Last week, when I was driving home from work, I was thinking about the word “hate” and how many times we say it during our day. We might open the curtains in the morning and see the gray skies and the rain pouring down and we say “I hate this weather”. Or we might be talking to a friend who loves sea food and we say “I hate sea food”. We hear people saying things like: “I hate the way he/she speaks to me” or, “I hate his/her voice”, maybe something like: “I hate my job” or “I hate my life” or even “I hate you”. I could think of many more “I hates” but I think you get the idea. The problem is that I don’t think we actually know what hate means or perhaps we don’t understand the weight it carries. This is what the good old dictionary says: hate – loathe, detest, dislike greatly, abhor, abominate, despise, execrate. These words are not very good ones are they? And, if you try to substitute hate in the sentences above by any of these words, we would definitely not say them, well, at least most of them. Hate like many other words has lost its impact on the day-to-day life. People don’t even blink when they hear it coming out of mouths. It is just something people say.

I then started to think about the impact of hate in my day-to-day life. Can a Christian actually hate? Is that something I should be concerned about? Does that impact my testimony?

There is a verse in Proverbs that says:

To fear the Lord is to hate evil; I hate pride and arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech. (Proverbs 8:13)

At this point some people might be shocked as most of us only like to hear about love, which is displayed from the very beginning of the Bible, to the very end. We don’t like talking about words like hate and wrath. But if we look back at the verse and read it this way: “to fear the Lord is to detest, abhor, abominate, despise evil; I detest, abhor, abominate, despise pride and arrogance, evil behaviour and perverse speech”, then it is right for the Christian to hate. In fact these are things that we should hate.

You must be familiar with Psalm 139, if you are not, you might want to read it. In this Psalm we have a wonderful display from David of pure devotion to His God. Something worth paying attention to. He spends the first 18 verses of the Psalm declaring that God is infinite, incomprehensible, self-existent, self-sufficient, eternal, unchanging, omniscient, omnipresent, omnipotent and sovereign. These are all the wonderful attributes that only God has. Then, there is a change in the tone and theme of David’s Psalm. This is what he says:

¹⁹ If only you, God, would slay the wicked! Away from me, you who are bloodthirsty!
²⁰ They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. ²¹ Do I not hate those who hate you, Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you?
²² I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies. (emphasis mine)

This reaction might seem strange, too harsh even, not very Christian like, but this reaction is coming from a man who feared God. David knows God and understands who God is and who he is and he knows that it is utterly impossible to love, like or show any kind of affection for sin. We cannot fear the Lord and love sin. No. We must hate sin.

David was fighting wars and there was a lot of bloodshed (literally) and he did have many enemies to fight. One might think we don’t need to think or say the same thing because we are in a different time. We are still at war though, our war is a Spiritual war. The flesh fighting against the Spirit. (Galatians 5:16-18)

There is more we can learn from David. This is how he ends his Psalm – David is concerned with the sin that was in his heart.

²³ Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. ²⁴ See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.

It is important for us to read Proverbs 8:13 and see that to fear the Lord is to hate sin starting with my own. Looking at my own heart as David did. That is what he asked God to do. We are not to hate the people who sin, but sin itself.

You might be asking but what does it mean to fear the Lord? It is to know who He is. To show reverence and to understand how majestic, awesome, mighty, loving and gracious He is. It is to understand all that David understood in the Psalm he wrote. It is also to understand how small we are in comparison. How do I even start to fear the Lord? A starting point might be when I know that I don’t know; when I understand that I don’t understand and when I know that I am a creature and God is the Creator. To see His greatness and power and to surrender to Him completely. When we do that we will hate sin. We will detest, abhor, dislike, sin. We also need to understand how serious sin is. What it cost. When we fear the Lord and trust him, he will help us make better choices which will help us to focus on living a life that pleases God and Him alone.

Do not be discouraged. We can ask God to search our hearts and help us in this fight we have. He has saved us and has given us His Spirit to help us each day.

God bless.

Have you ever been in a position where you know you have sinned, you have done something wrong and all you do is try to cover it up, or you blame it on your circumstances, or on other people? You know how bad it is but you try to live as if it is not there. Maybe you haven’t been in that position but you have come across people that have. If I am honest, completely honest with myself, there were plenty of times when I found myself in that place.

King David also found himself in that situation. You might be familiar with the story of David and Bathsheba (2 Samuel 11) and you know that David committed adultery, then to cover it up he had Uriah killed. The problem with sin is that it cannot be hidden from God. God sees the heart and God sent the prophet Nathan to confront David and although God took away David’s sin there were consequences for his sin. There are always consequences.

David knew he had sinned, but he also knew he had sinned against God. David wrote Psalm 51 after Nathan confronted him. This is what He says in verses 1 to 4:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. ³ For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me. ⁴ Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight; so you are right in your verdict and justified when you judge. (emphasis mine)

David didn’t come before God with excuses about his circumstances and he didn’t blame any of his servants or family members. No. He knew he had sinned against his God and he was broken before his King.

