HOLIDAY TIME !!!

Well I’m off for 3 weeks in Bali. Hoping for a safe (15 hour) drive and an enjoyable time with my wife and daughters. Will be paragliding, visiting the beach on a daily basis and eating great food. CAN’T WAIT !!

God bless you all.

Getting Excited About It !

There is a seen in the movie Brave heart where 2 armies are facing off against each other and they both take turns trying to intimidate the other. They parade before their enemy and insult them and yell at them. African tribes would beat drums and hit their shields as they marched on an enemy. Allied soldiers would sound a horn and charge screaming over the trenches in world war two.

These things are very common on the battlefield. Many famous tacticians have stood by the fact that if you can intimidate your enemy you have them half beaten. People who have been in battle talk about the battle lust when your adrenaline is pumping and the noise surrounds you, your friends are charging with you and you lose all care and respect for life.

The psychological aspect of this is very easy to understand. As you yell and scream and chant you are gaining confidence. When your confidence and adrenaline are at a high, you charge into the battle as a fierce opponent.

Do you get pumped up in your battle with the devil ? When you are tempted, cast him out of your life ! Proclaim that he has no hold, no effect on you ! Get angry at him ! Shout at him! Tell him you belong to Jesus and you answer to Your King alone !

If your blood boils when you think about the way the devil tries to trick and deceive you, don’t stand for it ! Praise the name of Jesus, Amen !

What Do You Really KNOW About God ? ……Part THREE….

The thing to remember is that God never changes, he is completely trustworthy and the same yesterday, today and tomorrow BUT we must not allow our preconceptions to interfere in what God wants from us NOW.

We must have a RELATIONSHIP with Him. We must communicate (speak, listen) on a daily basis. Our assumptions and preconceptions of God lead us astray. We need to be ready to receive orders and carry them out, like an elite soldier tuned in to a superior officer.

Someone else’s revelation is of some benefit but it is of no use unless you know what God wants YOU to understand. Having a third party relationship is no relationship at all. Too many Christians rely on their pastor to describe God for them.

YOU must invest in your own relationship with God. YOU must dig into His word. YOU must knock and seek. YOU must thirst after Him. YOU must persist until you succeed.

You don’t need another church service, another alter call, another renowned Christian speaker or spiritual revival. You need to get on your knees and pour your heart out to YOUR Lord and savior. He will listen. Amen

What Do You Really KNOW About God ? ……Part TWO….

It is a bit silly to argue that the table is a diamond just because it appears to be from a certain perspective but it is interesting that our brain processes its appearance so instantly and convincingly. This is all done at a subconscious level and constantly throughout our day.

Our brain does these types of translations using our memory files. We cross check and match what we see against our past memories and this process leads to us interpreting what we are seeing, tasting, feeling, hearing etc.

If you smell a pizza your mouth might start watering because you remember what a steaming hot pizza tastes like. You hear screeching tires and you whole body tenses up, getting ready to react.

When it comes to God it is very important that we do not let this process dictate our Christian life. Let me show you what I mean….

Moses was a man of God. He was obedient and followed God. One day he tapped a rock 3 times instead of 2 and the consequence was that God did not let him enter the promised land.

David was a man of God. He was obedient and followed God. One day he saw a beautiful girl. He ended up having sex with the girl even though he knew she was married and even arranged to have her husband killed when he found out she was pregnant.

If David gained his knowledge of God from the experience Moses had (which in a way he would have), a thought for David would be :

‘AHHHHH !! What have I done ? If God didn’t let Moses into the promised land because of tapping a rock one too many times, what is he going to do to me for lying, adultery and murder ?’

I imagine David would subsequently run from God or even attempt suicide.

In actual fact, David repented and prayed to God for forgiveness. He was told that God had already forgiven Him.

David had a REAL relationship with God !

….To Be Continued….

