Bury the past

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"Who will deliver me from this body of death?"  Romans 7:24. NKJV

Some ancient kings tormented their prisoners by shackling them to decomposing corpses. This was mostly the one's who had murdered people, but not always. Paul longed to be free from the wretched body of death clinging to him, not that he had directly murdered anyone himself. 

Spurgeon said:

"It was the custom of ancient tyrants, when they wished to put men to the most fearful punishments, to tie a dead body to them; placing the two back to back; and there was the living man, with a dead body closely strapped to him, rotting, putrid, corrupting, and this he must drag with him wherever he went."

As I've mentioned, this was usually the body of the murdered victim who was strapped to the murderer. Eventually, poisonous bacteria would penetrate the perpetrator's back as decomposition kicked in, leading him to an awfully, painful death. 

The Apostle Paul struggled with the fact that the law could not take away his sin. Daily, he felt frustrated that he was committing sin when he didn't wish to. Does this sound normal to you? Many times during the day, we are tempted to sin. Sometimes we don't really recognise that we're doing it; but then again, at other times we do. What about our thought life? What about the times when we allow lust to take over our thinking and for a time, we do nothing to stop this? Paul had similar struggles. We don't know what they were, but he was human just like we are so must have felt similar impulses.

Most of us struggle with things in our past. Some may have been abused by someone that they had felt safe with initially. Some may have become involved with gangs, drug addiction, alcoholism, theft just to name a few. We all have a past but the great thing about belonging to Jesus is that, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. ( 1 John 1:9 ) The main scripture above is dealing with the past. The only way the perpetrator would be free from the dead body on his back, would have been to shrug it off and bury it. It is the same with us.

Many of us struggle with past issues when we really shouldn't if Jesus has set us free from them.  However, sometimes, we have to decide to cast the burden off us and bury it. So the past you're carrying around is weighing you down and preventing you from moving forward in victory. It is time that you cast it off, bury it and move to your new life. It really is the only way!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Don't be a copy - be the real thing

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"Don't copy the behaviour and customs of this world, but let God transform you into a new person by changing the way you think. Then you will learn to know God's will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect."  Romans 12:2. New Living Translation

Human behaviour at times, tends to lean heavily on copying trends, dress styles and habits. To a degree, this is okay. It is good to be fashionable and up to date with what is going on in the world. As kids, we have our heroes, and these may follow us into adult life where we may find ourselves copying some of their characteristics. We all do this. Some of us are pop stars, singing into a hairbrush in front of the mirror. Some of us train and play sport like our hero. Others, copy the dress and hair style of the particular person who we are following. This is all normal. However, in all of this, eventually we need to find ourselves. We need to find our own  identity and do our own thing. If we don't, we stand the risk of being a person who is going nowhere. We need to be ourselves, and allow God to use us as He finds fit.

Jesus didn't copy. He had His mandate from the Father and He set out to fulfil this. He was not a follower. He was a leader! There are leaders and followers in life and that is okay. If we were all leaders, we would have no followers behind us, and if we were all followers, we would be like sheep without a shepherd. It would be total chaos.

Are you a leader or a follower? Deep down within the heart of a leader, is the burning desire that they have been placed here to make a difference. However, to most people it won't happen overnight. There needs to be a period of 'proving', where it becomes obvious to people that there is some potential in this person. In other words, if you have leadership gifting, it will be noticed by people. The book of Proverbs mentions this:

'A man's gift makes room for him , and brings him before great men.'  Proverbs 18:16

A person who is searching for leadership though, must be a person who has found themselves and know where they're going. One cannot copy someone else's leadership. A leader can have a mentor, that is fine. However, at the end of the day, they need to be their own person and not a carbon copy of someone else. God created just one of us, not several copies.

As I mentioned, are you feeling that you are a potential leader, whether it be in the Christian field or the secular? Don't rush things. Dependent on your age you can seek counsel about this with your pastor or work leader. Training will almost certainly be required plus a time of testing the waters. There may have to be a time where you sit on the subs bench for quite a while before you're set free to have a go. Be patient, because as the Proverbs scripture above says, eventually you will come to someone's attention. You will be noticed. Until then, spend time with Jesus and talk to Him about all of this. He's pretty good at offering expert advice about such things. He also has the key to open all doors.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Happiness

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'Happy are your men and happy are these your servants , who stand continually  before you and hear your wisdom. Blessed be the LORD your God who delighted in you, setting you on His throne to be king for the LORD your God!'     2 Chronicles 9:7. NKJV

The Queen of Sheba had heard of Solomon's great wisdom and wanted an audience with him, to test him. She travelled around 1500 miles to do this, from what is now known as Yemen. She wanted to know if what she was hearing, was true. When she did meet him, she was astounded at his great wisdom and the way happiness appeared to rule in his household. What a wonderful witness it is when people see God in us and how He has blessed us! It is something that must be uppermost in our lives.

