A Heart Untroubled

This week I have been thinking about this verse and while I love thinking about the fact that's God promises are YES and AMEN in Christ, today I want to focus on the last part "To the glory of God through us" . This really spoke to me!  Why?  Because the reason that his promises are SO dependable, is to give him the glory through us!   When people see God's promises in our lives, the glory goes to God.  We get to be an advert of God's amazing goodness, grace, love and mercy!  And all we have to do is believe his promises!!   He makes the promises!  He delivers!  All we have to do is believe, and then we get to not only experience the fruit of those promises, but in doing so, we get to give glory to God and shine his love in the darkness.  I don't know if today I am explaining that well, but as I am typing I am smiling!!  This excites me!  To be able to bring glory to God by simply receiving his promises!  That's reall...

Do you remember the TV quiz show Mastermind when it was presented by Magnus Magnusson?  Whenever the buzzer sounded signifying the end of the round, if he had already started the questions, Magnus would say "I've started, so I'll finish" and the contestant would be able to hear the question and respond if they knew the answer. The phrase 'I've started, so I'll finish' became synonymous with Mr Magnusson, but it made me think of this bible verse... Phil 1:6 "Being confident of this very thing, that he which hath begun a good work in you will perform it until the day of Jesus Christ." The thing that spoke to me is that sometimes we hear the 'buzzer sound'  and think it's all over... but Jesus says 'I've started, so I'll finish'... The buzzer can represent things coming to an end in our life - and sometimes we can think that we're beyond restoration, but Jesus tells us it's not over yet.  Until his return, we...

Of course this week we celebrated Easter, and remembered the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus, the pinnacle of the Christian faith. I have been meditating on various aspects of the events that happened, and I was thinking about the phrase "It is finished!" John 19:30 (KJV) When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost. I was thinking about 'what' was finished at that point. I did a bit of research and found that the it was a common phrase used at the time of writing and it meant different things in different professions In accounting terms the phrase referred to the payment of a debt, meaning that nothing more was outstanding, the entire debt had been completely paid. In military terms, the phrase meant that a battle was completely won. The fighting was over, and the victory complete. In a judicial sense, it meant a sentence had been completed. These are incredible in terms of our salva...

So, I was eating popcorn yesterday and drinking a fruit tea and I started wondering what makes a popcorn pop! (As you do). With a little help from Google, I found out that inside the kernel, the hard shell, there is a little bit of moisture and when it heats up inside, it turns to steam and as you keep heating it up, the pressure from the steam builds and builds until it cracks open the hard exterior and makes a yummy snack. And then I thought about my teabag (I do promise there will be a spiritual application to this, not just information on my food and drink habits).  The label had come off the teabag, so I didn't know exactly what flavour it was, until I poured on the boiling water and tasted it! As promised... the spiritual bit!  We are like teabags and popcorn!  This is a deep spiritual truth!  Really it is!  Read on and I'll explain why! Firstly we are like popcorn because when heated up, whatever we stir up inside us will burst out.  We're also ...

Have you watched any of the 'Karate Kid' movies.  If not, the gist is Daniel, the underdog, learns Karate and goes to compete against the bully on the block, who is being trained by the nastiest instructor around (Johny K) whose motto is 'No Mercy'.   Mr Miyagi, Daniel's unassuming teacher, shows Daniel a move against which there is no defence, and despite his opponents underhand tactics, Daniel goes on to win the competition, and the respect of his opponent.  In one scene, Johny K comes up against Mr Miyagi and picks a fight with him.  Despite being smaller and a lot older, Miyagi bests Johny K. At the end of the fight, has him in a precarious hold, where it looks like he's going to finish him with a swipe of his hand.  However... right at the end it goes like this... With a tweak of the nose! What has all this got to do with my blog for New Years Eve?  Well, how we finish something is how we start the next thing.   If you are leaving 2022 w...

At work, when I send out the weekly emails, I like to find out what 'national day' falls on that day, and make a little bit about it.  I did the same this morning. Today is National Cake Day.  Who doesn't love a bit of cake now and then, but as I was thinking about cake (as one does after working out at the gym) and I realised that most often, cake is something special - birthdays, weddings, anniversaries, Christmas... In our house growing up, 'cake' was a treat on a Saturday evenings.  Cake is not a staple food (well unless you ask certain members of family); it is a treat.  The Bible is the opposite of cake.   The Bible isn't just for special occasions or a once a week treat, it's a staple food we need to consume daily.   We need to eat and digest it, and as we do, it feeds us so that we grow and mature.  Children who only ate cake, would be unhealthy and their growth and development would be hampered and even damaged.  In our Christian wal...

Have you ever had a phone that went wonky!  Something just gets messed up in it and once you've tried all the usual tricks like switching it off and on again, deleting and reinstalling apps. etc, you are eventually left with one option RESTORE FACTORY SETTINGS. Sometimes, I think we can be like that phone.  The 'setting' in fallen humanity defaults to living by the flesh, and while we can try all sorts of tricks and ways to 'be better' or 'do better' they are ineffective, because the problem is innate within us.   When we are saved though Jesus Christ it's like we restore our factory settings and the rest of our lives on earth as believers is to learn to walk in the true settings Christ gave us in the beginning, according to his design for mankind. Galatians 5:25 (KJV) I f we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. The bible teaches us that we came alive in the spirit when we got born again, so then, now we need to function that way. That was...