Getting what you need, not what you want

For God there is no tomorrow, no yesterday and no last week. God lives in the NOW. He sees everything that has ever happened and everything that will happen all at once. For Him it is just a matter of bringing His perfect plan into fruition.

In the bible it says 365 times ‘Do not worry’. His word tells us ‘that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’ Romans 8:28

So what does this mean?

If you have just had your car stolen: Don’t worry, in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

If you have just lost your job: in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

If you are sick: in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

If life is not going the way you want it to: in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.’

Remember that the purpose of this life is to train us spiritually, NOT to be successful and comfortable in the world. ‘Do not love this world nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you.’ 1John 2:15

If we focus on what is truly important in life, namely learning to “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ and ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ Matthew 22:37-38 instead of trying to get more money, a bigger house, more recognition and more success in the world, we might feel like more than conquerors instead of flailing Christians.

2 Corinthians 5:7 ‘We live by faith, not by sight’. The faith that God’s plan is being played out and we are a vital part of it. The faith that the circumstances of our lives are being used to mold and shape us for a purpose, His purpose, not our desires!

Romans 9: 20 But who are you, O man, to answer back to God? Will what is molded say to its molder, “Why have you made me like this?” ²¹  Has the potter no right over the clay, to make out of the same lump one vessel for honorable use and another for dishonorable use? ²² What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory.

Learn to thank Him and praise Him even when you can’t see the blessing!! God Bless You

He’s In Control

Mathew 17 : 24-26

24After Jesus and his disciples arrived in Capernaum, the collectors of the two-drachma tax came to Peter and asked, “Doesn’t your teacher pay the temple tax?”

25″Yes, he does,” he replied.

When Peter came into the house, Jesus was the first to speak. “What do you think, Simon?” he asked. “From whom do the kings of the earth collect duty and taxes—from their own sons or from others?”

26″From others,” Peter answered.

“Then the sons are exempt,” Jesus said to him. 27″But so that we may not offend them, go to the lake and throw out your line. Take the first fish you catch; open its mouth and you will find a four-drachma coin. Take it and give it to them for my tax and yours.”

For morning devotion at the school I work at there re 2 teachers assigned to each class. My partner and I take turns giving sermons and leading the 15 minutes we have with our class each morning. This morning she shared about how last week she was having a problem and without knowing it my sharing was very specific advice for her.

Even now I don’t remember the sharing I gave. Quite often I go to class with little or no idea what I am going to talk about and just talk about something I have heard or learnt in the past. But God is God and He is in control !!

Why didn’t Jesus just take a coin out of His pocket and hand it to Peter to pay the tax ? Because He wanted to make the point that He is in control of everything, nature, money, every circumstance, everything !

One of my favourite experiences as a Christian is when you have the revelation or ‘re-revelation (remember) that God is working in every aspect of your life. He knit us together in our mother’s womb, He clothes the lilies in the field (Matthew 6:27-29), He commanded the waves and wind to stop, He cures disease and HE LOVES YOU AND ME !! How wonderful that is, if He is with us, who is against us ?

Lean on Him today, trust in Him, have faith in Him. They are the key words in Christianity because that is what Christianity is all about. The fact that God is God and He has a beautiful plan. Love Him, trust Him and know that all things work together for good for those who love God and are called according to His purpose. Romans 8:28

GBU

“Many are invited, but few are chosen.”

In the story of Lazarus and the rich man the rich man begs to be sent back to earth to tell his 5 brothers that there is a God and if they don’t change the way they are living they will end up in hell.

27 And he said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house— 28 for I have five brothers —so that he may warn them, lest they also come into this place of torment.’

The answer he receives is :

29 But Abraham said, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them hear them.

In Matthew 22:14 we hear that “Many are invited, but few are chosen.” What does this mean ?

The revelation I am beginning to get is that everyone on earth is called. The bible is there, the word of God is there, His saints are preaching His message, the church doors are open. It is their choice to answer the call or not.

