A Heart Untroubled

I heard a phrase in church this week during a children's talk on Christmas Eve, and it really spoke to me. the speaker said "Jesus is our forever gift'. I have heard the phrase 'forever home' in relation to look for a permanent home for foster children, or even puppies or cats sometimes, but this statement in relation to Jesus,  impacted me. Christmas is a beautiful time to celebrate the birth of our saviour, but Jesus is our forever gift.  His coming to the earth wasn't just about a baby in a manger, we all know that, but it truly is the gift that keeps on giving, our forever gift.   Every day the opportunity is there for us to experience His gift of salvation, His gift of peace, His gift of healing, His gift of provision, His gift of joy and His overwhelming and totally awesome gift of love towards us.  From now, until eternity and beyond.  HE is our forever gift.   As you celebrate this Christmas, I hope you will truly know the gift of Jesus in your life dai

This week I have been re-reading the Christmas story and I tried to look at it through new eyes, as we can take it for granted. I woke up this morning with some thought's that I believe God put on my heart. I shared this at church this morning,  and I want to share here with you too. Luke 1:26-38 (KJV) And in the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent from God unto a city of Galilee, named Nazareth, To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David; and the virgin's name was Mary. And the angel came in unto her, and said, Hail, thou that art highly favoured, the Lord is with thee: blessed art thou among women. And when she saw him, she was troubled at his saying, and cast in her mind what manner of salutation this should be. And the angel said unto her, Fear not, Mary: for thou hast found favour with God. And, behold, thou shalt conceive in thy womb, and bring forth a son, and shalt call his name JESUS. He shall be great, and shall be called the Son of

Firstly I apologise for not posting last weekend.  I have been all out of sync!  However, I am back non track with knowing what day of the week it is! (At least until I break up for Christmas and then who knows....).   This week I was thinking about new years resolutions.  It's a bit early I know, but I was thinking about it none the less.  At the end of December, we look to start the new year with good intentions for healthy physical or spiritual lives and vow to do better than last year.    All good, but how often do we look ahead with a plan to do something ' for the new year' , 's tarting next month ' or ' in the Spring '.... What would be wrong with starting a new eating regime today instead of waiting for January first?   The truth is we need to just start...  It's the same with spiritual things.      In John 4:23 (MSG) we read: But the time is coming— it has, in fact, come— when what you're called will not matter and where you go to worship wi

  I was reading in Exodus this morning during my quiet time.  And Chapter 4:31 reads: " And the people believed: and when they heard that the LORD had visited the children of Israel, and that he had looked upon their affliction, then they bowed their heads and worshipped . " It struck me that when we believe God, we can't help but worship him.  When we don't believe God, complaining will be the result.    Think about when the Israelites were free.  They soon stopped believing God's promise to take them to the land overflowing with milk and honey!   They started complaining not worshipping.  We cannot force a heart-response, but we can use what is coming out of our mouth as a diagnostic tool.  If what is coming out of our mouths is praising and worshipping God, we can see that we are believing and trusting God.  If however, we recognise that complaining, moaning and negativity is what's coming out of our mouths, we know it's time to find out what where we

A little while back we had a bit of a petrol (gas) crisis here in the UK and one evening I ended up in queue for some.  At one point, three guys from the car ahead of me, jumped out of their vehicle and had to push their car the remainder of the way to the pump.   For them, their car had clearly been running on empty and had finally given up. As I have been chatting to many people, there's a common thread I've found that has been more obvious since the lockdown, and that is that there are a lot of Christians who have been running on empty, the lockdown is the thing that caused them to finally run out of gas.  The bible tells us in Ephesians 5:18 that we are to "be filled with Spirit".   There's a couple of things that are really interesting about that.  Firstly, BE FILLED is a command.  That means as Christian being filled with his spirit isn't an option.  Secondly the verb FILL is a continual action, it's not a one time act, so it could read "Be fill