We can see that David knew what God desires:

¹⁶ You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. ¹⁷ My sacrifice, O God, is^[b] a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise.(verses 16 and 17)

God wants us to come before him with a broken heart, not bringing sacrifices or making promises but in humility, recognising we need Him to help us. David desperately needed God’s mercy and pleads for it. He knew he needed God to clean his heart from his sin. He knew God’s love and compassion. David had experienced God’s love, compassion and protection many times in his life.

¹ Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love; according to your great compassion blot out my transgressions. ² Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin. (verses 1 and 2)

Until now, we have seen a man who knows what he has done is wrong and has offended God. He is not trying to get away from it, in fact he knows he needs God. He knows he cannot erase the past or the consequences of his choices, but he desperately wants his relationship with God restored. So he prays the famous verses:

¹⁰ Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me.¹¹ Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me. ¹² Restore to me the joy of your salvation and grant me a willing spirit, to sustain me.

Picture the King here, broken, completely helpless, completely aware of his failure, fully prepared to give to God his life and trust in Him. David needed to bow before God in repentance, with nothing to offer except a broken and contrite heart, before he could ask God to create a new and pure heart within him. What a great example we have here of how we should act when we sin against God.

One of the greatest problems we have is that we do not think the bad choices we make, the sin we allow in our lives, are against God. We tell ourselves we are only hurting other people, or even worse, we say we are trying to protect ourselves against other people. No. Sin, no matter how big or how small is always against God. It always breaks our fellowship with our King and Lord.

In the case of King David, God sent Nathan, the message God had for David was pretty clear. There was no escape from the truth. David saw his sin exposed and he knew only God could help him.

We have the Holy Spirit living in us if we have given our lives to Jesus. This is one of the works of the Holy Spirit. Working in us to convince and convict us of sin in our hearts. He guides us and helps us to live in a way that is pleasing to God. When we sin, He convicts us. Puts that feeling in our hearts that we have done wrong. We must listen. We must repent and must come before God and confess our sin and cling on to the fact that God can and will create in us a pure heart if we are willing to submit to His rule over our lives.

In 1 John 1 verse 9 we read:

⁹ If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. 

We don’t need to find excuses. We know that on this side of Eden sin still afflicts us. We know we are in a battle of the flesh against the spirit, and, when we fall let us not make excuses and play blame games. God wants us to come before Him with a broken and humble heart. We need to say sorry (not the “say sorry” we teach our children sometimes). No. We need to feel remorse. To feel the sorrow that comes with acknowledging we have sinned against the most gracious, merciful, holy, God. The sorrow that robs us of sleep, taste, and all senses until all we can do is pour our hearts out before God, recognising we need His help. We must remember how much He loves us. He gave His Son to save us and redeem us. We are secure in His hands. So may we approach his throne as David did.

God bless.

_{Photo by Engin Akyurt}

Have you ever gone on a long hike and found a spring of water to drink from? There is nothing more refreshing than spring water! I remember when I was a teenager and part of our church youth group, our youth pastor used to organise hikes to “Pedra Grande” (which means big rock) in my hometown. Pedra Grande is 1,418m high and it used to take us 4 hours to hike to the top. We used to gather at someone’s house and play games and then leave in the middle of the night to get there just before sunrise! It was great to walk with our friends and enjoy the fun. Well, while it lasted. After a couple of hours of walking, on top of the fact that none of us had slept, it seemed pretty silly to have agreed to take part in this activity. One by one we would go quiet and just walk in a single file, heads low and muscles aching, eyes red and mind drifting to a semi-sleep walk state.

About half way up we would come to a spring, half hidden from the path by the lavish vegetation – what a moment, when we would hear our leader say, “We will rest here for a little bit and drink from the spring!”. Even now as I type these words I can remember the feeling of the cold fresh water on my face and the amazing taste! It was enough to brighten our spirits and spur us on the walk. There were 2 points on that trail with springs and we made good use of them, drinking and refilling our bottles, feeling encouraged we were almost at the end of our journey. Of course, at that point all we wanted was to get to the top and we weren’t even thinking about the journey back home. Once on the top of the rock we would just drop and wait for the sunrise! God never disappoints! He is such an artist and the amazing skies declare His majesty and glory. We would sit there eating the food we had packed and drinking the fresh water from the spring.

Eventually, the food ran out and so did the water. The tiredness would get the best of us and we would just lay there sleeping for a couple of hours and then have a Bible study before heading back down. During the day it was really different and sometimes scary to see where we had walked in the dark. The spring of water didn’t look much and one might think what the fuss was all about, until you tasted the water again. I do love a spring!

