God delights in us

The Lord your God is with you, he is mighty to save.
He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love,
he will rejoice over you with singing. Zephaniah 3: 17

This has to be one of my favourite verses in the Bible. If ever we want an insight into the Father heart of God's love for us, this verse has to one of the best.

God is with us. At this moment God is with you wherever you are and it is not a passive God is just in the room but God is there, active on our behalf, involved and interested even in the minutiae of our lives. He is mighty to save. There is no situation or circumstance that God cannot save you from even if it is something that has arisen from a mistake or foolishness on your part. God is ready to intervene and save you right now.

God takes delight in us. This is a truth that so many Christians struggle with. How can God love me with my life in such a mess? Or how can the Creator of the universe love little old insignificant me? However, he delights in you – this does not mean just that you please him but that he takes great pleasure in you. He smiles when he looks at you. He laughs with you just as a proud parent laughs and takes great pleasure in their child so God takes great delight in you.

He quiets us with his love. Just as an agitated and upset child needs soothing, so God soothes and quiets us with his unconditional (absolutely no conditions) love. He is singing over us right now, rejoicing in us. We are so pleasing to God.

Last year my husband and I were in New York having lunch in the very crowded Grand Central Station Food Court. There were only two spaces to sit at a table with two men who were already having a deep discussion. As we ate our meal I listened to the conversation and it was obviously a pastoral meeting and one of the two men’s lives seemed to be in a bit of a mess. As I continued to listen I asked if I could say something which the pastor graciously agreed to. I just started to share with this big black American how much God loved him and had such a wonderful plan for his life so much better than the things he was planning or doing (all of which seemed to be not much help). As we shared the love of God and his desire to draw this man back into his arms, tears fell down his face.  He was deeply touched.  We left promising to pray for him and reminding him that if he doubted God’s love, he must remember that God sent two British people to sit next to him in Grand Central Station to tell him how much he loved him.

God delights in us. We please him greatly. There are no circumstances that exclude you from his love and pleasure. None.  If circumstances have overtaken you recently and you feel like God is far off or even if you are struggling to grasp how much you please God; just declare over yourself right now ‘God delights in me. He is rejoicing over me with singing. I am pleasing to God.’

The joy of the Lord

For the joy of the Lord is your strength Nehemiah 8:10

Joy is a fruit of the Spirit which should, like all fruit, grow.  Joy of the Lord which I think means joy being one of God’s children and doing his will should also grow as we get to know him better.

However unfortunately, so many Christians are anything but joyful. Too many seem dour as if serving God is more akin to slavery than sonship. You remember the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son who said to the Father,  ‘All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders’ Luke 15: 29. He had no joy in anything and especially in the return of the younger brother.  He was bitter and resentful. 

Many are talking about the Father heart of God at this time because this is a great truth that needs to be restored to the church. None of us has any idea of how much our Father really loves us but as we start to get a revelation of his amazing, unconditional love, something starts to melt inside us. That desire to perform, to strive, to please God by our own efforts gives way to relaxing in the arms of a loving Father who wants to bathe us in his love and acceptance. Doing gives way to being – being a son or daughter of the living God.
When Paul and Silas were in prison in Philippi having been wrongly accused and beaten, they didn’t lie there feeling sorry for themselves. They were praying and singing hymns and everyone in the prison was listening to them. There was an earthquake and all the prison doors came open but instead of escaping, Paul led the jailer and his family to the Lord. The joy of the Lord, praising God in adverse circumstances led to salvation.

No matter what our circumstances, God is always worthy of praise. Praise and thanksgiving take us into God’s courts and presence and joy in the midst of our circumstances washes over us. The world is desperate to know some joy and to know the love of God shown through the lives of believers who despite their circumstances have the joy of the Lord. This is not a phoney superficial joy that is masking the reality of our lives but a joy that comes from knowing a Father God who loves us and is strengthening us in our circumstances.

Non believers need a testimony that is real and is not about what good Christians we are, or what a good church we go to but what an amazing loving God we have, who knows and loves them as well. It is the love of God that draws and wins people and it is the joy of the Lord in our hearts that strengthens and encourages us.  It is a powerful witness to those searching for something that the world cannot give. When you start to show and tell people that God loves them born from your own experience, something inside of them starts to melt as well.  They see a joy and a love that is compelling.

If you are feeling miserable, unworthy, unloved then start praising God and thanking him for who he is. His love and acceptance is healing and his joy will come and strengthen you in the midst of your circumstances.

