Spiritcode

Depth and height

Ephesians 3:18 That we may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height— to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us…

Isaiah 57:15 For thus says the High and Lofty One Who inhabits eternity, whose name is Holy: “I dwell in the high and holy place, with him who has a contrite and humble spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite ones.

The only way we can truly appreciate and give thanks to our God who is in the highest place, is to know him as the one who loves us in our lowly place. We are all loved as much as anybody could ever be loved! That shows God’s highest and greatest kind of goodness.
We need never be ashamed of our place of lowliness because he dwells with us in it.
James 4:10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.

It is in the lowliest place that we can feel most loved, by faith. I pray for this grace to be upon us all.
Luke 7:36 One of the Pharisees asked Jesus to come to his home for lunch and Jesus accepted the invitation. As they sat down to eat, a woman of the streets heard he was there and brought an exquisite flask filled with expensive perfume. Going in, she knelt behind him at his feet, weeping, with her tears falling down upon his feet; and she wiped them off with her hair and kissed them and poured the perfume on them.
When Jesus' host, a Pharisee, saw what was happening and who the woman was, he said to himself,"This proves that Jesus is no prophet, for if God had really sent him, he would know what kind of woman this one is!"
Then Jesus spoke up and answered his thoughts."Simon,"he said to the Pharisee,"I have something to say to you."
"All right, Teacher,"Simon replied,"go ahead." Then Jesus told him this story:"A man loaned money to two people--$5,000 to one and $500 to the other. But neither of them could pay him back, so he kindly forgave them both, letting them keep the money! Which do you suppose loved him most after that?"
"I suppose the one who had owed him the most,"Simon answered. "Correct,"Jesus agreed.
Then he turned to the woman and said to Simon,"Look! See this woman kneeling here! When I entered your home, you didn't bother to offer me water to wash the dust from my feet, but she has washed them with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You refused me the customary kiss of greeting, but she has kissed my feet again and again from the time I first came in. You neglected the usual courtesy of olive oil to anoint my head, but she has covered my feet with rare perfume. Therefore her sins--and they are many--are forgiven, for she loved me much; but one who is forgiven little, shows little love."
And he said to her,"Your sins are forgiven."Then the men at the table said to themselves,"Who does this man think he is, going around forgiving sins?" And Jesus said to the woman,"Your faith has saved you; go in peace."

When we know of our sinfulness and also know of our forgiveness we are being told here that we can exercise the greatest kind of faith and love towards God, than when perhaps we have done something virtuous and noble. This is living in a deep place of the supernatural. This inner spiritual reality is where height meets depth in the most perfect place… This is the glory of the cross and the resurrection.

We can now truly sing Amazing grace…who saved a wretch like me. This is the place where a humble and contrite heart can expect the abundant goodness that comes from; Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us…
As we humbly receive this grace in its depth we can also receive Holy Spirit in anointed power. Both areas of faith require the same kind of surrender of self effort to the power that works within us.

This is the place that lets go of the shame of our lowliness (Hebrews 12:2 despising the shame -kataphroneo - set the mind against) and the pride of our excellence and finds faith that knows with certainty that God is at work on our behalf right where we are in our thankfulness. He works in the world of the unseen for his goodness to be known by people with that kind of faith, who place Him in the highest place, as he shares with us our lowliness of heart.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

About love

ABOUT LOVE

The cause of most if not all inner suffering in this world (an imperfect reflection on a human level) because of not receiving love. A person can be told they are loved and even know they are loved, but may be unable to receive that love. That is because they do not believe that they can live up to that love, or they have had love taken away from them and don’t trust in its power or reality any more. Yet everyone needs to know they are loved in order to be able to love. (Love is everywhere)

Love is the most powerful healing force in the universe. Lack of love is the most powerful destructive force in the universe. Somebody asked me the other day what I would answer if someone who didn’t believe in God asked me the question ‘What is God doing for me now?’ My answer is ‘God is loving you with all of his heart.’