The Bible tells us that Jesus got tired after a journey and he felt thirsty (I love these moments in Scripture when we are reminded that Jesus was fully human and he knew what it is like to feel tired and thirsty). He came to a well where he spoke to a woman and asked her for some water. This woman was a Samaritan! Jews and Samaritans were not friends and did not associate with one another at all. You can read all about this wonderful encounter in John chapter 4. This is one of my favourite passages in the Gospels. He displays such love and compassion to this woman. He knew who she was and all that she had done and he was there offering her the greatest gift of all – salvation. She was really surprised he would talk to her and ask her to give him some water and this is what He says to her in verse 10:

“Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”

Imagine what it would be like to live in a very hot area of the world and have to fetch water in the middle of the day and now be faced with this option of having living water (running water). I think it is hard for us to imagine this situation as all we have to do is turn a tap and we have running water. But Jesus knew how hard it was in his time to get water from a well and as refreshing as it might have been to those tired, hot and thirsty, that water would only quench thirst for a short while and soon they would need to return to the well to get more. But the water Jesus was offering was very different than the water this woman or any of us are used to. This is what He says in verses 13 and 14:

“Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

Jesus is offering her salvation, a water that will never stop flowing and it will last for eternity. Of course at first, she thought Jesus was just talking about actual water, but when Jesus speaks to her about her life and He talks about the kingdom of God and who He is, she believes him and she goes and tells the whole town about Him. What a fantastic day that was! Many Samaritans received this wonderful gift. This offering of salvation of a living water, that will satisfy for eternity, is still available to all who will believe and follow Him. I have drunk water from many different springs through my life and I can say that spring water is the best water you can find. I can also say I have drunk from the water Jesus offers and I know that I have been saved and forgiven for all eternity! Now, that is a feeling that satisfies. No matter what happens, I am secure in Him.

All praise be to Him who is the fountain of all life and life eternal!

I love looking at old photographs. I like picking them up and recalling the momentous occasions which caused us to stop and capture the moment. When I was little I remember going to visit my grandparents over the weekends and spending a long time listening to their stories as they proudly showed us their photographs. It was always very interesting to see how sometimes my grandma would be excited and cheerful about a particular photo, and sometimes she would pause, look deep into another with a longing for someone she had long lost. She would cry and she would sometimes laugh about the moments she treasured. Through the years, my sisters and I learnt the stories and we could recite them word for word, including the facial expressions and emotions.

As we walk through life we tend to mark moments in our history, don’t we? A birthday party, a first day or last day of school, a graduation ceremony, a group of close friends enjoying time together, a fun day at church camp or a dressing up contest set up by the youth leader. Our weddings, our children and their firsts. Other things we capture, a first car, a family pet, a treasured gift, a house we buy (sometimes, we take a photo of the house we wish we had). We tend to photograph the people who mean something to us in the hope we won’t forget them or how much we appreciate them. When visiting different places we click away trying to capture the place in the hope that when we look at them, we will remember the textures, the smells and sounds, the beauty and the impact the places had in our lives at that particular moment. As it happens, we capture happy moments but we also capture the sad ones. The broken leg, the stiches we had after a bad fall, the last photo with someone we love and we know will no longer be with us when we next visit. The photographs we take and the stories we tell are used to pass on to the next generation a bit of ourselves and our legacy.

In the Bible, we have the stories that God inspired men to write which tells us all about Him and His wonderful plan to rescue us. In the Old Testament we read the account of creation and a perfect place where God placed Adam and Eve and they were living in perfect harmony under His rule and enjoying His blessings. (Genesis 1) We see a sad day when sin entered the world when Adam and Even disobeyed God and creation was cursed and there was separation between God and humanity (Genesis 3). God so loved the world even then, he chose a people for Himself. God promised Abraham he would become a great nation and God would be their God and would be with them always. (Genesis 12:1-2) The accounts of Abraham and his descendants tell us how that story began. It is a fascinating story. An incredible demonstration of love and grace, time and time again.

Joseph’s story tells us of how much sin really is destructive and how it disregards life. His brothers sell him and lie to their father only because they were jealous of him. (Genesis 37) Through all his hardship Joseph trusts God and God performs an incredible rescue of his people from famine and they go to Egypt (Genesis 46). Many years later when they had been enslaved by the Egyptians God hears their cry and again He sends Moses to rescue them. To be a messenger, to point them to Him. (Exodus 3:1-10) They are rescued from Egypt and start their journey towards the promise land. The land God had promised to Abraham his descendants would enjoy.

At this point I have to apologise. These descriptions are more like faded black and white photographs – go read Genesis and Exodus. You will get all the colours, you will feel the emotions and will be placed in a much better place to understand these moments, you know why? Because God himself breathed it and used his chosen people to write it down. These are not just “old photographs”, they are the absolute truth.

After God rescued the Israelites from the Egyptians with mighty signs the people started to grumble and complain. Sin continued to corrupt the heart of men and they rebelled against their God. The people disobeyed God and were made to wander in judgement, through the wilderness, for 40 years until they are given the land God had promised (Numbers 14:26-35).

