Turn To See

John 20:15-16 “ “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?” Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She TURNED and said to him in Aramaic,“Rabboni!” (which means Teacher). “

Is it possible that the thing you are crying over is actually over and you don’t know it yet?

It was so with Mary Magdalene.  She had reached such a high point in her grieving and was so immobilized by it, that she couldn’t even recognize the Man in front of her to be the One who she was crying over. Jesus, the Risen Lord, stood in her sight as the living proof of the invalidity of her grief and yet Mary could not reconcile it with what she was seeing with her eyes. Are our eyes so clouded with tears that we cannot see that our prayers are being answered, are we mourning over unfulfilled promises, when they are in fact, fully-fledged out and asking us “who is it you are looking for?”

We can get so overwhelmed by what we see or know in the natural that it becomes impossible for us to comprehend when the supernatural occurs, even if it has been promised to us by the infallible word of God. Such was what happened with Sarah, that when she considered her body that had lived out its natural purpose and the age of her husband, she laughed at the promise God gave Abraham, that He would surely bless them with a son within the year (Genesis 18:11-12 “Now Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in years. The way of women had ceased to be with Sarah. So Sarah laughed to herself, saying, “After I am worn out, and my lord is old, shall I have pleasure?”“).

It’s a natural reaction, right? ….Well, should it be?

Mary crying at the grave side, is such an obviously expected behavior, that it should have surprised her when she was asked why she was doing it. I believe that Jesus was calling her attention to how she was perceiving what was happening around her, just as the Lord addressed Sarah’s hidden laughter (Genesis 18: 13-14 “The Lord said to Abraham, “Why did Sarah laugh and say, ‘Shall I indeed bear a child, now that I am old?’ Is anything too hard for the Lord? At the appointed time I will return to you, about this time next year, and Sarah shall have a son””). You see, we are called to be spiritual beings. But when we try to process things as natural men and women, there is a gap in our understanding which can result in our perceiving things of the spirit incorrectly or partially and emoting to the confusion we see rather than the confirmation that it is  (1 Corinthians 2:14 “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.”)

YOU CANNOT SEE THROUGH THE FLESH WHAT CAN ONLY BE SHOWN TO THE SPIRIT

Please look at this image below:

What God speaks to us can look like this if we try to understand it in the natural. Just like an encrypted email can only be opened by the recipient who has the password given to him by the sender because of the confidentiality that he enjoys with him, the heavenly secrets can only  be accessed by the children of God who commune with Him in spirit and in truth. God is Spirit and He made us to be spiritual beings who discern things in our spirit and not in our flesh. He gave us the Holy Spirit to aid us in this endeavor. (John 16:13 “When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth,…”) The real question is: Are we sometimes anxious, depressed, angry, fearful, doubtful or weary because we have been trying to reconcile the very real challenges we are going through with the promises of God based on our human interpretation and failing ? If we have, then we need to know that there is a disconnect in our life with the divine, because THE DIVINE CANNOT BE COMPREHENDED AT THE LEVEL OF THE HUMAN; NO MATTER HOW INTELLIGENT THE SAID HUMAN IS.

It is our own fleshly knowledge that veils our hearts. This veil is manifested as the grief in Mary’s heart that she wished for the body of the crucified Jesus while standing in the presence of His resurrected self and it is manifested as the defeat in Sarah’s heart that she dismissed the supernatural blessing as impossible. I wonder if we too are looking into an empty grave while the Lord is calling to us. I wonder if we too are standing behind a DOOR and listening to what God is speaking, instead of  meeting Him face to face (Genesis 18:9-10 “They said to him, “Where is Sarah your wife?” And he said, “She is in the tent.” The Lord said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year, and Sarah your wife shall have a son.” And Sarah was listening at the tent door behind him.”) Our spiritual eyes can be opened wide enough to believe God only when we are truly facing Him. It was when Jesus called our her name that Mary TURNED to Him and realized the risen Lord (John 20:Jesus said to her, “Mary.” She turned and said to him in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means Teacher).”)

