Can't escape Him!

'Though they dig down to the depths of the grave, from there my hand will take them. Though they climb up to the heavens, from there I will bring them down. Though they hide themselves on the top of Carmel, there I will hunt them down and seize them. Though they hide from me at the bottom of the sea, there I will command the serpent to bite them. Though they are driven into exile by their enemies, there I will command the sword to slay them. I will fix my eyes upon them for evil and not for good.' Amos 9v2-4

The title to this blog makes it sound like a bad thing. That was entirely un-meant. In this passage, it is talking about the fact that for those in judgement, there was nowhere, no place for them to hide from God's judgement.

This made me think of the fact that should I go down to the depths of the grace, the Lord my God is there with me. Jesus is there with me. And that is not enough, He will bring me out of them. Should I try to climb up to the heavens, and become proud and arrogant, the Lord my God is there with me, above me, and will bring me down. Should I hide myself someplace remote, God is there to seize me, to bring me out...

Wherever I go, be it good or bad. Whatever situation I walk through, be it good or bad. Whenever, be it morning or night, be it when I am awake or asleep. He is there with me. I cannot escape His love (praise God!) and I have a choice to make: whether to let this amazing love, awesome love, fantastic and good love envelop me and change me, or to turn away from it and carry on trying to ignore it or hide from it.

I choose to revel in God's love. I choose to let His love envelop my every thought, my every movement, my every word. I choose to let Him shape and guide my life. My life is no longer mine but His. I gave it to Him over four years ago. And just as He gave His life that I may live, I give mine to Him that He might work out His plan and purpose. This is the best way to be.

What do you put your trust in?

"Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the Lord our God. They are brought to their knees and fall, but we rise up and stand firm." - Psalm 20v7-8

In what do you put your trust? In whom do you put your trust? Reflect on yourself. Have a look at what you trust, who you trust. Where does your confidence come from? Money? Appearance? Attention? Gadgets? Retail therapy (SHOPPING!)? Your boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife? Your friends? What keeps you going? What spurs you on? Is it the thought of a pay rise? Is it the thought of a better gadget? Is it a new car (equivalent of a chariot or horse)? A better grade?
What would it take to undermine your confidence? Money can be lost. Your appearance fades with time. Attention may not always be available. Gadgets are constantly being invented and the latest becomes old in a short space of time. Shopping is temporary. Even your partner may let you down. Your friends are almost bound to do so (although that's not what we should expect). One can always be paid more. One can always have a better car. One can always write a better essay.

God is consistent. God is eternal. God is before us and behind us. God is. He says: 'I am'. That is His name. He is the Rock. The firm foundation. God cannot be undermined. What God says about you cannot be undermined. It cannot be lost - as long as we put our trust in Him. Primarily and ultimately, my trust is in God. When that is so - all else just falls into place.

This is who I am

I know that I know that I know that Jesus will never leave me. I know that I am His child, that I am adopted into His family. I know that nothing can separate me from His love, that my sins are forgiven and forgotten.

I am holy and blameless. I am His chosen possession. I will always prosper. Goodness and mercy will follow me for the rest of my life. He always listens to me when I pray. I know that I am part of the people of God, that I have been sent by him, that I am anointed, that I carry his authority.

I know that I know that I know that I am going to spend eternity with Jesus, that the knowledge of the glory of the Lord will cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, that Jesus is Lord of all. Thank You God that it is a gift from You and by Your precious grace that I am all these things and I am convinced of that and that I can trust in You and Your Word.

When you reach the point of stress

Ezekiel shared something really amazing at worship group last night. I thought I might share it on here, because I believe it's going to have a huge impact on my life, and it would be selfish for me to keep that for myself.

We are encouraged to do as much as possible to serve God. We are encouraged to do things whole-heartedly and commit to things whole-heartedly - to put our all into what we do. That is all very amazing ad very good. Our heart must be such that we want to serve, and we should react to that heart by serving.

But this inevitably leads to a busy life. Sometimes, one becomes stressed because of the business that a full life entails.

It is not God's plan for us to be stressed. He does not want us to be stressed. A stressed-out and reluctant servant does not do a very good job and that is not glorifying to God.
When we reach the point of stress, we have a choice to make. We either carry on and become stressed. Or we submit to God's will and resolve that stress. Jesus reached that point of stress at Gethsamane where He sweated blood at the knowledge of what He was undertaking. He even asked that the cup be passed from Him (that He would not have to go to the cross), and had He carried on and become stressed, at the point of His flogging even before the cross, He would not have been to undertake the huge task that the cross entailed. But He did not choose to carry on, but He succumbed to God's will and not His own. Thus He resolved that stress. And He went on to die and rise again! .

When we reach that point of stress, we must realise that we can choose to submit to God's will, let His grace envelop us and in doing so resolve the stress and carry on. Personally I think that is absolutely AMAZING!

Reflections from last night...

Had a weird moment yesterday night when couldn't actually think about more than one thing at a time... so the whole multi-tasking thing went out the window and I had sort stuff out in my mind one at a time. I couldn't even think about a whole concept, but had to think about it step by step... It was very strange and I didn't like it very much, apart from when Becky and I were having Becky, Ee-Reh and God time, and I got a fresh revelation of how AWESOME God's Love is.
Firstly, we need to have more revelation of who God is, what God is, and how God is... I am totally GOBSMACKED at God. I'm awestruck, my mind is blown away, I'm love-struck.

My heart always softens when I see any couple who are old that are clearly more in love with eachother than when they first met. But I am loved more than that. God has loved me since before creation. With me in mind He created the world. But with the purpose of reflecting His glory. But He made the coolest way possible of us doing that. All we have to do is love Him. It isn't a complicated choice to love God, who has loved us since before creation. His love for us is simple yet profound, our love for Him comes out of a simple choice of accepting who He is, and and all that came from His love. God is Love. Without God there would be no love. Because of God's love I feel worthy (He has made me so). If my heart softens at the sight of an old couple in love with eachother, how can it not soften at a glimpse of God?