During this time God gives Moses the law, a set of principles and rules by which the people were to live. They were to be separated from the other nations, different, consecrated to God. They were to follow the rules carefully and they were to remember what God had done for them. At the end of his life Moses challenges the people to obey their God and remember what they had witnessed and pass it on to the future generations so they too would love and revere the Lord.

⁴ Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.⁵ Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. ⁶ These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. ⁷ Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. ⁸ Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. ⁹ Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates. (Deuteronomy 6:4-9)

I learned these verses when I was a teenager and recently I have been very challenged by them. Have I been telling my children about the wonderful things God has done? Am I spending time looking at the “photographs”, those special moments God recorded for our benefit, and sharing them with them? The command was for all the people, not just the ones who are Bible teachers or are in charge of leading God’s people in their spiritual growth. Do I speak about God’s power and might enough that my children want to know Him? Do I share it with them in a way to spark their interest? I am not sure I do it to the extent the verses challenge me to. I want to, but I know I cannot do it in my own strength. I need God to help me. I need the Holy Spirit to change my own desires so I can be obedient.

What about my own “photographs” and stories of my journey of faith? Have I been sharing them with my children? I need to tell them how God changed my heart one day and I surrendered to Him instead of running away from Him. They need to hear that it wasn’t always easy being a teenager that went to church on Saturday evenings instead of going out drinking with friends. There were plenty of tears shed during my school years when I was “bullied” for being a follower of Jesus, God helped me see that He was my friend and He would never leave me. My children need to hear how God helped me through times when friendships were shaken, some lost and some renewed in His strength (I am so grateful for the friends God has kept in my life). I need to let them see that I have cried and wrestled with God many times but even when I didn’t understand, with his help, I still chose to obey. God was there when singleness seemed to be the only option. The struggle to let go of a dream and trust in Him completely. He is so gracious and good and He gave me a wonderful husband to share my life with. He was there when loved ones died, to sustain and strengthen us. God was so present comforting us when having children of our own seemed very unlikely. Through the tears and shattered hopes he was there. We chose to trust Him with everything and He heard our prayers and blessed us with two beautiful children. I need to share these “photos”, these glimpses, these moments that tell my story of faith to help shape and point them to Jesus. Most of all I need to look back and see how much God has done for me and how much He has changed me. I need to give Him the glory.

May our great God help us as we recount the wonderful moments He has recorded in his word for us and may he help us to share our own stories of faith with our children so they too can learn to trust in Him and live for Him.

By the way, there are more wonderful moments in the Bible, so, don’t stop in the Old Testament – read it all!

If I could have a super power I would choose the ability to know everything instantly. Imagine being able to just pick my violin and instantly play a concerto by Vivaldi! How wonderful would it be to be able to hear a language or see it written and instantly be able to speak it and translate it? How satisfying would it be to know all there is to know about science without blinking an eye? It would be fantastic to pick up a book and know everything about it and its author! I would love to know everything there is to know about all the wonderful places around the world. That was me, day dreaming again.

I know that in order for someone to be able to play Vivaldi concertos, hours will be spent on practice and even then, there is no guarantee the performance will be flawless. I know it takes years to understand, speak and translate a language – believe me, I am still learning it. Scientists, even the ones who are ahead of their time, must spend their life learning and researching in order to be successful. The fastest readers need to set aside time to flick through pages and research all there is to know about authors. If one could travel around the entire world our short, finite life would not be enough to cover all the wonderful places God created on earth. But to know things is to have power. Whether we admit it or not, we all desire this power.

How about being able to know everything about the future? That would be amazing right? Things would be so much better if we could know the future and be certain that all will be well. Isn’t that why we spend so much time online these days browsing the internet, searching for all that knowledge we so desire? Maybe, for some of us those hours spent browsing, give us a sense of “I know it all now”. (By the way, it is worth mentioning, I am not against using the internet – that would defeat the purpose of writing this blog to share with you. The internet is also a useful tool in many ways.) We go on then thinking that we are now able to take charge of our lives, our decisions and our future because we are well informed. We think that by knowing all we can change all. Knowledge gives the sense of power, doesn’t it? We were not created to know everything. We were created to trust the One who does.

The Bible teaches us that God and only God knows all things. We call this attribute of God omniscience. God knowns everything intuitively – He has never been taught anything. God does not depend on anyone to teach Him or to counsel He simply knows all things. In Isaiah 40:13-14 we read:

“Who has measured the Spirit of the Lord, or what man shows him his counsel? Whom did he consult, and who made him understand? Who taught him the path of justice, and taught him knowledge, and showed him the way of understanding?”

