Hard work

If there is one thing that really bugs me, it is lazy people. It is probably because I’m the total opposite. I have never shied away from putting my shoulder to the wheel and letting some sweat drip from my brow.  It is sometimes dangerous, because if you’re not careful, work becomes dominant in all areas in your life including your spiritual life.

We grow up with the notion that you have to work for what you want. The harder you work the better you feel about yourself and the bigger the reward. This is dangerous when it is applied to our salvation.

Romans 6:23 states that salvation is a free gift from God and Ephesians 2:8-9 says that we are saved by grace and not by works, but nooo…. We have to prove these scriptures wrong. We WANT to work for our salvation. We feel saved when we have evangelized ten people a week, when we have fed a thousand orphans, when we have given of ourselves till we bled. For me it was even easier when I grew up; say a prayer before you go to bed, sit still in church on Sunday, make sure you get you communion license and voila! You’re saved! It is as easy as that.

Now don’t get me wrong, it is important to evangelize, feed the poor and all that, because Jesus told us to do so, but it will not get us saved. If we have been saved we cannot earn it. We can’t lose it if we don’t do these things, it is a GIFT. We can work and do good deeds until the cows come home, it will not change a smidgen on our salvation.

I have seen so many Christians who are trapped by this lie. They work so hard and are even proud of what they have achieved in Christ’s Name, but it has nothing to do with their salvation. This is so sad. We must work for God to get done that which He called us to do and rest in the assurance that our salvation is a gift already obtained for us by Christ.

Who's there?

I was thinking today: why do we keep on struggling with sin? I suppose it is in our fallen human nature to do the wrong thing. If you put some grass in front of a lion and a steak in front of a sheep, neither would eat because it is not in their nature. So when we sin, do we move away from under God’s blessing? Does sin keep God from opening heaven and raining down blessings upon us?

I personally believe that God does not wait to bless us on the grounds of what we accomplish in our spiritual walk; He has already blessed us (Eph 1:3). The blessing is always there. It is for us to take and enjoy. Being holy and obedient is the catalyst of living in that blessing; this is how we experience the blessing. Sin only keeps us from experiencing it. We shoot ourselves in the foot every time we sin. God can never change. It is us who change and then we blame God for this or that, because our spiritual vision becomes distorted.

What is blessing? Is it material things? Is it money? Is it health? Is it love or happiness? Is it safety? Is it comfort? Is it maybe something totally different to what we interpret it? So what is it to be blessed or what is the blessing of the Lord?

In 2 Cor 11:22-33 we read about the Apostle Paul’s sufferings for the Lord. He had little material things. He was not rich. He was not safe from robbers or murderers. His life was far from comfortable. Yet he was blessed by the Lord. What is this blessing from the Lord that we want so badly?

The Ark of the Covenant represented the presence of God. In 2 Sam 6:10-12 we read that the Ark (presence of the Lord) stayed in the house of Obed-Edom the Gittite. The Lord’s blessing was on him and his house. This is God’s blessing in our lives: His presence. Have you ever felt His presence in a room or come over you in worship? It is the most awesome experience you can imagine. To have God near you every day; to walk with Him and talk with Him and hear Him talk is the blessing of God.

Sin keeps us from experiencing God’s presence. When His presence is not there we are lost and in the dark. We feel alone and cold, but holiness and obedience brings us right into His presence. All the other things are God’s hand of provision on our lives, but His presence is the true blessing.

A world of words

There is something I have come to believe in - prayer.  We pray for people miles away and God heals them. In the beginning God said…and an entire universe came into being. All of this happened through the power of words. God says that if we want something we must just ask. To ask is to use words. When we use words, when we communicate with God, things happen.

The opposite of this is also true. When we speak bad things we become destroyers. In Proverbs 18:21 we read that life and death lie in the power of the tongue.  We can create life or cause death with our words. We generally don’t take words seriously, because we just talk; we don’t really mean this or that. Have you ever said to yourself: “I can’t.” “It is not worth fighting for.” “Experience tells me this will not work.” “I will never get to that level. “ “I might as well give up now.”

We are in the predicaments we find ourselves, because of the words we use. They are like bombs in our own lives.

The battlefield rages with explosives and people running everywhere. Smoke covers the ground and bodies lie scattered. A solder takes up a bazooka and reaches into his ammunition case. He loads it with strife and shoots the nearest person. Then he reaches into his case again and loads his weapon with hate. He fires and the next victim bites the dust. He takes his machine-gun that is loaded with gossip and he mows down every person he can see. Almost everyone he shoots was on his side, but he does not care, because he is a solder in Christ’s army. The medics come out to attend to the wounded.  They inject them with encouragement, love, kindness and words of hope. It is the medics that are the true heroes.             
                                                                                                                                                                     
We use words like mortars or missiles to take out those around us. We say to others: “You idiot, are you stupid?” “You are such a lazy slob.” “You just won’t cut it.” You can probably think of much stronger, more hurtful words that you have used to harm others. We do this, because we have no idea how powerful our words are. 

