Doubts, ducks and puppets

Doubts!!

Wow! I've had  a few - doubts about all sorts of things - my ability to achieve - about the health and well being of my family - about being able to financially secure the present and future.

Doubts about decisions involving employment, retirement, relocating and generally keeping our heads above water.

Life can be difficult - it reminds me of a duck swimming in a pond - all serene and calm on the top but underneath all kicking and struggling trying to keep afloat!

Doubts do nothing but add to the stress already thrown at us through everyday living and coping with life.

I even had huge doubts about my salvation and whether there is really a God!

If God was alive why why why and so on....Well it took me a while to comes to terms with this pretty gigantic question.

Doubting my salvation took me on highs and lows - when bad things happened in my life I immediately doubted - and asked the inevitable question Why?

It was then that I drew much comfort, peace, confidence and reassurance from these thoughts.

God does not will 'bad' things to happen in life. He gave us a beautiful and in some senses a magical gift in issuing the gift of life in the first place.

In that gift of life He gives us a radical freedom  - we are free people - not puppets pulled on strings here and there at the whim of some Master puppeteer.

He is certainly not like Zeus - storming in at the last moment to strike down the worlds evil.

Our God is so grieved when we suffer bad things - we need to live in this world with all it's evil, sickness and badness. Therefore we are prone to have these 'bad' things in our lives.

God never wishes harm on any of His children - not for me - not for you. He walks beside us and loves us unconditionally.

He mourns with us - He groans with us - He weeps with us. He also laughs with us - comforts us and encourages us.

God's grieving is experienced most vividly in the mocking, torture, obscene hurt and unimaginable suffering of Jesus for all of humanity.

God grace is all-powerful and on going - He provides His amazing grace to cope with anything life can throw at us.

His grace can overpower the attacks of the evil one. His grace can give us confidence to move on with whatever is troubling us.

Are you doubting??

Are you really relying on Jesus' sacrifice for your sin?

Do you really believe that Jesus did that for you? - That YOUR sin was laid on His shoulders - that He carried YOUR sin as well as that heavy cross up to Calvary that terrible day?

Do you really believe in a living and personal Lord? A friend that is with you always - that hears what you say and knows your deepest thoughts?

Do your really believe that Jesus rose again from the dead and lives with His Father and has prepared a home for you?

Are you trusting God? - Really trusting Him?  Or are you suffering from a fear of the Lord - a fear that you have gone beyond what God can forgive?

You may be suffering from doubts and anxiety stemming from your recollection of past sins - if you are then be assured every person remembers their sins - they are ever before us.

You may be asking the question "When Jesus comes again will he remember my sins?"

The awesome part is that God doesn't remember them. He looks at us and sees Jesus - the penalty paid - How miraculous is that??  Hebrew 8: 12 says "For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more."

A huge sense of sins and present evil in our lives or around us may throw us into a state of doubt!

This doubt will tell us that you are unworthy, that you are no longer counted with those who have given their lives to Him.

There is no sin that is too big for God - Nothing - so your sins run deep! God's love and grace runs deeper.

Confess your sin, trust Him with your life - Give Him what he wants and yearns for - your love, your trust, your everything.

You are much too loved to be thrown away by God - he created you and loves you with a love beyond our comprehension.

Stop doubting - come back to Christ - give Him your all - you are redeemed by Jesus sacrifice you are His forever if you trust in this surety.

There is no place for doubt, fear, anxiety or stress - Jesus loves you - Heaven claims you - Hell can't hold you.

Surprise!!

Ever been taken completely by surprise?

It can be an amazing experience.

Life itself can be a surprise - our plans and dreams can come crashing down in an instant - all it takes can be some sort of accident or illness, death or disablement, loss of a job or family breakdown.

On the other hand there could be a birth of a child or an engagement, a sudden and unexpected promotion and unplanned and spontaneous holiday - lots of surprises can be exciting and marvellous.

One of the biggest surprises that occurred in my life was when Jesus tore down the curtains, smashed the rock that was my heart and replaced it with His brand new one.

Talk about "taken by surprise" - here I was trying to build a life based on the world's standards - looking for happiness the world's way - most of my hopes and dreams that I had carted around for years kept on tumbling down - I was frustrated and sometimes depressed.