God’s love is the value, above all other things that gives meaning to everything else that exists. There is no higher thing. It is the Eternal Reality -The ultimate truth). It is one thing to write ‘Eternity’ on footpaths, but it is another thing to have it written upon the heart (Ecc 3:11). ‘God is love’ is God’s signature written upon the heart of every human being that is born.

What follows on from this is that God loves every person that He created. This is the essence of the Good News – A constant factor in the equation of us and God. This is why Jesus came into the world (Jn 3:16). If we do not understand this, then we will set some other constant factor into the formula of our lives. This other factor will be our life experience, which is the facts and data of our everyday life, the good things and the bad things, and all the in between things that happen to us. This will become what we use to judge whether life has meaning or not. That will distort the true equation so that depending on how well life goes for us will determine for us in our minds whether God loves us or not. Our life situation is elastic and stretches backwards and forwards in time, in and out of reality and tied to our crazy emotions. But life is now – God’s love is always now.

The greatest reasonS that people find it difficult to believe that there can be a God arises from the overwhelming reality of evil in the world and of personal adversity. The existence of evil in the world is the result of the poor choices of a self-serving fallen humanity that causes it to continually ‘miss the true mark’ of God’s will and purpose of His gift of life to us. ‘Missing the mark’ hamartia, is the Greek word used for ‘sin’ in the Bible, ‘getting it wrong’. All have got it wrong and fallen short (Rom 3.23)

What does it mean in Romans 8:35 when it says ‘Nothing can separate us from the love of God, shall tribulation or distress or adversity…’ in other words, our life experiences, good and bad. I believe it means that none of these things stop God’s love from beaming towards us. But we can give up on God in those times and not believe in that love.

If we can trust God that he is working all things together for good for our inner and outer life journey, then we are on track in going forward in the course of our lives. In fact every challenge of faith that comes from God is designed to get us back on that course. Therefore we can see that faith in this love of God is the perfect disposition to have. because it allows for the greatest opportunity for us to become the person we were designed by God to be, with a moment by moment awareness of how to choose the most important, loving and caring thing to do in our personal world – first for our own inner journey, and then for the goodwill of God for others. Take first use of the Oxygen.

This all requires reflection. It must be focused upon and thought through and totally believed in. it must be balanced with our disappointments and griefs and losses that are very real feelings of perhaps being forsaken, and let down, even by God. Reflection means to set time aside. Measure what is causing distress. Put it in its right place by seeing the greater significance in the true reality. Then look forward to what God is working out for us, for His best for us, then just let it be. (Once a week, fortnight, every moment?)

Once you can get to that place of reflection (breadth length Depth height)that gives you the will to accept this truth of God’s all-encompassing and purposeful love, then you are on course. Everything fits into place – you are going in the right direction. When God intervenes in our affairs it can seem like an interruption to our self determined progress, but it is designed to bring the revelation of God, and His love. It is done to purify our hearts (Acts 15.9). When we see that God is doing this in our lives and in everyone else’s life, we can stop comparing our circumstances with those of other people, and escape the ‘why me? Syndrome.

The result of allowing God’s love to be the constant factor in the equation of our lives will bring a gradual change in our inner being, producing inner peace. Over time our bad reactions become calm responses. We see life as it really is, from God’s point of view.
We treat God better because we love Him and trust Him.
We treat ourselves better because we know we are loved.
We treat others better because we know God loves them.
Then we can love others as ourselves.

 

Enlarge my borders

ENLARGE MY BORDERS

Jabez prayed to be blessed by God, for his borders to be enlarged, for God’s hand upon him, and to be kept from evil so that he would not cause harm. (1Chronicles 4:10)

Ephesians 3:14 For this reason I bow my knees before the Father,
15 from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, (Their name was once Adam, and now is Christ) (Saved but don’t know it) In Him we live…

16 that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being,

17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. (God has found his home in you) that you, being rooted and grounded in love, (roots of our being go down into the heart soil of his love)

18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints (this is the faith that takes hold of what we already have- that’s my SALVATION) what is the breadth and length and height and depth,

19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (borders enlarged)

20 Now to him who is able to do far (‘hyper over the top hyperekeinar’) more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, HS!

