Through Christ, God was brought within touching distance

‘Through Christ, God was brought within touching distance’. This is a quote that I read from one devotional book.
Yes, through Christ, God was brought within touching distance; because :–

·       A child was able to sit on God’s lap and feel welcomed. Mark 10:13-16 (Matthew 19:13-15)

·       A woman was able to touch the hem of God’s garment and received healing. Mark 5:25-29

·       Men from various walks of life were able to walk with God and hear Him teach and see Him perform countless miracles. John 1:35-51

·       A woman was able to sit by the well and have a life changing conversation with God. John 4:5-26

·       A lame man picked up his mat and walked for the first time as he encountered the healing touch of God. Mark 2:1-12, Luke 5:18-26)

·       Lazarus came out of the grave as he heard the voice of God calling him. John 11:38-44

·       Fishermen caught the largest load of fish ever, as God told them where to sink their nets. John 21:1-6; Luke 5:4-7

·       Two men were amazed at the wisdom of the stranger walking with them as God conversed with them. Luke 24:13-27

·       A little boy was able to share his food hamper of five barley loaves and two fish with a whole multitude as God beckoned him to give. John 6:9-11

·       Mary wept for her brother at the feet of the man who had delivered her from demons, knowing that He was God and was able to raise her brother from the dead. John 11:32

Today, men and women of every tribe, nation and generation have been redeemed from the curse of sin and death through God’s love demonstrated for us by His Son, Jesus Christ, at the Cross of Calvary.
Yes, through Christ, God was brought within touching distance.

When Life Turns an Unexpected Direction

Have you had the experience of having your life turn around in a way you least expected, or do you know of a close friend who has experienced such a tremendous changeover in their life that they hardly resemble the person they used to be? How has it affected your life or their life?

One good Pastor shared the following message from the book of Ruth. Perhaps it might also help you the way it helped me. Read on.

Message: Dealing with the unexpected – What do I do when life does not work out the way I had planned?

In the book of Ruth we learn that God is the God of new beginnings.                            History: Elimelech took his family (wife and two sons) to Moab to save them from famine (death). But during their stay in that land, all three – father and sons – met their death, leaving the mother in a foreign land. Naomi, the mother, had no one of her own people to comfort her, except the two young Moabite women who had married her sons.

How to deal with the unexpected:

       i.          When life throws you the unexpected, pay attention. God will send a message.
           Ruth 1:6 – Naomi heard ...

If you pay attention you will hear God speak into the situation. Pay attention in your heart, in your spirit.

Moses paid attention at the burning bush and heard God speak. (Exodus 3:1-4)

Hagar sat in the wilderness by the fountain of water to reflect on the sudden turn of her life and she heard God speak to her. (Genesis 16:6-9)

Today if you will pay attention God will speak to you through His Word.

 

      ii.          When life throws you the unexpected, pay attention. God will send a friend. For Naomi, God sent Ruth. (Ruth 1:16-18) God knows that we are a relational people. We need other people around us, to comfort us and give us the strength to carry on.

Jesus is our best friend. He will even go with us to the grave and beyond. ‘What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear...’

 

     iii.          When life throws you the unexpected, pay attention. God will open a new door. He will allow for new opportunities to come out of that situation. Ruth was led to the field of Boaz so that both she and Naomi would not die of hunger. In that field God started building relationships that would shape both Naomi and Ruth’s future.

 

    iv.          When life throws you the unexpected, pay attention. God will give you a fresh start.   God will give you a new beginning. Naomi’s joy was restored. No longer was she a Mara (bitterness), but she became Naomi again (pleasant). She learnt to live and love again and celebrated the marriage of her daughter in law Ruth to her kinsman redeemer Boaz. In her bosom Naomi laid the child born to the couple and became its nurse. God restored her life. And from that child Obed, the genealogy of the Lord Jesus was shaped.

Ruth 4:13-22  And Boaz took Ruth, and she was his wife. And when he went in to her, Jehovah made her conceive. And she bore a son.  (14)  And the women said to Naomi, Blessed be Jehovah, who has not left you this day without a redeemer, so that his name may be famous in Israel.  (15)  And he shall be to you as a restorer of life, and one who cheers your old age. For your daughter-in-law who loves you has borne him, she who is better to you than seven sons.  (16)  And Naomi took the child and laid it in her bosom, and became nurse to it.  (17)  And the women, her neighbors, gave it a name, saying, There is a son born to Naomi. And they called his name Obed. He is the father of Jesse, the father of David.  (18)  And these are the generations of Pharez. Pharez fathered Hezron,  (19)  and Hezron fathered Ram, and Ram fathered Amminadab,  (20)  and Amminadab fathered Nahshon, and Nahshon fathered Salmon,  (21)  and Salmon fathered Boaz, and Boaz fathered Obed,  (22)  and Obed fathered Jesse, and Jesse fathered David.

