Archives for May 2020

When Kris Kristoffersen’s song ‘One Day at a Time’ became popular in the 1970’s I wasn’t impressed by its message. It seemed to suggest surviving from one day to the next, rather than getting complete victory over our problems.
The song is a prayer that God provide enough strength to get us through this day, and keep doing that ‘One Day At A Time’.

The idea of finding God’s Grace one day at a time resonates with truths in the Bible. For example, we are told that God’s mercies are new each morning.

“Because of the Lord’s loving devotion we are not consumed, for His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” Lamentations 3:22,23

And Jesus taught us not to take thought for tomorrow, because there is enough to deal with today.

“Do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.” Matthew 6:34

The Lord’s Prayer which Jesus taught to His disciples includes a request for ‘daily bread’, rather than for barns full of supplies.

“Give us this day our daily bread.” Matthew 6:11

The Apostle James, Jesus’ brother, tells us that the future is filled with uncertainty so we don’t even know what will happen the very next day.

“You do not know what will happen tomorrow! What is your life? You are a vapour that appears for a little while then vanishes.” James 4:14

With these Bible truths in mind it is not at all unreasonable for us to ask God to be with us ‘One Day at a Time’.

Another nice thing about the ‘One Day at a Time’ focus is that we have to keep our faith and our walk with God very fresh and current. If we only had to rely on God once each year we may tend to forget about God when we don’t need Him. By having to come to God regularly we are kept in fresh contact with Him.

Have you noticed that the more time you spend with people the better the relationship can grow? Often when we meet new people, or catch up with lost contacts or forgotten relatives, we feel a bit awkward at first, but as we keep frequent contact the relationship becomes more comfortable and easy.

If you only check in with God on rare occasions it is no surprise if you feel unsure in His presence. You have lost touch with your Lord and Maker.

Christians are urged to set up daily times of prayer, Bible reading and waiting on God. And families are urged to have daily time for prayer, Bible reading and worship of God together. These daily disciplines nourish our spirit and keep us in fresh contact with God.

The Bible instructs us to keep short accounts, dealing with things quickly. When we are upset or angered we are advised to deal with it before the sun sets.

“In your anger do not sin; do not let the sun go down on your anger” Ephesians 4:26

We need to keep short accounts with God, readily talking with Him about things that concern us, or that we need forgiveness for. If we hide things away from God then we will become increasingly agitated, as King David found.

“When I refused to confess my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long. Day and night Your hand was heavy on me; my strength failed as in the summer heat. Psalm 32:3,4

When God set up food for the Children of Israel in the wilderness the Manna only lasted a day. Each morning they had to gather fresh manna. If they kept it overnight it stank. So God used that to show that we must have a fresh daily experience with God.

Another reflection I see in the song ‘One Day at a Time’ is that we often have to endure trials. We have to be patient. We have to wait on God, unable to run off and do our own thing. God tries our faith, so we can find ourselves enduring things for an extended time.

In those seasons we continue to cry out to God daily, finding His strength and support to get through each day. Even though things are not how we might like them, under some load or strain, we find God’s peace and comfort each day, and that gets us through to face each new day.

Wonderfully we have that lovely promise that we looked at earlier, that God’s mercies are fresh with each new day.

“His compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is Your faithfulness!” Lamentations 3:22,23

So, if you are not taking time each day to be in God’s presence let me encourage you to make that time, for prayer, Bible reading and waiting on God. Listen to what God prompts you through the Bible and through His Holy Spirit speaking deep inside you. Be attentive to God’s promptings and build your faith and your walk with God.

If you are in a difficult place that seems to stick with you, then look to see if God has a key for your release. Meanwhile, and for as long as you are being tested by those circumstances, commit yourself to God each new day and look for those fresh mercies God has for you each morning.

As you walk with God and call out to Him each day, He will be with you and sustain you, One Day at a Time.

We all fail to hear things said to us or even explained to us at times. We can be distracted, or disinterested, or maybe we think we don’t need to know or already know what is being said. For various reasons we miss many signals that come to us.

