Author: words and signs

The sin expert

2017-02-17 10.53.56

Every Christian should be an expert in sin.

We all know about sin, mostly in a fairly general sense, and we know we must stay away from it. If we fail and fall into sin, we are taught to repent and seek forgiveness from God.

Colossians 3:5-6 “So put to death the sinful, earthly things lurking within you. Have nothing to do with sexual immorality, impurity, lust, and evil desires. Don’t be greedy, for a greedy person is an idolater, worshiping the things of this world. Because of these sins, the anger of God is coming.”

But how quickly do I notice it rising up in my heart? Is my conscience sensitive to its coldness? Do I recognise the progressive development of its power in my life?

Because we are not yet made perfect, we can be desensitised to the effects of the disease and not notice the grip it is getting on our lives. The effects of the world and its attractive offers of success, can also numb our souls to the deadening effect of its powers. And the enemy will raise up all kinds of desires and excuses for soft-pedalling on sin and letting things slip.

We need to know the strategies of all these forces that militate against the Christian. We must recognise the approaches of sin in the early stages, before it cripples our walk with God. The lethargy, procrastination and down right disobedience, will put a clamp on our growth in godliness and make us un-attracted to holiness. We are still bent towards the pull of evil, and the fight remains to overcome it in our daily lives.

It is fairly obvious what wrong doing is and what it does to us. We can recognise lying and stealing and unfairness, but there is a whole crowd of sins that seem to slip our attention. Pride and selfishness, for a start, and the many and varied manifestations of these monsters. Sins that infest the heart and smother our lives and render us useless. We are not willing to look for them, let alone face them squarely and repent and reject them. They are the sins that feed the more outward ones and grow over our souls, keeping us from closeness with God.

1 John 1:7-9 “But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin. If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.”

Self-justification is a powerful tool of the enemy to keep us feeling right, but in the wrong. We do not suspect ourselves of the serious sins, and regard ourselves as less needy of forgiveness than other bad sinners. This is a subtle and sly trick of the mind, which can keep us in the darkness of hypocrisy.

Proverbs 28:13 “People who conceal their sins will not prosper, but if they confess and turn from them, they will receive mercy”

Self-examination is the skill of being able to look honestly and closely inside ourselves and facing up to what is there. Only when we see our own rottenness, will we face our personal wretchedness and bring the whole sorry lot to God. There is no other way. We need to look at sin in our lives, face it, accept our guilt and repent earnestly to God.

Isaiah 64:6 “We are all infected and impure with sin. When we display our righteous deeds, they are nothing but filthy rags. Like autumn leaves, we wither and fall, and our sins sweep us away like the wind.”

Christ crucified on the cross should let us see our need like nothing else. What Jesus suffered was the result of my sin. I must see it.
When I first come to Him for forgiveness I must see it. Every day as I continue to see, confess and repent of my wrongs, is a process of walking closer with God and loving Jesus more. As I understand sin more, so I also grow in gratitude for what Christ has done for me.

1 Peter 3:18 “For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God. He was put to death in the body but made alive in the Spirit.”

It is a personal walk. A close personal relationship. No Christian is better than another. We are all bankrupt sinners. We have nothing to give God. My sinful heart only produces sins.

Romans 6:12-13 “do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life;”

If we have been changed by God and brought into His family, we should be different. We should be sensitive to our sins and gave a holy horror of them. We should pray that God will open our eyes to see our sinfulness so that we can deal with them and confess them to Him. This is the process whereby we “see the Lord.”

No unholy person will ever see the Lord. Do I really want to see? Then my first priority will be facing my moral and spiritual failures and seeking holiness in my life. There are no half measures. It’s all or nothing… God is holy and requires holiness in us and from us…

Romans 6:18 “You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Even as we seek God and walk with Him, the enemy will seek to undermine our credibility. He will bring forward the sins we easily fall into and preclude our witness and muddy our godly lifestyle. It is easy to talk theology, but living a life for God is quite another thing.

Colossians 3:1-3 “Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God.”