The answer to the question in these verses is off course no one. God is the origin of all things and because He is infinite, eternal, outside time, His knowledge is eternal. He knows everything all the time and He knows it completely:

I make known the end from the beginning, from ancient times, what is still to come. I say, ‘My purpose will stand, and I will do all that I please.’ Isaiah 46:10

“Known unto God are all his works from the beginning of the world” Acts 15:18

God’s knowledge is also intimate and exhaustive – it penetrates the human heart. Nothing can escape his gaze, He searches the deepest secrets of our hearts.

You have searched me, Lord, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it completely. Psalm 139:1-4

“From heaven the Lord looks down and sees all mankind;” Psalm 33:13

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.” 1 Samuel 16:7 (emphasis mine)

When I stop for a minute to think about our God and the fact that He knows everything about all things and He knows everything about me, it is just incredible. He knows my deepest thoughts and my fears. He knows my needs and He knows my future too. He has been there already. He knows all the details, the ins and outs of each situation and He loves me. Wow!

Do you know what is even more cause for our hearts to be filled with joy and trust in our all knowing God? He shares some of his knowledge with us. Jesus said that if we believe in Him we have eternal life. God lets us know our future will be spent with Him when we put our trust in Him.

May our gaze be on him. May our day dreaming become of Him. May we trust in Him completely because He knows us completely.

All glory to Him!

I like learning new words and their meanings. For someone like me who speaks different languages and enjoys learning them, words are fascinating. From my own language I love the word “saudade” /saʊˈdɑːdə/. There isn’t a word for that in English. People sometimes use the word “homesick” or “missing” to translate it. But it means so much more than just being homesick or missing something. When we use this word we want to express a feeling of longing for someone or something, a feeling of melancholy. The kind of feeling that makes your heart ache.  

In my Bible readings and exploration of the topic of holiness, I have seen the word “woe” many times. In fact, it is used about 96 times in the Bible and Jesus used it too. In the English dictionary the meaning for this word is: great sorrow or distress (often used hyperbolically). If you are reading that and have forgotten the many years learning language and the treasures of grammar, hyperbole is an exaggerated statement or claim not meant to be taken literally. This word was used, some believe, to convey to the listeners something important, it was almost like a cry to stop and listen. It was spoken before God’s judgement was announced to the people to convey disaster was coming, should they continue to walk away from their God.

In the book of Isaiah the word woe is used 23 times. Let’s consider one of them. The prophet Isaiah is given a vision of God’s throne and his glory:

On my way home from work earlier in the week I felt really thirsty and I remembered an illustration I heard once in my youth: we were in church and our Sunday School teacher was talking about this boy who would always get angry in school and get into trouble, although he was a very able and intelligent boy. He was always getting distracted and getting in with the wrong crowd. One day he was sent to the headteacher’s office and was fully expecting severe sanctions to be put in place for the 100th time. In fact he was probably expecting to be expelled. The Headteacher calmly walked towards a cupboard on the side got a glass out and filled it with water, then handed it to the boy, who at this point was quite surprised. The headteacher said: “I want you to hold this glass all the time, everywhere you go today in school. In and out of the classroom, during lunch, break, inside and outside without dropping any of it”. “That is impossible said the boy!” The Headteacher looked him in the eye, smiled and said “Off you go! I will see you here at the end of the school day with your glass of water”.

Bear with me. I do have a point – I promise!

The boy in the story walked around all day very carefully and very slowly carrying his glass of water. At the end of the day he was summoned to the Headteacher’s office and he had his glass of water still full. The Headteacher said to him: “Did you notice all the confusion going on in the corridors while you were walking?”, “No, sir”. “Did you hear all the swearing, all the fighting, all the music?”, “No, sir”. “Did you hear all the people calling you names and inviting you to join them in their mischief?” “No, sir”. “Why?” “I had to keep my eyes focused on the glass, sir”.

I don’t know if this was a real story or maybe just an illustration my Sunday School teacher heard but the point of the story is so important and so relevant to our lives. We must keep our eyes focused on Jesus. We must seek to live our lives to please Him and to be transformed into His likeness.

In the book of Colossians chapter 3 we find the apostle Paul challenging us:

“Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. ² Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.”

The Colossians had lost focus, were distracted by other things. There were problems with false teaching in their midst and Paul reminds them of who they are in Christ. They are now His, they belong to Him. They must set their hearts on things above not on things on earthly things.

There is so much to learn from the book of Colossians that it would be impossible to summarise in a post (if you haven’t read it or haven’t gone back to it for a while, I challenge you to read it – so many riches and so much guidance to live a life to please our Saviour), but as I remembered the illustration above I heard so many years ago these words popped into my mind. “Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things.” The idea of walking around carrying a glass full of water all day, all the time without spilling any of it seems to require a lot of focus and discipline.

Setting our hearts on things above requires focus and discipline too. Thankfully we have been given all we need in order to accomplish that. We have God’s word to teach and guide us. Paul encourages Timothy to stay firm and remember all he had learned. depicted in 1 Timothy 3:14-17

¹⁴ But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you learned it, ¹⁵ and how from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. ¹⁶ All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, ¹⁷ so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.

