Archives for May 2020

The Bible shows that Fear is a major issue in human experience. So it crops up in our lives in many ways and ends up being called many different things. Fear, by any other name, is still fear. And, wonderfully, fear is something God is happy to set us free from.

So whatever you call your fear, let this message encourage you to be set free by the Love of God.

Let’s start with the good news, that God sets us free from fear.

“There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.” 1John 4:18

“You did not receive the spirit of bondage to fear; but you received the Spirit of adoption, by which we cry, Daddy, Father.” Romans 8:15

“God has not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” 2Timothy 1:7

“If the Son (Jesus) sets you free, you will be completely free.” John 8:36

With those lovely assurances we realise that fear is not something to be afraid of. Fear is a nasty problem and it can mess with people for the whole of their lives, but it is an enemy that can be defeated and God is ready to set us free.

Recently I faced a set back where some resources I was looking forward to evaporated. What I hoped for failed to come and I found myself feeling quite unsettled in the pit of my stomach. I wasn’t in danger of losing anything I had, but I still felt very queasy in my gut.

I asked God to reveal to me what made me feel so bad. Obviously something was coming to light that probably needed to be dealt with. If I was completely free on the inside, full of faith and living in the love of God I would not have been feeling uncomfortable. I wanted to know what I needed to be set free from.

I realised that what disturbed me was that I wanted those new resources to give me a greater sense of security. My life is fine, but with added resources I would be even more insulated against financial challenges or feeling I was limited in my choices.

If I was secretly hoping for greater security, then my problem was ‘insecurity’. I was obviously not finding my complete security in God, but hoping for natural resources to boost my sense of being secure.

I repented of my concern and of looking to natural things to be to me what God is meant to be. I then prayed against the insecurity and confessed that my God is more than able to meet all my needs and see me through life with His blessing on all I do.

When I shared that experience with a friend he replied, “Fear has many names, doesn’t it?”

Until then I had not labelled my insecurity as ‘fear’, but that is exactly what it is. Fear does have many names.

Fear is a serious issue because it enslaves us, for the whole of our lives. And it torments us, agitating our thoughts and emotions (like that deep queasy feeling in my stomach).

Jesus came to “free those who all their lives were held in slavery by their fear of death.” Hebrews 2:15

“Fear has torment.” 1John 4:18

God is ready to set you free from fear, so let’s not pretend we don’t have any. You may have labelled your fear as concern, discomfort, being cautious, being sensible, insecurity, agitation, worry, being unsettled, playing safe, anxiety, not wanting to offend, tension, or a bunch of other things.

Fear is when you are unsettled about the danger of unwanted outcomes. That includes losing what you have or missing out on what you want. It involves all those things that make you anxious. It involves all those things that you could worry about and which would take away your peace of mind. It includes all those things that trap you in protective behaviours, defensive responses, and so on.

Look at what the Bible says about how free your mind and heart are to be, when you are free from fear.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God.” Philippians 4:6

“Do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes?”  Matthew 6:25

“Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts” Colossians 3:15

If ever you feel anxious, or agitated, tense, or concerned how things might work out, recognise what you are dealing with. It is Fear. Whatever other name you prefer to call it, face the fact that you are troubled by fear. And then recognise the good news. God’s love will free you from fear.

Tell God what you are afraid of and ask God to be your security and protection. Repent of allowing fear into your heart and of looking to natural things to protect you. Put your trust in God and fall into God’s loving arms, letting Him take care of all those things that haunt you with fear. Then you can resist the fear, like you would resist the devil, telling it to get out of your heart and mind, confessing that you have put your trust in God.

And may the Lord bring you full and free release from Fear – by all its many names.

Do you get caught in cycles? You end up back in the same situation, facing similar issues, feeling like you can’t get away from some things. You make all kinds of promises to yourself, but things out of your control keep popping up, or you can’t even control yourself.

The Bible reveals a number of cycles and shows us some steps to deal with them. It is wonderful when people and families are delivered from such things as the cycle of poverty or cycle of abuse. So let’s see what the Bible reveals about being stuck in a repeat of previous issues.