David Guzik writes : 'It is a joyful thing to serve a great, wise and rich king. If it was a happy thing to serve Solomon, it is a much happier thing to serve Jesus.'

Blessed means happy and this was what Jesus was referring to when He quoted the beatitudes to the people in Matthew 5:1-12. Jesus wants His people happy in all they do. But are we? Be honest, are you really happy? If not, why not? What is blocking your happiness. As a Christian, Jesus has given all we need to live happy lives. Yes, we suffer persecution; we suffer problems within our families and business life. The same rain that falls on a non-believer falls on a believer too. We don't all of a sudden become excluded from what the world has to throw at us. We will suffer death and heartache; pain and suffering. We'll have good and bad days just the same. The difference is, we have Jesus to share our days with and I would sooner have Him on my side throughout the day than go it alone.

Being happy brings us joy and we know that joy is our strength (Nehemiah 8:10). Furthermore, we're told in Proverbs 17:22 that, 'A merry heart does good, like medicine, but a broken spirit dries the bones.' Being happy - being joyful, is a recipe for being content and having a good attitude to life. What is your attitude like at times?

Being happy comes down to choice. Yes, at times of great pain and loss, it is incredibly hard to be anything but sad. But trying to find a way through this darkness - step by step, can lead us to freedom. It takes time, but a happy heart can heal a thousand woes in our life.

Saying this to people may bring the response, 'You don't know what I've been through.' That is so true, but neither do they know what you've been through either. We have choices in life and God wants us to choose the right ones. Being happy, with a right attitude and a determination that, 'Whatever, I may face, I'm going to do this,' can be such a winner to your soul. 

God wants to bless you - make you happy. Why not allow Him to make a start, today!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Favour

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"For You, O LORD, will bless the righteous; With Favour, You will surround him as with a shield."    Psalm 5:12

God wants to bless you. Are you hearing me? God wants to bless you and He wants to use His favour to do this. Favour is grace. But it is also identified as pleasure, desire and delight. In fact, God wants us living favour-minded wherever we are and whatever we do. We are His children and it is understandable that He wants to give us that we need. Notice that I say, 'what we need - not what we want.' There's a big difference between these two words. 'Need' is simply what we need on a day to day basis and that includes protection and direction in whatever we do. 'Want', is the selfish part. What we want is not always what we get for the simple reason, if we received everything that we could possibly think of, eventually life would become boring. There would be no excitement in what God is doing. We would have it all and and have done it all. It would work rather like when a child is spoilt by its parents. They receive everything and after a while, they become disgruntled because they want more and more. God does not wish to spoil us. This is one of the reasons that some of our prayers go unanswered.

Being favour-minded is the way to live. It's a great idea to start the day with the prayer: 'Lord, I confess and believe that I'm walking in the favour of God today, and I receive all of Your benefit'. Psalm 103:2 says, 'Bless the LORD O my soul, and forget not all His benefits.'
Gods benefits are not means-tested. He doesn't give you something one way and take it off you another. No His benefits are the greatest and I would sooner have God's benefits than all of what the world can offer.

For a start, God loves you and He has your best interests at heart today. Is there something important that you need to do today. It may be to do with work or housing or even the medical world. Whatever, God wants to give you favour with this. That's right, just ask Him and believe that He will give you all the favour you need to go out and get the job done. I heard one Pastor say that he often asks God for favour dealing with parking his car. Where he is based, the car parking is crazy and one can spend hours trying to find a space. This guy claims that God has never let him down yet. Unbelievable? No, I believe this is true. God is interested in your life and that includes you having a stress free time away from finding a space in a car park. I've tried it myself and it worked but I have to admit, it took longer than the Pastor takes to get a space. 

God's Word says, 'But seek first the Kingdom of God and His righteousness and all these thing shall be added to you.'  (Matthew 6:33)

Put God first in your life and He'll take you up on the deal. He is totally for you and wants to soak you in His favour, each and every day. But don't take my word for it. Try it out yourself!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com 

The Word

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"In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Then God said, 'Let there be light, and there was light.' " 
                                                                                                         Genesis 1:1-4. NKJV

Spurgeon commenting on this, is quoted as saying, 'God said, Light be - and Light was.'

To get a fuller picture of the beginning of time and who was there, let us look at the Gospel of John 1:1-2

"In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God."