Learn what the sin is, repent and turn and know God. Even as I write this I hear Him speak to me…

Sign

Numbers 17:7-8 NIV

“Moses placed the staffs before the Lord in the tent of the covenant law. The next day Moses entered the tent and saw that Aaron’s staff, which represented the tribe of Levi, had not only sprouted but had budded, blossomed and produced almonds.”

All the leaders of the twelve tribes of Israel had to carve their name on the wooden staff they used as leaders in Israel and place them before the Lord. They were left there in the tent of the covenant law, where God has promised to save His people and keep them for eternity.

God was going to show the work of His servant and demonstrate the attributes to be found in the lives of His people. When Moses returned to the tent next day, the staff of Aaron had sprung alive and even had almonds growing from the seemingly dead wood.

This is the mark of a Christian. Every Christian bears fruit. Not just leaves and buds, but the fruit of the tree, which is Christ through the power of the Spirit. Aaron’s rod had sprouted living branches, produced buds and opened flowers, and come to the full fruit of the branch. This is what Christ is looking for in our lives as His people. Firstly, spiritual and true life, brought forth by His Spirit in making the sinner alive to God. The buds of Christian growth and the beauty of Christ must be seen in every life. Then, the fruits of righteousness and the Holy Spirit will develop in every part of our lives and burst forth in salvation for others. This is supernatural work. God is not bound by time or space or cultural inclination. God can save and raise a soul in an instant and revolutionise a life in a short space of time…

There is no such thing as a Christian who never witnesses and never brings others to their Saviour. In the New Testament, we hear Jesus curse the fig tree, as it only had leaves. Green leaves are not fruit. They might look good and seem like something is happening, but they are worthless. So in our lives- the beauty of Jesus must be seen and the winning of souls for the kingdom..

Aaron’s staff produced the fruit, so He was the true servant and Priest to God. We also must seek this blessing through fellowship with the Father and imitation of the Son and abiding presence of the gracious Spirit…

Fire and cloud

sunsetseaarica

The children of Israel were guided by day by a pillar of cloud above them. This was to guide the way and perhaps it was a shelter from the hot and oppressing sun.

At night they had the fire- the fire, which was a light in the darkness, the fire of the Lord. As they marched along, It went with them, guided them along with the Ark of the Covenant.

The Israelites were kept safe day and night and when the Lord gave the signal to move along they had to move straight away. If it was a one-day stop, or many days, they had to obey immediately with no room for thought. There was no room for wondering if it was the right thing to do, they just did what the Lord said, by kept their eyes fixed on the pillar of fire or cloud.

The presence of the Lord, displayed in the fiery cloud above them, and His felt presence among them every day, was the constant guiding light of the people of God. Why is it so difficult for us who have the open Word?

God is not hiding from us, and has shown us His glory through the Lord Jesus. We see His greatness in grace and truth, and the exhibition of eternal love, as Jesus hung on that cross. We see His power displayed in the resurrection of Jesus, and poured out on the church, recorded in the book of Acts.

The truth is, we don’t really value what we have. We are so busy doing things and talking to others, we have little time to draw near to our Father.

I wonder what it will take to persuade us that we need to do this?

Are we in the last of the end days, when there is tremendous falling away?

How would we recognize this falling away?

The felt and known presence of God is not recognized… The pillar of cloud and fire are not followed because we have become blind.

“Seek the Lord and live, or he will sweep through the tribes of Joseph like a fire; it will devour them, and Bethel will have no one to quench it”. Amos 5:6

Eileen Paisley

Fighters

God puts his best fighters in the hottest part of the battle.

If you are there now, he means you to be. He put you there on purpose. Take up your weapons, for the battle rages, and you have many skirmishes and conflicts to engage with. He knows you are able to conquer it all and your inability becomes his mighty strength.

He will keep you and you will be an over-comer, finally and forever. His strength does not fail, and neither will your faith. He gave it to you and he will bring it to full fruition.