I never really knew why? - I never REALLY understood - I was groping around like a blind person in a strange place - vaguely knowing what I had to do but unwilling to do it.

All my life it seems that I had been searching and looking for some 'missing part' I always knew wasn't there.

Hoping upon hopes that God would accept me anyway - Then came the big surprise!

In 1 John 2: 15-17 God tells us to "Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world." and again in 2 Corinthians He tells us to "Be separate"

God wants first place in our lives - He doesn't want to and He will not play 2nd fiddle to anyone or anything.

As Christians we are destined to live our lives here on earth and live in the world. BUT we should not let the world dictate to us how we should act and live while we are here.

We need to be separate from the world in everything we do. The world out there should be able to notice we are different from them.

Whatever we do - we should be doing it for God's Glory - His glory is our aim, our one desire and why we are here in the 1st place.

We can't afford to spend our entire lives stocking up treasures and wealth, homes, cars, promotions and anything else here while eternity waits for us.

We can find our joy in the Lord - we can certainly enjoy His creation - His boundless and amazing gifts to us.

The joy of being forgiven and willing to forgive others. The Joy of being very content with what we have and willing to share with others. The Joy of true friends and a willingness to bring others to our awesome God.

We should be very separate from the world in our actions - if something is right even though we may lose by it - it MUST be done.

If a thing is wrong even though we may gain by it we must put it aside completely. NO compromises!

There is no such thing as 'white lies' or anything at all that is a bit suss - no matter how trivial.

We can't let anything of the world's values rub off on us - if we are truly God's, then He must have full control.

We must walk worthy of our calling with all dignity remembering we are children of the King in fact the King of Kings.

When we think of it like that - there is absolutely no room for compromise in anything we do - running our business, running our homes, raising our children, shopping in fact everything we do we need to glorify God in the doing.

We MUST keep ourselves "unspotted" from the world and not get our hands dirty from playing the worlds games.

We can't let our eyes, feet, hands or minds take us along the paths of darkness .

These eyes of ours will see our amazing and awesome Lord, our feet will walk the streets of gold and our hands will be praising our Lord.

Give our Lord our entire lives - Nothing lasts here on earth -NOTHING! except the very GRACE of God - He is so willing to accept you into His family but we need to hand the controls over to Him.

We have to come to the place in our lives where we say enough is enough - no more struggling with God, no more trying to live in two worlds and no more fighting for two Generals.

We either have to have one or the other - either the world with all the razzle dazzle or God with His forgiveness, love and mercy.

We all have to choose!

Either way - every sin ever committed will be dealt with one way or another either:-

At the foot of the cross where Jesus took our sins and paid for them with His death or at the throne of God where we have to give an account.

I know I would have most definitely fallen away from God without His grace.

I am so glad that His great SURPRISE completely took me by surprise. I was so absorbed in me that I took my eyes of Him.

It is so easy to live our lives in a fantasy thinking that God is some distant, far off Deity, when in fact it is as simple as asking Him in to take the controls of our life.

All our wealth and 'stuff' we have accumulated here on earth means nothing and there is nothing we can give to God to make us worthy of His grace.

Going to church and pretending we are holy won't cut it - giving our time and effort to others won't cut it and trying to buy our way to heaven definitely won't cut it.

There is only one way - and one way only. -

Accept what Jesus did on the cross - ask forgiveness BUT make sure you count the cost and turn everything over to Him 100%.

It is SO worth it - the freedom of a transformed life is awesome and amazing.

Vengeance - They will not get away with this!

Vengeance - even the sound of the word is just so powerful - VENGEANCE !!

Makes me want to cower somewhere and hide - it is such an awesome sounding word - coming out of a heart filled with unforgiveness, anger and a desire to see justice done.

Vengeance can take on many forms and many locations - it is generally and mostly carried out by us wanting to get our own back for something we see as wrong or offensive to us.

Ephesians 4:31-32 says "Let all bitterness and wrath and anger and clamour and slander be put away from you along with all malice. Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you."

Pretty amazing words and so true - BUT it is pretty hard to do if we have been severely hurt by someone or the legal system has let us down - that can be very devastating and so wrong - everything inside of us cries out for justice.

Think about these verses from Romans 12:19 and let them sink in:

"Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, 'vengeance is mine, I will repay' says the Lord".