I once created a special program for young children in a problem class. The first and repeated lesson was the need to ‘Pay Attention’. I symbolised that idea with images of animals looking straight at the photographer. My rule was that the children had to look directly at the person who needed their attention, such as their teacher. We practiced turning our heads to look directly at the one we were supposed to pay attention to.

It was fun and the children quickly improved their behaviour and study performance.

Many times at school a teacher will call for attention but some students will want to do finishing touches on whatever they are working on. Or when the children look to the teacher they are distracted by something else that comes into sight, which diverts them from focus on what is being said.

Parents know all about this with raising children. But most supervisors or event organisers find it frustrating that people come and ask for information that has already been explained.

When King Solomon wrote the Book of Proverbs he clearly addressed his son, instructing him to ‘pay attention’.

“My son, pay attention to my words; turn your ear to my sayings.” Proverbs 4:20

It’s almost humorous that in the very next chapter Solomon repeated himself.

“My son, pay attention to my wisdom; incline your ear to my understanding” Proverbs 5:1

A joke goes that a wife said to her husband, “The reason women talk more than men is that men don’t listen.” The husband looked up from his newspaper and asked, “What did you say?”

Whatever complications we create by not listening to teachers, parents or family members, imagine the problems we can go through because we don’t listen to God. If it is easy for us to not be truly listening attentively, then surely we do it as much with God as with others.

God instructed His people to pay attention to an angel God sent to travel with them.

“I am sending an angel before you to protect you and bring you to the place I prepared. Pay attention to him and listen to his voice; do not defy him, for he will not forgive rebellion, since My Name is in him. But if you listen carefully to his voice and do everything I say, I will be enemy to your enemies and foe to your foes.” Exodus 23:20-22

We are instructed to pay attention to all that comes from God.

“Listen and give heed. Do not be arrogant, for the LORD has spoken.” Jeremiah 13:15

God instructs us to hear the things Jesus taught.

“A bright cloud overshadowed them: and a voice spoke out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” Matthew 17:5

If you ignore a warning sign and get hurt, whose fault is that? You can’t blame others when you failed to pay attention to the signs. If you are instructed how to use equipment properly and don’t listen, then damage it, whose fault is that? You can’t blame others when you failed to listen carefully.

If God sends you repeated warnings or promptings and you keep ignoring them, you can’t blame God for the troubles you get into.

People have told me they can look back and see how God tried to get through to them but they were too distracted by their issues, career, ambitions and so on. Many people with a health issue realise they ignored warning signs.

Failure in marriage, business, relationships, investments and so on often come after people were given plenty of warning of the problems.

As a Christian you have ears to hear from God and through God’s Word. But if you train yourself not to listen, you will lose your sensitivity to God and His Truth. It’s like a parent who learns to turn off to the unwanted complaints of a child.

On the flip-side, you can retrain your ears to be attentive to things you’ve learned to ignore. God’s voice is one of those things you really must keep tuned to. God might speak to you through promptings, conviction, the Bible or sermons. God has spoken at times through dreams and visions and through wise counsellors.

All that is wasted if you aren’t listening. We are to be like a dedicated servant ever watchful to our Lord, to instantly respond to what He wants, even before He asks.

“As the eyes of servants look to the hand of their master, as the eyes of a maidservant look to the hand of her mistress, so our eyes are on the Lord our God until He shows us mercy.” Psalm 123:2

I urge you, for Christ’s sake and for your own best good, stop ignoring God’s voice speaking into your life. Pay Attention to God and His Word and the truth God sends to you each day. Learn to be an obedient and careful listener to all the things God has for you, because you have committed to Pay Attention.

When we are born again, by faith in Jesus Christ, many wonderful things take place within us. We are forgiven of our sins and cleansed in Jesus’ blood. We are adopted into God’s family. Our spirit comes alive and we are able to relate to God and God’s truth in wonderful new ways. We receive the Holy Spirit inside us, so God is now a living part of our life journey. The direction of our life moves from heading to destruction to heading to heaven and eternity with God. We become a new creation and old things pass away with all things becoming new. A new continuous process of being transformed starts inside us.

