Little Miss Giggles

Luke 18:27

Jesus replied, "What is impossible with man is possible with God."

Can the impossible happen?  Short answer Yes - I know for a fact it can - I would have thought it was impossible for me to change - In fact I reckon I got to the stage where I didn't want to change I was happy, or so I thought, with my life until BAM! God changed me - I can't believe how I used to be.

Was I really like that and loving it?

When you read the Bible there are heaps of impossibilities happening - most of them mind blowing.

Although the biggest impossibilities happen in the lives of ordinary human beings I'd reckon - lives changed dramatically and permanently by the Spirit of God. Things that cannot be explained and quite frankly a bit hard to explain to the world at large out there.

Consider the case of Sarai who was to have her named changed to Sarah - an amazing lady of exceptional beauty, wealth, poise, self-assurance and grace.

Married to her half brother Abram (wouldn't happen today) Sarai was wealthy in the eyes of the world - beauty and wealth couldn't hide the fact that she was sad because she couldn't have children.

She would have been well into her sixties by the time Abram was called by God to 'go to the land flowing with milk and honey' the promised land that was later to become the home of the 'chosen' people of God - Abram and Sarai's descendants.

She was in her 'golden years' you could say and God had promised her a son - she is excited - she plans - she waits and waits and waits - still no son.

Decades pass so Sarai decides to take things into her own hands - after all it's impossible now for her to conceive - she is well into her eighties! She convinces Abram that time has run out!  it's impossible now. So she gives her maid Hagar to Abram and Hagar bears Ishmael and the rest is history.

We leap ahead fourteen long years, Ishmael has grown and he and his Mum are pretty entrenched into the family - Ishmael is Abram's heir, Ishmael MUST be the promised child of God BUT.... God had other ideas.

The amazing and impossible happens - God pays them a visit and tells them to get ready for a baby bundle, start choosing boy's names because this time next year you and Sarai will be bouncing a baby boy on your bony old knees! IMPOSSIBLE!

Sarai was 99 years old and Abram 100 -  impossible! - what do they do? - they laugh at the lunacy of it all. They laugh because it is just too good to be true and I guess they laugh because it JUST MIGHT happen!

Sarai laughed into her bony wrinkled hands her shoulders shaking with laughter at the very thought of bearing a child at her age. Hilarious on one hand, fear on the other, hilarity doubling her over turns to nervous giggles of apprehension at the very might and in the very presence of Creator God.

God works at accomplishing the absurd, the impossible, the unbelievable and sure enough by the time the year is ended, Sarai and Abram are changed forever - God even changed their names to Sarah (Mother) and Abraham (The Father of a multitude).

Their names aren't the only things God changed in that miraculous year, He changed their minds, their faith and how they looked at the impossible. He also changed Sarah's definition of trust in God - She trusted Him from then on - In His time not hers.

We so easily jump ahead of God - we tire of waiting on Him - how many times have we taken things into our own hands just like Sarai did those thousands of years ago, often with disastrous consequences.

Yes our God is a God of miracles - a God of the impossible. We can read about them all scattered throughout the Bible - from Sarai to Paul's amazing and impossible conversion.

What is impossible for man is possible only through God - He needs our complete surrender. All around us in this world is sin, sorrow, war and problems all of which are Satan's domain - BUT God is the God of the impossible - He is still on His throne, doing the impossible, changing people's lives and changing them for good.

If we surrender to God completely then like Abraham and Sarah we will become strong in faith, giving glory to God, because we trust in His amazing and often impossible ways.

Princesses, Princes and Paupers

Hypocrisy! Even the word sends chills down our spines.

Don't you just hate hypocrisy?

I have heard many many times when talking about my Christianity these words (and I guess we have all been on the receiving end of them at some stage) "I don't go to church - it is full of hypocrites"

You know - I have come to realise that they absolutely correct - Basically we are all hypocrites - none of us truly are what we say we are - we are sinful and disobedient to God - we have all fallen short of His standards and it is only through his grace that we are saved in the first place.

Cliff Knechtle wrote and I quote "We are all either trying to hide our bad sides or we try to make them look good. But deep inside we all know that we fall short of living the way we should. No one can escape the charge of 'hypocrite'. No one except Jesus who is the only one able to live to God's standards"

So, to the "I wouldn't darken the doors of the church because of so many hypocrites there" I say "We'd gladly make room for you there is plenty of room for us all." We don't offer "Christians' to our friends and neighbours we are offering the CHRIST.

Jesus is the only one who can really see the condition of our hearts  - what's really lurking there under the masks we love to put on.

Twice now I have seen churches ask people to leave because they didn't come up to some standard - I have heard sermons on how we should love everyone including the un-lovely, the left-out ones, the prostitutes and homeless, the drunkards and drug affected, which is wonderful and sounds just like Jesus until it actually happens!

What about the convicted murderer, or the paedophile, those who are addicted to pornography on a grand scale especially child pornography - what about those?

It's time's like these that our true colours are exposed and our hypocrisy can be seen by the world.

