Keeping Promises

A couple of weeks ago in church, one of our number was prompted by the Holy Spirit, to hand out chocolate coins, one to each person in the church and they had to hand it out themselves.

Thursday just passed was my turn for devotional sharing at band rehearsal and as I was returning home from work I realised I hadn't prepared when the chocolate coin dropped into my mind. I hadn't eaten the coin until the previous day ( Wednesday) and up until then I had kept it in my coat pocket.

The reason I chose to eat this coin is because it was representative of God's promises for me. I had been holding on to this coin, I had been keeping it safe. Not eating it because God's promises are special. But it got me wondering. The purpose of the chocolate coin, before it had been handed to me, before it had been bought and brought to church, was to be eaten. The chocolate's purpose couldn't be fulfilled because I was holding on to it.

What if we are holding on to God's promises for us that we are not allowing blessings to be fulfilled? What if I have been so focused holding on to God's promise, I'm not using the blessing?

The outworking of God's promises rarely meet our ideas of what we think they would be.

If I am so determined to hold onto that promise, am I withholding that which needs to be returned to God? His promises never return void, but they do need to be returned. Am I missing living in my blessings because I am waiting for a promise that has been already been given? What blessings has God placed for purpose already to enable the Kingdom that I have missed because I have the plan for the future blessings in my head of what I think it will look like. Why was I  waiting for the right time to eat my chocolate coin, when God gives his promises in blessing that is when they need to be used. Look around you and watch out for what procrastination by way of timing has been stopping you fulfilling God's plans for His Kingdom. Even the most humble and hard-working of servants can misinterpret meanings.

Matthew 25:14-30 demonstrates perfectly about holding onto a promise from fear whether of  losing it or displeasing God,  missing out on blessing. 

Isaiah 28:24 Talks about how when the preparation is laid, when the tools are ready to be used and the way ahead prepared, to move forward, to change, to advance ( hey pastor, guess who was listening ;) ) 

Ecclesiastes 11:4 shows that if you are waiting for the perfect moment you will do nothing. Its not the right time to move forward...its not the right time. God has lined things up and it is always in His time, and as He is Perfection, why are YOU waiting for the right time, it is now. If you are at constant battle holding onto God's promise and waiting for the right time then you will go round in circles, ploughing the same field, doing the same repetitive thing over and over getting no nearer harvest time. 

It is not when you feel you are ready, it is when He has handed you the chocolate, use the blessings lined up around you and move into your new season under Jesus. 

Thanks for reading :)

Lost is transition

I love it when God answers a prayer in a tangible way, it assures us that he is listening.

Especially in desperate seasons and we see how he has come through and we know he is listening. I've been finding myself get so grateful for the urgent answers, God's immediate solutions to our problems that I have forgotten some of the plans I was promised before I needed to pray into my tough season.

I almost get so wrapped up in making the most of this current blessing that I forget to look forward. I get stuck in the transition. I forget that God gives provisions to move forward not to settle in.

We should be striving for forward movement, what is coming next, actively perusing God's will, challenging ourselves to do more. We can wait on God's word, but once it has been spoken, we need to run with it. If we settle in the transition of this is where we are now, we will inevitably disobey God and leave ourselves feeling frustrated by being boxed into a place, waiting for the time to start, instead of being ready to start when it's time.

Think of it as being in training. If you wait to start training or practicing until your job or purpose is ready to start, then we will never achieve our purpose as God gives it in his time, when he decides we are ready. And to be ready we have to prepare.

I watched to great sermons recently, Stephen Furtick's put passion in its place and, Craig Groschel's overcomer part 1. Both of these have reinforced in me that we cannot wait for other people to tell us when God's wanting start something. We start it when God first touches our heart with it, and only when we have enough practice or training will God open the doors that lead us forward.

Have an awesome week.

I never knew I had died.

Its been a little while since I wrote my last post, I couldn't grasp the right Word. This week however I have been revitalised. The vital elements have been kickstarted again. This week at church we had Pastors Gina and Andy Elmes speak and it was incredible.  

There are certain things that pop up when you aren't expecting them, thoughts that remind you what you did or who you were before you came to Christ. And as much as I know I am forgiven, guilt was playing on me that I had done things I wasn't proud of, things I had been forgiven by God for but my chatterbox was making me hold on to those past doings.  And it was with these thoughts, securely squashed in the back of the 'guilt' drawer of my mind, that I walked into Sunday's service. 

Our church had the most amazing blessing yesterday as we had Pastors Andy and Gina Elmes from Family Church at Portsmouth.  I can't begin to explain how that preach has already helped me shake off the dead skin of my mind. I feel in my spirit refreshed and alive. And it was this Word that reminded me how to do that. It enlightened me to my death.  