21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen

This is the enlarge my borders meditation /presence prayer.

Depth – Holy Spirit plumbs the depth of our hearts Psalm 139:23

Height – Faith that reaches to the heavens, seated with him (Colossians 3:1-3)

Length – Our times and seasons are in his hands. He holds the future… hyper hyper hope

Breadth – Holy Spirit is touching and perfecting every experience that is touching us now.

Present with The Lord

PRESENT WITH THE LORD

I want to talk to you today about the passing away of Jared Joiner just 4 days ago.
The Word of God tells us that there is an accuser that accuses us day and night before God. There are certain sensitive people like Jared who set an unattainable bar for themselves that allows these accusations to break their spirit and damage their soul. They cannot cope with this yoke that sits upon them and they seek relief in many different ways from this burgeoning pain, and that becomes a downward spiral.

In the book of Romans chapters seven and eight Paul describes the way through and out of this dilemma when he shares about the good that we all, without exception, might want to do but can’t because of our own limited strength, but which can be lived, through the grace of Jesus Christ within us. When Jared was awakened to this truth he grasped it and sought many times to take it into his lovely heart. When he went to live in Melbourne he took his Bible with him and also some of our discussion notes on these Scriptures that he asked me to print out for him. But the pressure of his inner conflicts became too great. He became weakened in resolve as his own mind and heart also accused him. His loving family reached out to assure and encourage him, but his independence drove him to fight this battle on his own, and in his own way, and that was not wise. He got lost in the fog of that war and got stuck and couldn’t go forward.

Whatever he put his poor body and soul through to ease that pain ended up depleting his energy and exhausting all the inner and outer reserves that he had, and ultimately stopped his lovely heart from beating. 

He is now absent to the body and present with The Lord.
He went to Melbourne to sort things out for himself in his inner struggle, and put himself in the care of welfare and rehab in one form or another, and Coral would go to search for him time and again. That’s when she told me about him taking his bible. I would pray with Coral that God would bring him home – not realizing how that prayer would be answered. Coral prayed a prayer that echoed the words of a song sung by Lauren Daigle called ‘You say’

Paul speaks to us about the ever present reality of God’s presence with us and the struggle of the soul to be at home in one place or the other - He speaks in one place about being absent to the body and present with the Lord. He says in another place that whether we live or die we are the Lord’s.
2corinthians 5:6-8 … absent to the body and present with the Lord.
Romans 14:8 Whether we live or die we are the Lords
Jared struggled in his soul to know God, and at the same time he didn’t feel at home in this world. Paul also talks about other kinds of people of great self confidence who don’t struggle in their soul to know God, but who make this world their only home, and their only struggle is to get as much out of it for themselves as they can.

Paul says in another place (Philippians 1:23) Sometimes I want to live here, and at other times I don't, for I long to go and be with Christ. How much happier for me than being here! But the fact is that I can be of more help to you by staying!
The Jared that I knew so well, that Jared that could get it all together could make you laugh, and make you know you were loved and appreciated, and he did this for so many people.

The final word Paul has on these things is found in another place, put very simply;
Be present to what is going on in the world of the spirit. In other words, do you know deep down that God is always present with you in your struggle to know him, having mercy on your weakness, and do you know deep down that you can be present with him in the midst of your blessings and your struggles.
2Tim 4:2 be ready (be present) in season and out of season; (eukairos and akairos – appointed times of blessing and of challenge and testing)

God makes all things beautiful in His time, and he has put eternity in the human heart.