‘Going around the Mountain Again’ is an expression used to reflect what Israel went through in their wilderness wanderings. God led His people to the edge of the Promised Land but they wouldn’t go in. They were afraid of taking on the giants and fortified cities.

Their punishment was being sent back into the desert to wander around in circles for forty years until all the adults had died off. The next generation were then led to capture the Promised Land of Canaan.

At the end of forty years in the wilderness God spoke to the people and basically said, “You’ve been going around this mountain long enough”.

“You have circumnavigated this mountain long enough: turn to the north.” Deuteronomy 2:3

In Israel’s case the process of going over the same old ground over and over again was punishment and it had a purpose, to wear out and dispose of those who did not have faith. The repetitive process was a sign of the outworking of God’s curse.

Christians understand that when God places a challenge in front of them and they won’t rise in faith and take on that challenge, God may well send them off to go around in a big circle. They are eventually faced with the same challenge once more, this time in the hope they can rise in faith and deal with the issue with God’s help.

If they don’t respond in faith the second time they can end up ‘going around the mountain’ yet again.

There may be an issue God wants you to deal with, such as something you refuse to repent of or someone you refuse to forgive. God, in His love for you, wants you to come free from sin and un-forgiveness, so He gives you some time then presents you with the same challenge all over again.

If your heart is hard and unrepentant, and you refuse to face the truth about yourself, God will send you around the mountain once again (so to speak), then bring you back to face the issues again.

Sadly I know of too many cases where people have dug in their toes, accused others, remained hard-hearted and self-righteous and have never come out of their ‘wilderness’.

That links in my mind with God’s curse of vanity on people who demand their own way. When people persist in demanding from God things that God knows are not good for them God may well give them what they ask, but then send on their life a curse of futility, where everything they do amounts to nothing.

“God gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.” Psalm 106:15

“In spite of all this, they kept on sinning; despite His wonderful works, they did not believe. Therefore he consumed their days in vanity (futility), and their years in trouble.” Psalm 78:32,33

So if you are in a ‘Here We Go Again’ situation be quick to be humble before God and find out what He might be trying to get through to you. Otherwise your whole life could be eaten up with nothing to show for it.

Another cycle spoken of in the Bible is a fiery cycle ignited by words. Words are a big issue in spiritual things. 

“The tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity: so is the tongue among our members, that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire of hell.” James 3:6

Translators have explained the ‘course of nature’ as ‘the successions of generations, which roll on like wheels’ and ‘wheel of our nativity’. This seems to speak of issues that pass down the generations, based on words spoken over the family.

It may be that some cycles people and families face are due to forces working against the family, to bring defeat and destruction. This seems to be obvious where certain problems occur across the family and through the generations, such as the cycle of poverty, disease, misfortune, abuse, addiction, family break-up, and so on.

In those cases it can be powerful to bring the problem to God and ask God to break that cycle. Since James tells us that this sort of cycle is based on words, we can have great hope through God’s Word. God’s Word is higher than all other words. So when you find a promise and a blessing in God’s Word it can overpower any word of curse that may have been spoken over a family in past times.

So dig into God’s Word and find the many promises that speak to your situation, claiming God’s blessings, and casting the problem of your unhappy cycle onto God.

So, if you are facing a ‘Here We Go Again’ situation, be humble and allow God to show you anything you haven’t dealt with effectively. And if it seems to be a curse of some kind, get spiritual support to break the problem, but also look into God’s Word to find God’s promises that have greater force than any words that bring problems.

And may God set you free from those unwanted cycles the keep us from moving on in our walk with Him. May you become free from all things that make you think, Here We Go Again!

Many years ago I used the example of a small boat to explain various elements of Christian life. So picture a sad little boat pulled up on the beach, tired and worn and unloved.