So I am going to try to do justice to Pastor Andy's preach, and make sense of what it translates to me.   

As with the best Pastors, he encourages you to research the Bible yourself, to answer your own questions with the Word that has been given to us. Pastor Andy clarified the absoluteness of being saved. That it is unconditional, that when you are saved you cannot be resaved. That there is no in-between that makes us feel comfortable, we are or we aren't.  

He showed us that we cannot be a sinner and be saved by Grace at the same time. It is one or the other. You can be a sinner, or you can be saved from sin having a hold on you. He explained, using the words of Paul, that the sinners we were died with Jesus, were buried and resurrected with him. We are born again!  We are new. We are not the people we used to be. We have a new way of living. So why do we continue to hold onto things that have no claim over us.  

'This happened to me...'  

'I keep doing this...' 

Justifications, and I'm not negating their validity, are not needed. If you claim that you are saved you know that Jesus had freed you from the hold of sin, why do you let either the sin, or the memory of sin hold onto you. In Christ you can do all things, all things, you have the strength of him within you to prise those clutching fingers off of you arm, and walk away. Sin isn't just what you have done, its what has been done to you also.  

But the best news is, if you believe you are saved, that you never have to be held by that again. Remember that 80's film Labyrinth, do you remember that the heroine faces danger and eternal stench, doom and loss of her brother? That she is distracted and the paths change direction and everything that is thrown against her is because she is heading in the right direction to save her brother. But to do that, to save herself and her brother she has to remember something. 

Six words, she has to remember six words, and in a specific order. How would the movie had ended if the word she said to the enemy been, 'I have no power over you'. She might have believed it. If you start to believe that you have no power over the things that held you, you are forgetting that you have been saved. But flip the first and last words (and adjust for grammatical correctness), 'You have no power over me.'  

You, sin, have no power, Jesus has all the power, over me. I am claimed and you can't touch me. So stop trying to make your presence in my life important.  

If you were important you wouldn't fight so hard for me to see you.  

Jesus doesn’t fight for my attention, I follow him because I'm interested in what he has to say. With you, chatterbox/devil/satan/sin, I just find you draining and I really am fed up with you pulling at me all the time.  So just go.  

But you have to believe it.  If you don't believe it, it wont happen. If you can't believe in the big things, believe in the small. Ask for that sign that could not be coincidence, if you need it. But remember you need to pay attention.  As a store manager, I have had people come up to me and ask have you got a sale on, and I hesitate, silently looking and the 20 massive signs around me screaming SALE in bold coloured text, before I answer, 'Yes, we put all our signs up last week,' which they respond they hadn't noticed. 

Watch for your sign. Remember your death. The old you was forgiven so you could die with Jesus on the cross, and as He ascended, you were born into the person you were supposed to be.  

Have an amazing week, remember who doesn't hold the power. (hint, its not you)

I'm done.

Sometimes I am so tired of repeating the same cycle. Circumstances repeat themselves and I don't see them as opportunities just more ways of getting me down. My friend last night was speaking about being truthful. Our Young Adults team, 18-30(31,32....😁) has a group chat on social media network and we have named it for our Church's mission statement, #TRUTH2017.  We need to search for the truth in the world we live. My friend spoke about being true to ourselves. Pastor Steven Furtick, who I watch a lot over YouTube and read his books, is someone I love listening to, his delivery of the message always brings me clarity. I especially love his Crash the Chatterbox series, a truly timeless message, that is about recognising how to find truth in the lies that we feed ourselves.  I recommend you watch, read or listen to God's message through this format.

Some common lies we feed ourselves come out of fear of failure.
" I don't know how to do this. I have never been able to do this. I won't ever be able to succeed"

God says "I know how to do this, lean on me. I am always able, lean on me. I never fail, and if you fall, lean on me."

7. Revelation 3:8 I know your works. Because you haveLIMITED STRENGTH,  have kept My word, and have not denied My name, look, I HAVE PLACED BEFORE YOU an open door that NO ONE IS ABLE TO CLOSE."

"I'm exhausted. I've tried so many times. I don't have it in me."

God says "I am pure energy, lean on me. I do every time, lean on me. I have it in me, lean on me."

13. Isaiah 41:10 So do not fear, for I am with you; DO NOT BE DISMAYED, for I AM your God . I WILL STRENGTHEN YOU and help you; I WILL UPHOLD YOU with my righteous right hand.

18. Isaiah 43:18 So DON'T REMEMBER what happened in earlier times. DON'T THINK about what happened a long time ago.


" Its not the right path for me. I should never have started this. I knew it was going to go wrong"

God says "I am leading you down the road you were made for, lean on me. I directed your path, let me walk it with you, lean on me. I know where you are going even when you don't see it, lean on me."

