morning then I implore you to call out to Jesus as He is never far away, He oversees all his soldiers, looking out for them. He is the King of kings and will come to the aid of all who call upon Him. But we must find a willingness to scrutinize the areas in our lives that habitually cause us to err! We must not ignore the enemy and the sin that so easily ensnares us. We must not pretend that sin is not alive in our lives if indeed it is, if there is no habitual sin is in your life, then praise God and may we all find the grace to walk uprightly, as it is available to every believer. If we find we need to deal with areas, which we are constantly at war with, we must then begin, if we haven’t already consciously started to use those experiences to teach us to repent and help lead us into the paths of righteousness. There are many stepping stones in life designed for our benefits. If we continue to err in a particular sin, call it “your thorn in the flesh” let us not wallow in self-pity but rather find repentance, as we wrestle like Jacob did for his blessing, we must confess our sin to a just and faithful God, who will be quick to forgive us, Jesus has overcome! Praise God! But let us remember as we seek forgiveness to also forgive those who trespass against us.  “And forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors.” (Matthew 6:12)

We have an enemy that roars like a lion and at this time of the year with festivities and merriment the order of the day we need to be aware of his devices and the traps he will use to ensnare the children of God. Let us soberly examine ourselves and then unpack the areas where we always seem to fall. Once we have isolated those areas then we need to be careful to avoid places or situations that we know will be lead to our demise.

However having said all of this we must always remember that we are justified by His work and not our own righteousness or our own ability to walk uprightly with self-justification as we excuse ourselves and accuse others. We are made full in Him! He is the head of all principalities and powers, there is no being seen or unseen that has dominion over our King. He rules sovereignly and therefore He calls the shots! If we have died with Christ, if we are born again and we are no longer ensnared by the basic principles of the world, this then should be our understanding and if not we need to seek it out through prayer and supplication; “why, as though living in this world do we subject ourselves to regulations—do not touch, do not taste, do not handle which all concern things that perish with the using—according to the commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a show of wisdom in will-worship, and humility, and severity to the body; but are not of any value against the indulgence of the flesh.” (Colossians 2:20-23) 

Remember sin was defeated on the cross by Jesus Christ our Lord and supreme King, He defeated sin and death on that cruel Roman cross. We will never be justified outside of His redeeming work, therefore remember to put off sin and place on the cloak of righteousness. Do not make the common mistake looking to excuse sin in our lives as a small matter, sin is mammoth, it cost Christ his life, a cruel death it was…

Yes we are reckoned righteous if we have been sanctified by the blood of the Lamb. We are either children of God or not! We are not a son one day and then a bastard the next. If we have the Spirit of God, then we are indeed His children. Never believe that you can fall in and out of sonship. We may however fall in and out of obedience, but that in itself is a completely different issue.

We are covered by the righteousness of Christ so when God looks upon us although we may feel unworthy to enter His presence, we are worthy, and only because of what the Lord Jesus did on the Christians behalf.

In conclusion, we can never be justified by our own achievements even if they are commendable before men. We have been justified by the blood of the Lamb, let us remember not to continue in sin so that grace may abound. The waters can get muddled here as the sin within looks to find an out, sin always wants to be set free, it has a will of its own and it must be tested in our lives. That is why we also pray; "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil". Be on guard against compromise; “What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? Or are ye ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?” (Romans 6:1-3) 

Signing off

Tyrone

Corner

You say that you believe there is a God, well done, even the demons believe and tremble when they consider HIS might. As for me that could never be enough, it is obvious that God exists, I needn’t walk far, my garden if full of glorious vegetation which in itself proves without a shadow of doubt that God is present. I am settled in my understanding, “ping pong” no longer transpires in my mind’s eye and by the grace of God I am settled. God is the creator of the Universe. HE is the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob and all those who have called upon the name of Jesus Christ the Lord to find rescue. It is one thing to believe that God exists but what is far more important is that I have GOD in my corner. As for the rest, the trial of life, with all its struggles is rather irrelevant. All I need is the full assurance of God having my back and then I will be as complete as I can be here on earth. Ah, heaven will be a totally different story, an eternal body with all the trimmings, which I have not yet fully comprehended. As glorious as that may be, the cherry on the cake will certainly be fantastic but nowhere near the grand prize of being called a son of God, a member of HIS household for all eternity, wow! Its then that faith will no longer be needed for we will see Him (Jehovah, the great I AM) just as He is, Praise God! But until then we have been called to walk by faith as the Word of God illuminates our understanding and what that means.