Growing to maturity

..until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ. Ephesians 4:13

Have you ever been with a baby who is yelling their head off trying to make you understand what they want?  You know exactly what they want and it may be what they need but at that particular moment you cannot, for very good reasons, give them what they are demanding. Today we were driving home with our granddaughter and she was hungry but we couldn’t stop; she would just have to wait till we got home. She couldn’t understand that and you could see in her eyes that she did not know why we were not responding to her very obvious demands. 

Sometimes we can be like this with God and we go on and on at him and he knows exactly what we want or even need but for very good reasons we cannot have it. I remember the story of a church in USA which was desperate to put an illuminated big red cross on the top of their church. They felt this was a great witness to the Lord in their area and they prayed and raised money and eventually after great difficulty they were able to put up their illuminated red cross. They felt they had overcome all difficulties and been victorious. The next day the local airport contacted them and demanded the cross be removed immediately as it was a serious hazard to aircraft taking off and landing at the airport. Sometimes there are very good reasons why we do not get what we want.

There are times for overcoming but there are also times when we need to stop and ask God if there is a reason why we are not getting what we want or even need. It takes maturity to wait or even to realise that not getting something can be better for us in the long term.  God is not playing games with us. He will tell us if we will not be getting what we are asking for or have to wait for it. His ways are not our ways (Isaiah 55:9). It all comes back to trusting God that he wants to give us good things but like all good parents his idea of good and ours may not be the same and his timing and ours may very often be different.

Today if you are waiting for something, stop going on and on at God. He knows. Instead start thanking him that he will provide everything you need and a lot of what you want but in his timing. You can trust him. His way really is perfect

Sleeping in peace

The night before Herod was to bring him to trial, Peter was sleeping between two soldiers, bound with two chains and sentries stood guard at the entrance. Suddenly an angel of the Lord appeared and a light shone in the cell.  Acts 12: 6- 7

Herod had just killed John’s brother James in a persecution of the believers. Seeing that it pleased the Jews with whom he was constantly trying to keep favour, he imprisoned Peter. He was going to bring him out for public trial but the church was praying.

What I love about this story is that Peter was sleeping in prison. He was surrounded by guards, chained but he was sleeping. This does not speak of someone fearing for their life. Even though James had just been killed by Herod, Peter does not seem very worried. This speaks of someone very confident that God was with him in whatever happened next.  He was obviously not expecting to be miraculously released from prison even though that had happened before (Acts 5: 17 – 20) because as he walked out from prison, led by the angel, he thought he was dreaming (12: 9). 

Maybe he was remembering what Jesus had said to him at that daybreak breakfast after his resurrection when Jesus restored him. ‘…but when you are old you will stretch out your hands and someone else will dress you and lead you where you do not want to go.’ John 21:18. Peter knew it was not his time, he was going to get old, so he could sleep peacefully even though he was bound and surrounded by guards.

Jesus too was quite confident in his time. When the ship that he was sailing across the Sea of Galilee was hit by a storm, the disciples thought they were going to drown but Jesus was sleeping in the stern of the boat. (Mark 4: 31 – 35). He knew it was neither his time to die nor the manner so he could sleep knowing he had nothing to fear.

Our days and our times are in God’s hands (Acts 17: 26). We do not need to fear. If we are saved, we do not need to fear death. It is the gateway to eternal life spent with our God and Father and his Son Jesus. Nor do we need to fear when we may die. All we need to do is live our lives to God’s glory day by day. He will look after us in the good times and the not so good times. He never leaves us and we can trust him so that whether in prison, in a boat or in our own beds, we can sleep in peace for God makes us dwell in safety (Psalm 4:8).

Opening blind eyes

Immediately, something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and he could see again. He got up and was baptised.  Acts 9: 18

Saul was on the road from Jerusalem to Damascus when Jesus dramatically met with him and stopped his murderous assignment against the believers. Jesus told him to go into Damascus to wait for his next instructions and for 3 days though his eyes were open, he was blind.  For three days Saul was utterly dependent on others for everything and utterly dependent on God to heal him and restore his sight. He needed more than just physical eyes healed though, he also needed the eyes of his heart opened.

Paul’s conversion is a wonderful picture of our conversions as well. We may not have encountered Jesus in quite such a dramatic way as Paul but we were just as blind and needed God to open our eyes to him.

Before I was saved, I was struggling to understand why Jesus had to die on the cross for us. I just couldn’t understand what had happened. A friend said to me as I was struggling to get to grips with it, he died because you deserved to die. They said it in an ‘isn’t it obvious’ tone of voice but for me it was a defining moment. It was as if my eyes had been opened. The lights came on, the tumblers in the lock fell and the door opened.  It was revelatory for me no matter how obvious it was for others.

