Who are you listening to?

I’m reading John at the moment and a light bulb went off after reading John 3:8 “The wind blows where it wishes and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.” We don’t know where the Holy Spirit comes from, He’s just always been there and He goes wherever He wants. We can hear the Holy Spirit and like the wind, can see the effects of the Holy Spirit, but we have no idea where He’s going to take to us, unless we are actually listening. Our ears need to be tuned in at all times for us to really live a ‘born again’ life. If you think about new born babies, they have to learn absolutely everything – it’s all new to them and it’s all foreign. Like when we become born of the Spirit, we have to learn everything of the Spirit. It’s totally foreign to the world and at the start doesn’t seem right, normal or natural to us at all (because it’s not – it’s spiritual), but the Holy Spirit’s aim is for it to be normal, just like Jesus was in this world. How important is it for us then to be listening to the Holy Spirit? No wonder this gets repeated so many times in Revelation 2 and 3 “He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches.” He’s not talking to unbelievers here, He’s talking to those of us who are born again, born of the Spirit (we are the church). We are living in the last days and if we don’t get into the habit of listening to the Spirit, we could be listening to anything.

Who is the real you?

I used to be so shy from as young as I can remember up until I was in my early twenties. I used to be really self-conscious and worry about what other people thought. I used to think, “If only I was as confident as so-and-so”. A real fear gripped me. I prayed for that fear to go for years! Anyway, I was at kindy and just started talking to one of the mum’s there that I’ve never met before and I wasn’t nervous or worried or anything. I actually loved doing it, surprisingly enough! I then realised, while I was driving home that I wasn’t self-conscious anymore. I just started thanking God that that fear was gone and saying to Him, “That’s definitely You doing that God, coz that’s not me or my personality at all!” He then said back, “That IS the real you, that IS the person I created you to be, that IS your real nature.” Then it hit me! I can’t believe that for so many years I’ve lived thinking that that self-consciousness and me being shy was the real me! How many times I’ve used that excuse! That is NOT the real me! Now that I have kids, I’ve been continually saying over their lives that they are Kingdom Influencers and all the great powerful things that God says about them. I really try and watch what I say to them too now. They are the future generation. I want them to be all that I never was. So many of us have grown up with such deception about ourselves for so many years, that we just think it’s our ‘personality’ when it’s totally opposite of what God says about us. Who is the real you?

God is not an OGRE!!!

I know that I’m bringing this up again, but you know, I keep forgetting and have to be constantly reminded by the Holy Spirit that He knows what’s best for me. He knows me more than I know myself. The other thing I forget a lot is that He knows what I like and what I don’t like, He knows what things relaxes me and gives me joy – physically and spiritually. Sometimes I let condemnation get into my mind. I’m not aware of it at the start. The devil is very subtle. I get a guilty feeling and hear a voice saying, “You’ve blown it, what are you doing? That’s not right!” I’ve just noticed that it happens quite a bit with me. It can make me feel as if I’ve really disappointed God and I can feel quite condemned. What a huge lie!!! I have to remember that the best, most joyful, most awesome, most powerful life I can ever have is already inside of me. God is not an ogre (so He told me today!). He loves it when I’m happy, when I’m at peace, when I’m living in the Kingdom. I sometimes forget and then have to proclaim the scriptures and what I already have, stop and listen to His voice. When He needs to correct me, He does it with so much love and never in a condemning way. He loves me so much and is always wanting to be with me and to talk with me, to fill me with His precious love and peace, no matter what I’ve done, but I’m not always listening, I’m not always aware that He’s there. When I am listening, I just want Him so much more. He will never condemn me. It’s like when Amber just looks at me, I love it, let alone when she’s smiling, baby talking or laughing! She is so precious to me. We are so much more than that to God. How amazing is His love for us! Why do we still at times, do it our way and not ask Him, when He’s the one who knows the very best for our lives? I think the devil has put fear and condemnation in so many believers and has tried to make us think God is an ogre. He absolutely hates how much God loves us and will try anything and everything to get us to believe a lie!

Time to start fighting!