Now they are pretty amazing words as well - I must admit that I have read these words before and have tried to put them into practice but always have failed until just recently.

When someone or something offends us - the first thing we must realise and immediately put into practice is that very verse in Romans.

If we are a Christian and we have given our entire lives to Him then the Great God of creation - our Lord and Savour not only knows who the person is that has offended us - but what was said - what the motive was and what our reaction is going to be.

If that person is a Christian, then it is up to the Lord to lay on that person's heart his/her need to seek forgiveness and to put things right.

Certainly not up to us to jump the queue and try to beat God at His own game.

If that person is not a Christian - then we have two trains of thought.

1) The person could very well become a Christian and then of course it becomes the work of the Holy Spirit to convict that person of their need for forgiveness.

Again, let's not try to usurp God's plans and get there before Him - probably making things heaps worse with maybe dire consequences for you and the person involved.

2) The person may never come to know the Lord! That being the case - our Lord knows exactly what was said and what was done.

He knows how you were hurt - he knows how your reputation, feelings, family, finances etc were effected.

He also knows the injustice of what happened and how the consequences of that injustice  has played out for you over the years.

It then becomes His, holy, righteous and just 'vengeance' to deal with the problem. Not ours!

You see, either way we look at the problem of vengeance we come up with the same answer.

It is God's job to repay.

He will be our Champion on the day of Judgement - He will lead us through to the other end - He will give us peace when there is no peace and He will certainly make sure that there will never be any one sin ever committed in the world unaccounted for.

Now that's an awesome thought - EVERY sin will be accounted for:-  Either at the cross of Jesus or at the throne of God!

That leaves us with where each of us stands at this moment.

Are you prepared for the coming Glory of God? - Sins completely forgiven and nailed to the cross of Jesus or...

Are you coasting along - keeping unforgiveness and savouring vengeance in your heart - planning how and when to exact it?

We can't carry unforgiveness in our hearts and still be following the Lord.

We need to either ask forgiveness or give forgiveness  -

Jesus said :- "If you forgive those who sin against you, your heavenly Father will forgive you. But if you refuse to forgive others, your Father will not forgive your sins". Matthew 6:14 & 15.

It will probably be one of the hardest calls you will have to make - but you will certainly let a prisoner free - free from guilt and free from carrying around a burden that has stopped a relationship with the Lord and...

That prisoner is you!

Lord, help us to reach the unreachable, change the unchangeable, love the unlovely and forgive the unforgivable.

Lord you are the ONLY one to help us do the impossible - change our hearts Lord - help us bit by bit to become the type of people you want us to become.

Struggling with anxiety?? Over stressed??

Are you struggling with anxiety?

Did you know that we don't have to have anxiety in our lives!

That's right - we can overcome even the slightest trace of anxiousness if we give everything over to God .

Ho Hum here we go again - I've heard all of that before - it doesn't work I can hear you say.

Well, I must admit I have been a Christian a long time and it has just been recently that I have learnt that there is really no place in the Christian life for anxiety.

That's right - no place at all - in fact if we let ourselves become a slave to anxiety we are virtually saying to God that we don't trust you enough to believe what you say in your Word and we want to live without you.

Yes, anxiety is a sin. - pretty horrible sin  at that - anxiousness can lead to all sorts of problems in our lives. Physical problems - Like not sleeping, depression, eating disorders, stomach and liver problems, tobacco and alcohol abuse in fact all sorts of stress related issues - stemming straight from an anxious and worrying lifestyle.

Stress/anxiety can cause countless problems

Worry and stress (anxiousness) is a given in today's society and most businesses are geared around striving to do better - keeping up with other businesses - keeping an eye on "Key Performance Indicators" measuring successes and analysing failures/down times and working out ways to minimise bad impacts.

All the hype and "go-go-go" in the business world has a marked effect on us as employees/employers.

Mental Health issues has become one of today's main concerns - The Australian Bureau of Statistics tells me that almost half (45% or 7.3 million) of 16 million Australians (aged 16-85 years) met the criteria for a diagnosis of a mental disorder at some point in their life. One in five (3.2 million) had experienced the symptoms in the 12 months to the survey - and most of these cases can be attributed mainly to anxiousness.