When Paul’s physical sight was restored, he was a changed man. We know from Philippians 3: 4 - 6 that before the Damascus road experience, despite his intensive training as a Pharisee, steeped in the law, he was completely blind to Jesus and his saving grace. He knew all about the Messiah but he didn’t know the Messiah till that moment on the Damascus road. However once his spiritual eyes were open as well as his physical eyes, Paul has given the Church the greatest insights into Jesus, his saving faith and the life of the believer and the church than anyone other than Jesus himself.

We all need revelation day by day, not just as a once off to be saved. We need revelation to understand the Bible and apply it to our lives. Today let’s ask Jesus for revelation, to open our eyes to him in increasing measure so we may know him better and understand his ways for our lives. We may not be Paul but we can encourage others with the revelation God has given us and strengthen those around us with Godly insights.

Unexpected circumstances

We know that all things work together for good to those who love God, who have been called according to his purpose. Romans 8: 28

What happens in your life when things do not work out in the way you either expected or wanted?  We may have prayed and really expected that God would do as we prayed and it didn’t happen.  Someone is not healed, we didn’t get the promotion we wanted and expected, our house sale fell through, we didn’t get into the school or university we both wanted and believed God was opening the door for.

There are times when we have a very specific word from God but there are other times when we just have to trust the overall goodness, love and mercy of God.

Quite a few years ago I heard very clearly from God to teach our youth group about water baptism. There were confirmation of this, I prepared well and really gave it my best shot. At the end of my talk I said to the group, ‘so would anyone like to be baptised?’ The oldest boy in the group said he wasn’t ready and everyone else quickly agreed. I was so disappointed. I had done everything God said and the end result was not at all what I expected. I thought they would all want to be baptised.  My husband assured me that I had done all I could and God would do the rest.

 So when things go wrong, if we have a specific word from God then we can hang onto it in faith and trust God to bring it about. If we do not have such a word, we then have to trust in the unfailing love and overall goodness of God. The key word here is trust.

Sometimes when things do not work out as expected, the only thing we can say is, ‘God I don’t like this, it wasn’t what I wanted or expected but I trust you’.  As his child God wants to do us good, to bless us, to provide for us but above all he wants us to learn to trust him above circumstances. If we only trust God when we get what we want, then that is not really trust at all.  It is when circumstances are not going our way that we really learn to trust God.

The second thing we need to say is, ‘what are you doing and what are you saying God?’ Then relax and trust him to bring about good things. It may not be how we wanted it but God is looking at a bigger picture than we can see and that is why trusting him is vital.

God is good and we need to settle in our minds and spirits once and for all that God will work all things together for good. He is not looking for opportunities to trip us up, be unkind, uncaring or indifferent. He loves us and wants to bless us. We can trust him and as we do so, we will be amazed at how he works things out and how our faith grows as a result.

So what happened to my youth group? All of them were subsequently baptised and most are serving God faithfully.  He really can be trusted!

Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith... Hebrews 10:22

Is there any famous person that you would really like to meet and talk to? Personally I would like to talk to The Queen as I think it would be so interesting to hear about some of the places she has been to and people she has met. She is quite an expert on world affairs.

The chances of my doing this are just about zero and I expect the chances of your meeting your famous person are just as slim. You would need a special appointment and arrangements to be made. Have you ever thought though how easy it is for us to get instant access to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords? No appointments or special arrangements are necessary.  We can come into his presence at any time and he is delighted to see us. Why is it then that we make such little use of this? 

From our loving Father and Jesus we can get all the wisdom, insight, understanding, provision, mercy, grace as well as all the reassurance and peace we could ever need. The amazing thing too is that Jesus is even keener to spend time with us than we are to spend time with him!  He longs to draw aside with us but our busy minds and cluttered lives make it hard for him to make contact with us. 

Today just stop and think what it might be like to have a half hour exclusive interview with the Creator of all the earth. What would you like to talk to him about? Your problems or would you talk to him about what he has made and his love for his creation and especially for man? Would you ask him about some tricky situation that has been bothering you or marvel that you are sitting there talking to him? 

Whatever your topic of conversation, remember too that he wants to talk to you, shower you with his love and bathe you in his affection and acceptance. All it takes is half an hour of our time. 

No comparisons

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made.  Psalm 139: 14

We all know we are unique; that there is and never has been anyone just like us. Everything about everybody is different even with identical twins. Even their fingerprints and DNA vary. There may be similarities between people but no two people are identical in any way. In itself that is truly amazing that of the approximately 7 billion people on the planet no two people are alike. We are unique yet unfortunately people rarely celebrate the differences between people but spend far more time comparing themselves to others. 

