Weeding our Thought Patterns

This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.  1 John 4:10

and

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!  I John 3:1

I was weeding my lawn this week.  I know that sounds insane but we had bindii and dandelion weeds running right through the back yard. At a distance my grass looks nice and lush but up close you can see the weeds.  I don’t like using sprays and besides, I find digging out weeds immensely satisfying when I manage to get the whole plants out, roots and all.  

It occurred to me that we can be like that.  We may have been holding onto wrong ideas because of something we had heard years ago.  These thoughts may look good from a distance but up close we can see they are pretending to be Biblical truths when in fact they are the opposite. 

We can have an idea that we have to do behave at all times to be loved by God and if we do something bad, God will punish us.   We have it set in or minds “Do good, get good; do bad, get beat.”

These lies can become rooted in our minds and our lives without us even realising it. It can take a bit of work to remove them but we can do it with a little bit of effort and time.   

We start to remove these lies when we meditate on the truth that God has always loved us, even before we knew about His existence.  God loves us simply because we are breathing!  

And we remove more of these lies when we remember that we don’t have to do anything to get God’s attention because we already have it.  

Every time you sit and focus on God’s unconditional love for you are digging out a weed of wrong thought, and every time you sit at His feet allowing His love to flow over you, another weed has been removed.    And you too will find it immensely satisfying when you get rid of a wrong thought and realise God is hanging out to lavish some love on you and all you need to do is accept it.

Choices in Tough Times

We all go through tough times. We can be disappointed in ourselves or in others. Medical reports can be less than positive, those we trust can betray us, and relationships we thought were unbreakable can be shattered in the blink of an eye.

Sometimes we can feel that life is like swimming through treacle: lots of effort only to end up feeling you are going nowhere fast.  When you’re mired in the sticky swamp of hurts, how do you climb out?

Denial doesn’t make things better, feeling sorry for yourself leads you to focussing on the problem and bartering with God never works. 

I’ve found that what does work is making a choice.  We all have a choice between holding onto hurts or letting them go, a choice between embracing offense or forgiving the one who hurt you, a choice between growing bitter or overcoming and being better,  a choice between hiding in the shadows of despair or walking in the light of Jesus our Saviour. 

In tough times we have choices.  The question is…what will be your choice?

Living in the Shelter of The Most High

You who live in the shelter of the Most High, who abide in the shadow of the Almighty, will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress; my God, in whom I trust.”  Psalm 91:1,2  (NRSV)

 A few days ago, one of my friends posted a cute photograph of a mother and her baby birds on Facebook. The mother bird was sitting on a branch with two baby birds snuggling up next to her, one under each wing.

This photo spoke to me about how God wants to be our shelter and our refuge just as much as the mother bird was the shelter and refuge of her babies. He wants us to lean on him, to take refuge in Him and to trust Him with all of our yesterdays, todays and tomorrows.  Our God wants to encircle us with His wings.

To get close enough to God for His wings to wrap around us, we need to spend more time with Him.  Sounds obvious but how?   I’ve found a few things to help me in my relationship with God and they may be of help to you.  In my experience, talking with God, reading His Word and daily worship will help bring us closer.  Even if you can only do one of these things, start with prayer – talking AND listening. You need to spend as much time listening to God as talking with Him.  

After all, it is Gods desire to get close with you, so why not give Him that opportunity?

Act from love, not from fear.

“Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me” John 15:4TM

The sign outside the Church at Medowie reads “ACT FROM LOVE, NOT FROM FEAR”

It's only six words, but to me this sign means "Act from a place of love for others, for oneself and for God".  

I reckon the place we stand is as important as what we do.  If we remain in Jesus, our acts are from a place of love, and that love will produce an abundance of lasting tasty fruit.  However, if we are concerned that others won’t like us if we don’t behave the way they expect, then we are acting out of fear.  Acting out of fear can be exhausting over a period of time, as we are always second guessing every word and/or action.  

When we act from a place of love, the results can be eternal and widespread for the Kingdom of God, whereas acting from fear may not last longer than the act itself.  

This is what St Francis’ six word sign says to me…what does it mean to you?

Through...

“Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I fear no evil; for you are with me” Psalm 23:4

Not long back, I read this quote from Joel Osteen “God has brought you through before, and He will bring you through again. Make a decision each day, to choose faith over fear.”

I decided to do a bit of research and count how many times the word ‘through’ was in the NRSV Bible.  I started at Genesis and went to the end of the Old Testament before I gave up.  And the word ‘through’ is written 298 times!  

Thinking about it, ‘through’ must be one of God’s favourite words.  After all, if He used it so many times in the Bible, then we need to work out what it means for us.  

When I think of the word ‘through’, I think of a journey.  Through is not a place to stop; but rather, it’s a place in which you travel to get to your destination.

To me this means, whenever we find ourselves in dark places, we need to stick close by God and He will take us through them.  After all, when it’s darkest, God’s light will always shine brightest.

Our opinion matters to God

God asked Ezekiel "Do you believe that these dead bones can live? (Ezekiel 37:3) 

Don’t you think it's interesting that God actually wants to know what we believe?

For me, the thought that God wants to know what His people think and believe is nothing short of mind blowing!   Clearly, our God wants us to be intelligent and authentic in our faith, always ready to answer if someone asks us why we believe in Jesus.  Yes, Jesus said that we are to have a childlike faith but at the same time, we are not to be childish in our thought life.

If God asked us what we believe, would we still have the same answers we had as a child? How has our faith grown over the last year?