Someone decides to give the boat a whole new life.
They show care for the vessel and begin repairing damaged parts.
They scrape back the peeling paint and replace the weakened timbers, giving the boat a face-lift of fresh parts and paint.
Where the hull has been twisted over time, by boards shrinking, or by bumping into things, the boat has to be straightened.

To make the boat stable it is fitted with fresh ballast to help it sit right in the water.
Next the boat is fitted with an outboard motor to push it through the waves.
Then some fancy equipment is added, to help it navigate, check depth and even locate fish.

The boat now looks fresh and happy, and is stable, capable and well equipped. It floats happily at the end of the pier where it is moored.

Reflecting on our Christian journey, we start out damaged by sin and by our own selfishness and folly. We are worn, scratched and even twisted. While God loves us and devotes Himself to us, He must work on healing our dents and distortions.

Then God has to clean us up, scraping off our own ideas about ourself, and what we have done to make ourselves look good. Some things in our life have become ineffective or broken by our sin and worldly ideas. God has to remove those wrong ideas and choices from our life and replace them with truth that makes us strong and effective.

We also need to be made stable, not flying off in one direction or the other. So the ballast of God’s truth and doctrine is placed in us, helping us know what we believe and why, and helping us live by that truth, even under trials.

We are then encouraged to use our faith to move us through situations effectively. Instead of just floating in life we learn to take hold of God and to trust Him to make good things happen. This is like the outboard motor moving us against tides and waves.

The fancy equipment equates with the Holy Spirit empowering us with various gifts that bring us wisdom, insight, sensitivity to God and His plans, revelation in God’s Word and results from our prayers.

God, then, works in us sanctification (cleaning us up) and restoration of our soul, replacing worldly things with spiritual things.
He establishes and stabilises us with truth and doctrine. He encourages our faith and calls us to live by faith. He fills us with His Holy Spirit, empowering us for effective service.
We end up shiny and new, effective and powerful, ready for the work of God.

So let’s reflect on what might happen if we have those things out of balance.
Some people won’t let God challenge them about their poor condition. They want to be loved by God, but they want to keep all the junk, damage, scratches and smell of their old life. They shut out the love of God and God’s plan to make them a ‘new creation’, preferring to stay the same. The little boat remains as limited and unlovely as it was at the start.
Some people spend their whole life focused on sanctification – cleaning up themselves and others from wrong things. They become extreme about what is right and wrong, approved or not, and finding every little spot and dent. They become legalistic and extreme in their judgement of others and self, never feeling good enough. A little boat like that certainly wouldn’t let God take it out where it might be made dirty or dented. It wouldn’t want any fishermen cleaning smelly fish in the boat.

When it comes to ballast, a boat that gets too much stabiliser will end up very stable, on the bottom of the sea. Ballast balances us, but too much makes us sluggish in the water, heavy to handle. Many a Christian can be filled with knowledge that does nothing for their effectiveness for God. Instead it bogs them down and may even sink them in analysis and knowledge.

The outboard motor is a wonderful thing, making the boat speed through the waves. But a bigger and bigger motor will eventually rattle the little boat to pieces. The motor needs to be in balance with the boat. And so our Christian life is not about who can do the biggest faith exploit, but having faith for all the things God calls us for.

A boat equipped with every conceivable gizmo might seem very impressive, but fancy equipment is only useful if it matches the tasks the boat is meant for. A little boat is a boat, not a showroom for amazing equipment. Its task in life is to be a boat, not to win awards for its high-tech fittings.

There is yet one more quality that I have not mentioned. It is the most valuable of all.
So, consider that little boat, tied at the end of the pier, floating there day after day, gleaming in the sun. That’s nice. But what is missing?

If it floated there forever its entire existence would be wasted.

What that boat needs is an owner; a captain and commander, who loves and cherishes it and who walks the pier, unties the boat and steers it into the open waters for some purpose. The boat may take the owner fishing, or it may rescue someone stranded or drowning. It may take the owner to some pretty place to enjoy sun, breeze and view.