2 Corinthians 3:16-18 ”  But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit“

When we turn to the Lord, we are are truly unveiled and guess what: not only is our understanding about spiritual truths clarified but we are freed from disappointments caused by our fleshly interpretations and our very countenance begins to reflect His glory. No more weeping in grief or laughing in disbelief, just boasting in the goodness of God, unveiled in Christ Jesus.

GOD BLESS

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Prey FOR me!

1 Kings 17:4″You shall drink from the brook, and I have commanded the ravens to feed you there.”

When we allow God to guide our provisions He ensures that the thing that is supposed to feast on me and my ‘remains’,  instead, prepares a feast FOR me! 

God bless 

GET HIGH: Submit to Summit!

When we are ready to surrender what seems good in our sight to God,  He will surely elevate us to reach His best! 

GOD BLESS 

Hang in Him!

John 15:4-5 “ Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Every green living thing that was ever created abides by this law of nature with no exception: Life and fruit-bearing potential is channeled to a branch as a consequence of its being and remaining attached to the plant that is rooted to good soil and is well- watered. As long as a branch is firmly attached to the vine (lifeline), it continues to derive its sustenance to produce good fruit. Jesus tells His disciples in plain words that He is the mother-lode powering their ministries, their work and their lives and that if they are not careful to tap into Him and remain ‘connected’ they might burn out their fuel in no time. Today, it is time to check if we are still abiding in the Lord and if He is still a resident in us. Whatever our pursuit might be today, before we go out we need to come in to the presence of God and wait, reside, abide there to be boosted with the power and the confidence to be successful in our endeavors (Luke 24:49 “ Behold, I send the Promise of My Father upon you; but tarry in the city of Jerusalem until you are endued with power from on high”)

It never happens that a fruit is so heavy that, under its weight, the branch bearing it is severed from the tree. Similarly, the blessings we carry, the fruit we produce, both natural and spiritual- our children, our prosperity, our spouses, our jobs, our ministries, our gifts cannot become so huge a part of our lives that we don’t have time or the inclination to abide in the presence of God as much as we need to (Matthew 19:21-22 “Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.”)

Cleaving to the vine is fruitful, but cleaving to the fruit can become mortal.

If the fruit-bearing is so great that is could potentially cause a strain on the bond between the branch and the tree, it is the fruit which usually falls to the ground. If the focus is on the fruit there is actually more “effort” than “dependence” being displayed. When we are striving on our own to sustain what has been birthed out of our relationship with God we are falling into the trap of ‘self- dependence through self-preservation’ because we begin to think that we are ‘doing our best’ with what God has given us.It is in our best interests to remember that effort minus dependence on God in any sphere of life is nonproductive for a child of God and that we can produce the best only as long as we rest in Him. Although there may not be any immediately visible depletion in the vitality of the branch upon its detachment to the vine, death will slowly but surely catch up (Matthew 10:19 “ Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”)

Abiding in Christ is just as important as having Him abide in us. Truth is, He is faithful to abide in us always but it is us who don’t remember that at all times (Matthew 28:20 “…And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”)  The awareness of the residence of Jesus in us is critical for our thriving and energizes our productivity. We need to recognize the PERSON OF GOD as living inside of us all the time. God is LOVE and it is this embodiment of Him that is required to be found in us, without Whom no matter how great or spiritual our actions may seem they will fall flat (1 Corinthians 13:1-3 “ If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”)

James Hudson Taylor said, “The vine . . . is not the root merely, but all – root, stem, branches, twigs, leaves, flowers, fruit: and Jesus is not only that: He is soil and sunshine, air and showers, and ten thousand times more than we ever dreamed, wished for, or needed.” 

Can we choose to intentionally lean on the Lord and rest in Him today?