When the fight is hot, it can be hard to see the true picture. Whether beating off suffering or pain, lunging at temptations coming thick and relentlessly, or the growing sense of panic that you may be ultimately beaten. None of these will gain the victory over your mind and soul.

None of us feel up to the fight, and we remain nervous that our armour will not stand up to the battering. We are weak, cowardly and without courage and not the proper candidates to engage so vehemently with the enemy. God delights in us, because we are the perfect type of person to act as a conduit for his everlasting power.

That power is his mighty strength, that raised Jesus from the dead, and that same strength preserves and motivates us every day.

For our part, we must keep the armour up to conflict conditions. The word of God, our sword, must be read, meditated on and remembered, so that it is in our minds when the time comes to use it. God will bring the right words to mind, and encourage us that he is with us and his word is true. This in turn builds up our faith and we become less afraid of what we face.

This does not happen over-night, but we wrestle on until the battle is over. Do not be discouraged if it takes a very long time. God knows we need the stamina of trusting him and relying on him, continually and more assuredly as we go further into the battle-field. We get the armour ready, before the fight, so that when the day comes, you are prepared for the onslaught.

All those memory verses you learned, scriptures read again and again, hymns that are in your memory and you can sing repeatedly, rehearsal of truths you have heard and read. All these things are tooling up for the big push.

He will protect you as a certainty, because he has fought the fight before and has over-come on your behalf. No one, or no situation can ever take away the truth that you belong to him and that your life is safe and totally secure in his care. It does not matter how the enemy rages, insults, accuses, blames you, you are always safe. His lies are no match for the authority of God’s word.

Do the right thing. It will protect you in danger and shield you from the darts of evil that are thrown into your mind. You will know you are walking right, because the past will be a witness to you. When we do right, God honours us and this builds faith. As we walk rightly, so faith increases and we rely on Him more and more.

The enemies lies are insidious. You will be tempted to believe them and they will undermine your faith. At these times, remember that Satan is the destroyer of human souls and hopes. He cannot lever you away from Christ, but he will try to make you as miserable as possible. At this point, recollect what happened on the cross, when love was put to death and faded into seeming defeat, all hope gone, the lamp of God had gone out and humans were in the grip of fear.

He returned in bold and glorious life, all Satan’s host ruined, to never again raise their wits against God’s people. However, Satan will try to loosen your hold on faith, so you must be ready for it.

Throw his fiery darts off from your thoughts. Tell him to “Go away!” Don’t argue, don’t listen, just stand firm, and he will leave by himself. He is the greatest of cowards and cannot stand against the weakest Christian.

Ask the Master to help you. It seems so obvious, but when we draw close to him, he draws close to us. Read his word and allow it to infiltrate your thinking, which will then affect your speaking and doing. To walk with Jesus is the greatest reward, both in heaven and also right now. Don’t allow yourself to be denied that pleasure by understanding only in the mind, but never the felt experience of his love for you.

Love is the greatest force on earth or heaven. It conquers all and brings all other Lords to their knees and all pretentious kingdoms to dust and ashes. Love is the ammunition of the Christian and the master -stroke to win the fight against all evil. Love endures to the end- love reaches out to all enemies- love is power.

Fighters in God’s kingdom are victorious in love. Their love has grown in times of great difficulty and dire suffering and it lasts forever, and spreads where ever they go, so that all the world becomes affected by this love and all can know that they are loved.

The only way to not have this love and to not be ultimately loved is to reject it. Love does not force itself, and wins the day in hearts that are willing, to trust and obey the Lord of Love – Jesus Christ. He is at the head of his hosts, and one day he will finally conquer all evil, pain and grief and all our conflicts will be over, so that all who have fought the fight in his strength will lay down their weapons for ever, and faith will give way to seeing and feeling reality.

Brunch

I take my husband out for brunch some mornings. He takes me out and I take him out. Everyone likes to be appreciated and treated well.

Married women should have money of their own (Proverbs 31) and be able to make decisions about what happens, etc. The weak and dependant role model that some uphold, is so very not true. Wives get ill and need support, and husbands get ill and they need support too. Women are people and every person has a personal life that they are responsible for.