Being a grandfather of five I can certainly understand reticence on the church in admitting these seekers, heaps of things to consider, especially the safety and well-being of children which I am sure God would want us to consider very carefully.

On saying that, the question I am left pondering is this "How would Jesus have reacted to this type of situation?" Honesty on the part of these people can lead to exclusion from the church and ostracism from the membership. I am sure that we could come up with what is acceptable to God and to the church without having to resort to expulsion.

With God there are no 'grades' of sin - he hates sin especially hypocrisy - Jesus died to do away with sin - our sins are cleansed once we through faith claim the gift God offers us through his awesome yet amazing grace. ALL sin is cleansed through Christ's sacrifice regardless of what that sin is. NO sin is TOO GROSS to be forgiven.

Yes of course we have to be careful but at the end of the day, Jesus saves and satisfies. He and He alone took on the burden of our sin be it hypocrisy or Paedophilia, murder or offence, He and He alone was the only one worthy enough to pay that price. What right have we got to define who is admitted to His church.

So who are you when  it comes to hypocrisy the Princess or the Prince? - Looking really good on the inside, able to preach a WOW of a sermon that has the people out of their seats and all gung-ho ready to go?

Or are you a Pauper, which in fact we all are! We are all Paupers in the eye of God - all needing change and deliverance from our sins to make us into Princesses and Princes in the 'real' sense of the word. Royalty living as Jesus lived, loving EVERYONE as Jesus did, accepting and showing His grace, mercy and love to all.

Hypocrisy is an evil, sneaky and deadly little sin and one that won't ever be tolerated by a just God.

Jumping in muddy puddles

Peppa Pig just LOVES jumping in muddy puddles! - Makes me wonder just how many of us like doing the same?

Muddy puddles come in all shapes and sizes and sometimes we don't just love jumping in them but we wallow in them as well.

The muddy puddles of taking offence and hanging onto that offence is probably one of the biggest muddy puddles we will have to encounter in our lives.

Taking a guess, I would suggest everybody - every single one of us has at some point taken offence at some stage in their lives, some HUGE and some slight, regardless - offence is offence.

Some of us get so offended with others that we carry that offence or resentment for the rest of our lives. In other people the offence is hardly noticeable, they seem to able to brush it off like water on a ducks back.

Other people can put up with the most pointed offences, even personal attacks, bullying etc and can, even though they may get hurt in the process, recover quite quickly and seem to overlook it all and carry no spite at all to the offender.

So why do we get offended and what does God say about the 'wallowing in offence' that some us are prone to do?

Offence usual happens when someone says something to us, about us or about our family that we interpret or perceive to be insulting, wrong or just plain nasty! We could be blamed for something we didn't do or something we failed to do and so we take offence.

We could interpret someones actions to be negative to us, to be inconsiderate or even plain thoughtless towards us. Anything can make us offended.

So offence can be pretty dangerous - it can isolate us from people and friends but more importantly it can isolate us from God and have a real impact on our very salvation, depending on how we cope with the offence and what we decide to do with it.

Some of us even become offended with God; blaming Him for not taking into consideration all of the 'things' we have done for Him, or "I gave my heart to God and look what happened' syndrome.

We can see that offence is so wrong - in Matthew 18, Jesus tells us just how solemnly He looks at the sin of offence "It would be better for him if a millstone were hung around his neck, and he were drowned in the depth of sea" Jesus said of those who committed offence.

So what do we do when we are offended - should we reach for the millstone or do something about it?

Whether your offence is towards God or towards other people, the way you handle it can either make you  bitter and twisted or make you stronger and strange as it sounds the stronger you get the more humble you become.

Humility is the key to getting over offence! The proud find it so difficult and prefer to wallow in the mud of offence and unlike Peppa they don't just like 'jumping' into muddy puddles, but rather wallow in the mud of offence until it gets into the very pause of their inner beings.

Such people live in bitterness and anger, preferring confrontation with others and being the 'victim' in all situations. God can't work with people like this; there is no room for God to grow this person; there is no room for such people to reach out to God either.

Where there is bitterness and offence, there you will find, frustration, unforgiveness and all sorts of envy and strife.

Alternatively with God working in your life there are the gifts of love, humility, patience, kindness and self control as mentioned in the Galatians 12.

Maybe as you have read this, you, like me have been reminded of your past relationships and some of the offences that may have occurred with them. Are there any that need to be 'put right'?

If you have been 'convicted' of some offence in the past or present, make sure before you do anything to ask the Holy Spirit to guide you through and to make your thoughts and your tongue pure before Him.

Ask God to give you the wonderful gift of humility; a humility that will see you accept what the other says even though inside of you it may feel offensive. Ask God to give you patience and endurance and to offer that person the wonderful gift of your real love.

It's definitely time to step out of the muddy puddle, clean yourself off, and like the prodigal son, come back to the Father. your relationship with him will be amazingly fulfilling; your relationship with others will never be the same - you will start to see them through the eyes of Jesus.

Stay quiet before God and allow Him to show you what you should do. Big blessings to you as you continue to grow in humility, forgiveness and in the handling of offence.