Adding to all that, you actually become a prophetic person. You are connected with heaven and to things that are not understood or seen by natural eyes. That enables you to walk in the Spirit and be led by the Spirit of God.

Let me give you the background to that. In the Old Testament, before Christ came and the church was established, there were rare men and women who could hear directly from God. Those people were prophets, like Moses, Elijah, Isaiah, Joel and Samuel. When people wanted to know what God thought about something they would go to a prophet, if there was one available, to find out what God had to say.

In the time of Moses God took some of the load that Moses carried and shared it with seventy elders in the nation of Israel. Those seventy men were to come to the Tabernacle tent to receive an outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Two men, Eldad and Medad, didn’t make it to the Tabernacle and they were overcome by the Spirit in the camp and prophesied. When word came to Moses about these two men Joshua wanted to go and stop them. Moses’ reply indicates that it is God’s desire that all of God’s people would prophesy.

“I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would place His Spirit on all of them!” Numbers 11:29

This vision of all of God’s people being prophets was amplified centuries later by the prophet Joel, who said that in the last days all of God’s people would prophesy.

“I will pour out my Spirit on all people. Your sons and daughters will prophesy, your old men will dream dreams, your young men will see visions. Even on my menservants and maidservants I will pour out my Spirit in those days.” Joel 2:28,29

This prophecy was fulfilled over four hundred years later, on the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit fell on the disciples and they spoke in tongues and prophesied, as recorded in Acts 2.

A crowd gathered and the people wondered what was going on. Peter explained it by quoting Joel’s prophecy.

“I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh and your sons and your daughters will prophesy, and your young men will see visions, and your old men will dream dreams; even on my menservants and maidservants in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they will prophesy.” Acts 2:17,18

Notice that the ability to prophesy would no longer be for the select few, as in Old Testament times, but all Christians would be blessed with that capacity. God’s menservants and maidservants are Christians. We all get to be in touch with heaven and to be aware of what God is doing and saying.

Separate to this is a special gift of the Holy Spirit for bringing prophetic messages as described in 1Corinthians 12 and 14, and separate yet again is a calling by God to be a Prophet who has to care for the welfare of the church, as mentioned in Ephesians 4.

My focus here is not on you going around with a ‘word from God’ for everyone, or being able to call yourself a ‘Prophet’, but on the wonderful truth that as a child of God, God wants you to be in touch with Heaven and to know what God is saying and doing in your life and beyond.

A friend told me yesterday about how this worked for him. He was about to ask someone to assist him in a project. It seemed like a perfectly good idea and he sat down to do it. However when he went to contact the person he suddenly experienced a very strong feeling of discomfort. He almost felt ill. He kept trying to make the call and the feeling of alarm persisted, so he decided God was trying to tell him not to make the call. A few days later he heard news that showed it would have been very unwise for him to have sought that man’s assistance.

My friend started with natural human logic. But God knows things we don’t know, so God can direct us with heavenly insight. Each of us, as Christians now have that kind of connection with God, making us a prophetic people. We may not ever have a message for someone, or say anything in public, but we are in touch with the heavenly realm and are enriched by that connection.

That’s how we can be led by the Holy Spirit and walk in the Spirit. We are able to sense God’s leading, caution or prompting as we journey through life. You may sense a need to pray for someone or about something, or a prompt to connect with someone or assist them. You may feel conviction about something God wants you to put right.

Being guided by God’s peace in your heart is a common way we experience knowing things with God’s help.

These and many other expressions of our connection with God are what make you a ‘prophetic person’, one who is able to hear directly from God, not needing a go-between to do it for you.

I encourage you to listen to God, and His Word, and to the promptings of the Holy Spirit, as you step into the wonderful reality that You Are A Prophet.