Today is Remembrance Sunday.  It's a time when we remember the lives of those lost in conflicts.   It's a time when we are thankful for the freedoms purchased for us.  Remembering is an important thing. And it's not a new thing. In the bible we read this: Joshua 4:1-7 And it came to pass, when all the people had completely crossed over the Jordan, that the LORD spoke to Joshua, saying: “Take for yourselves twelve men from the people, one man from every tribe, and command them, saying, ‘Take for yourselves twelve stones from here, out of the midst of the Jordan, from the place where the priests’ feet stood firm. You shall carry them over with you and leave them in the lodging place where you lodge tonight.’ ”Then Joshua called the twelve men whom he had appointed from the children of Israel, one man from every tribe; and Joshua said to them: “Cross over before the ark of the LORD your God into the midst of the Jordan, and each one of you take up a stone on his shoulder, acco

Well I apologise for the little gap since the last post.  I quite thought I had published, but clearly a blonde moment!   Anyway, back on track today!  My husband and I have been talking a lot about health supplements this week.  Health supplements can be good.  In a modern diet, it's hard to get everything we need nutritionally, but this got me thinking about a spiritual principal.  Supplements are good, but they cannot fix bad habits.  So for example, if you eat rubbish food all day and sit on the couch and watch TV then it doesn't matter how many supplements you take, you're not going to be a healthy person.  The same is true with spiritual supplements.    In the bible we see the Old Testament shows us supplements, but these never had the same power as the real thing.  For example the sacrifices of bulls and goats could never measure up to the blood of Jesus Christ. Hebrews 9:14 (TPT) Yet how much more will the sacred blood of the Messiah thoroughly cleanse our conscienc

Pre-pandemic we travelled a lot by plane.  One of the hardest thing about a long flight is the noise in the cabin.   One day,  John invested in some noise cancelling headphones.  It was amazing.  They literally filtered out all the noise apart from whatever you were listening to;  music, a movie or some teaching. It was good!  Today I was thinking about the amount of information (or misinformation) we are bombarded with.  TV, papers, adverts, billboards, magazines and social media.  All of it presenting carnal stuff, whether just worldly or evil.  I believe that the spiritual equivalent of noise cancelling headphones is praying in tongues.  It has the ability to help us tune out the noise of the world.   The bible says that speaking in tongues builds us up (Jude 1:20), it helps us give thanks well (1 Cor 14) and helps us pray when we don't know what to say.   It helps us drown out the rubbish to be still and know that He is God Praying in the Spirit is how we cancel out the noise o

I am currently amazed at just how much power the media has over people.  The media says something and a vast majority of people, nod their heads and say to themselves "I saw it in the news.  It MUST be true!"   Many Christians are doing the same, and yet when it comes to the Word of God, they cannot take what it says and believe it.  I love this verse in Psalms 45. In the second half of verse 1 it says: my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.  Sometimes you've got to read your bible and then let your tongue write your own story.  Let your 'news' be what God says it should be.  Write your own headlines!  What is your 'breaking news', relevant to where you are right now?  Is it "I am the healed of the Lord!", "I am loved by God",  "I am never alone",  "God accepts me",  "I've never seen the righteous forsaken"... We don't have to let the world give us the news - Christians have THE BEST NEWS EVER!!  W

Today I went out for my Saturday morning run.  I procrastinated a little more than usual and by the time I actually got out of my front door it was raining.  It wasn't raining too hard, but when I got half way round the route it started to get harder and harder until I was drenched by the time I got home.  While I was drying off and warming up, it made me think about a spiritual principal;  we can get as soaked (immersed) in the Spirit as we want to.   Staying at home I would have been dry and I could have thought about the run, and considered it and wondered about it, but the truth is I wouldn't have experienced it. The Holy Spirit can be like that for us. We can watch from the sidelines, talk about the Holy Spirit, think about the Holy Spirit, ask other people about how they experienced the Holy Spirit and yet never let ourselves get fully immersed in Him.  Sometimes you just got to get out there and get soaked.    The Holy Spirt longs to be a consistent part of our lives and