At every step of the life of that little boat, the most valuable thing is the love, care and purpose given by the owner.
And so too in our Christian life. Whether we are being scraped clean of ugly gunk, or being straitened out or having our weaker parts pulled off, or if we are pushing into a headwind, or using our equipment to find a sunken vessel, our greatest quality is that we are loved and owned by our loving Heavenly Father, God Almighty.

So take some time to reflect on where you fit in this Little Boat Analogy.

A significant distinction among people compares those who passenger through life and those who step up and take action or take hold of opportunities, or even make opportunities in life.

One comparison would be those who sit around waiting for someone to offer them a job and those who go out every day, all day, asking for work, or who find something to do and start their own business.

You could think the distinction is between being lazy and being diligent, but I suspect it is more than that. There is something happening in the heart of some people that prompts them to take hold of life, while others don’t seem to get a grip on things. 

Some might say there are ‘achievers’ and ‘non-achievers’. Yet achieving things is also a matter of capacity to be productive, apart from my focus here. Maybe what I am talking about should be called the ‘desire and motivation to take hold of things’.

A prime example is the Apostle Paul, who was grabbed by God, unexpectedly, and given a life mission of preaching to the people of the world. Paul grabbed that calling with real commitment and pressed on with it, despite great opposition, attempts to kill him, and all manner of obstacles. When writing to one of the churches he planted Paul explained his attitude.

“I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.” Philippians 3:12

This looks like diligence, pressing on, and it looks like Paul is a real ‘achiever’, getting things done, but more than that Paul wanted to take hold of something. He wanted to have in his hands something that was available to him.

I have often found Christians who are quite casual about their lives. When they realise they need more of God, and that there is more blessing and grace available for them they seem to shrug off that news. They don’t have an internal desire to take hold of what God has for them.

Compare that with Abraham’s grandson Jacob, who was desperately keen to have the family birthright. He took opportunities that came his way. When his older brother, Esau, was hungry and asked Jacob for food, Jacob made Esau trade the birthright for a bowl of stew. Esau, on the other hand, didn’t care for the birthright and readily traded it off.

I have had sore arm muscles at times and found it hard to grip things with my hand until my muscles recovered. It seems some people have weak internal muscles for taking hold of life and the things God offers.

There are people who hear about God’s offer of forgiveness for their sins, but who can’t be bothered to accept the offer. They seem to float in a state of apathy, unable to take seriously the things they need to deal with.

This can happen with the everyday things of life too. People can drift into a careless state of just letting life pass them by. They are dulled by routine, living without any real hope or expectation, and letting life and opportunity slip through their fingers.

Such a state is made worse when people are addicted to drugs or alcohol, or if they have been numbed by some severe experience or by depression, but it can come on ordinary people as well.

The Bible reveals that God has much for us, but wants us to be proactive, stepping up to the call and facing up to the challenge. There is an engagement of our will and a rising on the inside of us that moves us forward spiritually.

If you are getting on with life perfectly well, let me point out that God has prepared spiritual graces for you and He wants you to step up and take hold of them, as Paul did. Metaphorically you can climb the mountain of spiritual graces, getting closer to God and becoming richer in spiritual blessing for yourself and others.

If you are struggling with life, or stuck in a pit you can’t seem to get out of, then it is time to start taking hold. You won’t feel like you can, but the first step may be simply to choose that you want to move forward. Praying to God that He break your current state of being stuck in the mud of your life is a great start.

When it comes to spiritual things we can’t manufacture God’s blessings. They come from Him. But we can decide that we want them, and that we will do what we can to receive them from God. We can cry out to God, calling on Him to do for us and through us things that are currently outside our capacity. That’s taking hold.

We can see various blessings and promises in the Bible and call out to God to deliver those things to us, such as peace, healing, rescue, wisdom, forgiveness, victory over the enemy, joy, provision and so on.

From that start you can build faith and eventually get to the place of stepping out in confidence in God’s Word, assured that God will see you through.

But it all starts with changing our heart from being like Esau, who really didn’t care about anything than his present situation, to being like Jacob, who knew where the blessing was and was determined to take hold of it.

