Thought for today

Its not what you say to God that can keep you seperated from Him, but what you DO NOT say!

Faith Works!

I am trying my faith, more accurately, I am exercising it! I am believing God for something, and like all of us, I have a hope that it will come to pass. However, I am not waiting to see if it will come to pass before I move. I have already moved to expect the result, preparing for it to come to pass. Let me illustrate it like this: I once heard a story that accurately conveys what I am trying to say.

"There were two farmers who prayed for rain in a drought stricken land. The first farmer would get up early and look to the skies to see if there was any sign of rain. The second got up early and ploughed his fields and planted his seed, and prepared it for the rain that he was expecting."

This is what I'm saying I have believed God and I'm starting to plough my field, because I know the rain is coming. This is faith in action. Faith works itself out in my life by the way I act/respond towards it! If I have faith I will act on it based on the sure promise of God. If I don't, ... well, I will wait and see. "If," "maybe", or "let me see" are not words in the book of faith. Faith acts when there is no cloud in the sky that even remotely hints at a sign of rain.

Here is the principle:
You cannot prepare your field when the rain comes, it will be too late then! If you are trusting the Lord for something in your life. Prepare your field now! Don't wait to see it before you move. Move NOW! Prepare, gird up your loins and great ready for the windows of heaven to open and your rain to fall!

Are you waiting like the first farmer to see the rain and then move or are you like the wise farmer who acted on his faith and prepared himself for what God was going to pour into his life

Truth!

I heard a statistic recently (not sure where) that stated that more than 50 % of Christians don’t believe in absolute truth. To me that was a bit shocking. Why?
Because it seems that the very word “Christian” means follower of Christ. And if I am a follower of Christ then I must at least believe in what he stands for, His values and ideologies. In His own words He says: "I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me." (John 14:6)

Now if I profess that I am a Christian, how do I justify that fact that Jesus declares He is truth, yet I am not certain of this. Are they believers of Christ?

The underlying problem stems from the fact most people who profess they are Christians don’t know Christ!. They know OF Him, who He was as a historical figure, but not on a personal level. For if they did and they stood for what He stood, Truth is not shades of grey but a foundation established in Christ Jesus. The world looks at Christians as weak and ineffective. Can you blame them? We don’t even believe in what the we preach!

Sadly it’s the Christians who need to know God before we take on causes and think we are doing God’s work! Before we try to speak for Christ, let us find out what He ACTUALLY says about things, and not what we think we should say, or believe or even what we were taught. What does Christ say about the issues? Do we know? Or is our culture and lifestyle, our own personal wants and needs packaged under the guise of a Christian voice?

For one, Christ, or his disciples or apostles never referred to themselves as “Christians”. Look in the bible for yourself if you don’t believe me. But we are called
Ambassadors and saints. (Pagans at Antioch called us Christians; Acts 11:26)

An Ambassador never has his own agenda, or his own voice, or opinion. He is responsible for communicating his countries ideas, standards, laws and values to others. When he performs his position according to his duty, he becomes a voice for his country. A voice of a nation that is not present to a people who want to know who he represents.

When they asked John the Baptist who he was, his response was “I am the voice of one crying in the wilderness…”(John 1:23) Perhaps instead of trying to voice our opinions and our ideas on how things should or should not be. Maybe we can be ambassadors, expressing or giving voice to what our we are called to be: A voice, speaking the values of our kingdom, and our King.

We do have a kingdom, a heavenly kingdom and our King is Jesus Christ!
Let us represent him in this earth! Let us represent truth in its entirety

What is truth?
John 17:17 ...thy word is truth!

Found in Him!

So often in life we think that when we do "good" we are OK. One of the biggest obstacles of the cross is not only evil but self-righteousness. By it countless men are lead astray and many more worship at its throne. When Adam took the fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil (Gen 2:9) it was not just sin that entered in him, but self righteousness as well. It came from the “good” part of the fruit. Because of it man sees himself as basically “good” with no need for redemption. Paul was on this road of self righteousness when he met Stephen (Acts 7). When faced with the view that redemption came from Jesus, his self righteous rose up in opposition to this and it produced pride and destruction. Yes self-righteous is that thing that keeps telling us that we don’t need the sacrifice of a saviour. Look what it did to Saul.

