short stories
|
poetry
|
short stories
|
poetry
|
THE GRAVE IS EMPTY The tomb is empty. Jesus is risen. Jesus conquered death, hell, and the devil. Because I believed in Jesus and asked him to live in me, I too, have overcome death, hell, and the devil. Yes, my body will die. My will be put into a grave and disappear into the earth, but I, me, myself will live forever. To die is not just to be put into the grave, for me eternity is real, it is now. I’m glad Jesus sought me out, I’m glad I had the sense to accept him; become a new person and give up my independence and become his follower, his disciple. I’m glad Jesus’ grave is empty. I’m glad my grave only has my body and the real me is risen with Christ. I’m glad my future is safe; my present is provided for and my past is not remembered any more. The love Jesus has for me far outweighs any other loves I have or have experienced.
Comments
HOLY DAY OR FUN DAY Today is Good Friday to commemorate the death of Christ. There are church services, sports fests, Mass, and whatever the thing is you want to do the most. In my childhood, Good Friday was a Holy Day. We went to church and meditated, and if you were a child, you became bored stiff. Easter eggs were made of sugar and decorated with sugar flowers. For me, one egg was my parents' concession to Easter. Today, sugar eggs have given away to chocolate rabbits and chocolate eggs of all sizes. Most children receive more than one chocolate egg or rabbit. We celebrate Easter today by indulging in every type of seafood imaginable. As a child, our diet didn't change. Those who embraced the catholic faith then ate fish. Because they believed fish didn't shed any blood and they were not violating the death of Christ. How things have changed. GOD DOES NOT CHANGE Jesus died. These are immutable facts that remain unchanged. Food fads have changed, the things we worship may have changed, Good Friday has become a sports fest, but God has not changed. He hasn't upgraded; he hasn't become trendy. He doesn't change his mind every decade or millennia. To quote the gospel of John 3: 16, "God so loved the world that he gave his only Son that whoever believed in him should not perish but have everlasting life." GOD SO LOVED – THAT HE GAVE Through the death of Christ, God's only son, God wiped out our sin of independence and worship of things, not God. We have willingly replaced God with gods of our own making. At the death of Christ, God not only wiped out our rejection of him, but he threw it as far away from him as the east is from the west forget we chose to do life our way. Psalm 103: 12. God is waiting for us to recognize our need for him. He is waiting with open arms to embrace us, enfold us to himself, in the way a parent will cuddle the child, God wants to cuddle us. Jesus became the sacrificial Lamb who willingly took all of our lust, depressions, hates, and horribleness on to himself. He carried them to the cross so we could become the children of God. God now wants to endow us with all this love and care. Jesus is the door to heaven and a loving God. All God requires of us is faith that he is, acceptance of Jesus as our savior. Unless we accept Jesus as our rescuer and our deliverer, God can only love us from afar. Our desire to do life our way and its consequences exclude God from our life. To accept Jesus as our savior will bring God into our very being, change us and our world completely. We will know a love like no other love. THE PRINCE IS ALIVE The humungus roar of exploding bombs, leaping flames and billowing smoke have nearly rocked the earth off its axis. Civil unrest demonstrating against war has turned to terror by the change of tactics taking place. Instead of demonstrations people are fleeing the war zones, trying to find peace in another country. People are frantic at what is happening around them and to their loved ones because there is now no safe place. Civil unrest has morphed into terrorism and war. Fear is rampant because of the unrest and Covid-19. Who will be the next, is the question on the lips of many. Others are keeping their fears to themselves. Still others are making predictions as to what the future may hold. Evil is seeking to subject the world to its rule. It is easy to see how a nation can be ruled by fear. Interesting that it is happening just prior to Easter, the time when Jesus was crucified. At the crucifixion the crowds took to the streets to welcome him into Jerusalem as king and then a few days later they were on the streets again, yelling for his crucifixion. Humanity then was being driven like sheep by the power of evil. Today humanity is driven by evil to perform evil. Jesus, beaten, crucified, subject to horrific atrocities, rose triumphant above base humanity. Today the risen reigning, Prince of Peace, Jesus if allowed to dwell in the human heart will turn the inner turmoil to peace and calm. PEACE - A STATE OF THE HEART Peace is an inner state. If people are at war with themselves and their neighbour, their government, everything in fact, there will not be any peace. When people want what another has or is perceived to have, peace is forfeited. Peace is not found in this manner. The cry for peace maybe on every one’s lips, peace however, doesn’t happen by magic, or by United Nations, or some other peace organization. Terrorism doesn’t allow peace because it loses control of people, terrorism is backed by an ideology and its adherents must kill to gain power and