YOU SAY – Lauren Daigle

I keep fighting voices in my mind
That say I'm not enough
Ev'ry single lie that tells me
I will never measure up

Verse 2
Am I more than just the sum of
Ev'ry high and ev'ry low
Remind me once again just who I am
Because I need to know oo oh

Chorus
You say I am loved when I can't feel a thing
You say I am strong when I think I am weak
You say I am held when I am falling short
And when I don't belong oh You say I am Yours
And I believe oh I believe
What You say of me I believe

Verse 3
The only thing that matters now
Is ev'rything You think of me
In You I find my worth
In You I find my identity

Bridge
Taking all I have and now I'm laying it at Your feet
You'll have ev'ry failure God
You'll have ev'ry victory

Ending
Oh I believe yes I believe
What You say of me I believe

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The key of David

Revelation 3:8 ‘He who has the key of David, He who opens and no one shuts, and shuts and no one opens”: “I know your works. See, I have set before you an open door, and no one can shut it; for you have a little strength, have kept My word.
Isaiah 22:22 The key of the house of David I will lay on his shoulder; So he shall open, and no one shall shut; and he shall shut, and no one shall open (this was said to Eliakim – the God of rising).
There are many, many doors that these keys will open. God does open doors for us and there are times we have to ask God for a door to open. Paul asked the church in Colossians 4:3 …pray for a door of utterance to be opened for me… opportunities to speak and ears that will hear.

Open doors means change for new things to happen – God wants to open doors for you and for those you pray for. Consider now what is facing you this year that needs some definite action.
1Corinthians 16:6 I hope to spend some time with you, if the Lord permits. But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

Our prayers can see the doors of peoples’ hearts being opened.
Revelation 3:18 Behold I stand at the door and knock.
We cannot stand halfway between two open doors of the same room. 1Kings 18:21 loiter between two opinions.

There are doors that need to be closed.
Things of the past, whether good or bad. Good in the sense that they were productive but the time has come for change.
2Corinthians 2:12 When I came to Troas to preach the gospel of Christ, even though a door was opened for me in the Lord, my spirit was not at rest because I did not find my brother Titus there. So I took leave of them and went on to Macedonia.
There are doors that need to be closed to things of the past that have been problematic and difficult. These things cause us pain or regret or shame. These things invade our minds and imaginations and God’s grace helps us to rise up (in our God of rising) and find new hope for new doors to open up before us. This is the redemptive work of God through suffering which brings new hope.

God prepares a place where we can go to him with those things and close the door on them - and a new door opens up.

Matthew 6:6 When you pray go into your room and close the door…
Psalm 31:7 You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities, and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a broad place.

This is the enlarged space where Kingdom doors are opened up to us. This is like a large room with doors everywhere that would seem to have no back wall.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace is a flow

Grace is a flow that we cannot generate because the source is God. We can access grace by faith, which we can generate, and cultivate.

The Jabez prayer – from a man who thought of himself as ‘bad news’. His name meant ‘causes pain’ and he knew that causing pain was bad news. So he prayed that he might cause blessing instead of being bad news to everyone including himself.
1Chronicles 4:10 Lord bless me…enlarge me… I want your hand on my life…Save me from evil…Let me not cause pain – let me bless.
We can be occupied with bad news or good news. They both exist together. Bad news can shrink your soul through anxiety or expand your heart through faith.

Numbers 6:22 The Lord bless you and keep you; The Lord make his countenance shine upon you and be gracious to you; The Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace

Matthew 6:6 But when you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father in secret and your Father who sees the hidden things will reward you openly. From the hidden place to the open space.
Psalm 31:7 You have considered my trouble; You have known my soul in adversities, and have not shut me up into the hand of the enemy; You have set my feet in a broad place. This is the enlarged space

Isa 49:1 Isaiah 49:2 … in the shadow of his hand he hid me; he made me a polished arrow; in his quiver he hid me away. (sure place)
We are seated with him. We have a place at the table

Psalm 18:2…. The Lord is my fortress where I can enter and be safe; no one can follow me in and slay me. He is a rugged mountain where I hide; he is my Savior, a rock where none can reach me, and a tower of safety. (base of operations)

We can only expend so much energy and we can only expend it from either one source or another, just as a fountain will flow from one source or another.
James 3:11 Does a fountain send forth fresh water and bitter from the same opening? Can a fig tree, my brethren, bear olives, or a grapevine bear figs?
We are now prepared by grace and for grace with the freedom and empowerment to bless and save.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Grace - The activity of God's Spirit

Grace is the divine energy of God’s creative and saving acts. Creation was God’s first activity of grace. It was upon the dark deep emptiness of the abyss that the activity of The Holy Spirit moved and a Universe was created. The Father desired a universe for his children and Jesus spoke light into this desire while Holy Spirit energized it into existence. God then began his ongoing creative and saving mission for humanity. The mission was grace.