But for all this to happen we need to be sure of a covenant between God and ourselves, for once God signs upon that dotted line, it is done. Jesus Christ my Lord and glorious Saviour has made it possible for all. Where do you stand? If there is uncertainty then I recommend you wrestle upon your knees as you cry out seeking God’s forgiveness for you sin, call upon the name of Jesus and you shall be saved, but be sure to come as you are, no smoke screen to hide your sin. Thieves and robbers will always try to worm their way into the kingdom of God. As if God would ever be hoodwinked, really! How absurd is that type of mentality. They are only up against the ONE that spoke a WORD and the universe sprung to life. Talk about delusion, there it is…

The Lord Jesus Christ died for sinner that is why he was willing to be crucified, to unlock the vortex of sin itself, to break its shackles. However in order for this to be actualised in your life you must come as you are. Bare all, as vile as some of your sins may be, shed them, confess them and then cry out to Jesus and then that burden will be rolled away. It is the miracle of God’s mercy, praise His name. You shall receive the mind of Christ, and then through the throws of life we will learn by testing what is that good, acceptable and perfect will of God and how we can begin to apply that to our lives; this is miraculous and I thank my God for His mercy and for having Him in my corner.

Signing off

Tyrone       

David's understanding,,,

(Psalms 40:6) “…Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required.”

When I consider the requirements needed from God’s chosen people in times past, how they had to offer up sacrifice in order to find forgiveness and then they were never guaranteed absolution. How week after week they would sin and then have to perform a ritual and a life of some poor animal would need to be slaughtered so that God may accept their sacrifice. This was a never ending process that all of the seed from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had to adhere to if they wanted to find favour from Jehovah God. Yet David pens these words in the book of Psalms; “Burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required.”

Let us consider the importance of His understanding, when Moses came off Mount Sinai he had the Ten Commandments in His hand, God had just given Him the Law, the rules and regulations that they were to keep if they wanted to find support from God. Then later they received the breakdown of how they needed to apply themselves by fulfilling and keeping those bylaws and in turn have the only true eternal God as their protector. God proves His commitment to them by signs and wonders. They witnesses many miracles coming out of Egypt and there could be no doubt of God’s ability to save, they had seen him in action! But God now required faith from them and obedience was needed from every individual if they wanted to make it through the Wilderness and into the Promised Land. As time progressed with the genealogy getting them close to the birth of Jesus their lives still full of the does and don’ts as they looked to implement God’s Law into their lives, there was very little liberty in their religion, but they became so mundane in their application and with heart always looking to outwit the law. I have a greater appreciation and a far deeper understanding of trying to serve and please God in the flesh, it is impossible, we will never get it right. Why? We have been hewn from a pool of sin and as good as a person’s intention may be we will always gravitate back to our roots as we look out for ourselves. Look how the Lord Jesus singles out the leaders of his time; “But when he saw many of the Pharisees and Sadducees coming to his baptism, he said unto them, Ye offspring of vipers, who warned you to flee from the wrath to come?” (Matthew 3:7) 

The danger we all face being religious is to find justification by what we do instead of resting in what the Lord Jesus has done. Test your family and friends that profess to be Christians and then ask a couple of questions and find out why they think God should let them into heaven. The answers will always be the same, they will speak of their good works and that they are good people, there is no good person in comparison to God our Father, man has fallen, and outside of Christ even the most astute do-gooder will be left expose when He stands before our awesome God, his very best deed will be like a filthy rag in contrast. That is why we see that sinners finding repentance, people that understand that they are lost and have failed God and need rescuing, you often hear of prisoners getting saved as the Lord Jesus did not come to save the self-righteous but He came to call sinners to repentance. The self-righteous will seldom be saved. The leaders of Israel learnt to manipulate the laws of God to try and find justification from God, but their hearts were far from Him. That is why he called them vipers. They heard that by being baptized they would find support from God and yet they were preoccupied with self, their hearts were far from Him. These were the teachers of Israel, and today we see many religions and pious leaders applying exactly the same falsehood and pretence to appear godly and yet it is the blind leading the blind and then we know what will eventually happen, both will fall into the ditch.