Filling Up The Deep Wells

It was Oswald Chambers in 'My Utmost for His Highest' who said that ‘Our Lord never asks questions until the right time’. In other words He waits until we are ready to listen.

Many years ago, before I gave my life to Christ I used to be a very angry person. I thought that my anger was justified; my father had failed me many times through his abusive nature towards my mother and his neglect for the welfare of the family. Some of my teachers at school were very hostile and later in life the man I loved so much abandoned me leaving me with two small children to look after. At work everyone else seemed to be pushing me around and stepping over me. I was raised an angry child and grew up into an angry woman and no one even noticed it. The currents which were going on deep inside were only known to me. Facially I looked happy and calm, but underneath the seas of anger were raging on.

I gave my life to Christ when I was twenty six years old, and now I am in my fifties. I wish I could say that with my sin being pardoned and erased so did all my deep seated anger disappear. It didn’t happen; I continued to struggle with outbursts of anger even when I became fully active in Christian ministry.

It wasn’t until many years down the Christian ministry that God spoke to me through James 1:20, ‘Anger does not produce the righteousness God desires’. That was when I realised that while the Lord was doing all in the power of the Holy Spirit to build me into a strong Christian woman with a powerful teaching ministry, I was doing all I could to destroy that calling by allowing the spirit of anger to continue reigning in me. This anger, which I had allowed to become a deep well inside me had to be filled up, the way we fill up unused deep wells with sand so that they do not become a threat to passersby.

The woman at the well (John 4) said to Jesus the Messiah, ‘you will not be able to get water from this well, it is too deep’. But Jesus asked the woman to give Him a chance. ‘If only you knew the gift God has for you and who I am, you would ask me, and I would give you living water’ (verse 10). Unless we allow Jesus through His Holy Spirit to work in us and fill up those deep wells in us, we can but only impoverish our Christian growth and witness.

It has not been a fast moving track but I can happily report that Christ has done tremendous work in helping me clear most of the baggage from my past by helping to forgive, forget and grow in Him.

Three Significant Men

Message from 3 John: John writes about three significant men.

Gaius

Ø  John’s dear friend.

Ø    To whom the letter is written.

Ø  Good reports about Gaius and his ministry

V4, “I could have no greater joy than to hear that my children live in the truth”.

Ø  Commented for doing a good work for God through taking care of travelling teachers of the Word, even though they were strangers to him.

V6-8, “You do well to send them on their way in a manner that pleases God. For they are travelling for the Lord and accept nothing from those who are not Christians. So we ourselves should support them so that we may become partners with them for the truth.”

Diotrephes

Ø  Loves to be the leader of that local church and yet refuses to acknowledge the authority    of the Elders (John and the Apostles).

Ø  Wicked

Ø  Refuses to welcome the travelling teachers and also tells others not to help them. Goes as far as putting out of the church those who help these travelling teachers.

Demetrius

Ø  Good reports about this man, with everyone speaking highly of him. His works are not mentioned.

 

Gaius was cautioned by John, “Dear friend, don’t let Diotrephes’ bad example influence you. Follow only what is good. Remember that those who do good prove that they are God’s children; and those who do evil prove that they do not know God”. Amen.

Relationships – The Bricks

The Lord said to Jeremiah, ‘Go down to the Potter’s house, and there I will give you my message’. Jeremiah 18:2

God wanted to speak to him in a way that was practical but with a message that would go straight to his heart.

 When Jeremiah observed the way the Potter was working at the wheel, molding and remolding the pot, he understood what the Lord intended him to. Then in verse 6, the Lord said, “O Israel (O Jeremiah, O Reader), can I not do with you as this potter does? Like clay in the hand of the potter, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel”.

Once, the Lord spoke to me in this manner through the making of farm bricks. I had decided to build a house; so I contracted two young men to make the bricks. They were inexperienced at the job, but were eager to work and of course, eager to get paid as well.