It is so important that we read, study and memorise God’s word in order to know God better and the ways we can live with our eyes focused on Him. That is our discipline. There will be days when we will feel discouraged because we get distracted and feel like we are loosing the battle against sin, but we must remember that God did not leave us alone to complete the task of living a life to glorify Him. He gave us His Holy Spirit. In the illustration above the Headteacher leaves the boy to walk on his own and figure it our by himself (ok, maybe he made the point he wanted to do). God is with us through His Spirit. Jesus promised his disciples in John 14:12-18 that he would send the Spirit of truth:

¹² Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. ¹³ And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. ¹⁴ You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it. ¹⁵ “If you love me, keep my commands. ¹⁶ And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another advocate to help you and be with you forever— ¹⁷ the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. ¹⁸ I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 

Be encouraged when it seems the glass is going to slip from your hand (to use our illustration). You are not alone! Jesus continued in verses 25-27:

²⁵ “All this I have spoken while still with you. ²⁶ But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.”

The Holy Spirit comes from God to us and will teach us all things and remind us of what Jesus has taught us! What a promise and great truth for us to hold on to. When we feel distracted, tired, discouraged, finding it impossible to keep our eyes focused on things from above let us remember that we are not alone! We have a comforter and teacher to help us with our discipline of being transformed into Jesus’s likeness. May God continue to guide us through his Spirit.

I have found it very difficult to sit down this week to write a post. I have been very busy and very tired with all the work I have to do. No. That is not the problem. I still found time to browse my social media and I have watched my favourite TV programs. No. I am not that busy and tired that I can’t sit down to think about what God has been challenging me with this week.

The hardest thing I find in my Christian walk is to stop and actually look into things in my own heart. Maybe you understand what I mean. It is so much easier to look at other people’s flaws and failings than my own. My heart has been aching this week. I have been challenged again, again by a very well known story in the New Testament in the book of Luke.

⁹ To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everyone else, Jesus told this parable: ¹⁰ “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. ¹¹ The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. ¹² I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’

¹³ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’

¹⁴ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

I have read this story so many times and if I am honest I always thank God I am not like the Pharisee in this story, or am I? God has been challenging me to seek Him closely and to pursue holiness. God wants that for every believer. When I read this passage this week my first question was, am I confident in my own righteousness? Do I look down on other people? Have I lost sight of the cross of Jesus?

As far as I know the Pharisees were religious men that kept the law and some were pretty good at it too. They prayed, they went to the synagogue and I am sure they studied and memorized the Scriptures too. These things in themselves are not the problem. The problem is that their hearts were full of pride. They thought they were better than others because of their religiosity. “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get”.

We tend to approach this story and think it does not apply to ourselves, after all we follow Jesus. We understand He died on the cross to forgive our sins and make us right with God. We understand that we are justified in Him for our salvation. We dismiss it and think it only applies to other people. As I read it again I ask myself: Am I a Pharisee when it comes to pride in my heart? Do I boast in the fact that I have learnt so many precious truths about God from many godly man and women? Do I boast in the fact I have read the right Christian books? Do I boast in the fact that I only listen to Christian music in my car (and how dare my kids ask to listen to the pop songs in the radio)? Do I feel incredibly satisfied with myself because I have not missed one service on a Sunday for many years? (I can visualise the tick in the box) Do I give myself a big pat on the back when I acknowledge that for the first time in a very long time I have done my Bible reading every day for an entire year? Has the pride in my heart turned me into this character I learnt to dislike from the very first time I read this story? Has this pride hindered my witness? Has it stopped me encouraging other Christian women around me?

The problem is not so much in the things I did or do, but what motivated me to do them and how I feel about them. Oh how easy it is for those of us who have been blessed to have met Jesus in our youth to feel proud about our journey of faith?

Maybe like me, the Pharisees forgot that in 1 Samuel 16:7 God said to Samuel:

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

The Lord looks at the heart! That is so clear in the story when we read the how the tax collect behaved in contrast to the Pharisee. I can almost see how much his heart ached as he could not even lift his eyes to heaven. He really understood there was nothing he could do or offer but he knew He needed God to pour His mercies on Him. We like him this man, don’t we? He is the kind of Christian we want to be identified with. And it would be right for us to want to be like him because Jesus said he went home justified. Oh how I need to learn to be more like this tax collector in this story!