There are also issues around the fact that we are all different- personalities, physical shape, emotional life, intellect, tastes, spiritual strength… to name a few. We all walk with Christ with these differences, and if we marry, we have to learn to walk with the other partner too.! Closely..! In all of life, these skills are necessary, so that we have inclusive attitudes and are able to accept people who are different and bring all people into society, our circle of friends and family. This is a Godlike attitude.

The enemy of human souls keeps people at loggerheads and exacerbates conflict to keep people weak and exclusive in thought. He encourages us to think we are more than we are, and some people are not good enough or useful enough for our social set. We say we accept all people, but the reality is opposite to that standard. Sidelining people is not the attitude of Christ.

Homes should be places where people are accepted, no matter their abilities or what they do. Shutting people out is no use. Keeping each other together but at arms length is not the way it should be either, and it makes us miserable. Each should watch out for the other, so that when we inevitably stumble and even fall, we have a loving person to help us to our feet and lift us up again. Also in the family of Christ.

When people decide to go their own way, it is hard to watch them go and harder to try to keep some kind of relationship going. But Christ requires us to keep reaching out… keep forgiving… as He has done for us. He went all the way to death for our sake. So should we for husbands, wives, children, friends. It’s a tall order and many fall by the wayside and give up, but if we would know Him, then this is the path.

We all have resources of some sort, and we pray for the desire, to treat each other as honoured people, and to give and find acceptance in our families and fellowships. Not in a spoiling and elaborate way, but just to show that you have spent time and effort thinking of a loved one.

How we treat each other matters- in families, church, neighbours, colleagues- so may we look at Christ and copy Him.

Going forward

Pray in the power of the Spirit of God and stand strong.

Practice and spread around the love of God to others and draw near to Him constantly.

Eagerly wait for the eternal life that Jesus bought for you and know it will come to full fruition. People you meet and know, who waver about believing in Christ and who doubt their faith and the forgiving attitude of God, bear with them and support them.

Bring sinners to faith. Save lives and souls from falling into hell, grab them back from the unheeding relentless tramp into destruction. Open closed eyes to see the awful truth about punishment and the sheer delight of knowing the living God.

Those who have wronged us, let us forgive, as we have been forgiven, knowing our receiving of mercy depends on our own show of mercy.

Let us hate corruption in all it’s expression and wash ourselves clean from the sullying effects of this world’s ways, attitudes and fashions.

Only the Lord Christ can make us able to do any of these things and only he is able to present us to the father in heaven at the end.

Our rejoicing is in Him only.

The man on the cross

Why is the cross painted so roughly?

Some crosses are shiny gold or silver with diamonds and pearls embedded in them. This cross was the roughest of wood, full of splinters that caught the human flesh upon it. It was put together by a carpenter, with little care, and little pay for his work. They nailed a carpenter on it, a carpenter who cared dearly and who paid a terrible price upon it.

The soldiers rammed the cross into the hole, dug out in the rock hard earth. Every bone of His body, rattled out of joint, as the King of the Universe began the payment for the sins of His people. He hung there halfway between earth and sky, in such unjust agony for those who hated Him.

“Father forgive…” this His victory cry. No hate was ever found in Him and no harshness of judgment. He was suspended there to absorb the multitudes of sins in our debt, and to bear the appalling, punishment for our cruelty.

“It is finished” the Lamb is slain and the blood is spilt and we are forever free… He has bought us with His precious blood- royal blood of the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Who would not bow to Him? If this is the payment of my debt, how can I think I can pay it myself?

If this is love, how can I live this life?

If this is the requirement of a holy God, how will I ever enter in?

We are dead in sin without our Lord Jesus.

We inherit the place of the lost without Him.

We have no hope in this world or the next.

“Lord, I give my life as a sacrifice of praise to you. Cleanse my rottenness and the sin that dwells in me. Make me who you intend me to be and I humbly obey… keep my eyes fixed on the man on the cross that I will never forget what I owe….”

