A Heart Untroubled

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...

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 b...

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 th...

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 ...

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 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 inst...