We all can recall times when people hurt us with their words, but it is the times when someone else’s words build us up that stay with us. Why don’t we become the people who, through the Spirit of God, build others up through our words rather than breaking them down? Let’s not stop there, but also become people that speak words of Life into your our own lives. We are who God said we are - a royal priesthood, a holy nation. That settles that.

A witness takes the stand

When there is a court case, there are usually witnesses that are called to testify. They are called because they have seen the event in question. Now you get true witnesses that tell the truth, and then you get false witnesses that lie or bend the truth. That really annoys me.  They are an insult to our justice system and the innocent have to pay the price.

In Matthew 28, Jesus said that we would be His witnesses. Every day that we go out into the world, when we walk among people or when we talk to people, we take the witness stand for Christ. We have the true knowledge of who Christ is. We are to witness Christ to others. We are on the witness stand twenty-four-seven and we cannot afford to lie for one moment. We have a relentless accuser, Satan, who will stop at nothing to bring us down, but we also have a faithful Advocate who has never lost a case. When we walk in the world, let our testimonies be true. We should not twist the gospel or the image of Christ to fit us. We are either hot or cold (child of God or child of Satan). Being a Christian that twists the truth makes us lukewarm. They know the Lord but do not do as He says. This is false witnessing.

How do we look as witnesses every day we take the stand for Christ? Are we true to Christ? Let us be good witnesses to Christ everywhere we may go or walk to those we meet and to those whose eyes are on us.

God is always near

My son is about 18 months now. We were walking on a campus dirt road today. I was walking in front and Josiah-Seth followed with his plastic lawnmower. Now I know there are cars driving on this road also, but they are only permitted to go 20km/h and it is easy to hear them come. He was dawdling and playing more than following me. I kept calling and watched him and made sure that I was at a safe distance should a car pass by. He slowly came wandering in my direction when I heard a car approach; I ran to him and got him out of harm’s way. He knew of nothing and was more upset with the fact that he was disturbed while playing than the fact that he could have been hit by a car. I was just glad nothing happened to him.

Isn’t this a wonderful picture of our Father in heaven? He is always near, watching, calling and protecting. We walk in the road of life with much danger around; not even knowing what might befall us. We meander around and sort of hear God calling us somewhere in the distance. When we get into harm’s way He yanks us out and sometimes it hurts, but it is because He loves us and want to protect us. It reminds me of the verse in Hebrews 13:5 that states He will never leave or forsake us. Wow, what a great promise of comfort. If we as earthly fathers are so protective, how much more will our heavenly Father protect us?

Christian Atheism

I read in a mission’s magazine today about Christians that become atheists. One of the couples was called to missions and they studied hard. The husband educated himself very well with the Word and then went to translate the Bible amongst a people group. They were in ministry for a couple of years when the husband decided to denounce his faith and become an open atheist.  According to the writer of the article (who is a professor and a specialist in her field with a couple of books behind her name), this is a trend among Christians to denounce their faith in Christ. Some of the reasons for this are the fact that the more one studies the Bible the more questions arise and doubt creeps in. After time has had its way, the person finds himself in atheist land.

I must admit, this really bugged me for there were and are times that I don’t understand deeper things in the Word and I feel doubt creep in, but in order not to give doubt a foothold I’m reminded of the Scripture in John  6:53-69. In this scripture, Jesus tells His disciples that if they don’t eat of Him and drink His blood they have no part of Him. Man! That must have sounded really bad to the rest of the group. I probably would have been the first to show my heels. Most of the disciples did not understand what Jesus was saying, and as a result, became the first atheists - from believers who walked with God to atheists who deserted God.

Now here is the pivotal point in my faith: Jesus turned to the twelve and asked them if they were going to bail as well? Peter turned to Him and said something along these lines:  “There is no one to whom we can go; You have eternal life, You are God. We have found the Truth. To turn and go somewhere else would be suicide. We don’t understand exactly what You have said, but we trust You”.

Now, there are times that I read the Word and I am not sure what is going on, but I know  that I have found God and I choose to put all my trust in Him. I would not know where to go or what to do for He is my all. Even in times when it feels that He is not near or I am far away from Him or when I have fallen for the hundredth time I have to trust and believe.