This leads us to wanting to be other than how God made us. We are fearfully and wonderfully made so wishing we looked like others or had other’s attributes is a bit of a rejection of God’s design. God made us and God loves us even though we are works in progress and far from perfect.

Comparisons are odious because they either puff up our pride if we feel the comparison is favourable to us or feed our rejection and unhappiness if others are perceived as better than us in some way. We are who we are. God loves and accepts us as we are so we must do the same.

If only we celebrated our differences we might come to an understanding that together using our different talents and abilities we can achieve so much more than we can alone. The body of Christ as Paul talks about it in I Corinthians 12 is all about recognising and using our differences.

When you are tempted to compare yourself to another whether favourably or not, stop, recognise and thank God for the differences between you. Infinite variety is God’s way and it should become our way too.

Be free to be yourself and accept yourself with all your good and not so good points. God does, so why not join him instead of making comparisons that he never wanted us to make.

Healing the sick

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the good news of the kingdom, and healing every disease and sickness among the people. Matthew 4: 23

Recently I have become very aware of the number of people who need prayer for healing and what is more the increase in the testimony of people being healed. Whenever Jesus taught he also healed the sick including those suffering pain, paralysed or having seizures. He drove out demons, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf and healed the lame so they could walk. This is the Kingdom coming to earth. Jesus brought the Kingdom of heaven here and in this the kingdom there is no sickness, pain, disease or demons and their horrible ways.

It is this same Kingdom that Jesus wants us to proclaim. He wants us to bring his Kingdom to people regardless of whether they are believers or not. Jesus made no distinction and neither must we. In fact it is a powerful witness to non believers when people are healed in their midst.  People get saved when the miraculous happens near them.

Despite my perceptions, I am certain that there are not more people who are sick than before but our awareness of them and our desire to pray for them with faith expecting people to be healed is I am sure increasing. The church is getting hold of the need to really pray for the sick and the testimonies are increasing. For instance, today someone one told me of a young man suffering from cancer who is doing so much better than he should and doctors are amazed. A lady I know is having a small operation today and I said I would pray for her. She was surprised but very pleased.

John Wimber said. ‘I do not know why some people are healed and others not. All I know is that if I pray for the sick, some will be healed. If I don’t pray for the sick, nobody is healed.’ Let’s keep on praying for those who are sick whether we know them or not. We may be asked to pray for a stranger but our prayers are just as important as family and friends.

I believe God wants to increase the level of faith for healing in the church and he is training us through many different circumstances to persevere in prayer until more and more people are healed. Let us not give up but instead pray till we see the kingdom coming in increasing measure in our midst. 

The KIngdom of heaven is near

As you go, preach this message,: The Kingdom of heaven is here. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy, drive out demons. Freely you have received, freely give.  Matthew 10:7- 8

Jesus only mentions the church twice in all his teachings and we find these in Matthew 16: 18 and 18: 17.  Yet he talks about the Kingdom all the time. As Christians we tend to talk about church all the time and hardly ever about the Kingdom.

Jesus said, ‘I will build my church...’ (Matthew 16: 18) yet too often we spend all our time building the church not the Kingdom.  I believe that what God wants instead is that we do what he told the first disciples to do: preach the Kingdom and then do it; heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the skin diseases and drive out demons.

The Kingdom of God is God’s rule and reign and God asks us to bring this to people. We need to talk to them first about the King, not the church. He wants us to talk to people about his amazing love for everyone and his desire that all be saved from their sin. He wants us to heal the sick and minister to people’s needs in Jesus’ Name.

Let’s become more Kingdom minded. Let’s talk about the Kingdom and the King and then let’s do the things that Jesus did and more.

Prophetic actions

“Then he said, ‘Take the arrows’; so he took them. And he said to the king of Israel, ‘Strike the ground’; so he struck three times, and stopped. And the man of God was angry with him, and said, ‘You should have struck five or six times; then you would have struck Syria till you had destroyed it’” (2 Kings 13:18-19)

Elisha asked King Jehoash to strike the ground with his arrows but his tepid and not very enthusiastic response meant that King Jehoash would not get the victory over the Araemans that he could have had. If he had struck the ground five or six times he would have had complete victory.

The Bible is full of prophetic actions that can seem a bit strange today but prophetic actions are just as prevalent and just as significant now as they were then. In Hosea’s days God told him to marry an adulterous woman who was symbolic of Israel’s unfaithfulness to God by worshipping Canaanite idols (Hosea 1).  Through Hosea's marriage, children and further actions God showed his people that despite their idolatry he still loved them and wanted them back. Ezekiel and Jeremiah also performed prophetic acts.