control so they no know peace nor even want it mentally and physically. It is their belief system, they have become slaves to the ideology and believe they are right. Not until Jesus, the Prince of Peace, rules the human heart will there be peace. When the Prince of Peace rules the heart, self no longer seeks to get what it wants by killing off those that resist it. When the Prince of Peace rules the heart the human heart is content with what it has and seeks not satisfaction in things or power When Jesus, the person, has met the needs of the human heart peace then reigns. We will find the tomb empty on Easter Sunday but we could find our hearts at peace if the Prince of Peace is risen in our hearts, especially if we could change our belief system and accept Jesus as saviour. Happy Easter. An excerpt from the book Letters to Anne by Gwenneth Leane obtained from Amazon Kindle and KML publishing. You matter. In day to day life, we often ask, do we matter? Do we contribute to the world? Our nation? Are we just a face in the crowd? To our government we are only a number, go into the shopping mall, and we take a number and stand in a queue. We have no name and wait in line until our number for our number to appear on a screen. The social engineers would have us dehumanized. No identity. No self-esteem. We are under their control. The devil wants us to feel we are nothing because he knows he can defeat you when you believe you are worthless. God, on the other hand, knew you before you were a twinkle in your parents’ eye, he had your life planned before the womb. You matter to God! God calls you by name; you don’t have to queue up; God personally loves you. He wants to meet your needs personally. He wants to make your life beautiful. God knows what you face because Jesus, in all points, suffered as we do. We matter to God! So according to scripture, God says he will always give us all we need from day to day if we make the kingdom of God our primary goal. Thought for the day: I am glad that you go before me and behind me. That your hand of blessing is on my head. Washing. As a bride, I washed the clothes in a hand pump washing machine. I never called it a washing machine; it required too much effort to operate it. I would heat water in the copper and bucket the water into the ‘machine’ add soap powder, screw the large suction pump to the handle and pump up and down. The clothes were supposed to come clean. It was hard hot work still it was better than using a scrubbing board. I remember my inadequacies, unworthiness and inability to make myself better. Thinking about reinventing ourselves, we have to find a way to remove the mental dirt, the psychological baggage we accumulate throughout our life. Even our best efforts, like my washing machine action, are not perfect. We are still the same old same old, imperfect person. God has seen our struggles, our tears, our brokenness, hopelessness and sent Jesus to us. Indeed, God laid all our imperfection on Christ on the cross. Christ bore them, he took them to the grave with him and left them there, and when he arose, he left our unworthiness in the grave and rose clothing us in his goodness. When we accept Jesus, God pours into us the goodness of Jesus. God forgets our psychological baggage; he doesn’t remember it any more. We are new people. Our struggles are over; we just have to be. It is not our job anymore to be better people. Jesus has made us righteous by indwelling us with himself. Thought for the day: ‘…just think how much more surely the blood of Christ will transform our lives and hearts.’ Hebrew 9: 19 LB Immeasurable. When I was dressmaking, my clients came in all sizes and shapes; large and small. The tape measure didn’t stretch but there were some figures that the tape was hardly big enough. Some significant forms were almost immeasurable. The clients expected to look like a size 10 when in fact they were a size 24. God is immeasurable himself. All that he has created is immeasurable. Look at the galaxies – we are told they just go on forever. Stargazers said there was about 11,000 now there are countless galaxies. The distance between east and west is immeasurable. How far the east is from the west is the distance God has cast our sin from himself, which is limitless. So, our sin, past, present and future, has been placed an immeasurable distance from God. How did this happen? The Bible says ‘For God took the sinless Christ and poured into him our sins. Then in exchange, he poured God’s goodness into us.’ 2 Corinthians 5: 21. Christ absorbed all our sin, he was forsaken by God while he carried that sin into the grave and when he arose from the grave, our sins were left there, cast as far as the east is from the west. Don’t let the devil tell you otherwise and steal the immeasurable joyous life of a righteous life in Christ. ‘God can make it up to you by giving you everything you need and more, so there will not only be enough for your own needs but plenty left to give joyfully to others.’ 2 Corinthians 9: 8 LB Thought for the day: ‘Now to him who can do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us.’ Ephesians 3: 20 LB This is an excerpt from the book titled Letters to Anne. The book can be bought from Amazon or www.kmlpublishing. Glory. From Glory to Glory he’s changing me, changing me, changing me.’ These words are a line in a old chorus. I used to sing them with great gusto. I did believe the Lord was changing me but I felt it would be fully realized when I reached heaven. The line of another chorus comes to mind, ‘Heaven came down, and glory shone around.’ I believed that when the angels sang at Jesus birth, heaven did come down. The skies lit up, and Glory shone around. But it was only to announce Jesus birth. DON’T WAIT I realize now heaven did come to earth in many ways at Jesus’ birth. The Glory was Jesus; he is the Glory. We don’t need to wait for the Glory, or make ourselves worthy of the Glory or pray for a UFO kind of experience. When we have Jesus within us, we have the Glory. When we become believers of Jesus, his Glory fills us. We then are the Glory of God. We are full of the Glory-man, Jesus. We need nothing more or less. In Christ, I am being changed from Glory to Glory because Glory – the man Jesus, came down and shone all around. He never left, he lives in us. Thought for the Day: ‘The blessing, the honor, the glory, the power belong to the one sitting on the throne, to the Lamb forever and ever.’ Revelation 5: 13 LB Prayer: Thank you, Father, for the Glory-man Jesus who dwells within us. Grant us a more apparent revelation of this truth. An excerpt from the book Letters to Anne by Gwenneth Leane New! New often means it has never been worn before or used by anyone else. It is as the maker made it … new. It means that something is different such as different clothes, different food. The Bible speaks of mercies that are new every day. Does that mean these mercies have never been used before? That each day there is a new mercy given by God every day? This morning’s new mercies are for today, they won’t be repeated tomorrow. We are not receiving yesterdays mercies. They are for yesterday. God has new mercies for us tomorrow. God gave the children of Israel fresh manna every day. If they tried to collect extra and keep it it went bad. The same applies to the mercies of God. Yesterday’s mercies are to be remembered for our encouragement. Yesterday’s mercies become too familiar to us and we ignore them, cease to be grateful. We cannot keep them for today. God is steadfast, he doesn’t forget to create new mercies for us every day. Just as he was steadfast and faithful to the Israelites in the wilderness, so is he to us. We receive new mercies every day, we just need to collect them and not continually live on yesterdays mercies. Great is God’s faithfulness – the faithfulness of God is mind blowing, crazy, no logic to why God, each day, pours out new mercies not used before by anyone. Thought for the Day: But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ-- Letters to Anne can be obtains from Amazon also from WWW.KMLPublising or gwen.leanehotmail.com IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN A PIECE OF CAKE RESEARCH The poems and images were collected and scanned into the computer. Alas, they were the wrong orientation. I changed to landscape. I cut and pasted; some of the poems needed to be back to front. More time spent in retyping into landscape orientation and rearranging images. Some of the images wouldn’t print off. I hunted through my photos, searched the internet for free images. Week one. I sent a copy to the printer, ‘No’, he said, ‘we need the files to be in PDF.’ I searched my computer for the PDF conversion; I did have one, oh, there was an upgrade and the PDF file was never put back. I’ll down load a free file but it wouldn’t down load, an error. Not to be beaten, I emailed my computer whizz friend, could she send me a copy of her file? Then I had to ask how to use it. Week 2 had passed. HELP NEEDED All the poems were now in PDF and set out in correct order. With the images, bio’s and contents page set to go. Back to the printer, ‘No, these files aren’t right. You need them to be this way. We could do the files for you but it will cost you.’ I despaired. I knew I could not create the files needed to print the book. Back to my computer whizz,’ can you help me?’ Week three A new cover design, new images; can the images supplied by the authors be used in case of offence? Day one, she sent me the layout of the book as it should look. The printer contacted, were the files OK? I held the book, the unachievable achieved. The awful fact; there were over 50 mistakes, lines were missed out, The book was a lemon, but no, it was me that was the lemon for having the temerity to think I was a computer whizz. I needed to humble myself. I needed to admit my limitations. Having done penance I looked around, what next? THE TRUTH It occurred to me that God still loved me. I had stuffed up big-time but his love for me never lessened. I was still his beloved child, the apple of his eye, my photo in his wallet. I didn’t deserve his love but he over looked that because of his unconditional love. It occurred to me that I could remain a lemon or I could get up and be the sweet orange God had made me. I chose to be the sweet orange. I discarded the guilt trip. I could do that because God had declared in Romans 8: 1, ‘There is now no condemnation awaiting those who belong to Christ Jesus. For the power of the life-giving Spirit – and this power is mine through Christ Jesus – has freed me from the vicious circle of sin and death.’ The book was finally printed without error but I learnt a valuable lesson. Being proud and thinking myself better than I was is not pleasing to God. I also learnt that God loves me beyond beyond, no matter what I do. My standing with him is not performance based. Bless God. I WONDER HOW OLD SUPERMAN IS? He's been around forever it seems. Each generation invents him in some way again. The story line of the movie Superman: Superman and Lois Lane decide that they’re in love, so superman chooses to give up his super powers in order to marry Lois Lane. He is warned in advance that if he surrenders his powers he can never have them back. Still, he chooses to surrender his powers and become just ordinary Clark Kent. HEART-BROKEN Shortly afterwards, he discovers that three evil super-villains have taken control of the White House and are attempting to establish themselves as rulers of Planet Earth. Now more than ever, the world needs Superman – but it’s too late! A dejected Clark Kent hikes through a raging blizzard back to Superman’s fortress of solitude, now in ruins. As Clark Kent walks through the rubble, he cries aloud, ‘Father I have failed,’ the scene suddenly changed from Boston to Metropolis. The super-villains are wreaking havoc and terrorising the townspeople, and then the music starts. Suddenly, up in the sky –it’s not a bird, it’s not a plane, it’s Superman! Somehow, someway, he regained his superpowers and he is back. The story ends with Superman defeating the villains and winning the fight for truth and justice. The writers of the movie set rules that Superman was to lose his powers and not be able to get them back but then evil would have run rampant over the earth so they had to break the rules and allow him to have his superpowers back. Superman rose from the dead, you might say. Evil runs rampant through the earth today and for us to overcome evil both from within and without the rules must be changed. CHANGE THE RULES Jesus Christ died to change the rules. God’s rules were the Ten Commandments but no one could keep the rules. Something must be done. On earth, Jesus was just the carpenter’s son or Clark Kent, in heaven he was God’s only son or Superman with the power save the world. If God wanted to save his unique creation of humankind he must change his rules. He must stop Satan the Supervillain from destroying the world. Jesus, alias Clark Kent, alias the carpenter’s son, came and died and rose again. Hundreds of people, maybe thousands saw him first hand. Jesus changed the rules, overcoming Satan, the super-villain, making him look a powerless idiot. SAVED Jesus, the superman, changed his followers into saints from sinners, thus creating a new people, a special people, a people who are strong, virile winners over themselves and the circumstances surrounding them. You could say a new world order has been created within this old one. The new world order is the Kingdom of Heaven. The Kingdom of Heaven can’t be seen by the human eye but it is experienced in the heart by those who have accepted the new rules and believed in superman Jesus and given their lives to him to save them. TRUST MY GOD - HE IS ABLE My Life With Mentors Guest writer, Bruce Leane I am compelled to put pen to paper to tell others how God supplies above and beyond all avenues of training and preparation for ministry. In my early teens, I felt called to the full-time ministry which of course, meant education and training. I preached my first sermon at sixteen at Christian Endeavour and never seemed to stop. The Second World War broke out and Dad enlisted in the Air Force and left home. My older brother Peter and I were left to manage our small dairy herd. I was thirteen at the time and had to drop out of school. My education was cut short, and I was not able to go to High School and later Bible College. The call that God had placed on my life remained. I still felt the call to preach. After the War, Dad and return home, I still had to battle to help the family make a living. With no education, there seemed no future and no hope other than a burning in my heart to serve the Lord. My life to this point consisted of battling Asthma, I was losing the battle and had to leave the south of South Australia. Miraculously I was offered a job on a fruit block in the Winkie area of the Riverland for six months pruning. I left that job eleven years later after some intense years of mentoring in horticulture by one of God’s delegated trainers. MY MENTORS OR GODS TEACHERS RAY BISHOP Ray Bishop was the Youth Leader of the Church of Christ at Mount Compass. To me, as a searching teenager, he was true blue and lead the Christian Endeavour group of which I was a member. Ray cleared vast tracts of land with an old caterpillar tractor running it on gas produced from charcoal, during the war when there was an acute shortage of fuel. He worked long hours and kept his Schofield Bible sitting on the tractor with him, every day so he could lead us young people in our walk with the Lord. His work ethic and Christian principle hugely impressed me and gave me a solid Bible based learning in ‘Dispensational Truth,' a great platform that fits the covenants of God together to make sense. Ray became a fill-in Dad in my teen years and gave me a sound foundation for studying the Bible. MENTOR IN THE FRUIT INDUSTRY In early 1952 I arrived in the Riverland to work for Mr. Len Chapple and his son Alan. I left behind my fiance Gweneth Hunt and my beloved dog Flash. My Bible and my toolbox came with me. Mr. Len Chapple was God’s orchardist; he proved to be a treasured mentor. Almost from the start, I was teaching in a youth group in Sunday School, leading a Boys Brigade and soon was preaching in all the Church of Christ congregations around the Riverland, Berri, Barmera, Loxton, Moorook under the watchful eye of Len Chapple. Under his powerful influence regarding everything to do with working in the orchard. After all, I was only employed to help prune for six months. I stayed eleven years, during which time I married, and we had four children. Len Chapple taught me everything about the vine and its branches. I have used these profound principles over and over again in my sermons. During pruning time I spent many hours with the ‘old boss’, as I came to call him, debating the Bible and Christian concepts. The old Boss taught me the foundations of vine reproduction and at the same time pointed out the parallel of Christ’s, ‘I am the vine you are the branches.’ This principle became foundational for me in later years as I established new church groups and ministered in many towns around South Australia. I came to realize that I would only ever be a block hand if I stayed in the fruit business. I would never be able to buy a block of my own. With little education and no money, I was in limbo. I had gone as far as I could in the fruit business thanks to Len Chapple. The era of his mentoring was over, and a new phase was about to begin . MENTOR IN STEEL INDUSTRY I gained a job with Grant Telfer Engineering to drive a truck delivering new steel framed sheds to customers all over the river-land. At first, I had to spend six months in the factory on the floor until the current driver retired. Before six months finished Grant Telfer, owner and boss, came to me and said, “Bruce you are staying in the factory, you are a natural with tools and machines. So began a new mentorship in a new direction. I worked personally under Grant for many months and received a crash course on welding and building machines. The next step was a promotion to the position of foreman, which I refused because my education was too poor to do the book work. After some negotiation I became the leading hand, meaning that I had to organize the men, and as Grant said, I was skilled in. I loved the work and gained an immense amount of knowledge in very short time. My tool collection grew as well as my wage. Grant was an excellent mentor and in all things set me up for many years amongst men. From this position I was able to flow out into areas of spiritual ministry. The years of fruit growing and industry provided me with money and associates for ministry. A very close friendship grew between myself and Frank Graetz, a Christian orchardist from Renmark. It was through Frank’s influence that a book titled the Blood Covenant by E W Kenyon came across my desk. On reading it, my life changed, and new directions opened up. It was water to my thirsty soul. The Covenants of God took on new meaning; my preaching became the fire in my innermost being. My right to be a partner with God down here on earth was born into my whole being and has never left me . The fire of God is always there. With Frank and his wife Sylvia, we began a ministry amongst Aboriginal people of the River-land. These people at that time were rejected as outcasts by society. Our involvement developed into a great ministry lasting a decade or more. Every weekend would see our two families ministering in home meetings, Sunday Schools and meeting wherever there was a group of people wanting to hear the Gospel. At this stage, we were working for a living to pay for our ministry. MENTORS IN THE SPIRITUAL REALM At the beginning of this ministry, Ron Englis, newly married, came to work in Berri. He and his wife Margaret joined our group for prayer and discussions every week. Ron was God’s man in God’s time come to shake my stubborn theological soul. When I argued with him about the truth of speaking in tongues, God demonstrated the fact with a sign, striking me dumb. I was unable to talk for several minutes, and I knew the truth of speaking in tongues. Through Ron’s witness, I was exposed to Pentecostal influence and the work of the Holy Spirit. He thought his time in the Riverland had not born much fruit, but God meant otherwise. I found the power of God not only in the Word of God but became baptized in the Spirit and found the ‘power of God from on high’ empowering me to minister the Word with the power which never left me. It was no longer just knowledge but power and authority. From this point, I came into contact with two evangelists. Dick Piety an illiterate Aboriginal man from Lake Cargelligo, New South Wales. His ministry was very powerful and Acts Chapter 2 became a real life experience for me, every day. Dick didn’t speak with the best King’s English, but under his ministry, I experienced the filling of the Holy Spirit, the speaking in tongues. I was taught in my early years that these experiences were not for this day and age, yet under Dick’s ministry, I had received them in the fullness of the Spirit. No more would I speak against them because daily we were witnessing miracles of change and everywhere there was action. Working with Dick was his nephew Pastor Burt Hollingsworth from Cairns, Queensland. Burt was a fiery young Pentecostal preacher with a great work ethic. Burt was the leader of a gang of cane cutters when cane was cut by hand with a machete. It was hard, backbreaking and dirty work. In the off season Burt and his wife Charmaine, moved south into the Riverland to pick fruit and to evangelize indigenous communities along the River Murray. Dick Piety, with Burt and a team of Aboriginal