Blindness

Paul was blind for three days. Paul was steeped in theology and doctrine, but in three days his view was changed. His outlook was revolutionised.
He lost his blindness and received the Holy Spirit. In three days he was able to preach the gospel..

Paul became more and more powerful as he obeyed God and fulfilled God’s will in his life.. His life became a living sacrifice, totally pleasing to God. He subjugated all his own thoughts, ideas and desires to the will of the Father. Paul’s words from God, changed the world and opened the way for all peoples to access the throne of God and become members of the kingdom…

What happened to us? Many sit for years in churches and are never even able to speak the name of Christ…

Surely we serve the same God? He does not make mistakes or change his requirements of His people, so why is our world so dark?

Perhaps we need a season of blindness to teach us that God is still in control and still has a command over our lives. We need to awaken to seek His face and learn the deep doctrines and spiritual lessons in His inerrant Word.

God still requires His people to walk the servant’s path and preach His good news of the Kingdom- repentance and faith in the Living Lord- Jesus Christ the only Saviour…

The hard road

When the heart is weary and heavy because of so many pressures and troubles, it is easy to languish and bemoan the fact that life is too difficult and the burdens are way too heavy to bear. The questions about our worth as people and significance to others can become a plague that torment and drag the spirit down into a ditch full of muck and mire.

Does God not know that I have burdens already and why does he add to them?

Do other Christians not know that we all suffer and that unkindness and sidelining strategies hurt and isolate others?

Do family members understand how I feel?

These questions are in reality complaints, as the answer is already known to those who seek to follow the Lord, and to daily submit to him. His pathway was full of trouble, pain, misunderstanding and rejection, so we must expect some of that too. His kindness precludes that we have a constant diet of these negative experiences, and in reality, our lives are full of blessing and joy, encouragement and peace, but there are times when it is hard to see where we are going.

Perhaps we are blinded by our own unbelief and we fail to see how God can make a difference to our situation, or how he could solve the complex issues we face, but he can and does. Whatever faith we have, it is enough to see us through, and as we step through the problems, our faith grows, as God fills us with confidence to strike out for him.

Sometimes life just has a lot of things to be addressed and they all seem to come together. The emotional pressure can seem too much and even physical symptoms can make us waver, that in the end, all will be lost. The promise stands, that God will not ask us to bear what we cannot manage, and will give the necessary strength to carry us over the hills and through the deepest valleys.

God calls us to serve him with full hearts and with sacrifice and love, and that does require some pain and selflessness, but as we take a plunge with him, his love will fill us and we will find power we didn’t know we had. We are all afraid of something, and when we seek to face it, our God will keep his word and bring us safely through.

Often, there is more to the burdens we bear than we at first see. The enemy of our souls is a constant trouble, and he will suddenly spring into action when we start doing things that disturb his kingdom. Should he start to witness and influence people who he has had safely asleep for so long, he will not be happy about this. We must always remember that he is primarily a liar, and the doubt and accusations that he throws into the mind, are all lies. He is also a coward and will run away at the wish of even the weakest Christian.

Of course, there is no weak Christian, for we are all protected and kept by God’s power, and he is a constant protection for all who are trusting in him. God will never allow us to be decimated and destroyed by any opposing force in the heavens or on the earth, but will bring us through the toughest battle by His mighty Spirit. God has also given weapons for us to use as we fight for him and it is wise for us to learn how to use them, so that when the attack comes, we are ready.

So, when it is all too much and our favourite word is “Why?’ let us remember the kind of God we worship and the extreme extent that he went to, in order to save us and make us clean. How can we ever imagine that he would ever allow us to be destroyed, since his beloved Son, gave his very life to redeem us from the curse of sin.

Don’t listen to the voices of unbelief, doubt, blame and fear. All these were conquered for you at the cross and you can never ultimately fail. Put on the armour then, and speak the Word of the sword of the Spirit, and all enemies will go running.

Daughters of the Kingdom

Women who glorify God