We agreed on the quantity of bricks to be made and the date by which the bricks would be ready.The young men soon got to work, and toiled until they were three weeks overdue. When we could not wait any longer we gave them a ‘supervisor’ to look into their progress and assist where necessary. 

Eventually, the bricks were ready for the construction of the house. But the quality and quantity of the bricks were far from the desired results. The bricks turned out half baked, with some breaking apart, and leaving us with good ones totalling less than half the required amount. The majority were unfit for the construction of a house. I had to contract another three labourers who were more experienced at the job this time.

The process of making farm bricks takes about three weeks, so we finally commenced building the house seven weeks behind schedule! I also had to pay more because of the additional labour and my relationship with the two inexperienced young men became strained due to the poor production.

God used this whole experience to educate me on building marital relationships.

1.    The quality of your bricks forms the quality of your house. The material on which your relationship is built upon will determine the quality of the relationship you are going to have. Attraction which is centered only on the physical and the material is like half baked bricks which cannot sustain a proper house structure.

2.    The firmness of the house will depend also on the depth and quality of the foundation it stands on. A well dug up foundation, filled up with bricks and stones will guarantee a long lasting structure which will not be moved by any storm. A relationship built on godly principles will weather any storm that will seek to threaten it.

3.    One needs to think through the type and quality of house they desire and then source the type and quality of bricks that will produce that kind of a house. Half baked bricks will give you a fool’s house; the rains will come and destroy it to the ground. To guarantee a lasting marriage relationship, check out the compatibility of your inner persons. 

 The Wise and Foolish Builders – Luke 6:46-49

⁴⁶ “Why do you call me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ and do not do what I say? ⁴⁷ As for everyone who comes to me and hears my words and puts them into practice, I will show you what they are like. ⁴⁸ They are like a man building a house, who dug down deep and laid the foundation on rock. When a flood came, the torrent struck that house but could not shake it, because it was well built. ⁴⁹ But the one who hears my words and does not put them into practice is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. The moment the torrent struck that house, it collapsed and its destruction was complete.”

Seven Stages of Foolishness

 “When a person dies without Christ, they remain a fool forever.” These are the words of renowned Psychologist Dr Larry Crabb.

Dr Crabb in ‘SoulCare - Understanding People and Problems’ refers to the seven stages of foolishness. And this is what he has to say.

Foolishness is the number one enemy of the soul. Foolishness is a passionate, deeply embedded conviction; it is not changeable by education. It is only changeable by the power of the Holy Spirit. Foolishness is the passionate conviction that we need something other than God to satisfy the deepest longing of our souls, and that nothing matters more than the satisfaction of our souls.

Seven Stages in the Development of Foolishness

Stage One: Naïve Foolishness

This is observed in the very first year of a child. Every child is born selfish. A child is not born innocent, for even at their earliest stage they are quite capable of learning specific patterns of selfishness and stupidity.

Stage Two: Learned Foolishness

Foolishness is there but now specific patterns are learned. From ages two to five, a child begins to realize that his world is a world of relationships. These relational encounters are both good and bad. At this stage the child learns to make his life work without God. As the child begins to learn some understanding of what’s happening in their lives, they have a natural energy to find life apart from God. Foolishness is developing.

Stage Three: Practiced Foolishness

During late childhood, from six to about twelve, the beginning of adolescence, the child’s relational world expands. The child begins to try out patterns of foolishness and see what works. The child wants to noticed, even for the wrong reasons.

Stage Four: Disillusioned Foolishness

The adolescent or teenage years are the stage of disillusioned or disappointed foolishness. Suddenly they begin to realize that some of the strategies they had thought were going to make life work for them were not really working out. Disappointment sets in, followed by disillusionment. Suddenly they are not as popular as they were or as smart as people used to think of them. A strange feeling begins to creep into the soul of a teenager and they can rarely identify or deal with very well – a strange feeling of emptiness, of aloneness, of rage, of frustration. They begin to realize the emptiness that is in their souls, and they are not sure if they know how to relieve it. They are vulnerable. Enter now the opportunity to experiment with sex, drugs, achievement whether in the classroom or sports field. Enter the exciting youth groups, music that stirs the soul. Enter the passionate community, and all things that foolishness can attach itself to. If none of these opportunities are available or fail to work, then enters despair or suicide. Teenagers are stubbornly foolish, and desperately searching.

