A Heart Untroubled

This week I was listening to a message and I was reading the verse in Luke 17:32 which simply says " Remember Lot's wife ."   This is a really interesting statement. When Jesus tells us to consider something or remember something we should pay attention. So what do we know about Lot's wife?  Not a lot really.  But what we do know is that an angel of the Lord took her by the hand to lead her out of the city before God destroyed it.  She was told to run for her life and not look back.  According to Genesis 19, she ran but she turned and look back and as a result, turned to a pillar of salt.  This short verse really spoke to me for a number of reasons.    The Apostle Paul tells us " I don’t depend on my own strength to accomplish this; however I do have one compelling focus: I forget all of the past as I fasten my heart to the future instead. "  (Phil 3:13 TPT) Since 2020, it's like we have a new category in history BC now stands for BEFOR...

This week I heard a phrase that really spoke to me. It was "An ambassador is not a person, they are the personification of the country they represent".   This really got me thinking about our lives as Christians.  Paul, in the book of Ephesians, says that he is an ambassador of the Gospel, and so are we.  We are no longer simply just people - we have become a personification of the Gospel message.   We should be healing the sick, raising the dead, loving, giving, serving, standing for truth, preaching the gospel... This is what we have become once we have accepted Christ.  It's not just enough to show up at church on Sunday or watch a YouTube service.  It's about constantly remembering that we have been bought with a price and that like Pau, we say it's no longer I that liveth, but Christ that lives in me!    From the moment we wake up until we fall asleep, we are the personification of Jesus Christ; we are the Kingdom of God.  Ther...

So have you noticed that everything has an expiry date on it now.   It tells you when it becomes unusable,  or is no longer any good; at what point, it should be thrown away.  Many times I have seen Christians, once they get to a certain age, or a certain point in their ministry life, they feel like that have reached their expiry date.   A minister we had the privilege to know, Pastor Bob Yandian always used to say he would preach in his church until he died, and that he would probably even be in the pulpit when that happened.   He was a seasoned minister, and fully expected to be the pastor of the church his whole life.  But one day the Lord told him he was to hand the church over to a successor and that there was a new season ahead of him.    Despite his immense faith, years of experience, and lifetime of walking with the Lord, it challenged him a bit - thankfully he acted on the Lord's word and is ministering now in a totally dif...

At church last Sunday, the preacher said the following statement:  " The gifts and talents we have; what we can do - these are the currency of the world.   The currency of the church is the love of God . " It got me thinking.  Really how often to we look to our own performance in things relating to Spiritual matters?  Sometimes that looks like doing all the right things. Sometimes, it means not doing all the wrong things.  Sometimes it means making sure everyone knows what you're doing!  Whatever it looks like, when it doesn't turn out like you expect, it ends up in the attitude of " Why not me Lord ".  What I mean by that is, when someone else get's promoted over us in church, we say " Well!  I've d one XY & Z for 20 years!  That person walked in here and was given that job! It should have been mine! "  Maybe it's about healing... " Why wasn't I healed - I fasted, I prayed, I did it all.. .." The truth is, if we...

This week I was listening to a pastor in a church we visited while on holiday and he was urging his congregation to attend the upcoming prayer meeting, and he suggested that it had not been previously well attended. Just a few weeks ago I heard the same exhortation from our church, and as I began to ponder it, I realised, prayer meetings in general are not the most well attended meetings in church across the board.  It doesn't matter which denomination, or how charismatic the church is, there just isn't the attendance.   I began to ask myself why that might be.  One of my questions was 'why do we have prayer meetings?' or 'What is their purpose?'. I am not going to answer those questions now, but what it did make me think is that, as Christians we do a lot of things without thinking, whether at church, or in our personal walk with the Lord, but do we understand why we do them. When we repeat the same actions or words over and over (and no, this is not just true ...

Today, as is my habit on a Saturday, I did Park Run.  If you don't know what that is, it's an organisation that hosts 5k walk/runs every Saturday at 9am at multiple locations all over the world.  My usual rule of thumb is that if it's not raining when it starts, I will run, even if it starts later in the run.  I don't like running in the rain. Today however, it was drizzling lightly when I arrived.  I was sitting in the car wondering whether to just turn around and go home again.  I was hoping for divine intervention in the weather department, but as some good friends had come to the same venue and they were going to run, I dragged myself out to the start.  Just minutes before it got underway, the heavens opened and I got totally drenched.  It was horrible.  It was windy and wet, but I did it.  At the end of a very wet run, I felt good for doing it and in fact, the rain didn't mess up my time. As I was thinking about today's blog, I began to ...

We have a host of wildlife that frequents are patio: foxes, robins, the occasional deer, blackbirds that come in to the living room for sultanas, and a plethora of squirrels that will bang on the glass if we're not quick enough in sending out breakfast, lunch or supper for them.    After a hearty munch on some peanuts one day this week (the squirrels not me),  I managed to catch this little one, lounging on our wall, and basking in the sun to warm himself and take a little rest after the frenzy of feeding.  He stayed there for ages not doing anything at all. It got me thinking about 'basking in the sun' or more importantly, the 'Son'. You know the sun is amazing.  It's is precisely positioned so we don't freeze or burn up.  It's huge and it's absolutely necessary for us; without it's heat and light we would die.   It is not always visible to us, but it is always there, constant and stable.  This is like the Son of God, Jesus.  Witho...