God gave grace to Noah (Genesis 6:8) as the great saving act of God for humanity to escape the destruction of the great flood. God gave grace to Moses (Exodus 33:13 – his presence) for the salvation of his People Israel. His grace was in the crossing of the Red Sea and his creative grace was his provision for them in the wilderness and the saving acts of forgiveness of sins through the sacrifices, and the inspired words of the prophets, among many many other acts of grace..

When Jesus was born from above a new dimension of grace began to flow from The Father, through Jesus Christ, and the activity of The Holy Spirit. When Jesus died and rose again, his grace was activated within us by The Holy Spirit, to accessed by faith in what Jesus had done for us, and now to operate through us, in partnership with God. John 1:17… grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

2Corinthians 13:14 The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

We are cautioned by Paul not to ignore or dismiss this gift of life that lives out the partnership of the life of Jesus and Holy Spirit within us.
Paul said I do not neutralize the grace of God; for if living in harmony with God comes through our own performance, then Christ died without a cause (Galatians 2:20).
2Corinthians 5:17 …behold, all things have become new. … All things are of God
All things are to be seen in the light of how God’s saving grace reorders them. How we see God’s activity of creative and saving grace is how we will manage life!

Why did God create and save through Jesus Christ and Holy Spirit?
When we understand the mission of the love of the Father and the grace of his Son Jesus Christ, and the communion of The Holy Spirit in making us one with them, we can dwell in another kind of knowing and growing (Not as robots).
The Holy Spirit lifts us up out of ourselves as it were, and into God, allowing us to know and love and enjoy God in a personal way, because we are known and loved by him in a personal way.
Everything that happens to us becomes the instrument of opportunity to act in partnership with God’s acts of creating and saving grace. Where you are the saving grace of God can happen - so be present and aware and accept the interaction of the moment. The force field is there and we activate and release it wherever we are.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Qualified to stand

Romans 5:1-2 ‘Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and rejoice in hope of the glory of God.’

I awoke last Monday with this extraordinary truth from Romans 5 going around and around in my mind—‘We have access by faith into this grace in which we stand.’ The emphasis was ‘in which we stand.’ It was a word in season—and, being who I am, I felt like preaching it! Well, what do you know?

Now, when we see a ‘therefore’ in scripture we must ask, “what is the ‘therefore’ there for?” Here, Paul has just concluding a long argument about Abraham being put in right standing with God, not by Law, but because he believed what God told him. His concluding word before this ‘therefore’, is about Jesus, ‘…who was delivered up for our offences and was raised for our justification’ (Rom. 4:25. Our justification took place when the Father showed his acceptance of Jesus’ death by raising him up). So Paul writes, ‘THEREFORE, having been justified.’ What Paul is leading to is our qualifications in Jesus. In him, you qualify for Peace: you qualify to be established and you qualify to hold your head high—even to boast! I want to unpack these.

My question is: Are you standing in all the benefit for which he has already qualified you? Advancing in this temporal world’s terms is usually about qualifications. Do you have the HSC? Have you a University degree or Diploma? Do you have a Master’s or a PhD? Where did you do your training? How much experience have you had? What qualifies you for this job? All of these qualifications require effort on your part. They are qualifications based on your works. But what about the satisfaction of a qualification that comes, not by your work but by that of someone else? It would be counted ridiculous if someone applied for a job requiring an MBA and the applicant said, “Look, I don’t have one, but my older brother said I could use his.” That’s how it is for us! Just as earthly, earned qualifications open doors, so do these ‘graced’ qualifications.