Jesus lives in me, and that means I can love as He does. My whole life, I want to become more and more like Him. I want people to be love-struck when they see me - not at me in myself, but at Jesus in me, and for them to meet with the Lord and Saviour of my life.

...and that torrent came from not being able to think straight. God really does work through every situation...

Excited about Love

You know that when you love somebody, you can depend on them... Do you just depend on them a little bit? I mean, when you really love somebody... I don't even think about whether to depend on them or not. I'm confident in my dependence.

I'm reading through the Minor Prophets (I think I already said that on here) and am in Hosea, and today's reading was what I read on my A-Level Results day! It was pretty cool really, seeing as how I started my uni exams today... I proceeded to get really excited (and am still excited) about what I was reading. The verse that God really put on my heart that day was this:
Hosea 12v.6
"So now, come back to your God! Act on the principles of love and justice, and always live in confidence dependence on your God."
I read that verse, and rang up school to get my results. It was quite amusing really, having got them, I thought about going back to sleep but thought that was a bit cruel on my mum, so I got up and told her. I can live in confident dependence - not on myself, and not anything else - but on God.
Greater is He that is in me than He that is in the world. Greater is He that is in me than He that wrote my exam papers. God's greater than all of that.

He has a plan and purpose for my life.

His will is better for me than my will.

In my weakness, He is made strong. The more I diminish, the stronger He becomes in me! I want to be weak enough for His will to be enacted in my life.

What I'm thinking about is this: What do I depend on? On whom do I depend? Is what I depend on dependable? Are the people I depend on dependable? I don't know about you, but when I depend on someone, I trust them, and I trust them with a lot of things. I trust them not to mess around in the relationship I have with them, I trust their words. I trust them, depend on them. Isn't that how friendship grows? But ultimately, where does my dependence lie? I'm not independent. To be independent is a sad and lonely place to be...

Ultimately, I depend on God. Ultimately, I trust God, because I can do so confidently. Why is that? Because His will is greater than mine. Because His strength is made perfect in my weakness. Because He chose me and has a plan and purpose for my life. (Same for you! GET EXCITED!) So this is it. I will act on the principles of love and justice and will always live in confident dependence on my God!

Someone like you

It's someone like you that God predestined to be holy and blameless.
It's someone like you that chose, even before He created the earth, to reflect His glory.
It's someone like you that God has spoken through in songwriting, singing, music.
It's you that Jesus thought of on the Cross. It's you that He thought of when He rose again.
It's you that Jesus wants. It's for you that God created the heavens and the earth and sent Jesus to die.
God can use someone like you. Because He has made you worthy.
You are worthy. Worthy to serve God. He made you worthy.
God loves you. He chose to love you. And He won't go back on that choice.

Overwhelming Love

To continue on the theme of Love... since God has continued to speak to me about it. It's cool, and so awesome. Awesome not in the sense that it can become known (as another word for amazing) but awesome in the sense that it has filled me with awe. I'm going through the minor prophets at the moment, still in Hosea. Hope to have finished them by late February, early March, but will see, because I don't just want to read them, I want them to affect me.

'When I found Israel, it was like finding grapes in the desert; when I saw your fathers, it was like seeing the early fruit on the fig tree.' - Hosea 9v.10a

So here I found an image of how much God loves us. Grapes in a desert? It's crazy - out of all that barreness, a grape. How precious would that grape be to you? I would get so excited about that grape, I would love that grape. That grape would be so precious to me. And that's how previous we are to Christ! Like a grape, a juicy grape, in the midst of a desert. Imagine how precious it would be, a great find! Yeah... just like that. (And then we come to figs... which I don't like. But I remind myself that God made them so God likes them seeing that God created them and said they are good. So we're precious like that too!)

'But when they came to Baal Peor, they consecrated themselves to that shameful idol and became as vile as the thing they loved. ' - Hosea 9v.10b

How much must the people of Israel broken God's heart when they turned their back on him? When that people who were to God as precious as a grape in the midst of a desert turned their back on Him who chose them. It must have broken His heart! But as I've read through Hosea, I have had fresh revelation of God's grace. As much as Israel turned their back, as much as God, through Hosea, gave warning after warning, when they turned back to Him, He had grace for them. It has struck me that His grace is sufficient. And I don't want to break God's heart. I won't turn my back. I love Jesus. How can I?

To wrap it up (!) I've found a real overwhelming love in Hosea. A love for God's people. And because Jesus died and rose again, we are His people, and that overwhelming love is for us. I find that totally awesome.

Unconditional Love

Much of what God has been speaking to me recently has concerned love. Today, He has proved his consistency, and challenged me on loving people unconditionally. To love unconditionally is to love when they don't love you back, when they reject you, when they outright hate you. To love unconditionally is to take on the true nature of Christ. To love unconditionally is hard, but a fresh revelation of how much God loves us comes with it. I totally believe that as we try to do as God does, in this sense, love as God loves, this is one of the times at which God reveals more of His nature to us.
Unconditional Love endures. It perseveres. It forgives seventy times seven times. And it doesn't just end with, 'Yeah I love them'. It speaks not from the mouth but from the actions.
Unconditional love started with God. We can love unconditionally because of Christ in us. Unconditional love is powerful - it's why God created us, it's why Jesus died on the cross for all our sins. But because of its power, it is also why Jesus rose again. Because God wanted to have a people who worshipped him, who reflected his glory. That means... God wanted a people who loved unconditionally. That was his purpose. That is still his purpose. God still wants a people who love unconditionally.