Have you noticed that enthusiasm wanes over time? Things you were once committed to cease to be so important and you get distracted.

Sadly we see this waning of interest and commitment in families and marriage, with study, careers, business, friendships, causes and so on. The Early Light of interest and engagement wanes and may even die out altogether.

We see this with the Israelites in the Old Testament over and over again. In Judges 2 verses 10-23 we have a summary that goes like this.

The people worshipped idols and abandoned worship of God.

God allowed them to be attacked and oppressed by enemies, so they cried out to God.

God sent judges to rescue them.

After being delivered the people returned to idolatry.

God again let them be attacked, so they called on God. God sent a deliverer, but after that the people returned to idolatry. Over and over again.

The people would be drawn back to the truth (the Light) that God is God and loved them and would protect them, but then they would abandon that truth (that Light) and worship idols. Their commitment to God waned quickly.

God warned His people, before He let them capture the Promised Land, that they would become rich and blessed and their hearts might stray from the Lord.

“When the Lord brings you into the land He swore to your fathers — with splendid cities you did not build, houses full of good things, wells you did not dig, and vineyards you did not plant— when you eat and are satisfied, be careful not to forget the Lord.” Deuteronomy 6:10-12

“Take care lest your heart be deceived and you turn aside and serve other gods and worship them.” Deuteronomy 11:16

In the New Testament the Apostle Paul challenged the church at Galatia that they had moved away from the truth he first taught them.

“I marvel that you are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ to another gospel” Galatians 1:6

“O foolish Galatians! Who bewitched you? … After starting in the Spirit, are you now finishing in the flesh?” Galatians 3:1,3

Our lives are not supposed to be shifting sand, drifting from one thing to another, but are to be established on the rock of truth, holding firm to the light of the gospel and our commitment to God and His truth.

Jesus warned us that if we build our lives on shifting sand our life will be ruined. He told of a man who built his house on sand.

“Rains fell, floods rose, and winds battered the house, and it collapsed with a great crash.” Matthew 7:27

So why do people drift away from what they should be anchored on? Selfishness is probably a key factor. People keep looking for what they think will be best for them, and in pride they think they can work out what that is.

Then human lust for comforts and indulgence prompts us toward things that promise to bless us, but which only destroy us.

On top of that, our enemy, Satan, is actively trying to lure us into the wrong paths and choices, stirring up our pride, lust and selfishness so we move away from God.

“The Spirit clearly states that in later times some will abandon faith to follow deceiving spirits and demonic teachings, lured by the hypocrisy of liars, whose consciences are seared with a hot iron.” 1Timothy 4:1,2

How do we find that First Light? Let me answer by asking what the original Light in our universe was? Those who don’t believe in God think the first light is the evolved world in its pristine condition. So they seek to connect with nature and are keen to protect the natural world, since it is their supposed foundation and only hope.

Christians, however, know that God was in the beginning, and God’s Word was in the beginning, and that God created light as the first expression of our natural world.

“In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth” Genesis 1:1

“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” John 1:1

“And God said, Let there be light. And there was light.” Genesis 1:3

The First Light that existed from the beginning is the truth of God as creator and Lord. The light is the light of the Gospel, the Good News, about Jesus, the Son of God, known as ‘The Word of God’, who died to save us from our sins, so we come into relationship with God.

Nothing in this universe is more wonderful or deserves greater commitment than that First Light that will also shine forever. All those other glittering things that distract you, and all your selfish impulses that lure you, and all the lies the enemy tells you can’t change the fact that the First Light still shines as brightly as ever. Stay in the sunshine of God’s truth and be carried into heaven’s glories for ever and ever by that First Light.

Despite Christ’s command that Christians love one another it seems the entire western culture is addicted to loving ‘self’ and not others. So it is no surprise that many Christians don’t have a clue what it means to actually love those around them.