Supportive influence should come through firm boundaries and modelled hope from parents and role models.

Stage Five: The Stage of Rearranged Foolishness

A child often survives the teenage years, sometimes well, sometimes not so well. But after age eighteen, as they move into early adulthood, nineteen, twenty, up until thirty, they enter the stage of rearranged foolishness. As they enter a whole new world, suddenly they feel it necessary to rearrange the way of approaching things, because what used to work in their teen years may no longer apply. In their teen years the parents used to provide for them, but now that they have graduated from college they will have to start thinking of earning their living. How they go about it will now be determined by how they will choose to rearrange their foolishness to pursue their goals. Will God be at the center of their planning or not?

Stage Six: The Stage of Stable Foolishness

Without the Holy Spirit, this is the natural flow of the energy of foolishness, beginning with a baby and now moving on to adulthood. Stage six is from age thirty up to the retirement years of sixty five to seventy years. The greatest mistake we make in our churches is to wrongly define maturity. We see the mature person as one who has found his or her niche and lives it out successfully and productively and happily. The person who is mature by that definition may be nothing other than a stable fool. Maybe they have found a pattern of foolishness that makes their life work just wonderfully.

We need to realize that Satan’s masterpiece is not the drug addict. Satan’s masterpiece is not the prostitute. Satan’s masterpiece is the person who is satisfied with this world. Satan’s masterpiece is the person who is untroubled by all that is in his or her interior world that’s opposed to God. He’s content with all the resources that he has to make life work, and he’s enjoying respect and recognition and affection, and he’s never broken before God to the point where he lives for no one but God. That’s Satan’s masterpiece.

On the other hand the Holy Spirit’s masterpiece is someone who is deeply troubled, someone who struggles a lot, someone who is aware of his or her own interior world and doesn’t like what’s there.

We have to get away from the idea that if one is spiritual then one is successful. We’ve got to reach in to the realization that the more spiritual you are, the more broken and troubled you become as you pursue the reality of God. A man whose internal battle is fierce may cling to the truth of his new identity in Christ enough to keep him going; that’s the Holy Spirit’s masterpiece.

Stage Seven: Bankrupt Foolishness

This is the stage from retirement till death.

Living according to the New Covenant truth, living according to gospel realities, living according to the Spirit, keeping in step with the Spirit results in becoming old without being bankrupt but being hopeful. Without the Spirit when you become an older person, you will enter the stage of bankrupt foolishness. You will have no legacy to leave to the next generation. You have lived for today and that today will be gone with you when you die.

When a person dies without Christ, they remain a fool forever.

Ecclesiastes 12:1

Remember also your Creator in the days of your youth, before the evil days come and the years draw near of which you will say, "I have no pleasure in them";

Matthew 16:26

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what shall a man give in return for his soul?

Psalm 14:1

The fool says in his heart, "There is no God."

Dressing - To Win Others To Christ or To Seduce Them

This may sound like a harsh way to approach the subject of dressing but I know that when a woman selects what she is going to wear for the day she has a vivid picture of what her day involves. So let us talk about dressing – specifically amongst Christian women. How do you dress for church, for functions, for the workplace, for that job interview, for outdoor leisure, etc, etc? What or who do you have in mind when you put on that dress, those shoes, that perfume and the makeup?

 Let us start by looking at the voice of authority – the Word of God. Our mandate for dressing comes from 1 Timothy 2:9–10, ‘ And I want women to be modest in their appearance. They should wear decent and appropriate clothing and not draw attention to themselves by the way they fix their hair or by wearing gold or pearls or expensive clothes. ¹⁰ For women who claim to be devoted to God should make themselves attractive by the good things they do’. (NLT)

I looked up the word ‘modest’ and this is what it implies – dressing that is modest is moderate, unexceptional, reasonable, humble, reserved. To today’s world these words mean one thing – boring! It is the opposite of the skirt that is so short it barely covers the pantie inside, a top that leaves three quarters of the breasts in the open, a pair of jeans or tights that are so tight you can trace all the body features of the person. This is not modest; this is seductive dressing – the kind of dressing that draws attention to oneself!

Our dressing is very important to God. Because it is through how we dress or adorn ourselves that we can win others to Christ. 