God Bless

 

 

 

God Wrestles Our Jacob

Genesis 32:25-28 “Now when He saw that He did not prevail against him, He touched the socket of his hip; and the socket of Jacob’s hip was out of joint as He wrestled with him. And He said, “Let Me go, for the day breaks.” But he said, “I will not let You go unless You bless me!” So He said to him, “What is your name?” He said, “Jacob.”And He said, “Your name shall no longer be called Jacob, but Israel;for you have struggled with God and with men, and have prevailed.””

We are in the habit of contending with God in our frail selves to acquire forcefully from Him what He would freely give. God sees us as we are- gifted with authority as His sons and daughters but incompetent to use it. So, the nature and person of love in Him compels Him to come down to wrestle us out of the shackles of our mindsets that cause us to work works to beget blessings of God. We are so used to relying on our self-sufficiency to prevail against circumstances in our life that we take it for granted that we can strongarm the Almighty also into blessing us. In Jacob’s case, he’d been manipulating and striving against his own kin for birthright and their father’s blessing that he pulled the same stunt with the Angel of God who had come, precisely, to separate him from his works (Genesis 27:36 “Esau replied, “Is he not rightly named Jacob (the supplanter)? For he has supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright, and now he has taken away my blessing…”). 

How have we been wrestling God ? More often than not, we tend to put our trust in our reverential attitude, attempts to be ‘holier than thou’, charitable deeds, in short our own rightheousness to earn brownie points with the Lord to try and extort a reward from Him ( Job 4:6 “Is not your reverence your confidence? And the integrity of your ways your hope?”). How petty our antics must seem to the Holiest of Holies, our Lord Almighty when we go to His throneroom to use prayer and fasting as bargaining chips to redeem what He out of His love for us as own His children, has already bequethed to us as our inheritance. To jolt us awake from this mis-direction, He cripples that very strength, our works of the flesh that we use toward Him, to rebuff us and to allow us to see that our righteousness is but dirty laundry  (Isaiah 64:6 “But we are all like an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;”) and nothing when compared to His standards of righteousness (Romans 10:3 “For they being ignorant of God’s righteousness, and seeking to establish their own righteousness, have not submitted to the righteousness of God.”)

Our Heavenly Father comes down to wrestle us out of our rigid belief systems like a parent that tries to calm down a toddler throwing a tantrum by arresting his flailing arms and legs to get him to see that what he’s clamouring for is already granted to him. It is when the Lord touches our hip-socket, that is, when He impairs us from impressing Him with our strength that we learn to quit clawing and cleave to Him instead. We force God to fracture our works and amputating our self dependance. It is at this point of  being fatigued by travail and rendered invalid in contest with the Omnipotent One that we begin to lean on His everlasting arms and He calls us to renounce the Jacob in us because He has renamed us Israel- a prince with God, one who need not strive with Him for a blessing but as the rightful heir to the Kingdom is endowed with power to declare every promise in the covenant as his heirloom through Christ Jesus (Galatians 4:7 “Therefore you are no longer a slave but a son, and if a son, then an heir of God through Christ”).  

We may have stiven with men (that includes our selves!!) and with God in the past with our Jacobite efforts and have been allowed to fail. But it is now in our state of utter dependance that He  re-christens us Israel and perfects His strength in us to prevail over all things natural and divine.

God Bless.

 

Blindfolded NOT blinded !

Acts 9: 8-9 “Saul rose from the ground, and although his eyes were opened, he saw nothing. So they led him by the hand and brought him into Damascus. And for three days he was without sight, and neither ate nor drank.”

Many a time, as  Christian believers, we receive an instruction or a prophetic word or even just a hint of what is to come from the Word of God or through an anointed servant but the journey to that promised place seems like a walk down a dark alley, the unknown path to a known destination.These occasions help us realise that it is the intention of God that we stop being reliant on our limited vision, limited knowledge and limited ability for the journey. Stubborn as we can be in our self-sufficiency, He impairs our near-sightedness fully so that we can start depending on Him and on the hands He places on our shoulders to lead us. Though we are “blind-sighted” we come to no harm because God appoints angels to guide and guard us on our way to the land of  our promises (Psalm 91:11-12 “For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, lest you strike your foot against a stone.”)