David had understood that through his life, although he also made mistakes (some serious ones), that it was all about God and His purposes; he believed God and trusted in Him. When he fell into sin, he called out to the One who had the power to forgive. He did not try and find justification in doing things by sacrificial atonement in order to find forgiveness. He understood that it was impossible to keep the law and be justified by it. He realize that the Law could never be kept but it was a teacher that God implemented to show us that we required His help and that we needed to be rescued, we could never be a people that God could leave to their own devises, if He did that we would all be lost, and hell would be our final destination! David understood that God was able and because of God’s ability he was now able to kill the lion and the bear for God was on his side, not because he had spent hours training with a sling and was able to brandish it with precision, which obviously was also very true. He understood that by doing things he could never be justified. What amazes me with David’s example is that he believed God before the actual account of Calvary unfolded. Its god who opens a person’s eyes and gives them life, praise His name. David understood that “burnt-offering and sin-offering hast thou not required.” He trusted in His God! Will we trust our God, will we remember to find justification in our Saviour and not always look for acceptance by the things we do! Can we learn to rest in Him, I pray that we will become more like David and learn to have faith in our great King in every area of our lives? Give us a heart like David’s, may we always find the resolve to want to please you Father by obeying your voice and resting in the finished work of Calvary.

Signing off

Tyrone

Time to reflect

(Ephesians 4:26) “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:”

The Word of God steams with wisdom and yet my life often chooses to reject its acumen, why? Because I am carnal and sold under sin! This must change, I must learn to start using wisdom well, acknowledging her as a sister whilst receiving her input into my life. I must not only look to her when I have erred and fallen short of the glory of God. I must acquire to be consistent with the word of God and apply it to my life as a matter of urgency. I must be constantly reminded that I need to present my body to God as a living sacrifice which is only my reasonable service, it’s really no great accomplishment, just sensible. This is how we learn to prove what is good, perfect and acceptable before a holy God. But when my life is void of this truth, then I find sin is at the door and its desire is to take me out. Do not be fooled just as good habits are desired, bad habits linger with disdain.  Let us not be bamboozled if we have received the Spirit of God we need to act in accordance to the life giving Spirit. I get so frustrated when I know that I walk in disobedience, “the sin that so easily besets” always looking to disqualify me from such a glorious call. Praise God! Christ has overcome and that where we must learn to hang our hats.

Often the deception is subtle and at other times obvious, but the purpose of our enemies is to get us to fall into sin, and that can be in countless areas of our life. Wherever we find ourselves and however we have wander away from the truth of God’s life aspiring Word, when the Bible has not been our first point of call, but rather the last, when we have chosen not to call upon the name of the Lord but to rather give in to the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the pride of life, it must be said that others may have written you off, you may have even disqualified yourself. You may be a reed bruise by the wind and the trials of life, the flax from your very own candle may be smoking as the flame of life have lost its ability to bring forth light. Be that as it may, God will open His arms to you and say, “A bruised reed I will not break”. Others will disregard any broken reed as they look for the reeds in life filled with the right shape and strength whereby they may benefit. The mercy and the grace of God is for our benefit but always for His glory, keep that thought close to our hearts and it will be well with our souls. “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalm 51:17)  

The smoking flax of a candle will cause discomfort to those in the same room, it will aggravate their eyes and they will be quick to look to extinguish it, but not our God, He will see the glimmer of hope in the smoke, He will gently blow upon it and kindle it until a flame once again burns bright and clear.  “A bruised reed shall he not break, And smoking flax shall he not quench, till he send forth judgment unto victory.” (Matthew 12:20) - This is the heart of our Father, He is long suffering and full of mercy, but He has equipped us for every good work, not everyone is the same, not all will be strong and courageous, I am amongst the weak with many of you, I have many bruises to prove my point, however God does want us all to find strength (grace) from Him and walk victoriously in His Son’s achievements. He has given us the Word to be a lamp for our footsteps and His Word will give us hope if absorbed to find victory in Him. Unless a rechargeable battery receives its charge it remains useless.

We must learn this lesson well, “do not let the sun go down on our wrath”. When we ignore this warning we will soon find ourselves in deep, dark and a horrible pit. We must learn to keep short accounts with our heavenly Father and with one another. Father please teach us the importance of this truth, please open our eyes and give us a resolve to confess our sins to you, before the sun sets, help us be astute with one another and also apply this principle amongst one another.

Forgive me Father as I am guilty of not consistently applying this truth to my life. Transform my mind is my cry… May we all learn to become more obedient to the call upon our lives and can we begin to digest your Word a lot more intensely. May I learn to be more consistent! If only I could take a pen make two lists and then cross out all the unwanted attributes to my life and then make another list with all the wanted traits to enable me to be more holy and righteous. Then I am reminded that I am not justified by my own works, but by the blood of the lamb. Boasting will never play a role in the kingdom of God. There will be many sons and many will receive great rewards but only one King, yes Jesus Christ our Lord will receive all the glory. Praise His name! But obedience is better than sacrifice, and it is require from every child of God.

May we remember; “Be ye angry, and sin not: let not the sun go down upon your wrath:” (Ephesians 4:26) 

Signing off

Tyrone