1 Peter 3:1-4, ‘In the same way, you wives must accept the authority of your husbands. Then, even if some refuse to obey the Good News, your godly lives will speak to them without any words. They will be won over ² by observing your pure and reverent lives. ³ Don’t be concerned about the outward beauty of fancy hairstyles, expensive jewelry, or beautiful clothes. ⁴ You should clothe yourselves instead with the beauty that comes from within, the unfading beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which is so precious to God'.

Your dressing should be a reflection of who you are inside, like the cover of a book. Before a person makes the decision to buy a book they first look closely at the title, the cover, the author and list of contents before they decide to buy it. Some of us who are older even look at the size of the font, so we will not have to struggle with seeing the print. The fashion world had deceived us into believing that beauty comes from clothing, jewelry, makeup and hair styles. It doesn’t; these are mere accessories. Beauty comes from inside – the beauty of a soul cleansed by the blood of Jesus and is continually being revitalized through dwelling in the presence of God. No amount of fancy clothing and make up can ever bring out this kind of unfading beauty! This is the Psalm 1 person / woman. Her leaves never wither.

So then, how should a Christian woman dress?

     You clothe yourself with the Lord Jesus, the Messiah – Romans 13:14

     You clothe yourself with the new nature, which is created according to God’s image in righteousness and true holiness – Ephesians 4:24

     You clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience – Colossians 3:12

     You clothe yourself with love and unity – Colossians 3:14

Remember that:

v You are an ambassador of Christ – 2 Corinthians 5:20 – so you must represent your King in an appropriate manner. You must dress decently and appropriately. The name of the Lord must not be thrown into disrepute by the way you dress. A couple of years ago I was walking down the street wearing a skirt with a rather revealing side slit. Men driving along the street kept turning their heads and looked at my lovely leg. I kind of liked the feeling of being admired. Then the Holy Spirit spoke to me saying, ‘Girl, if you were to approach any of those men with the gospel of Christ would they really listen or would they be more interested in your body?’ That was a turning point in the way I dressed. I stopped drawing the attention of men to myself and became more conscious of them as brothers who needed to be drawn to Christ.

v You are a letter or a book that others are reading – 2 Corinthians 3:1-3. What are they reading from your dressing? Some women are cheap comic books to be discarded soon after being read, while some are expensive reference books which are to be kept in a good place for future use.

v You are the bride of Christ; beautifully present yourself as one – Revelation 21:2.

v You are a princess, royal priesthood, a people belonging to God and called to declare His praises – 1 Peter 2:9.

v You must not be immoral woman in Proverbs 7 who walks the streets dressed seductively with the intention of luring men to her bedroom of death. Nor should you be like the Great Prostitute of Revelation 17 who dressed up in purple and scarlet clothing and beautiful jewelry made of gold and precious gems and pearl, but with the one aim of drawing the innocent to drink of her immorality.

A warning: Some women are also falling to prey to the spirit of the Incubus – a form of witchcraft whereby men have free sexual intercourse with women in their sleep. The spirit of seduction in the woman can make her oblivious to these evil attacks or even welcome them as dreamy sexual fulfilment. Either way the woman is very much under the influence of satanic oppression. Men also fall prey to the Succubus spirit.

Wikipedia: An incubus (nominal form constructed from the Latin verb, incubo, incubare, or "to lie upon") is a demon in male form who, according to a number of mythological and legendary traditions, lies upon sleepers, especially women, in order to have intercourse with them. Its female counterpart is the succubus. is a female demon appearing in dreams who takes the form of a human woman in order to seduce men, usually through sexual intercourse. Religious tradition holds that repeated intercourse with an incubus or succubus may result in the deterioration of health, or even death.

The following website has some useful resources: http://blessinghouseministries.org/incubusspirits.html

These demons are very much real and their doorway is through a seductive nature and an unusual imbalance of sexual fantasies. A lot of their manifestation comes through pornography, movies and music that are high in sexual stimulation content. If you are dressing seductively and not getting the attention you are craving for, it will lead you to loneliness and depression and the Incubus spirit will only be too happy to offer comfort and ‘private’ sex. But what was meant to be a source of satisfaction will only lead to more deprivation and emptiness.

Finally, remember that you are your brother’s keeper. God will hold you accountable for every action you have ever done. Your right to what you prefer to wear should not lead your brother into sin, 1 Corinthians 8:9, ‘Be careful, however, that the exercise of your rights does not become a stumbling block to the weak’.

And mothers, teach your daughters to dress modestly while they are still young and when they are older they will remember the way of dressing that honors God.