That is precisely what Saul, the persecutor of ‘the Way’, who had just had a divine encounter with the risen Lord Jesus Christ, was faced with. His destination was Damascus, one he was headed for anyway and one that was also chosen by the Lord for Saul to instruct him further. But it mattered to God how Saul got there and what he would do when he got there. So Saul found that his sight was no longer in him and that he would have to depend on fellow-travellers to arrive at the end of his journey. God places suitable companions and leaders that can uphold us on the move and equip us to receive our promises (Joshua 1:6 “…. for you shall cause this people to inherit the land that I swore to their fathers to give them.”)

The loss of sight that occurs just before we begin the road-trip to our promises or at a pit-stop on the way is not blindness but blindfoldedness !!

The blindness of Saul was nothing but God blindfolding him so that He could lead him through a path that called for a closer and more dependent relationship with Himself and one that would end in the restoration of his natural eyes but also in the opening up his spiritual eyes (Isaiah 42:16 “And I will lead the blind in a way that they do not know, in paths that they have not known I will guide them. I will turn the darkness before them into light, the rough places into level ground.”)

The episode of ‘blindfoldedness’ as I call it, is also a period of fasting from every distraction that can lead us astray. In the three days that Saul could not see anyone, he also did not eat or drink anything. He was totally dependent on the Lord for sustenance and for guidance. Although Saul could see nothing physically, He was seeing supernaturally all that was to come to pass (Acts 9:11-12 “ And the Lord said to him, “Rise and go to the street called Straight, and at the house of Judas look for a man of Tarsus named Saul, for behold, he is praying, and he has SEEN IN A VISION a man named Ananias come in and lay his hands on him so that he might regain his sight.”)  So when we are in the tunnel and darkness surrounds us, we need to take it as an opportunity to tune out everything that is not edifying and tune into the Spirit who will light up our way.

To say that our natural sight is deceptive and incapable of leading us on our spiritual voyage is an understatement. In the natural, we are not in the capacity to fathom the heights to which God can take us nor the depths we might have to endure to get there (Isaiah 55:8-9 “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, declares the Lord. For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts”). Our narrow vision is owed to the fact that we see and think in the flesh. That is why Jesus called this “darkness” (Matthew 6:22-23 “The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light,  but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness!”) Therefore He gave us His Holy Spirit Who can light us up from the inside and put an end to our visual disability in the natural and the supernatural (Acts 9:17-18″…“Brother Saul, the Lord Jesus who appeared to you on the road by which you came has sent me so that you may regain your sight and be filled with the Holy Spirit.” And immediately something like scales fell from his eyes, and he regained his sight…”)

If we are in that place today where we can see our destiny and promises but have no clue how they are going to be fulfilled, let’s fear not. Let us blindly choose to be ‘blindfolded’ and led by the Holy Spirit.

God Bless.

 

Hunger & Thirst of the Soul

Luke 19:4-7 “So he ran on ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see him, for he was about to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried and came down and received him joyfully. And when they saw it, they all grumbled, “He has gone in to be the guest of a man who is a sinner.”

How hungry are we to see Jesus today? The answer to this question will tell us if we are going to experience Him as a passerby in our midst or as a guest in our homes and lives. When Jesus was travelling via Jericho, He didn’t expect to stay overnight, neither did the crowd nor did Zacchaeus. But the thirst in Zacchaeus to see the Lord was so great that he overtook the crowd and found an elevated platform to get a better glimpse of Him and Jesus stopped in His tracks and was compelled in His Spirit to lodge with him.