What Do You REALLY Know About God ? Part ONE

I am reading a book about philosophy at the moment and the first chapter is about what reality is. The argument goes like this :

You use your senses and the data they give you to determine reality.
Your senses are interpreted by your brain.
Your brain interprets things as you will see them but not according to how they really are

Example :

You look at a table and your brain tells you it is square, brown and about 2 meters by 2 meters.

The thing is, if you are standing at the corner of the table it is technically not square. Form your point of view it is more diamond shaped. From the side it is oblong and so on. Unless you are suspended directly above the table it will not appear completely square. Yet your mind interprets the image of the table and tells you it is square.

Same is true of the colour. Colour is merely wavelengths of light reflecting off a surface. The quality of the air between the surface and your eyes will affect the colour you see and so on.

It is all vaguely interesting but what happens when you apply this to God ?

What do YOU REALLY KNOW ABOUT GOD ?

Is God a trinity ?

Unless all three persons of the trinity have appeared to you, you cannot know that. You can believe it, it may be true but you do not KNOW it in the deepest sense of the word. Test the other parts of your Christian beliefs and what you will find is that a lot of what you ‘know’ about God comes from theology and sermons and other people’s revelations.

I am not going to argue the value of theology, obviously it is essential. The things you truly know of God come through revelation, rhema, first hand experience.

When I consider my own Christian life, the first experience I go back to is my salvation. From my salvation I know that God loves me, personally. I remember the vision of Jesus Christ and the feeling of being embraced in His arms. I recall the feeling of belonging. It is hard to explain bt I would compare it to a soldier lost behind enemy lines, fighting and battling and being wound tight, all his senses primed, filled with fear and despair. Then he finds himself back in safety, surrounded by those that love him and will protect him. His body physically drains itself of all that fear and tension. He is overwhelmed by the fact that he is safe and wants nothing more than to rest in that place, that knowledge.

To Be Continued……..

The Biggest Loser

I have been watching episodes of ‘The Biggest Loser’ on TV. The transformation of some of the people is truly astounding. When some of them start the show they are very, very overweight.

When asked why they want to be on the show, almost none of them respond “ To win the prize money” Their responses are almost uniformly “ Because I know if I don’t lose weight I will die ! I want to be around for my family”

The contestants  go through a rigorous eating and workout routine and the results they see each week are generally very good.

The whole thing reminded me of a quote from ‘Crude Impact’ :

“Human beings only seem to seek extreme solutions when faced with extreme problems.”

Here’s one for you …..GOING TO HELL !

That is the most extreme problem anyone could ever face. A friend of mine said if he could do anything to evangelize people he wouldn’t show them Heaven or how great God’s love is, he would take them to hell for 5 minutes ! The cool thing is that even though the problem we face is so extreme, the solution is not. Just believe ! Open your heart to Jesus and do your best to walk in His ways. He will do the rest.

God bless You!

Don’t WANT To Be Rich

It is so easy to be convinced by the prosperity message. God loves me, why wouldn’t He want me to prosper? That is true, God does love you and He does want you to prosper BUT prosper in your spiritual walk with Him !!!

Matthew 6:33 (Amplified Bible) 33But seek (aim at and strive after) first of all His kingdom and His righteousness (His way of doing and being right), and then all these things taken together will be given you besides.

The lure of money is hard to deny. Nearly all of us like to have nice things, nice food and the freedom to do what we want, when we want to. My question is : Is it wise to abandon yourself to “soft (prodigal) living and to [the pleasures of] self-indulgence and self-gratification.”?

The road to righteousness is narrow and it says: “ Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to squeeze through the eye of a needle than for a rich person to get into the kingdom of God.” ( Matthew 19:24)

Look at Jesus Himself! He had no possessions except the shirt on his back. He told the disciples to take no money when they went on their ministry. Should we not be doing all we can to ensure that our HEART is fully for Jesus ?