However, when Saul (later to be called Paul) encountered truth, he lay down all his own righteousness, comparing it to dung and he picked up that which is called Christ. He now says “And be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law, but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which is of God by faith.”( Phil 3:9)

All our “good” is like filthy rags in the sight of God. Only when we are in Christ, having nothing of our own, but having His righteousness surround us, become the very essence of who we are, not with superficiality or pretence, but a genuineness that says there is nothing good in me, even the idea is a falsehood, therefore I know I need that which Christ is to come to me. Let His fullness fill my lack. Let Him wash over me, that this man might be submerged in that flow, never arising again by my means, but always being found in Him!

My desire, our desire should be the same heart cry as Paul, not having any of my own righteousness which is of good deeds, my ideas, my generosity, my charity, my kindness, which inflates my own righteousness and ultimately leads me further from God. But let the righteousness that is in me be of God by faith. Let my will be lost and Christ’s will be found in me!

Praise Rise Conference

Praise Rise Conference was great- Awesome move of God. There were many healings and transformations- Lives impacted and changed!

Conference Wrap Up

The Conference was amazing! On Saturday we had a concert and the presence of God was so think in the atmosphere. We had a few healing, and deliverance's! People were at the altar crying out to God and many people were touched and filled with the Holy Ghost!

Sunday was just unexplainable. You had to be there! Worship was great! Both services experienced the outpouring of the Spirit and people were just covered under the anointing of God.

We give thanks to Minister O'Neil Watson from Toronto and
Pastor Richard Nassif from Sydney. Two mighty men of God who ministered in the conference

Fish Tanks!

The Lord reminded me of something that had happened years ago when I was a little child. A lesson He wanted to show me. I was talking to Him about how sometimes situations in life are hard to go through and there are some points when it seems especially hard. He impressed upon me an image and an explanation:

When I was about ten we used to have a fish tank, where we had a number of beautiful fish. I remember sitting numerous times and watching the fish. It was very relaxing and mesmerising. The flash of silver and gold scales as light flashed of them. The jet black of others with streaming colourful tails that seemed to fly, like a flag in a strong wind. I really enjoyed our fish. From time to time, however the tank would need cleaning and the water needed to be changed and the stones washed, glass cleaned, the regular things you do when you need to clean a fish tank.

I remember helping my father or mother do this. We had a bucket of clean water which we would transfer the fish into and then clean the tank, fill it with fresh clean water and put the fish back. We had a little green fishnet that we would catch the fish with. I was fun for me to try to catch them as the dashed around the tank.

It was to this time the Lord took me back. I saw how we caught the fish, and the fish struggled to escape. When I caught one and lifted it out of the tank to transfer it to the bucket, the little fish would jump and trash about violently. I would carefully scoop them up, putting my hand over the fishnet to protect them from accidentally falling on the floor and put them in the bucket. When they were in the bucket they would calm down and a few minutes later they were back to normal. Then we would go through the whole process again of getting them back in the clean tank once it was ready.

The Lord showed me something. He said: the little fish are comfortable in their tank. Even when it gets dirty and mucky they are quite complacent. Sometimes our life is like that, it gets filled with stuff, messy stuff, that clogs us with unnecessary dirt. We stay in the muck because it’s what we know and it’s comfortable. The fish don’t know in that moment you have a plan for them to take them from their current murky water to a place that is clean and fresh. They react with alarm and fear. It is a confusing time for them. The most painful time for them is when they are out of their environment; they are no longer in the water. It‘s something new and scary. It’s unfamiliar territory!

You are just moving them from one place to another, but to them it feels like you are about to kill them. Your perspective is different from theirs. Your plan is to protect them, take care of them and give them something better. At that moment they don’t see that. They are in such fear and dread because they think they are going to die. Yet they are safe in your hands and your aim is to move them from a place that is not good to a place that is better.

The word says: For I know the plans I have for you," declares the Lord, "plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. (Jer 29:11 NIV)

The problem is the transition, you think you are being destroyed or you feel like its just to hard, you can't breathe, but I am just moving you from your current environment to a better one.

The little fish struggle and fight but yet you have a great purpose for them. Life is like that when God moves us from one environment that is polluted to a new place (He brought me forth also into a large place; he delivered me, because he delighted in me. Psalm 18:19)

The fish like the new water, and the clean tank but they don’t like the transition. Its uncomfortable and painful, but in the move is a greater purpose. We struggle and fight and think we are about to die, but we are safe in the Masters hands and though it might hurt for a bit, He always has the best in mind for us. It’s the transitions that hurt the most because everything familiar is gone. But it’s only a sign of greater things to come. If in the transitions our perspective is one of expectancy of greater things to come and not the current pain we are in

It’s wonderful to know that God has a great future for us and it starts now!