When the crowd looked at Zacchaeus they saw a rich chief tax-collector, a short guy, a man who is a sinner. But Jesus was able to see past the sin of the sinner to the original image in which he was created, that of His own (Genesis 1:26 “Then God said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness..”). When we are hungry for God, we look the most like Jesus. The Son of Man was always thirsting for the presence of His Father in Heaven. Even as a young boy His appetite for God’s presence was so great that remained in the temple at Jerusalem for three whole days absorbing all the knowledge He could about His heavenly Father and it didn’t even bother Him that His earthly parents were searching for Him (Luke 2:49 “And he said to them, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”) 

If we are truly famished for God like Zacchaeus we won’t allow our shortcomings to hold us back from seeking and serving Him. When Jesus went in to sup with Simon the pharisee who was also a leper, the sinful woman (Mary) displayed a very uninhibited form of worship (John 12:3 “Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume“). When Simon condemned the woman’s sin in his heart, Jesus rebuked him (Luke 12:44-46 “ Then turning toward the woman he said to Simon, “Do you see this woman? I entered your house; you gave me no water for my feet, but she has wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You gave me no kiss, but from the time I came in she has not ceased to kiss my feet. You did not anoint my head with oil, but she has anointed my feet with ointment.”) The reason Simon did not lavish these treatments on Jesus is not that he didn’t desire to serve his guest, but that he was more conscious of his leprosy and didn’t want to defile the Lord by touching Him, unlike the sinful woman whose hunger to repent and serve Jesus overtook her sin-consciousness. We’re like that sometimes. We don’t feel worthy to touch and be touched by God but we also look down on someone else who wants to do so because we feel they too are unworthy.

It’s time to get ravenous. It’s time to grow a bigger appetite for Jesus and allow it dictate our course of action. Are we going to be part of the crowd or are we going to climb a tree? That’s going to decide if Jesus is just passing by or if He is here to stay with us.

God Bless

Praise in the Waiting

Psalm 71:14 “As for me, I will wait continually, and will continue to praise you.”

It matters greatly what we do while we are waiting for God to move our mountains and part our Red seas. When we choose to worship Him in our waiting we not only display our faith in His sure salvation but we also demonstrate our refusal to be cowed down by  the situations that stand tall against us (Daniel 3:17-18 “If that is the case, our God whom we serve is able to deliver us from the burning fiery furnace, and He will deliver us from your hand, O king. But if not, let it be known to you, O king, that we do not serve your gods, nor will we worship the gold image which you have set up.”)

To praise God in our waiting period is to literally wait ON Him and to do His good pleasure while putting our hope in Him unceasingly. Occupying ourselves with praising God and serving Him puts us in the perfect position to receive His answer to our prayer. When Zacharias was waiting for God to bless him and his barren wife with an offspring he continued to serve in the temple of God according to His priesthood. The bible records that it was during his service of burning incense (which is praise !) that he received the promise of a son through a divine encounter (Luke 1: 8-9, 13 “Now while he was serving as priest before God when his division was on duty, according to the custom of the priesthood, he was chosen by lot to enter the temple of the Lord and burn incense….But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard and your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you shall call his name John.”)

When the waiting gets tough especially in the light of all the action that is happening around us and everyone else’s lives that seem to be sailing smoothly by while we are still stuck in a rut waiting for God to lift us out, it can be really tempting to lash out at Him for keeping us in suspense while others are climbing up their ladders by leaps and bounds. At such times when praising Him may be difficult we are recommended to pause and get quiet before God (Psalm 37:7 “Be still before the Lord; wait patiently for Him and entrust yourself to Him; Do not fret (whine, agonize) because of him who prospers in his way,
Because of the man who carries out wicked schemes.”) The weakness of our flesh tends to expose itself in the form of complaints against God. So being still and getting quiet in the presence of God is actually a fast of silence until our confidence in God has a chance to builds up once again and the joy of the Lord comes bursting forth out of us as a shout of praise offering (Joshua 6:10 “ But Joshua commanded the people, “You shall not shout or make your voice heard, neither shall any word go out of your mouth, until the day I tell you to shout. Then you shall shout.”)

God Bless.