Jeremiah 29.11 For I KNOW THE PLANS I have for you, declares the LORD, plans for welfare and NOT FOR EVIL to give you a FUTURE and A HOPE.

I'm suddenly reminded about a critical scene in my favourite movie, Disney's Beauty and the Beast (its coming out live action soon so I am sooooo excited). Spoilers!

Maurice (Belle's dad) has a choice to make.
 Take path one, get to the fair, make money. (nice easy road)
 Take path two, shortcut, maybe?? (spooky dangerous road)

Some people would say that he should have chosen the safe road, instead of chancing. Then he wouldn't have met the Beast or been imprisoned. Belle wouldn't have had to save him and become a prisoner herself. She would have never developed an understanding of why people act out when they are angry and afraid. She would have never helped someone else grow and change if she had not been forced into change herself. But she never was really forced, she chose to swap places, but she didn't really grasp how difficult it would be to change herself, it got tough and many times she regretted her decision but she saw it through.

What I am trying to say is that maybe, just maybe, God sees that you need to go in a direction that doesn't look like its going where you were headed. Maybe instead of selling an invention, he has planned it that you end up living in a castle, one that you didn't know existed, that maybe needs some attention and change itself but it was there waiting for you.

Sometimes you miss opportunities by doubting yourself, but even when that happens, God has added a new turning, even if you feel like your backtracking, you have to trust that God knows what he is doing, most especially when you don't. Sometimes you need to feel lost before you ask Him for help. But once you have taken the step to ask, then you have opened the gate, once you have allowed yourself to accept His Mightyness, then you know who to ask straight away, instead of clinging to desperation, and going to God as a last resort.

25. Philippians 4:13 I CAN do all things through Christ who STRENGTHENS ME.

Thanks for reading, I pray this touches someone 💗

Just ask for directions!!!

We are such doubters. If something comes against what we are wanting to do, we doubt everything we do and who we are. Pretend we are in a labyrinth, one with high hedge walls, and we are all trying to get to the middle. Now the middle obviously represents something different to each of us, a partner/family, an enjoyable job, financial security, early retirement, but lets for a moment treat the labyrinth as our life and the centre is where we will be with God.

So God is the place in the centre that we are seeking. And the paths of the labyrinth are the ways to get to him. We know that this labyrinth has more than one route, and more than one walker, but which walker goes with what path.... which is the right path for me? 

Now we add dead ends into the mix, The first few times we hit dead ends we are still energetic and empowered, turning straight around and finding the path, using all the force that a swimmer uses when flipping around to take another length, But the more dead ends we walk down the more frustrating it is and eventually we question why we are even on the journey if we are always going down the wrong way. We can stop at this wall, and we can't push past it, we can kick and scream in anger and frustration but the dead end is still a dead end, And even worse is when you forget that you can turn around and try a different route, or you feel there is no point because it feels like you are going backwards and we stop. We slump to the ground too despondent to even imagine a healthier place to be than this dark and unlivable damp floor, with the walls growing darker and scarier, sinking deeper and deeper into the ditch that has begun to form around us. 

There are also little alcoves with comfortable benches in this labyrinth, we can view these as way points on our journey to God, these are the things that people can misinterpret as the final destination. Some people are so intent on finding a certain alcove that they forget about reaching the centre of the maze. Some people reach an alcove and instead of resting for a while before moving on, camp out because its a comfy place to be, they want to get to the middle but where they are on the path is comfortable so they won't move on. 

And then there are the people that want to enjoy all the alcoves at once, they spend there time running from alcove to alcove, never really spending any real time or focus on one but all their time used up with getting this and that and feeling busy that they feel they will loose the alcoves if they continue on the path to God at the centre, so they talk abut following the path to God but dont alocate any time or persistence to it. 

On top of that there are those of us who are feel like we are aimlessly wandering, or completely lost as to which route to take or what alcoves to rest at. 

  

And to even further our frustrations there are puddles and hurdles when we get on the right path, so much so we can be covinced to feel that we are on the wrong path! 

When we are going down the right road but it looks wrong we check our directions. We check the sat nav, or map ;) I print out google directions because I like having a written reference. Why is it that we forget to pay attention to the directions in our labyrinth? The things that help us comfirm our direction or help us get on the right course or gain momentum or help us up we so easily miss! Because God wants to share his directions but you need to ask for them. You need to show you want to go down the right road and you want to hear what he is saying.

And how to get your set of directions, You Pray. You pray and look at your print out. (That's your bible by the way :D)

What I am trying to say is that we have to ask God humbly for the things which will help us find him, and enable us to help lead others.  That no matter the current path, alcove, ditch, dead end, theres always a set of directions that can lead us to the centre. 

thanks for reading :)

My Bad Habit.