I know that I have allowed pride to fill my heart. I know that I need to let God’s word speak, break, mould, change and transform me. There is no place for guilt because Jesus took it all away when He died on the cross to forgive me. His sacrifice is perfect and God accepted it. His sacrifice took away my sins and shame and all the guilt. There is a need for repentance and confession. I just remembered the words of a beautiful song called Forgiven:

“Lord, forgive us for our pride When our faith becomes a show Dressed in righteous deeds to hide All the stains below We have judged Your sons and daughters For the sin that is our own May we now forgive each other And lay down our stones

CHORUS Forgiven, forgiven Through the blood of Christ We are forgiven”

My heart aches but at the same time it is filled with the hope that comes with the certainty of forgiveness. I AM FORGIVEN! There is place for God’s grace to shine brighter in my heart. How much I need it. Each day. Only by His grace and his mercy can I ever bow down before His throne empty of myself ready to be filled with all that God wants for me. Only by His grace and love can I fix my eyes on Jesus and not on myself. His blessings upon my life do not depend on my performance as a Christian.

May God help me to remember each day that He looks at the heart. May His Holy Spirit help me to be humble like the tax collector and may I continue to desire each day to be transformed into His likeness. May my life be used to help others to see Jesus and grow closer to Him. All glory be to Him.

It has only been 5 days (at the time I am writing this) since we were all wishing one another a Happy New Year and yet it feels like a long time ago. Every New Year everyone around me seems to be making new resolutions. Some want to lose weight (which is always a good one), some would like to eat healthier (I would like to do that too), some might want to exercise more and get fit (I won’t even go there!). Some people try to change their attitude: they want to be kinder, nicer, happier, less grouchy, more open to other people’s opinions, more respectful. Others will try to change habits: give up smoking, drink less alcohol, watch less football, play less computer games, help more at home. Some people decide to support a charity, others decide to dedicate one of their holidays to work overseas helping to build a school somewhere in a 3rd World Country. People proudly announce their plans and are full of confidence as they start their new year!

That is great, isn’t it? That people resolve to change their ways! New Year resolutions are good and when a year ends it seems the right time to try again, doesn’t it? After all it is a “New” year. What can go wrong?

I did not have a New Year resolution, but I can tell you that had I decided to stop eating unhealthy food, I would have failed tremendously by now – no excuse. I guess if most people are like me, they are probably feeling defeated already. They had really hoped that this time they would be able to do it! Well, I guess it is only the 5th, they might be thinking. Perhaps it doesn’t count: “let’s try it again”! They tell themselves. Does it sound familiar? I stopped having a “New Year resolution” a long time ago. I failed every time, every single time and do you know why? Because I focused on my own strength. Who was I kidding, right? There is nothing wrong with wanting to lose weight, get, fit, eat healthy food, be kind, be helpful or go overseas to help build a school. The problem lies with the focus we put on our own strength, or lack of.

A wise friend once told me that he and his family would be able to raise enough money to travel abroad to help build a school during their summer holidays. He told me how he and his wife were praying for guidance in how they could best use their resources each month in order to save some more money. I thought it was such a lovely idea and I was absolutely sure they would do it. I tried to encourage them with my enthusiasm and to that they smiled and said “If God wills”. “If God wills”? What a strange saying, we might think. People don’t say those things anymore. But they should.

The Bible tells us in the book of James 4 verses 13-15:

¹³ Now listen, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money.” ¹⁴ Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. ¹⁵ Instead, you ought to say, “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.” 

There are important truths we need to learn or remind ourselves of in these verses. The first thing is that only God knows and controls our tomorrows. We don’t know what will happen tomorrow. In fact, we do not know what will happen in the next second of our lives. Our God is eternal, outside time. He sees the beginning and the end and every little bit in between all at the same time!

The second truth is that our lives are momentary. I am not sure about you, but I love walking early in the morning when it is misty. Most of all I love watching it disappear quickly as the sun warms the earth. Our lives are that brief compared to God’s eternity. Why would we want to put our trust in our strength to carry out our plans if we know we are here now but might not be in the next minute? When I think about it like that it seems quite a foolish thing to do.

Third truth, we are called to put our trust in God. “If it is the Lord’s will, we will live and do this or that.”  The Lord, our God, is sovereign and He reigns since forever. He is the one who created all things and therefore, all things belong to Him. Because all things are His, there is nothing wrong with the saying in this verse. In fact, it shows our dependence on Him. It shows that the Christian knows our lives belong to Him and in His grace, mercy and love He will do as He pleases.

I don’t make New Year’s resolutions anymore but I do make plans and I try to challenge myself to change in areas I need to (physically and spiritually). These verses are not saying we cannot make plans, rather they are telling us to trust God. To bring before Him our plans and resolution and simply trust that if it is His will it will come to pass. The big plans and the small ones too. God knows all things and reigns over all things. Not only that, He loves us too. His love is so great that He sent His Son to die for us and redeem us.

I am thankful that one day my friend told me that simple phrase “If God wills” and I am even more thankful to know it is not just a saying. It is from God’s word. What a lovely reminder to commit our plans to God. Perhaps we should say it more in our conversations as we encourage one another to continue to grow in our faith. May this be our new resolution (day after day) and may God help us through His Holy Spirit to trust in Him completely.

God bless.