An earned qualification carries certain rights and benefits—not to mention authority to carry out its requirements within a discipline or task. The employer puts at the disposal of the qualified person, all that is necessary to perform the brief, and certain privileges also apply. In our case, we have been qualified by grace, and some, not understanding that, continue to act as though unworthy and so try to earn what they’ve been given! This passage could read like this, “having been already honoured with your qualification of right standing with God, you are free to go ahead by faith and enjoy his peace of integration (as distinct from disintegration) and to access your entitlements to stand erect and be established in all that accrues as a result of your new position, including head-held-high confidence in it!” (This is the meaning of the Greek words used by Paul). The verb ‘justified’ is Aorist, Passive, meaning it happened at a moment in time—and you weren’t active in its occurrence, it happened to you. You were passive! Because it happened at the Resurrection 2000 years ago! I was put into right standing with God 2000 years ago with (and in) the resurrection of Jesus! I was there! You were there! In him! I’m suggesting that (without forcing scripture), the text of Romans 5:1 be read this way with the comma after ‘justified’ thus— “…having been justified,…. by faith (let us) have peace with God…” Note this: the weight of manuscript evidence actually says, ‘let us have peace with God.’ (Young’s Literal Translation allows this).

YOU’VE BEEN QUALIFIED FOR PEACE: Listen again ‘… by faith we have peace with God…” Peace here is eirene, the Greek NT equivalent of Hebrew shalom—satisfaction, completion, fullness. I’ve shared before that biblically, ‘peace’ means fullness or satisfaction in the sense of completing something (shalom=completeness, wholeness, as in the satisfaction of a debt—bringing it to peace). The completion, by effort, of a course of study or training, brings satisfaction and ‘peace’ and people say, “well done… having completed your degree, you now qualify for this job, or this pay level, or this responsibility.” But in our case, we’ve been made qualified by Another! Peace with God has been secured. It is now ours to enjoy….by faith! Let me ask this: are you there today…now? Or is there a foment of anxiety and stress and thoughts of ‘what if this’ or ‘what if that’? or ‘why not that?’ He is saying today— “By faith we have peace”: “by faith we have peace”: “by faith we have peace”. We’ve been qualified for it. He has already secured it for us and we must enter it—or throw back at him all that he did on the cross and in the resurrection (See John 14:1 and 27 etc).

YOU’VE BEEN QUALIFIED TO STAND—ERECT: (Rom. 5:2) ‘Through whom also we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand.’ Stand here is HISTEMI, to take a stand, to be established! Listen—we once were fallen, but now we stand! Now we are, by faith, being established…in Grace! (Remember Ezekiel’s vision of the valley of dry bones that were, at the word of the Lord, given flesh and sinews and breath—and stood as a great army!?) We are very different people with vastly different personalities, natures, thought processes, cultures (macro and micro) as well as widely differing gifts and callings. However, the thing we share in common as believers, is that we have been qualified to STAND, by faith in our full personhood in him. That’s why I can be me and you can be you—in Christ. We need not ever say, ‘why can’t I be like her?’—unless in a matter of sanctification or likeness to Jesus. He did not make you to be like her or him: he made you to be the sanctified, fully-operative ‘you’! Unique…and that’s the journey of this life, the journey he has you taking, into the fullness of you in Him. (His desire is ‘to present you, faultless’! Jude 1:24). My task today is to encourage you in that journey into ‘you-hood’ in Christ! The YOU, you may have been waiting to meet. The ever-emerging You, being transformed day-to-day by the activity of Christ in you (the hope of glory). Accessing by faith the grace in which you have been qualified to stand!

YOU’VE BEEN QUALIFIED TO HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH & EXULT: Yes, that’s right! “…we have access by faith into this grace in which we stand AND confidently exult in hope of the glory of God.’ Unashamedly rejoice. This is also by faith—Paul is just continuing the sentence! This is another ‘by faith’ blessing for which we’ve been qualified! Some translations have ‘boast’; some have ‘exult.’ The Greek verb (kauchaomai) means to have our ‘head held high’ and even ‘to boast’, to live with God-given confidence! Remember how Paul said, ‘most gladly will I boast in my infirmities.’ That’s the same word.

Not only have we been qualified to stand, but to do so with head held high, unabashed confidence (not diffidence or apology), glorifying Jesus—unashamedly rejoicing in him. Jesus, 2000 years ago qualified you to have PEACE; to BE ESTABLSHED; TO HOLD YOUR HEAD HIGH, UNABASHED! BY FAITH!