Then there are those who were chosen. God had predestined them. He touched them on the shoulder at some stage in their life and said “Hey, you are mine. I have work for you to do” I believe he did that with me. If you read my life testimony you will see a complete life transformation. Why? Did I get sick of the life I was leading and work hard to change direction? NO! I CAME FACE TO FACE WITH THE LIVING GOD AND HAVE NEVER BEEN THE SAME SINCE!!

I pray that you are one of the chosen. If you are it is only a matter of time. If you are one of the called, answer the call. It makes absolutely no difference if you are called or chosen as long as you answer the call.

Put your life on track to spend eternity in Heaven. If you need help with this email me – Geoffcollins1@yahoo.com.au

                                                           God Bless You, Gef

Creatures of Habit

Human beings are very habitual. Being habitual is an instinctive trait. Memory builds a list of experiences that bring desired outcomes and we tend to stick to those experiences to fill our needs. Stepping into a new experience can bring rushes of adrenaline, anticipation and even stress. Don’t believe me? Just think about the extra sense of excitement when you a try a new exotic food (and then there’s sky diving!)

The thing about habits is that they can be bad or good. A golfer practices their golf swing to build muscle memory. After a while, your body can repeat your golf swing with very little conscious effort and it will be remarkably similar time after time. So why aren’t all golfers of Tiger Woods caliber? The problem is in the programming. When building the muscle memory people build in mistakes that they then repeat over and over again. It’s the golf coach that analyzes the swing and instructs about where correction is needed. The golfer must then make a lot of effort to re-program their swing as it is easier to build a new habit than renovate an old one.

In life we have also built in bad habits or had them programmed into us by people as we have grown up. We can however, change our bad habits. We can replace bad habits with good ones and fine tune our habits so that they become beneficial for ourselves and others.

A lot of smokers are successful in giving up because they replace smoking with drinking water. When they have a craving they drink a glass of water or eat candy. Instead of eating to relieve stress you can retrain yourself to go for a walk or go to the gym. Instead of waking up slowly and unhappily, depressed about the fact that you have to get up early, you can train yourself to get out of bed earlier than normal, eat your breakfast and go for a walk.

“ Many things effect your life but none as much as you.”

Take a good long look at yourself. Don’t try to change everything overnight. Choose one thing about yourself or one habit you have that is negative and work on replacing it with a habit that is positive.

Quote from ‘My name is Earl’ : “ We tried replacing cigarettes with carrot sticks but we couldn’t get em to light”

Don’t let life get you down, build yourself and others up. Amen

2 Possibilities – 1 Response

I always used the analogy that the world was like the Titanic. It was going down and our job was to grab as many people and stick them on the ‘life boat’ as possible. Then a new train of though was presented to me and I entertained the notion that perhaps Christians will eventually work their way to the top of every area of life, politics, business, education etc.

My conclusion is that it doesn’t matter !! It doesn’t matter if the result of human greed will cause the destruction of the planet and at D-day a certain number of people will be saved and the rest will not. It doesn’t matter if eventually the entire planet will be a ‘Christian utopia’ and Jesus will descend from Heaven and thank us all for preparing the earth for His arrival.

What matters is MY response is the same :

Luke 10: 27 He answered: ” ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind and love your neighbor as yourself’

I can spend the rest of my life trying my best to do those two things. Then, if the world ends tomorrow, I am safe in the knowledge that I did all I could with the time I had available. If the earth takes my lifetime to evolve into a place where all people love God and surrender their life to Jesus, I am safe in the knowledge that I did all I could to bring that about and I have a place there.