I’ve had such an urgency lately to get into some spiritual warfare! I’m so fed up with the devil having a hold over areas in my life, my family’s and life of my friends. Most of the time, we just carry on in our lives and put up with ‘stuff’ that’s getting us down (physically, spiritually & mentally), which stops us from doing all that God wants us to do. I’ve had it with the devil!!! I’ve just read Ezekiel 37, which is where the Lord made the dry bones come to life, God joined the bones together and put flesh on the bones, but they were still dead. They didn’t come to life until God breathed His spirit into the bodies, but not only did they come to life, they were “an exceedingly great army” (37:10). How awesome is that! We were dead before the Holy Spirit came into our lives, but now that we have Him, we are MEANT TO BE an exceedingly great army! We are meant to fight in the spirit! We need to start using our weapons! The word says, “For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but are mighty in God for the pulling down of strongholds” (2 Corinthians 10:4). I have been really proclaiming that I, my family and my friends live in the Kingdom of God, where my Lord is the supreme authority and that there is no pain, no sickness, no worries, no strongholds in the Kingdom! The devil has lost and did lose all authority when Jesus rose again. We really need to read and proclaim (proclaim it until we believe it) what it says in the word, speak in tongues, pray, praise and worship God – these are our weapons. If someone went up to someone in my family or one of my friends and punched them out – I wouldn’t just say calmly, “Well that’s life.” I would probably get extremely angry and want to punch them out (there’s that lovely flesh rising up!), but we just let our minds be in captivity. That is where the war is. The first thing Jesus preached was “Repent, for the Kingdom of God is here”. ‘Repent’ means to change your thinking, think the way God thinks. If we all did that and really BELIEVED that we live in the Kingdom of God, we would be an exceedingly great army!

Living in 'Cruise Control'

It’s amazing how many things are around these days to make life easier. You can now play tennis, with a tennis racket in the comfort of your home in front of the TV (Wii), don’t have to worry about the weather, getting burnt, or the rain etc. We have recliners that you just have to sit in to have a full body massage. You can have your whole house connected to a computer that can run almost everything that you can control through your mobile phone. I was just driving to drop Jay off at kindy this morning and just had to press a couple of buttons and not worry about the speed limit anymore, just had to steer the wheel. How good is cruise control? Apart from when you come up to a tractor that’s going 70kms below the speed limit, which is also what happened to me this morning on the way!!! Usually I would get angry and frustrated, especially because I was running late, but I was surprisingly pretty calm. The only reason I was calm is that I was talking with God and was in His presence. He’s actually the one who told me to slow down (because I was speeding!) when I first left and to put the car on cruise control, that way I don’t have to worry. God’s presence is like cruise control. When we’re in His presence, there are no worries. Problems just don’t seem as bad or are non-existent any more. There’s just an overwhelming sense of His love and perfect peace, with absolutely no stress, anger, frustration and we can actually be in a place where we can hear God’s voice. I have found it so hard to hear God when I’m stressed and in a rush, angry or frustrated. When I DO tune in and listen to Him, He’s always telling me to slow down and not to worry about anything. We have all these things in this natural world to give us peace, and ‘less stress’, but everyone is going so fast, most people you talk to ARE stressed and just ‘too busy’. No wonder we can’t hear God’s voice and receive God’s peace and presence. When we’re in His presence (on cruise control), we’re also going the perfect pace because God has taken over. We might come across things or problems that slow us down (like that stupid tractor!!! Only joking – God bless that man! It really didn’t bother me at the time!), but life is so much easier when we’re in His presence and listening to His voice. If we try and race or speed here and there and do life in our own strength, we get ourselves all hyped up, stressed out, in trouble and a speeding fine!