I like to have plans, I like preparation but I know some people don't. However I can only plan so much for where God wants to lead me. I can go into a week thinking I want to achieve something and if I don't really hear what God has spoken into it I won't feel satisfied with the outcome. When it comes to writing, my best preparation is to pray for His input. I start with maybe a phrase or a thought that holds my focus and I write about that. This week what another poem came out of the Spirit, and I love that he takes me to places where I can only be honest. I feel the one thing everyone can relate to is having faults, and I don't even mean big sins just the things that we teach ourselves, our bad habits.

The more I spend time with God and looking at what is in His plans for me, the less I feel the need to bring a distraction to the front of my attention. A couple of months ago I was guilty of tuning myself out so much so that I was wondering why all the energy I was pouring into things wasn't coming back into my life. I had created a false loyalty, especially to the job I was in at the time. I just kept pouring my time and energy into something waiting for it to get better because I had invested in it, instead of spending a few simple honest moments with He who can share my struggle. I would get annoyed at the people around me, because I felt like I was getting nowhere, like they were having a go at me if something they said hit me in a hard place. Words only hit hard when you are trying to ignore the Truth. Whether accidental or on purpose I would feel like they were deliberatly trying to get me down, I hadn't realised that I was responsible for that feeling. I was already prepared to take offense my sore spot, because buried deep down, I knew that was what I had to start fixing. 

I can already see the changes, subtle and great in my life, the blessings that God has gifted me since I made the decision to be present. The decision to stop looking at my phone and my jobs/hobbies as a substitute for God, because I couldn't be alone in my own head or I wanted a space where I could avoid looking too closely at myself. But the more I spend time with Him, I recognise I am never alone. He is always with me and never judges my faults

Thanks for reading

Spiritual Media (a psalm of 2017)

"Too many things today can blind me 

Automatic reactions, conditioned distractions 

It is because I don't like  

to feel I am faulty, So I look to 

other people's declarations. 

My mind wanders into spaced zone 

And I never think to refocus its directions 

I let You fall by the wayside, 

 and wonder why I feel alone,  

Due to my lack of attentions 

How can I feel closer to you  

When I won't resist the simplest of temptations 

If I can't give up some time to honour you 

From looking at other peoples 

 life attractions? 

I want a stronger connection 

And to receive your exaltations 

But my constant distance from devotions 

Has got me forgetting  

my past revelations 

I have so much to do  

And won't give up my time 

So I overlook my commitment to You 

And struggle through my life, 

Pretending that 'I'm fine' "

Chalkboards

Its very strange to be at the start of a new year when things are getting back to normal. I feel I am reminding myself that it is only January, still, and the rest of the year is yet to come. And I can honestly say that I am excited to see how this year plays out.

God has already set things in motion this year that I can feel, the waves coming from the ripples but I don't know where it starts. Its like the opposite of the standard pebble throwing, when you see the stone but don't know how long the ripples will last or how far they will spread. I know that they waves are coming but I don't know what pebbles God has planned on throwing though I am already feeling the anticipation!

In our home office we have painted the chimney breast with chalkboard paint which we  use as a big memo board, a selection of random notes and things to remember, but this year, 2017 a year of distinction, I want to do something different. Instead of counting down days until deadlines and meetings, which we do on our phones and calendars and internal monologues, I am going to write down all the good that has happened to us this year, everytime something that God has blessed us wth will get written on the board.  

In the past we have looked back at what we haven't done over that year, the progress we don't feel we have made, the money we could have spent else where or something we did too much or not enough of. The truth is it is far too easy to pick fault at ourselves. We always compare what has happened with what we think should have happened. A lot of it does rest on choices we have made, and sometimes choices we have ignored, and some of it happens by default, bad luck. 

And that is why I want to write down the good things; I can only remember some of the amazing stuff that I was blessed with when I take time to fish them out of my memories. These wonderful gifts aren't the forefront of my thoughts. I haven't programmed my brain to bring the good forward automatically. 

So while other people are making resolutions and goals for this year, which I will also set myself plans for, I will not stop there. I will not  tick off what has come to be or regret things that have not, but I will add to my chalkboard wall every good thing that happens which will remind me to keep it at the front of my thoughts. Something to measure my year on, not to devalue any of the good thats happened because I haven't made the choice to place importance on His blessings. It can be something as simple as having a dinner at a friends house to getting a new car.  We are three weeks into a new year and I myself have four items for my chalkboard.

We have to look forward to the future, we have to be excited about the plans we have in our walk with Jesus, but we have to remember to be grateful for the blessings we have already received, the blessings which allow us perspective when we are doing life.

Happy New Year :)