GBU

I Fell – Part One

It’s been a long time since we have had internet on at home, usually I use the internet at work. A week ago we had the internet connected and I was faced with a whole new set of challenges. Almost straight away I noticed that our time as a family started to decrease as I wandered around in cyber world looking at things on YouTube and chatting on face book. But the biggest problem was that there was a new temptation in the house….pornography.
For the first few days I made sure I drove my wife and kids to the places they wanted to go rather than being left behind, in the house alone. A few days ago my wife went to the doctor and I was surfing around when I followed a link and before I knew it my spirit was telling me it was time to close things down. But I didn’t. I kept clicking and clicking even though I knew I should stop.
Now that I have seen things I didn’t want to see but couldn’t resist I have gone through a range of emotions. The first was erase all the evidence so my wife won’t find out. The second was ‘Oh my God, what have I done’ Why risk the happiness of my marriage and my very soul for something I DEFINITELY DO NOT WANT TO LOOK AT when I am in my right mind. The next thoughts I had were ‘I have to get the net disconnected’ and confess to my wife what I have done. My final thoughts were ‘This is why I need God’s grace!!

RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAARRRGHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!

If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can say to the mountain move and the mountain will move !!!

So what are you worrying about ? What are you stressing about ? Can God trun sround your marraige ? Can God turn around your health ? Can God turn around your finances ? YES but if they don’t turn around is it because of something you have done or are doing ? Do you need to reset your expectations or dreams ? Do you need to remodel your finances ? Do you need to change your habits ? Do you need to stop whining and stressing and start praising God ?

Then do it !!

‘Call on God but row away from the rocks’  Indian Proverb…….’And if you hit the rocks anyway trust it was God’s plan so go out singing praises to His Mighty name !!!!!!!!!!!

Does God love you ?

Does God love you ? ………………………………………………………. Yes
Does He want to be near you ? …………………………………………. Yes
Does He know that Heaven is a better place than earth ? ………..Yes
Then why are you still here ?……….  Because you still have something to do here. It may be something to do for someone else, it may be something to do within yourself, it may be both.

May God bless your journey. Amen

Work Ethic

There are 9 people in my department and their work ethic, professionalism, ability, attitude and character are all very different. Some of them do a very superficial job and spend their day watching youtube clips and movies. Others work hard yet struggle to understand concepts and updates themselves on common practice and methodology. They are honest and hardworking but find it difficult to change their old paradigm for a new one. Then there is one who has a lot of natural talent and ability, he manages his duties and things run well but he tends to dispose of his responsibilities and fill most of his day with personal stuff.
As the head of the department I need God’s wisdom so much. What is it that God WANTS ? Yes, there is the LOGOs of His word but there is also the RHEMA for want He wants to happen in the life of every individual. I am ever aware that I am blessed to be working in a Christian organisation. When conflict and difficulty arises I find strength in the Lord and His word. When a member of our team was absent and another became disgruntled by the fact that she had to cover hi load I told her that it wasn’t fair but :
1) Remember the story of the man harvesting his crop. Some workers started in the morning, some a few hours later, some a few hours after that and some just before the work day finished. When he paid them all the same the workers who had started in the morning complained.
This story has been a great comfort to me. I have often fumed because others cruise through their day and I work as hard as I can nearly all the time. BUT I realised a few years ago is that all I need to concentrate on is myself. If you do a good job, people will know and if you do a bad job, people will know. More importantly, your father in heaven knows and WE ARE CALLED TO DO OUR WORK AS THOUGH WORKING FOR THE LORD HIMSELF.
2) The parable of the talents in Matthew 25: 14-30. We will all stand face to face with Almighty God and be called to give account for what we did with the gifts He gave to us. I don’t think “ Oh, but God, they weren’t paying me enough” or “ I would have worked harder but my bosses just didn’t inspire me enough” or ANY excuse will do.
3) Finally I leave you with a quote I live my life by :

This is the true joy in life, the being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one; the being thoroughly worn out before you are thrown on the scrap heap; the being a force of Nature instead of a feverish selfish little clod of ailments and grievances complaining that the world will not devote itself to making you happy.” George Bernard Shaw

Or as a friend of mine once said “ I’d rather die young from exhaustion because of serving the Lord than die old from falling over in the shower “

God Bless You !!

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 !