“A new commandment I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so also you must love one another. By this all men will know you are My disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:34,35

Note a couple of things that are obvious in Jesus’ command. Firstly, this is not a nice suggestion, or something for extra spiritual people to do. It is a Command for all followers of Christ – all Christians. We can’t put it off and say we’ll get to it some day.

Note too that loving one another is something quite remarkable. Jesus said the world would recognise Christians because of their love for one another. That means, people in the world won’t do it, but only Christians will. We will stand out because we treat each other differently to the way non-Christians treat each other.

A further note is Christ’s description of how we are to love. We are to love one another in the same way Christ loved us. Jesus died for us. So the love He has for us is total and sacrificial. Jesus loved us with a ‘no-holds-barred’ commitment, going all the way for us.

That lines up with a working definition for love which I find very helpful. The kind of love we are to have for God and others is defined as ‘wanting the best for others, despite how much it costs us’. So there is sacrifice required for that kind of love.

No wonder love is not practiced by selfish people. No wonder loving one another is not normal in the world. No wonder we all struggle to get around to loving each other like that.

We are raised to think about ourselves from an early age. Yet not that long ago there was a stronger Christian ethos in society. Serving and caring were much higher values just a few generations ago. As the West became richer, with more toys and distractions to focus on, we all became more selfish and insular. We are now far less likely to care or to help those in need.

An evidence of that is the disappearance of volunteerism. It was once normal for people to volunteer to help charities, or their local schools and so on. Now we find charities hiring people to collect for them, or giving the collectors part of what is collected.

Our selfishness is at quite a high tide.

So, what would it look like if we were to care about others, wanting what was best for them, despite how much that challenged us?

I expect our care would first show up for those in need. We would be ready to get in our cars, get on the phone, or otherwise get to it to help those less fortunate than us.

In the early church those who had assets sold them and brought the money along to help those less well off. That was a clear expression of caring about others and not thinking only of self.

“There was not a needy person among them, for those who owned lands or houses sold them and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet to distribute to those who had need.” Acts 4:34,35

With all you possess, how many things would you readily sell up to give the money away? I’m not saying you have to, but I’m prompting you to consider your heart attitude toward really caring about those around you, especially fellow Christians.

Other ways to show love were revealed by Jesus in a parable of Sheep and Goats. A godly King told the righteous ones they had blessed him by doing certain things.

“I was naked and you clothed Me, I was sick and you looked after Me, I was in prison and you visited Me.” Matthew 25:36

The righteous ones asked when they had done that and the reply is quite telling.

“Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers of mine, you did for me.” Matthew 25:40

So God is expecting us to show love to one another by clothing them, caring for them when they are sick and visiting them in prison.

However it is terribly inconvenient to have to do those things. And that’s a real sticking point for spoiled people. They don’t want to be disturbed or interrupted from the important business of chasing their dreams or indulging their pleasures.

I am not attacking you if you are like that. I was raised in the same self-serving culture. But I am challenging you to realise Christ has given you a command. It is a command you can’t ignore. It is the command that you love fellow Christians. It is the command that you want the best for them, despite the personal cost to you. Despite your discomfort. Despite the fact that you won’t have as much time for your favourite pursuits. Despite the fact that you will give away some of your hard won assets. Despite the fact that you might miss your favourite treats at times.

One way that might help you address this command is to see it as an act of worship. How about giving up one night a week, or one day a month, to go and serve those in need. Make it an offering of your time and talents – offered to God. Worship God by taking time out to bless other Christians.

You can invite them for a meal, help them achieve an unfinished task, give them a boost by meeting some need they are stuck with, give them an outing, or help them in any of a thousand ways.

Some people miss things in life due to financial limits, or lack of transport, or weak health or strength. Some people need someone to speak up for them, even going to court for them. Others need wisdom to work through messy situations too complex for them.

Note that Christ’s command that we love one another is not about us going on a foreign mission trip. It’s about us doing things in our own home town, among those we know and meet regularly. It’s about caring for those who are right at hand, who could do with a little bit of love along the way.

I urge you to hear what Christ has commanded and to begin getting good at Loving Others.