I believe that there are some people who are meant to have excessive amounts of money. They are blessed with the gift of giving and seek God’s will for their finances. But I also believe that the vast, vast, vast majority of Christians are NOT supposed to devote so much time and energy to the accumulation of ‘financial treasures’

Perhaps the reason God is not using us as He really want to is we are divided in our hearts. We spend part of our life in the Spiritual realm but most of our life in the financial.

You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter.

James 5:1-8 1COME NOW, you rich [people], weep aloud and lament over the miseries (the woes) that are surely coming upon you. 2Your abundant wealth has rotted and is ruined, and your [many] garments have become moth-eaten. 3Your gold and silver are completely rusted through, and their rust will be testimony against you and it will devour your flesh as if it were fire. You have heaped together treasure for the last days. 4[But] look! [Here are] the wages that you have withheld by fraud from the laborers who have reaped your fields, crying out [for vengeance]; and the cries of the harvesters have come to the ears of the Lord of hosts. 5[Here] on earth you have abandoned yourselves to soft (prodigal) living and to [the pleasures of] self-indulgence and self-gratification. You have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. 6You have condemned and have murdered the righteous (innocent man), [while] he offers no resistance to you. 7So be patient, brethren, [as you wait] till the coming of the Lord. See how the farmer waits expectantly for the precious harvest from the land. [See how] he keeps up his patient [vigil] over it until it receives the early and late rains. 8So you also must be patient. Establish your hearts [strengthen and confirm them in the final certainty], for the coming of the Lord is very near.

God Bless You!

Go IS LOVE

The defining characteristic of God is that He is LOVE. He bent over backwards to ensure that we could remain in relationship with Him all through the Old Testament. When that didn’t work He sent His only Son to die a horrible, humiliating death so that we could be saved and considered worthy to spend eternity in His house.

Everything God does is done out of love. We may not always be able to see that but He has the whole picture to consider. So next time you are feeling unworthy of being forgiven remember this :

There is nothing you can do to make Him love you less

He is infinitely patient and infinitely forgiving. When you stuff up time after time He merely waits to pick up the pieces. Turn to Him today and when you sin and create a gap between you and Him, turn to Him again.

He loves you and the only thing you can do to disappoint Him is move away from Him in your heart.

God Bless You

Once Saved Always Saved ?

So how do you get your salvation ? Once you are saved can you loose your salvation ? Who is saved and who is not? Can everyone be saved ? What about the thought that different religions are just different ways for people to get close to God?

What are your thoughts and beliefs ? Please leave a comment.

The Benifits of Sexual Strength

I have written three posts about the battles with sexual temptation :

http://gefs.wordpress.com/2009/03/21/the-battle-with-lust/
http://gefs.wordpress.com/2009/02/20/eye-gate-ear-gate-and-the-battlefield-of-the-mind/
http://gefs.wordpress.com/2008/03/21/no-fantasy-in-sex/

I have received lots of feedback about the contents of my posts and generally people see them as being too restrictive. Some argue that masturbation is ok, others that there is no biblical basis to them and so on.

I am a thirty year old married male with 2 children. I wrote these posts because I want others to experience the amazing benefits of living a life of ‘sexual righteousness’. I grew up with pornography, teen sex and blatant sexual debauchery being the norm but in recent years I have discovered how wonderful it can be to be strong and faithful in the areas of sex and lust.

When you keep your sex life pure, no pornography, no masturbation, no fantasies outside you and your wife/husband, you discover a whole new world. There is so much danger in allowing a fantasy sex life to develop in your mind BUT there is so much benefit to not doing it. When you and your wife, or husband, are 100% exclusive in mind, body and spirit, you find a whole new level of trust, intimacy and love.

It is definitely not easy, it takes practice and you need to develop habits that keep you on track but if you make the effort, if you are determined not to let the spirits of lust and desire control you, you will reap the rewards.

May your relationships be righteous and all you do bring glory and honor to our Lord and savior Jesus Christ.

GBU