Be refreshed... in abundance!

“Let my teaching fall like rain and my words descend like dew, like showers on new grass, like abundant rain on tender plants.”

Deuteronomy 32:2

There is an amazing gentleness about GOD’s love and His teaching, yet it penetrates marrow and bone and cuts through to the soul.  Rain can be gentle and refreshing, (see Psalm 68:9), but it can also completely transform and reshape a landscape. We often see the devastation of rain but if it falls in the right place, at the right time, forests and lush gardens sprout out.  Deserts of baron sandscapes become havens of life, newness and growth.  Wherever GOD’s Spirit is, things will be fresh and full of life!

People are attracted to life and newness, there is a uniqueness about growth that draws people in.  GOD offers this to us in abundance, not in limited supply, but more that we could ever ask or imagine!  If we want to become people who encourage, who stop, listen and love, then GOD’s word urges us to allow His teaching and discipline to grow, transform and empower us!

We need to desire to grow into the people that GOD has created us to be - images of Him.  As diverse and different as we all are, together, we create a glimmer of the diversity and depth of GOD.  It's from this beautiful picture that we begin to take on the image of GOD, and start to experience His abundance.  His Word encourages us to become part of the palette and add our colour to the canvas of life.

It's important to remember that bit I mentioned earlier about the right time and right place.  Often, we pray for GOD's abundance in an area and then struggle to accept why it might take time to manifest in our lives.  GOD knows that if we know too much, too soon, it can destroy us.  We should never rush GOD or His countenance, we should relish in what we have right now, because this is the abundance that He knows will create growth in our lives and in our relationship with Him.  We are like tender plants and He is the gardener, He knows how much sun we need, He knows how much shade.  He also knows how much watering will drown us, and how much will allow us to grow to our potential.

The heaven’s declare His righteousness – let your lifescape be a garden of hope and growth!

STEP INTO THE LIGHT

(Part 4 of "Don't be a pharisee...") 

For we maintain that [we are] justified by faith apart from the works of the law. 

Romans 3:28

(This is the fourth part in a series on looking at Christ through faith or through the law.)

Lastly, as we progress from right and wrong, through rules and regulations, we arrive at the stark truth that the leaders of this particular synagogue, and ourselves,  lacked faith (see scripture).  Faith separates the believer from the non-believer.  Faith doesn’t need rules and regulations, it doesn’t need right or wrong.  It’s content to accept.  And what's of great encouragement - we are justified by our faith:  not the law: not the regulations.

Jesus said that we should have childlike faith, not childish faith.  I think the difference has to do with the heart of where our faith stems from.  Childish faith needs constant affirmation, as if it's not quite enough.  Childlike faith is content in a place of trust.  Hebrews tells us that it is confident and assured.  A child cannot do anything to earn their parent's love - it's available to them freely!  When we get this, we get that it's not about what I do, but about what Jesus did!

Don't be a pharisee... part 3

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites! Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie your ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?  Then should not this woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

 (Luke 13)

Sometimes, it’s not so easy to know what the loving thing to do is – so, again, like the temple leaders, we fall into the trap of consulting the rules and regulations.  When we look at things through the eyes of the law, we look at the rules.  It’s the only way.  The law consists of rules and regulations.  I believe Jesus challenges us to look deeper than the rules and seek to find the relationships.


We live in a world that is governed by this way of thinking so it’s hard to escape it.  But if we want to grasp Grace in the person of Jesus, and steer clear of the trap of looking at life and people through the eyes of law, through the eyes of a non-believer, then we need to steer clear of setting our sights on the rules and regulations.  We need to see Grace through the eyes of a relationship with Jesus.  The temple leaders felt that it was wrong to heal on the Sabbath... but right any other day, because that’s what the rules said.  They were unable to sink deeper into the situation and recognise the relationships.

I believe Jesus had a different way of looking at it.  He was able to act in love, not because of the rules, but because of the relationship.  He was able to stop, listen and love because He valued this woman and was willing to put her and her needs above the expectations that were placed upon Him by other people.  Because He rose above these expectations, He was able to behave unexpectedly - and this was how He became a location for a miracle!  Is this story only about how the temple priests tried to trap Jesus, or is it about how miracles happen?  

GOD wants to use you and I for amazing things - but if we stick to the expectations and rules of society, we will only understand Grace and GOD's presence with us, in terms of right and wrong, rules and regulations.  This means that when I do something good or right... GOD must be with me.  If I do something bad or wrong, then He is not with me.  


Let me tell you today, that even when you 'do wrong', GOD IS WITH YOU!  GOD never ever turns His back on you.  When we choose to act selfishly, we turn our backs on GOD, not the other way around.   Deuteronomy 31 reminds us of this, and again the writer of Hebrews reminds those reading his letter: that GOD is always with them.


We need to let go of trying to impress GOD buy keeping His law - Jesus died on a cross and rose again so that we wouldn't have to live this way!!  If I can encourage you today, let me lay it out there that people are more important than anything else.  Relationships are more important than rules.  Sometimes we need to look passed the rules in order to see the relationship.  Jesus gives us His Grace so that we can look beyond the rules and relish in a relationship with Him!

IS IT RIGHT OR WRONG?

(Part 2 of "Don't be a Pharisee...)

Have you ever asked yourself "Is this right or wrong?"

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people.  “There are six days for work.  So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

 (Luke 13)

The first thing that the teachers of the law did was to ask themselves, "Is this right or wrong?"  This is something we tend to do every day of our lives, whether the moral dilemma is huge or insignificant, this is an easy trap to fall into.  Should I?  Shouldn’t I?  It is right, or is it wrong.  I believe that Jesus came to teach us to stop asking ourselves this question.

I believe, Jesus was never concerned about right or wrong, here’s why.  The temple leaders are saying how it would be perfectly okay to heal on any of the other six days of the week, just, not today Jesus, it’s the Sabbath!  And clearly, since you have done something wrong, you must be wrong.  A logical and acceptable response, I think?

Don't be a pharisee...

You're probably thinking "I'm not a pharisee... what are you talking about??!!"... and I guess there's a high probability that you're right, you're probably not a pharisee. But here's where you are like a pharisee, when you look at Christ through the eyes of the law...

It's so easy for us to fall into this trap, we often don't even realise it.  Check this story out:

“On a Sabbath, Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit of eighteen years.  She was bent over and could not straighten up at all.  When Jesus saw her, he called her forward and said to her, “Woman, you are set free from you infirmity.”  Then he put his hands on her, and immediately she straightened up and praised GOD.

Indignant because Jesus had healed on the Sabbath, the synagogue ruler said to the people.  “There are six days for work.  So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.”

The Lord answered him, “You hypocrites!  Doesn’t each of you on the Sabbath untie his ox or donkey from the stall and lead it out to give it water?  Then should not his woman, a daughter of Abraham, whom Satan has kept bound for eighteen long years, be set free on the Sabbath day from what bound her?”

When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.

[Luke 13:10-17]

I don’t know about you, but I think that if anyone were to believe in Christ, a miracle would do it?  Here we read of the temple leaders, face to face with a beautiful, life changing act of GOD, and they don’t believe!  Why don’t they believe?

It’s important for us to take a look at this because there are times, whether intentional or not, that we find ourselves in the same camp of as these people that Jesus called hypocrites!  Scary, maybe, but true.  We try hard not to, but there are some traps that these non-believer fell into that I know, for myself and I’m sure for you, I’ve found myself in.

I think, initially, the biggest issue facing these temple leaders was this:   They looked at Christ through the eyes of the law/religion.  Join me over the next few articles as we journey through the eyes of a non-believer...