Have you ever felt panic and helplessness? Once when I went shopping for food I lost my daughter for what seemed to be an eternity. It was only about one minute. She was normally very good at staying by my side holding on to the trolley or my leg. That particular day the store was packed with shoppers and she wondered off. I lost site of her and never felt such panic. My heart was thumping and I couldn’t think straight. I ran to the end of the isle and looked both ways and could not see her. I started calling her name and tried to hear in the midst of the confusion. Music was playing, people were talking and I could not hear my daughter at all. I ran up and down frantically trying to see her. I think at that point tears were running down my face and I was sweating. I turned back and ran the opposite way and I spotted her. She was calmly looking at some boxes on the shelf. I think they might have been cereal boxes. When she saw me she smiled. I grabbed her in an embrace and tried to calm myself down. If you are a mother, an aunty, a big sister, a grandma, a teacher, a nanny that once lost site of a precious child you will know the feeling.

The Bible tells us that once Jesus’s earthly parents went through the same thing. Not in a supermarket but when they had gone to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. I imagine it must have been a very busy time for the people living in Jerusalem, in fact for the entire nation as they sought to follow their customs established many years before (Deuteronomy 16:1-8). After they had done all they needed to do, they started their journey home only to realise Jesus wasn’t among the family and friends travelling with them, mind you, it took them a day to realise that!

⁴¹ Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. ⁴² When he was twelve years old, they went up to the festival, according to the custom. ⁴³ After the festival was over, while his parents were returning home, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but they were unaware of it. ⁴⁴ Thinking he was in their company, they traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for him among their relatives and friends. ⁴⁵ When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him. Luke 2:41-45

Judging by how I felt when I lost my daughter for the longest minute in my life, it must have been a very stressful and worrying journey back to Jerusalem for Mary and Joseph. They found Jesus! I found my daughter looking at some boxes a couple of isles back from where we were originally. They found Jesus back in the temple.

⁶ After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. ⁴⁷ Everyone who heard him was amazed at his understanding and his answers. Luke 2:46-47

What I find interesting about these verses is that all the people who were listening to Jesus, even at the age of 12, were amazed at his understanding and his answers. It must have been incredible to be in the presence of Jesus, the pre-teenager, who was fully man and fully God answering the questions. It must have been special for those people. Guess what? We have something they didn’t have: we have the Bible. We can hear Jesus speaking at any time. Are we listening? Are we amazed? Are we even spending any time in His Word?

Another reason I think this passage is great is because we have a glimpse of the humanity of Jesus in a different level. Here Mary is telling Jesus off for putting them in that horrible situation.

⁴⁸ When his parents saw him, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” Luke 2:48

I guess at this point in time Mary didn’t really grasp who Jesus was. You would have thought that at that moment she would have remembered what the Angel told her when he appeared to her to announce God had chosen her to be the mother of his Son.

³⁰ But the angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary; you have found favor with God. ³¹ You will conceive and give birth to a son, and you are to call him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. The Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, ³³ and he will reign over Jacob’s descendants forever; his kingdom will never end.” Luke 1:30-33

We also see Jesus’s humanity in the fact that He didn’t even think to tell his parents he was staying behind in the temple. Children do that, don’t they? Most of the time is quite innocent. They just can’t think of how their parents will feel and how much they will worry. Jesus’s answer to Mary’s question is interesting as well. You might think that he should have at least apologised to his parents, but no. Mary and Joseph didn’t understand who Jesus was but Jesus had not forgotten. His humanity had not distracted him from who He was and from His mission.

⁴⁹ “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”⁵⁰ But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Luke 2:49-50

When I found my daughter in the supermarket I was very glad she was ok and it took me a while to recover. When we were home I spoke to her about not wondering off and making sure she was with mummy all the time. I tried to make her understand the danger of wondering off. It worked. She didn’t do it again. Sometimes she would ask if she could go see something and as long as I could see her and she could see me we were ok. This has been our rule to this day. She is a teenager now, but she still makes sure she can see me when we go places and she makes sure I can see her too.

We are not told what things Jesus and his parents talked about on their way home but we are told that He was obedient to his parents. That is correct. Jesus, the king of the Universe, was obedient to His earthly parents as much as He was obedient to God His Father. Again, this gives us a glimpse of his humanity. Whatever rules Mary and Joseph had, Jesus followed and obeyed. We are told he grew in wisdom and stature and he found favour with God and with man.

⁵¹ Then he went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. ⁵² And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. Luke 2:51-52

I am grateful I re-read this passage this week. It is wonderful to see how Jesus set an example for us of obedience. I also find it amazing that God inspired Luke to record this experience in the life of our Saviour. As my daughter was lost to me and Jesus to his parents, we were all lost. In fact we were all walking away from God, but He came to find us and rescue us through His Son. I pray we keep reading on and that God will open our eyes to see more truths about His Son.

God bless.