Food for the soul

Well, it’s about time I wrote another post I think! Was it the last one that I said I’d try and do one each week? Anyway, the last seven weeks have been interesting and yes, that’s how old our beautiful little girl Amber is now. To be honest, it feels like I’ve had absolutely no spare time what-so-ever, as a result I haven’t really spent a whole lot of time with God. I’ve been exhausted, extremely tired, stressed out, angry, crying, yelling at the kids, yelling at Darren and also have had 2 sinus headaches, which are really intense and lasts for 24 hours, haven’t found anything that can get rid of them yet. It was last week that I realised what I was doing and how easy I had let myself get like that. Also realised the fact that I need God everyday. I can’t survive a day without Him. That revelation of receiving God’s love I had a fair while a go had slipped my mind until last week. I now realise for me to function in God’s kingdom, I need to do that everyday, but it’s not just God’s love that He’s ready to pour out into my life, it’s total peace when everything seems like it’s out of control, it’s His awesome power and presence, it’s also His amazing strength. Everything that is His, is ours. We are created in His image. I just heard a testimony of Lisa Bevere who asked Jesus into her heart, then being told by John Bevere that she was saved wondered what that meant. John said that she was in darkness and now she was in the light, her body, soul and spirit were saved and whole again and filled with light. After hearing that, Lisa asked if that meant she was healed from her sickness with food allergies, so would stop getting stomach pains all the time, so John prayed for that and Lisa was healed. We really do limit God don’t we? I know I do all the time, especially in these last weeks! All of that was available to me and I didn’t receive it. Salvation means that we’re saved from everything in this world as well as having eternal life! I do understand that I have just had our third child, but it’s amazing how it all worked out when I did spend time with God. Another thing I haven’t been doing much is meditating on the word. I wasn’t having much food for my soul. That’s another reason that scripture says the word of God is ‘living’ and why we need to walk in God’s presence, walk in the spirit and receive what ever spiritual things God has for us, because we are meant to live in a spiritual kingdom on earth. If we think about our natural life and that we have to eat and drink everyday, how much more do we need our spiritual food - God’s word and His presence everyday? We can spiritually die and how easy that can be done, as I’ve just snapped out of! I mean, I HAVE to eat at least 3 times a day (usually more than that!) and at the moment I’m drinking about 3 litres of water a day. If I compare that to how often I talk or think about God or meditate / think about His word a day, it’s pretty dismal, but I’m determined to get there! Now that I’m getting closer to God again, I’m just craving to get more of Him and to be everything He wants me to be. In those times, everything else is insignificant (food, drink, this world).

He is always patiently waiting for us...

A lot of things have been going through my mind lately, but it’s all really related to God’s love. First thing I might start with is how I see so many believers deceived when it comes to having a close, intimate relationship with the Holy Spirit. I know a lot of people who don’t think they’re worthy enough, or the fact that they’ve done way too many things against God, even just to pray. Some even think that because they haven’t ‘prayed’ or read the word for so long, that God won’t even accept them, that there really isn’t any point. Now I know this, because I’ve been there. I know exactly how they feel and it is such a HUGE LIE from the devil!!! It doesn’t matter how long it’s been either – it doesn’t mean squat to God! God is love and His love is everlasting, never ending, always there to just pour into our lives. God is always waiting for us to come to Him. His love is not condemning, He will never reject us, He will never leave us nor forsake us, God never changes. Why on earth do we trust the things in this world, including our emotions rather than trusting in God, who created us and this world and the fact that He is always loving us, constantly??? It’s not just God’s love that He’s ready to pour into our lives though, it’s joy, peace, healing, power, strength, comfort, blessings and the list goes on. God’s nature is ‘giving’. There is a lot more in this, which I’ll write about later. Another thing that I’ve been thinking about a lot is how much the Holy Spirit longs to have a close intimate relationship with us. I’ve been listening to the ‘Draw Near’ series by John Bevere lately (thanks Mum!!!), which has really brought me to tears (in a good way) and made me realise even more how the Holy Spirit is just waiting for us to spend time with Him and talk to Him. John quotes the scripture, ‘Draw near to God and He will draw near to you’ (James 4:8), which he goes on to say that we are the ones who have to draw near to Him first. God is never pushy and He’ll never push His love onto us, He just waits, always just waiting for us. He has given us a choice and He can never force us to love Him back. How amazing is that? The other thing John talks about is how praying is meant to be a dialog not a monolog. It’s a two way conversation, not a one way. A lot of us have turned prayer into a ritual that we just talk for the whole thing, setting aside a specific time for God and bringing our requests, but we never let the Holy Spirit talk to us. I was like this for years, until I had that revelation of believing and receiving God’s love. I used to have a routine and pray for a certain thing for 5 mins, then the next thing for 5 mins etc until I got to an hour every morning (but most of the time I’d either fall asleep or be getting other thoughts about what I have to do in the day etc). It didn’t work, because the Holy Spirit is actually a person and that is NOT how intimate relationships work! I’ve also been talking to the Holy Spirit anytime through the day now, rather than just a set time. I can’t express enough how much better my life is when I’m in close relationship with God.