This weekend has been crazy here in the UK.  People panic buying fuel and all because the media said there was going to be a shortage of petrol.  They've since back-pedalled and said actually it's not so, but the trouble is all the panic-buying has created a shortage.  The news drove people to act, despite the fact it wasn't true.    There is all sorts of bad news going on around the world right now (true or otherwise), and we can let it overwhelm and depress us; we can let it drive us to panic and fear or we can stir ourselves up to act after the Spirit; to press into God, to tap in more deeply to the Holy Spirit and to more intimately worship. Today I just want to encourage you to not tune in to what the world has to offer, but instead, let anything that happens in this world this drive you deeper into your walk with the Lord. That's it.  Just a simple thought this week:  Don't get drawn into the world's bad news, but instead, follow the advice of the psalmist

A few week ago at church, we were discussing  MY truth v THE truth, and it's something that I've been thinking on since that service.  OUR truth is always subjective.  It is coloured by our experience, upbringing and culture.  We firmly believe OUR truth is correct, and we rehearse it, recount it and live by it, but in reality we often find that MY truth may miss something spiritual and important; GOD's truth or THE truth. For example, MY truth might be that you have wronged me, but THE truth is that I am called and empowered to walk in love and forgiveness despite someone wronging me. It doesn't always mean MY truth is completely wrong, but I believe OUR truth is too often incomplete at the very least.   John 8:32 tells us " A nd ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free. " Freedom, comes when we KNOW THE truth.    That word KNOW is the Greek word ginosko.  I t means to know absolutely,  to be taking in knowledge, to come to know, recognize

I want to finish this series by one final thought.    The dictionary defines 'stress' as:  ' subject to pressure or tension' or ' a state of mental or emotional strain or tension resulting from adverse or demanding circumstances'. Life and the devil can subject us to pressures and tensions, and we can fold like a plastic bottle.  However, if the bottle represents us, and we are filled with the Holy Spirit, we won't crumble under pressure.   We will never be able to stop stresses coming our way, but as soon as we recognize them we need to tap into the spiritual realm in order not to be overcome.   We need to deal with life from a spiritual perspective.  Yes, there are practical things we need to do in life, of course, but we cannot do things the way the world does it.  We need to fight, not against flesh and blood, but against principlaities and powers and spiritual wickedness and high places.  Stress is a result of the fall, a result of the enemy and a resul

As we think about those things that bring stress in our lives, it would be dumb to mention this one!  I've had a difficult week this week.  A very challenging situation came to an end in a meeting and it was stressful.  However, it came and went, but what was the biggest battle for me?  It was practicing the wrong things afterwards!   What do I mean?  Well I am quite sure I am not the only one who practices or rehearses things in my head over and over after something like that, am I?.  "I could have done this... I should have said that..." But all that is simply stressful!  What is past is done, and today I have a choice about what how I practice.  I can practice (rehearse) the negative 'shoulda, woulda, coulda's' or I can practice ( do) the presence of God.  I can sit there and think about all the ways I could have behaved or worded something differently, but in the end, it's a much more peace-filled path when we look to Jesus instead and remind ourselves

In continuing my thoughts on stress, or rather how to deal with stress,  I want to think about the promises God has given us through his word - two verses in particular. Nehemiah 8:10  For the joy of the Lord is my strength and Romans 8:28 And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. The word 'strength' in the first verse there means: a fortified place; figuratively, a defence: — force, fort fortress, rock, strengthen, strong (hold).  It refers to a place or means of safety, protection, refuge,  fastness, harbour. When we focus on the joy of the Lord we find that we are fortified, strengthened and we find refuge, a safe harbour for our souls.  When we contemplate the fact that God is talking all the factors around us and weaving them together for good.  We can rest in that safe place.   The bible and the gospel message were not intended to be complex and only understandable by the learned or super

So as we continue thinking about stress and how to avoid it as a Christian,  we need to remind ourselves that what we water/feed is what grows in our life.  As a believer, we have a choice every day what we allow to take root in our hearts, and what we root out.   When fear and insecurity take root in your heart, they will always result in stress, torment, and discouragement. The bible tells us we are to take our thoughts captive, and it's easy to pull up a plant when it has no root at all.  Once something develops a root system, it get's harder to remove. Colossians 2:7 (TPT) Your spiritual roots go deeply into his life as you are continually infused with strength, encouraged in every way. For you are established in the faith you have absorbed and enriched by your devotion to him! We need to be rooted in Christ. The dictionary definition of 'rooted' is: established deeply & firmly; and Strong's Concordance says: cause to strike root, to strengthen with roots, t