Pretty staggering statistics - I must admit feeling a bit overwhelmed by all that - stats have never been my strong point but with figures like that you must take notice!

What is happening to the world? I can certainly tell you - because I have been caught up in the downward spiral myself and being there it is not a pretty place.

We as human beings have systematically turned our backs on our Creator God - we have turned to others things that give us a feeling of well-being for the short term.

We have in short become idolaters - looking to other people or other'idols' in our search for so-called happiness - You know how it goes - "If I can just buy this new house I will be happy" - or "If I can just go on this holiday that will be my hearts desire" or "If I can just live with him/her all my troubles will be over".

We hear it everyday - things that we figure will make us 'happy' and 'fulfilled'. I'm telling you right now that these 'things' will never make you happy and fulfilled - they will certainly give you a 'buzz' in the short term but they will never ever give you your hearts desire and fulfil that longing that we all have for perfect happiness and contentment.

I have been reading lately and also studying in our Bible Group a book by John Piper - "Faith in Future Grace" - I must admit that it was a bit daunting but one thing bounced out at me and smacked me fair in the face - that thing is:-

God has given us grace to save us in the first place - without that grace we cannot come to Him at all.

It was grace that drove Jesus to Calvary - Grace that nailed him to the cross - Grace that enabled Him to take all the mocking, scourging, torture and death.

It was also grace that enabled Him to rise again and seal our salvation. - Pretty amazing stuff but stuff that I knew and was always amazed at BUT..

It is also His ON-GOING grace that keeps us walking with God - to enable us to continue worshipping, praising and living for Him.

This ON-GOING grace is a day by day - moment by moment thing graciously given to us by the Father.

This is the thing....

God will give us this grace for today - the grace for tomorrow will come tomorrow.

Think about that!!!

We don't have to concern ourselves with what will happen tomorrow - because tomorrow's grace hasn't been given to us yet - in other words our worries about tomorrow will be taken care of by God tomorrow - not today.

We can spend so much time worrying about tomorrow when in fact as Christians God has enabled us and given us the ability to cope with everything JUST for today - in fact JUST for the moment!

Last year we were "thrown a curved ball' when from left field we were given some pretty devastating news  - My immediate thoughts were - How are we going to cope with this? - I must admit that I lost it - wrung hands and got depressed - did it help? not at all - only made things heaps worse.

God didn't promise us a life free of trauma and problems. He did promise us the ability to get through them - He WILL see us through to the end IF we keep our eyes on Him.

God also promises us His grace and the ability to get through the day - He will give us the strength we need to cope with the problems and trauma associated with what you are doing NOW not tomorrow.

Through our trauma of last year and of course the continuing uncertainty we were and are able to cope by God's grace every day - we had and have to keep our eyes on Him and don't look to the future - knowing that the grace to cope with tomorrow will come tomorrow by our gracious Lord - it won't come today.

Looking at tomorrow's problems today WILL definitely cause anxiety and worry.

God's grace will see us through today it is His promise and God's promises never fail.

Matthew 6:34 says "Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of it's own"

Up to just recently I hadn't really got a handle on that verse - BUT it is amazing and awesome to think that God can and will give us the strength to cope with what is dished out today - Let's not take tomorrow's troubles and concerns on our shoulders today.

His grace is all sufficient, all powerful and all conquering.

Trust God for everything we need for today - His grace and strength will see us through both today and tomorrow.

I wrote the following song when I was 15 years old. I have never forgotten it and every now and again I will sing it to myself - luckily no one else can hear.

I guess it has become more of a poem now but the interesting thing is that the words mean more to me now than they did 50 years ago - Our God is indeed marvellous in our eyes - He is awesome and amazing and I am ever spellbound by his wonders.

I want to go to Heaven,

That's where I want to be

I want to go to Heaven.

My Saviour's Face to see

O Lord Keep me close in this world of sin and strife,

Come today, come in to stay, come and change my life.

I want to go to Heaven

Where the streets are paved with gold.

I want to see my Jesus' face

His beauty to behold.

His grace took Him to Calvary

His love showed Him the way

That's why I want to live for Him

And praise him every day.

And when I think of Calvary

And what he did for me

How the Father's wrath was paid

By His death upon the tree.

My heart cries out with gratitude

That He the lord most high

Should deign to take my sins upon Himself and bleed and die