Christians from inter –State organized a bush convention in the area of Winkie. At this convention I was filled with the Spirit. It was the beginning of a great rapport in the Lord with Burt. Our ministries were parallel, he in Queensland and I in South Australia. I gained much from associating with these men of God. The other evangelist I met was Cliff Beard, Aussie Evangelist. At first, Cliff was evangelizing by being a traveling photographer. He needed to earn a living to support his family and ministry. We soon became buddies and colleagues; his mentorship was another step in my growth. Through him, I joined the Christian Revival Crusade under the ministry of Pastor Leo Harris. Pastor Leo Harris taught the Creation-Life from Paul’s writing in Ephesians, emphasizing the scripture from Ephesians, ‘I am a new Creation in Christ, old things have passed away, and all things have become new.’ At this point, a marked change occurred in my life from trying to do it all. I realized Christ had done it all for me. The personal sweat has gone, I am free from religious dogma. ‘With great power, the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and much grace was upon them all.’ Act 4: 33, is a scripture that became a passionate slogan in my life as I came to understand what Christ gave me by his death and resurrection as is written in Galatians 2: 20, ‘I have been crucified with Christ, and I no longer live. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God.’ Pastor Leo was very gracious to me; he became a distant mentor as I never attended his Bible College, the pressure of a revival didn’t allow time to attend. In 2016, I received a plaque celebration 50 years service in the Christian Revival Crusade Cliff Beard further mentored me in the teaching of righteousness, ‘God made him (Jesus) who had no sin to be sin for us so that in him we might become the righteousness of Christ.’ 2 Cor.5: 21. This insight was life changing. Through Cliff, I found my authority in God as a totally forgiven person able to declare Christ’s righteousness as my own. This knowledge was power; it gave me the right to work in uprightness, It meant I learned to stand tall and not be put down anymore because of a lack of education or regrets. God had given me a charge of authority and resolution. Personally, I maybe a ‘nobody’ but I am invested with Christ’s righteousness now and forever. This ongoing revelation by the Holy Spirit has meant that God has always spoken to me and kept me up with what he is about; it has been very precious to live in the continual mentoring of the Holy Spirit. IT'S NOT THE END Now in these last days of my walk, it hasn’t stopped. There is a lot of religious conjecture about so-called hyper-grace; I believe God’s grace is hyper it is complete, I have a certainty that every sin and failure was paid for on the cross. Christ paid it all. Our interpretation is not the question; our acceptance is what it is all about. Calvary covers it all. I love the modern revelation as preached by Pastor Prince of Hong Kong and Andrew Wommack, Paul Ellis with his web page Escape 2 Reality. Reject the fullness of God’s grace if you wish but I will not. God has always mentored me and spoken to me, and when needed provided great mentors to guide me. I trust him totally. Trying to be good is a useless exercise when the revelation breaks over our heart and mind. The frustration of trying to be good and failing was a thing of the past. Instead of being a struggling mortal, the right to be a co-worker with Christ with all his support as the righteous Son of God, it soon lifts you out of your stumbling self-righteousness that you can never sustain. We inherit all that Christ has and is. As Jesus is so are we in this world. We are the children of righteousness. Salvation is a fact, salvation is now, today, a free gift. I praise God for Cliff Beard; he didn’t only teach, he delivered the action worldwide. I am blessed to have been at his side in the evangelizing of the Riverland. He is now at rest with his beloved Saviour. I would like to commend to readers of this record the following scriptures: ‘God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus…that he might show the incomparable riches of his grace.’ Eph. 2: 6-7. ‘Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!’ Romans 11: 33. ‘For if by the one man’s offense death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ.’ Romans 5: 17 ‘The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.’ 1 Timothy 1:14. YOU ARE INVITED Accepted. My great-grandson is turning 2 years old and his Mum is planning a party. His mum has favored me with an invitation to attend. I have accepted. I look forward to the party with joy and thanks giving that I am among the elite few. Remember when Jesus birth was anticipated? The angel appeared to Mary and said, ‘ Congratulations, favored lady! The Lord is with you!’ (LB) Mary was favored by God above all other women. We are chosen before the world began, we are now the accepted, the beloved, the highly favoured. God has poured out his favour upon us and invited us to a party, so to speak. God accepted us because Jesus gave himself to ensure that we are acceptable and highly favoured. The Greek translation of being accepted in the beloved means we are ‘highly favoured’. God so loves us he gave Jesus. God so loves us he can’t love us anymore. God so loves us he can’t love us any less. Jesus is God’s accepted beloved and his death redeems us so we become the highly favoured of the Father. The highly favoured accepted children of the Father through Jesus. For all this to become ours we accept Jesus into our inner being. So that we are no longer living for self but living for God. Can we accept Jesus the highly favoured Son and accept the Father’s invitation and become the highly favoured children of God? Can we accept we are at the pinnacle of God’s love? We cannot go any higher nor any lower. We are at the zenith through Jesus. Let’s live at the top - in the throne room. Thought for the Day: ‘You may be struggling, but keep declaring, ‘I’m blessed. I’m prosperous. I have the favour of God.’ Every time you say it, you’re getting closer to seeing it come true.’ Pintrest.com Prayer: May the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ give to us the spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of him (Jesus). SO YOU WANT TO LEAD... GUEST WRITER BRUCE LEANE I recently sat through a talk by a senior pastor on how to train leaders. I felt quite frustrated and sorry that the churches are not producing a ‘fire in the belly’ preachers, teachers, leaders and workers. All the right words, the best equipment for speaking, latest sound systems, overhead displays, yet so little fire and demonstration. Words, words, words, and no action. I became a leader, yes, how did I become a leader? How did it happen? Was I born a leader and preacher? No! I was the second child of the family. My elder brother was bigger, stronger, faster; I couldn’t keep up. I was never first up a tree or first to stand on the mountain top. My brother was always first in the races; I was last. I did not stay as an also ran, in fact, in my adult years I led from the front, regardless of ill health. My brother was hurt because I wouldn’t help him fight his battles. Was I seeking sympathy as he thought? I was eighteen months younger and living with chronic asthma. I spoiled more family outings than I care to remember by suffering an asthma attack at the crucial moment and everybody having to stay home because I was ill. Someone once said, ‘you can tell a leader by the number of people following them.' Followers must have someone to follow, or their attitude will be, ’If you haven’t got the guts to lead, we are not going to follow you.’ I often looked behind to test my leadership and found at my shoulder real, loyal, faithful people; I was enabled to continue. My advice is: anyone wanting to be a leader, lead from the front. After a childhood of illness, or in spite of it, I learned that the process of Christian leadership is not only sitting in lectures or separate study sessions but in getting your butt out there, your hands dirty, being an example. Where others said, ‘I can’t,' I learned, regardless of the circumstances to say ‘I can.' I learned to ‘climb the biggest tree,' ‘scale the highest mountain,' ‘swim the largest river,’ ‘do the impossible job.’ I learned by the example of my many mentors. God revealed to me, ‘It is not I but Christ in me,’ is what sent me ahead of the mob. I learned, ‘don’t ask others to go where you haven’t been.’ Many years ago when living in the Riverland, I saw the responsibility of leading teams in outreach and God laid it on my heart, ‘lead from the front.' Because I led out onto the streets, many followed our ministry onto the streets to witness; street witness gave birth to speakers and leaders. The team loved to say, ‘we went there and did this and said that’ it was their personal experience, and something was born in them. I might have had the daylights scared out of me to set the example, but I knew I had to be out in front leading. Training is not by sitting in comfortable, padded church pews. Someone must lead. Let those that followed me in the ministry years, say Amen. Many years ago I was able to attend a Rundle Street open air meeting. I was excited to be part of this action. The leader called to us saying, ‘Let’s pray first.’ I was saddened because by the time we had prayed the crowds had dispersed, there was no one left to speak to. I never forgot this incident; I saw that if you weren’t prayed up at home or beforehand, don’t expect to run a prayer meeting if you want to do street witnessing. The lesson I learned that day I passed onto the team of workers. We would go straight into speaking, singing and contacting people. We were at the ready, on the instant, and didn’t bury our heads having a prayer meeting when we should have been meeting the people. The question of learning the ability to teach and lead is more a gift of God rather than the training of man. The first and main thing is how you see yourself. I see myself as Christ who lives in me. Very early in my Christian experience, I learned this truth. I would always be sickly, poor, uneducated until God revealed to me that I am in Christ and him in me. Never again would I say, ‘Poor me.’ I knew without a doubt the resurrected Christ dwelt within me, the hope of glory, and that I could do all things through Christ.’ I challenged the world to ‘back off; you are dealing with the mighty Christ.’ When you know you are Christ’s, then you are Christ’s. It’s all in the package called ‘the finished work of the cross’ signed for by Jesus at his death. When you open God’s instruction book, you can find what you have been given in that package and will save a lot of sweat and tears of human learning. THE DIVINE WORKSHOP Check in to the divine workshop to open the package starting with, ‘I am the righteousness of Christ,’ 2 Corinthians 5: 21. Know who you are and don’t put yourself down or allow others to put you down. ‘Do you know you are the temple of the Holy Spirit…’ 1 Corinthians 6: 19. The reality is that our spirit is the Holy Spirit. We do not need to pray the Spirit down, just let him flow out. ‘Joint heirs with Christ…’ Romans 8: 8. Did you get that? A joint heir with Christ! ‘He has removed our sins as far as the east is from the west.’ Psalm 103: 12.Total and eternal forgiveness. ‘Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become the children of God.’ John 1: 12. ‘I will make my dwelling with them. They will be my people.’ Ezekiel 37: 27. Don’t try to add to what God has done in you, accept who God has made you and what he has given you. ‘I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.’ Philippians 4: 13. THE BASIS OF OPERATION Here is the revelation that has directed me into leadership all my life. As a son of God, I have taken the verses just quoted as my position and right. I have accepted the exalted position of divine authority and power. The criteria mentioned is the same for anyone aspiring to leadership and ministry. Many people look for substantial human learning and degrees to get them into a position of leadership, but too often education stamps out the ‘fire in the belly’ instead of fanning the flame into an unstoppable fire. First, examine Paul’s revelation of the divine gifts. Then add man’s ideas if you must but if you are growing cold in enthusiasm go back to the scriptures I have quoted and soak your spirit in them. Experience has shown me the only credentials of any worth that open the doors of eternity, power and authority of God are given and paid for by Jesus Christ on the cross. These truths have been the basis of my ministry and leadership, open the package and use the gifts. Stop praying for God to put more in; you already have all of God within, just go forth. I LOST MY SHOE Losing one's shoe is like losing part of one's sight, or leg or arm. With out a shoe you limp and hobble along like riding a bike with a flat tyre. Prickles enter your foot, your toes get bumped and bleed. You don't go very far very fast. With out a goal or purpose in life it is like trying to walk without a shoe. Life doesn't go anywhere, you bump into things rather than direct the way things are to go, your emotions bleed and you become depressed. So it is best to have a plan for what you want and how you are going to make that plan work. We all have dreams; for some of us they come true that means we kept both our shoes on. But the dreams that we don't reach is perhaps, because we lost a shoe and just limped through life never reaching our potential SOUND ADVICE It is sound advice to keep our shoes done up so we don't loose them and our way. Keeping our shoes on and knowing where they are at all times is like walking over the roughest ground without being hurt. That same principle applies to having a goal or a dream; we can walk over rough ground fearlessly without feeling life is useless. But is keeping our shoes on, and having a goal enough? Before the world began, God knew us. Amazing! Awesome! To think God knew we would be when he created the universe. He even had a plan, a good plan for our lives. But – there is always a but, God also gave us a free will in the hope that we would choose him and his plan above our own choices. He wanted to be the Lord of our life but he didn’t want puppet worship. He wanted free will worship. In giving us our free will to choose, it meant that we might not choose his good plan for us, it meant we might want to follow the way we choose. God took the risk because He wanted us to be totally his and our love for him be pure. In not finding God’s pure and perfect plan for our life, mean settling for a second best, does it mean we go through life with a shoe off, do we limp along, feeling that there is more? We feel that we might have missed the way and try to compensate by making choices that seem right to us and may even make us successful. Never-the-less, our toes have been stubbed, we have lost our shoe and are bleeding. While we are blundering around shoeless, with stubbed toes, God is there at our shoulder urging us to go this way, go that way. He’s waiting for us to come to the end of ourselves and say, OK, I'm ready. God show me how to do it your way. CHALLENGES God smiles at last, ‘I can put my perfect plan into place for your life.’ God’s perfect will for us is one of peace and joy. There will be challenges, we live in a fallen world, but when God’s perfect plan is operating we keep our shoes on and can walk over rough tracks enjoying the presence of God, living in his perfect will. Walking in the perfect will of God is not hard, it means though, we become living sacrifices. Meaning, we give over our life to him, we put him first before ourselves, we live by his every Word, then we find his good and perfect plan for our life. It is a fair exchange, I think. Walking with our shoes on as opposed to losing a shoe and limping along. If you are ready to walk through life and not limp shoeless, then accept Jesus into your life. Become a believer. Receive a new heart, a new spirit and find the perfect will of God for you. Be healed from the stubbed and bleeding toes, life sets up to trip you. |
Details
Author: "You can always edit a bad page. You can’t edit a blank page" - Jodi Picoult
|