Ian Heard, 13/01/19 www.until-we-see.com

Jabez - A Father's blessing

1Chronicles 4:9 Now Jabez was more honourable than his brothers, and his mother called his name Jabez, saying, “Because I bore him in pain.” And Jabez called on the God of Israel saying, “Oh, that You would bless me indeed, and enlarge my territory, that Your hand would be with me, and that You would keep me from evil, that I may not cause pain!” So God granted him all that he requested.

There is no record of the unnamed father of Jabez in Scripture and Jabez was named by his mother. His name means ‘causes pain’. He was more honourable than his brothers. He called upon God, the ‘Father to the fatherless’ (Psalm 68:5) and asked for a blessing. God granted him all that he asked for in his prayer. The answer to his prayer includes the last final sign of complete transformation, that he would not cause pain.

He was an honourable man who asked for blessing, received blessing, and became a blessing and did not cause pain or harm to others. He is a sign to all of us who look to God as our Father and seek his blessing. Many of these blessings are seen in The Lord’s Prayer.

Peter told God he was mistaken in wanting him to preach the Father’s love to non-Jewish people. He had a wrong idea about God being everyone’s Father even after Jesus taught them to pray ‘Our Father’.

There are no perfect fathers because there are no perfect people.

In this Scripture good fathering means;

To bless – life is grace and favour – encouragement and mercy over discouragement and punishment.

To enlarge – to be given freedom to become a bigger and better person, allowing for mistakes, filled with God (Ephesians 3:19)

Hand upon our life – to be nurtured, directed, corrected, respected.

To keep us from evil – to be taught wisdom, shielded from what is harmful and deceptive.

To not cause pain – to be healed from shame, loss, failure.

A father may have been unable for one reason or another to provide a child with much of the above, as a secure foundation and a guiding hand, and being given the resources and encouragement necessary to become a prosperous person who was valued and who could prosper others also.

So how would he feel if he truly wanted all of that for his child but fell short? But what if he were given a second chance? He would most likely say ‘Let me make that up to you!’ So then how would a child feel if they had not felt valued by an earthly father, and were now promised that affirmation by a loving Father God?

Their faith can tell them that as his children they can ask him in his Son’s name, to receive the fathering from him that He gave to Jesus.

All things new

Hebrews 8:13 When He says, “A new (kainos, not neos) covenant,” He has made the first obsolete. Now what is becoming obsolete and ageing is ready to vanish away.

The New Covenant should really be translated as a Covenant of newness. It is not just the ‘next’ Covenant after the one before it, it is everlasting and always new and never ageing.
2Corinthians 5:17 Therefore, anyone in Christ is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new(ness).

We do not become combative with the ‘passing away’ things that try to crowd out our lives, but we allow them to become transformed and touched by the Spirit of life within us. Those things hit us, then stop, then get turned around by a Spiritual power within us (wood hay and stubble get burned up and gold appears). That is what changes our world. We live from the wellspring of a ‘newness’ life that flows from within us. That is what overcomes in us.

To tap into that life that does the overcoming we have to call upon grace. That is the goal of our faith. The grace is for us first and then it is bestowed upon others. Grace shines the light of awareness that allows a person to know what to choose, and it also warms the disposition of the heart to move towards God in faithful response. The outcome or result is shaped by God.

Romans 12:11 Live like you care about life, serving God by letting your spirit glow; joyfully expect God’s goodness, but be patient through the hard times, remaining faithful in prayer; give to your brothers and sisters as you are able, and make them feel welcome.
Bless those who make life difficult for you; and do not give them a hard time in return. laugh with those who laugh, and weep with those who weep. See yourself in other peoples’ shoes when you think of their situations. Don’t think your own opinion is always right.
Think about how you can make the moment better when in the presence of others. If it is possible, as much as depends on you, live peaceably with everyone. Don’t get angry and feel you have to pay back on people; for God says “Leave all that to me, I know how to level things out.”