One of the biggest causes of stress in our lives can actually be our own inability to take responsibility for our actions, emotions and responses.  For example, have you ever got cross with someone and (either out loud or in your heart) you've said 'It's their fault I lost my temper. They wound me up!" Our human nature wants to blame others, blame circumstances or even blame God, but when we ascribe blame to external people or things, what we do is remove the possibility of being able to do anything spiritually productive about it.  This will always bring about stress.   I remember days when I blamed my husband for my own failings, it was stressful, because I couldn't change his behaviour.   This was a cycle in my life and very time I did it, I felt worse.  One day the Lord spoke to me and told me to stop, that I was the one responsible for my emotions and I could chose to walk after the Spirit and not the flesh!  This wasn't at all what I wanted to hear!   But

I've begun sharing a little on how to deal with stress.  Last week we spoke about not focussing on ourselves as we cannot control or change many things.  We are not sufficient to manage our own lives however we try; we need to focus on Jesus. Today I want to speak about what and how we value things and how this can cause us stress.  In Luke 12:34 we are told our hearts are where our treasure is.  This means that our hearts go to where the thing we value is.  I like the way the Passion Translation puts it Where you deposit your treasure, that is where your thoughts will turn to—and your heart will long to be there also. Stress can be caused when we put too high a value or importance on something (treasure).  Things can easily be lost or damaged, often outside of our own control. Holding 'things' too tightly can cause us stress when we do not have them (or if God tells us to give them away!) Paul the Apostle says in Philippians 4:11 that he had learned to be content, whether

So, have you ever been stressed?  Everyone has the potential to get stressed; maybe over money, relationship challenges, others complicating simple matters, forgetting stuff, gossip, change and many, many other things.   However, stress is not mandatory and can be avoided it if we follow what the bible teaches: There's a few simple things that word tells us that will help us remain at peace in a stress-filled world and today I want to start a little series on how to avoid stress. The first, and probably one of the most challenging ways to avoid being stressed, is  "Don't be focussed on yourself!" That may seem strange but the bible teaches that pride is at the heart of all our trials.  Proverbs 13:10 says that " Only through pride comes contention " Only refers to ' no one or nothing more besides; solely.' Pride can be defined as  a feeling of deep pleasure or satisfaction derived from one's own achievements Contention is the Hebrew word 'm

There are certain things that most Christians would say they want - things like peace, to hear God's voice, to feel loved,  and that sort of thing, but whatever it is, people seem to be waiting on God to provide these things in our lives for us.   This verse in 2 Peter 1:2 says "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord" We're not waiting for God to give us peace, but when we know  (learn, experience, recognize  and understand)  God the Father and Jesus then his grace, his love, his peace increase in our lives.  Our confident trust in his word, and our desire to love and serve him in return for his wonderful goodness and kindness increase too. Equally when we don't know God, these things are diminished in our lives.   The things like grace and peace that we desire to live in and experience on a daily basis, are not given in the sense that God is deciding when and how to pass them out to us, but they are wrapped up

Today as we are preparing for an excellent church service, I was thinking about why we go to church.  During the last 18 months, we've been locked down, and online church has created many wonderful opportunities for believers to stay connected when meeting together was not possible.  However, now that church are coming back in person, there are many people that still think that it's ok to stay in their pjs and watch the service from their living room, or catch up later if the weather's nice and they can go off for a walk instead of attending the service. There are multiple reasons why I think that going to church in person is an absolute necessity, but one of the lesser discussed reasons for that is because I truly believe what Paul told us in Corinthians and Romans, when he tells us that we are part of a body, and that we each have gifts, and we should be bringing them into the church setting to minister to and encourage one another.  If you're sitting at home watching