Today we may not be called to do things like this but there are many other ways that God may ask us to act prophetically.  Have you heard of someone saying they must sow their seed  by which they mean give financially into a church, ministry or so on expecting there to be a return or fruit from their seed which they may or may not see?

I have seen people jump on chairs, open doors, stretch themselves out on beds to prophetically act out what they believe God is saying and doing. The one thing they all had was a conviction that what they were doing was going to make a difference. King Jehoash’s problem was that he did not believe striking the ground with the arrows was going to make any difference. He had a ‘it won’t work’ mind set.

If God asks us to do something like this, please don’t reason it away. Do it before reason persuades you it is silly and not worth doing.  We need to get to a place of faith where we believe that the prayers we say, our prophetic actions, our declarations and our Godly choices do make a huge difference even if we do not see the effect in the short term. Prophetic actions can be very graphic and powerful ways of making a spiritual statement. They do work!

It doesn't work

Peter went with them, and when he arrived he was taken upstairs to the room. All the widows stood around him, crying and showing him the robes and other clothing that Dorcas had made while she was still with them.

Peter sent them all out of the room; then he got down on his knees and prayed. Turning toward the dead woman, he said, “Tabitha, get up.” She opened her eyes, and seeing Peter she sat up.  Acts 9: 39 – 40

Doubt and unbelief are our greatest opponents in our Christian walk because they directly oppose our faith. When Peter was asked to go to Tabitha’s house because she had died, the first thing he encountered was all the widows standing around mourning her death and showing him all the wonderful clothing that Tabitha had made. She was known for ‘always doing good and helping the poor’. The widows were mourning the loss of this wonderful woman.

The first thing Peter did was send the widows out of the room because they had no expectation of resurrection. This got the unbelief out and then he prayed and let faith arise. Then he was able to raise Tabitha from the dead. The mourning widows with no faith would have been no help.

Reinhard Bonnke likes to have the first few rows of people at his crusades and meetings full of faith filled people. People with doubt and unbelief in their hearts can hinder the move of salvation and the miraculous. 

One of our biggest problems can be the ‘It doesn’t work’ thinking. The devil would love us to believe that our prayers and actions are ineffectual and that nothing has happened. Nothing could be further from the truth. Steve Backlund says, ‘As people of faith, we believe that our past prayers, declarations, godly choices and prophetic acts are working powerfully and effectively in the unseen realm’.

There are times when I think my prayers are not working and then suddenly God graciously shows me how effective my prayers have been. My personal journey now is to pray for the sick. Sometimes they are healed and sometimes nothing seems to happen but I am determined to persevere and pray for them on every opportunity that God gives me. I want to see more people helald in Jesus' name.

Don’t let doubt and unbelief steal from you the joy of moving in faith to see loved ones saved,  people healed, lives transformed, provision flow into needy areas and so on. Root out ‘it hasn’t worked’ from your life and let faith arise afresh today in your heart.

Godly choices

Therefore let us stop passing judgement on one another. Instead make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in your brother’s way.  Romans 14: 13

One of the highest callings we each have is to be spiritual parents. For some this will be to our natural children but everyone has this call. Others no matter how old or young we are, whether we like it or not, will look up to us and be encouraged by our choices.

We know as parents that life style is the greatest teacher for our children. They will much more readily do what we do than do what we say especially if our words are not backed up by actions. As an example, parents who swear or drink excessively will often have children who do the same even if they tell them not to. We limit our choices for the sake of our children.

In the same way in the Kingdom we limit our choices for the sake of others. We do not exercise our freedom if it will cause others to stumble. Paul talks of this in Romans 14 where he was addressing the matter of sacred days and what people ate and drank. Today we could extend this to do with our vocabulary, modesty in dress, alcohol, the kinds of food we eat, our attitudes, the types of places we go to, how we conduct ourselves with the opposite sex, the types of jokes we tell, media choices, how we deal with conflict, and how we spend our money.  There are quite a few pastors who do not drink so they will not be a stumbling block to others who may be weaker.

 
Paul encourages us not to judge others’ choices but also not to be a stumbling block to others by our choices. ‘Don’t look at me while I sin,’ is not an option!  Whether we like it or not, people will look at our lives and use them either as a Godly example or as an opportunity to do things that are perhaps not wise.

Let’s encourage one another to good choices and let us strengthen those weaker or new in the faith by our good choices; not by a holier than though attitude, but by the helping hand on our journey which we all need.