I assure you God has more blessings, grace and wonders for you to enjoy than you could imagine. That’s in the Bible.

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, neither has it entered into the heart of man, the things which God has prepared for those who love him.” 1Corinthians 2:9

So friends, it’s time to pull yourself together, see what God has for you, call out to Him and start to Take Hold.

Years ago I head a number of inspiring messages about faith. Those messages built my faith in God and my confidence to step out in faith, believing God to come through for me.

One message that impressed me was that Faith is a ‘Now’ reality, meaning it is something to be activated in the ‘now’. Let me explain.

The Bible’s has a chapter focused on faith: Hebrews 11. There are many insights into faith contained in that chapter, so I encourage you to read and study it.

The chapter starts with the words ‘Now faith’.

“Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the conviction or evidence of things not seen.” Hebrews 11:1

The Bible’s Faith chapter starts with the word ‘now’. Faith is meant to be a constant ‘now’ in life. It is something alive and relevant in your heart at all times. You have put your faith in Christ, possibly years ago, but that faith remains alive and fresh in your heart.

Some people might have made a commitment to faith in Christ as a child, or at a special meeting years ago, and then gone on with life, having filed their spiritual experience away. That’s not what God is looking for. Your faith in Christ and reliance on Him is meant to be an on-going ‘now’ experience.

‘Sunday-School Believers’, those who learn about God and Christ in their childhood, often carry a sense of being connected to God, but may have stopped going to church or growing their faith. It’s wonderful that people come to faith at any time during life, but God wants us to keep living our faith through every year and even every ‘now’ moment of our lives.

So, if you have gone stale in your faith, treating it as a keepsake from your past, you need to stop right now and decide whether you still trust Christ for you eternal salvation. Is Christ still Lord of your Life? Do you still look to Christ for forgiveness of your sins? Reaffirm your faith in Christ, because your faith is meant to be in the ‘now’, not lost in past memories.

The ‘Now faith’ words also put faith into your very present circumstances, the ‘now’ of your life. You may have had faith in past situations, but God wants you to act and live by faith throughout your life, including now. The Bible tells us to ‘live by faith’, which means we don’t live in the memory of faith, but in an active walk of faith through our lives.

“Now the just shall live by faith” Hebrews 10:38

Note that faith is linked with the word ‘now’ once again.

Righteous people live with faith in their ever present ‘now’. So right now, God calls you to live in faith. Whatever your situation is right now, in home, work, your inner struggles, your finances, health, relationships or whatever, God wants you to call to Him and to rely on Him, now, trusting Him to be your champion and saviour.

That’s having faith in your ‘now’ moment.

You may have seen miracles in the past, holding on in faith, but you still need to live by faith today as well. And you’ll be doing it tomorrow, and in every moment that could be called ‘now’.

God rejoices to see faith in your heart, and as you grow in faith you will at times face bigger challenges than you faced before. So in each new ‘now’ moment you can step up in faith and take on bigger and bigger challenges.

There is another Bible verse linking faith to the word ‘now’. It is at the end of the great chapter on Love.

“Now faith, hope and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” 1Corinthians 13:13

Faith, like love and hope, carries a special enduring quality. Love is not meant to be a momentary experience, but something we live with all our lives. We can live with God’s love surrounding us from now and forever. The same is true of hope. It can carry us forever.

Faith, too, is an enduring thing, that we embrace and surround ourselves with. It carries us through all kinds of difficulties, in each ‘now’ moment, because we live with confidence in God that He is in control and everything will work out as He plans.

That kind of faith, in our ‘now’ moments, gives us the ability to smile at the storm, ignore the enemy’s intimidation, push past our fears and weaknesses, and do exploits for God.

So friends, put Faith at the centre of your daily life. Keep up your confidence in Christ. Be assured of God’s love for you. Cast all your problems and anxieties onto God. Trust God implicitly in every situation. Be firm in your faith.

And live in the victories Christ has for you, delighting that Faith is Now.