Balance!   It's a word the Lord gave me many years ago, and it keeps coming up in my life and walk with the Lord. This week I was thinking about the balance of peace and trust.  There are things in life that are on a metaphorical scale. One goes up and something else goes down. Peace is on one side of the scale and self-reliance is on the other. When we trust in the Lord, our peace level goes up,  when we trust in ourself or something other than Jesus, our peace will decrease.   It sounds obvious, but it's about trusting God do what he says he will, and letting go of the stress and worry about how we are going to fix it, control it or change it, will bring us peace.  Being a Christian is all about realizing we can't do it ourselves.  It starts with the fact we can't pay for our own righteousness, and is all about the truth we can't really make it in life ourselves, no matter how strong, competent, rich or intelligent we think we are.  There are always people and cir

Just a short thought today. What drives you?  That's it!  Everyone is driven by something.  What moves you to read the bible, or pray or worship God?  Sometimes we are driven by the problems we face.  Something happens that is negative, challenging or sad, and we turn to Christ for an answer.  That is ok, but what is better is when we are driven by our knowledge of the love of God, and his wonderful promises to us.  When we know God's love and we know his promises, we will worship, pray and desire the word. It's a bit of a catch 22 though.  If you don't know how much you are loved, and what God has promised you, you can't respond to or live in that love.  To know God's love you need to be in the word, talking to the Lord (praying), and listening to his voice.  If you know that you are driven by external things, then you will struggle; one crisis to another things will come your way, but there is great peace and security in knowing that we are loved, and reading

I 've been talking about the divine exchange; what Jesus took from us on the cross and what he gave us in return.  What an amazing deal from our perspective.  He has given us so much, and yet so many Christians are ignorant of what belongs to us or they chose not to walk in the blessings and promises of God.  If we continue to look at Isaiah 53 (KJV), we see in verse 5 it reads: But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities:the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. This week I want to mention the 'peace' noted here.  Quite often we think of peace as the absence of stress or strife, but in the Hebrew, the word used is 'shalom' and it means SO much more than this.  Olive Tree Enhanced Strong's Dictionary defines it as: completeness, soundness, welfare, peace, completeness, safety, soundness (in body) welfare, health, prosperity, peace, quiet, tranquillity, contentment, peace, friendship of human

So, following on from my post a few weeks ago regarding the 'divine exchange' I want to think about give and take.  On the cross Jesus took a whole lot of things from us, but in return he gave us some things in return and while most Christians mentally assent to this, they do not walk in the benefits of this exchange.  Let's consider some of what Jesus took for us and what he gave us in return. Isaiah 53:4-5 (KJV) Surely he hath borne our griefs , and carried our sorrows : yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions , he was bruised for our iniquities : the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed. I want to focus today on that first statement - Jesus took our griefs!  The Strong's concordance states that the word used for 'griefs' means: malady, anxiety, calamity ( an event causing great and often sudden damage or distress; a disaster);  disease, grief, (is) sick(-n

I haven't forgotten that I am working through some things to do with the Great Exchange, but I'm interrupting that theme because I was encouraged this morning as John (my husband) preached about the fact that God hasn't forgotten any of us, and felt like it would be a good encouragement for someone today. In Acts 1:21-26 we read of how the disciples replaced Judas after his death: So then, we must choose his replacement from among those who have been with us from the very beginning, from John’s baptism until Jesus’ ascension. And, like us, he must be a witness of his resurrection.” They proposed two candidates: Joseph, who is also called Barsabbas the Just, and Matthias. They all prayed, “Lord Yahweh, you know the heart of every man. Please give us clear revelation to know which of these two men you have chosen to be an apostle and take Judas’ place because he renounced his apostleship to go where he belonged.” They cast lots and determined that Matthias was the Lord’s choi

Having not long celebrated Easter, I have been thinking a lot over the last few weeks about the cross, and what happened there.   I have been considering what Jesus accomplished and what it means for us to live in light of the resurrection.   You may have heard the expression 'the divine exchange'.  It's a great way to express what happened. It talks about all that Jesus gave to us, and all he took from us, and it's this I want to think about this for a couple of weeks on my blog. Today the aspect that I want to mention is that Jesus became forsaken for us so that we would be accepted.  He became alone so that we would be included.  He was left so that we would be rescued.  The older I get, the more I realise that Christians don't walk in very much of what God has purchased for us.  Since the pandemic lockdowns started I have heard so many people say how lonely they are.  I do understand that being isolated from everyone else in person is challenging, but we profess