The Word is Jesus Christ. He was there at the beginning - at the creation. The Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters. Jesus and the Holy Spirit were with God at the beginning. This is why, God said, 'Let us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness.' (Genesis 1:26.) There was no one else He could have been speaking too.
Jesus Christ is the Word of God and He came to earth as a man and dwelt with us for a time ('And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld His Glory'. (John 1:14)

So, the Word is Jesus. The Word is also called Logos, which is the Greek interpretation of The Word of God and The Written Word - the Bible or the written message. There is another Greek interpretation of the Word, which is called Rhema. This is the communication of the Word - the message or the utterance. This can be seen in Genesis 1, where God called the world into being. He said, 'Light be' and that Word became a Word of action. It was!

Rhema is a Word from the Bible that is put into action. If we take for example, Ephesians 6:17 which speaks of the Armour of God. The latter part of the verse reads 'take the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. Rhema puts Logos into action. This is why, we should always speak the Word of God to people whenever we can, very much so when we are under Spiritual attack and we need to exercise our faith as we battle with whatever satan may throw at us.

We may have been reading a piece of scripture with a relevant meaning for us. As we study what God has for us, someone may ring us and say, what we have just read. Alternatively, we may just open a book and a verse can jump off the page at us, confirming what we had read, or felt God say to us earlier. 
This happened to me very recently. I felt God giving me a Word for someone, which I did. There was no reaction from the person afterwards. A short time later, this person showed me something that she had just seen on social media. The piece started, 'You are not reading this by accident. ---'. It then went on to repeat word for word what I had said to her earlier. Co-incidence? I don't think so. It was the Rhema Word of God - the Word in action; the Word that is mentioned in Hebrews 4:12, 'For the Word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword.' The Rhema Word.

When this happens to you, and it will, it is so exciting because there really is no explanation to it. God just wishes to speak with us and when we spend some quality time with Him, the Word of God will come alive. 

Get reading it now and take your spiritual life to another height. 

Bless you

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Waiting

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"Wait on the LORD; be of good courage, and He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!"   Psalm 27:14. NKJV

There's not many people who like waiting for things to happen, especially myself. I become bored quite quickly and want to get on with things. The problem is, that can be a recipe for disaster. If we rush in without giving things much thought, we can get it wrong. I have found this out on many occasions.

Here the Psalmist, David, encourages us to wait on the the Lord. because then, we will be strengthened. Rather like Isaiah tells us in Isaiah 40:31:

'But those who wait on the LORD, shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles. They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint.'

An eagle never flaps. It is often buzzed by other birds who are fearful that it is about to strike their young. However, all it does is rise above all the rest of the birds, very high where perhaps they are unlikely to follow. It doesn't really flap its wings; it soars at an incredible speed, its size giving the impression that it's a small aircraft. It offers a great analogy to humans that we should rise above the flak that comes our way, avoiding worry and anxiety - something we all need to take on board at times and soar to new heights instead of dropping into the doldrums.

Therefore, we need to encourage ourselves in the Lord. How do we do this, you may ask? Well, by remembering how God has acted for you in the past. How His timing was perfect and He intervened just at the right time. As RT Kendall often says, 'He is never early; never late, He's always on time.' And this is so true.
You may be a new Christian and may not remember so easily what God has done for you in such a short time. However, if you stop and think for a moment about that first time He came into your life; that wonderful feeling of freedom that you had; as if you were sailing on the breeze, that warm, internal glow. Well, that is what God did for you and he will do something similar in the future - if you ask Him. So encourage yourself in Him.

At times, waiting for God can be difficult. It isn't that He will deliberately keep you waiting to test your patience. He could do that and may have been doing it already. However, usually, He will wait until the time is right. We are His children and He wants what is best for us. He doesn't wish for us to dash into something like a bull in a china shop and then get it all wrong, where we require some bailing out. No, He wants us to be courageous and build our strength for what lies ahead. He only has our best interests at heart.

Therefore, if your are in the Waiting Room, you are not alone. Enjoy it and know that Your Father is preparing the ground well for your next move, whatever that may be. Don't confess things like, 'I'm at my wits end waiting.' Instead say, 'I am receiving power to overcome; the Lord is increasing my strength.'

That's a much better way of looking at things.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

A Thirst for God

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"As the deer pants for the water brooks, so pants my soul for You O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they continually say to me, 'Where is your God?' "  
                                                                                                             Psalm 42:1-3. NKJV

The Psalmist uses the analogy of a deer thirsting for water after running all over the countryside. It needs the water to survive. One can go longer without food than without water. Thirst is something that is so hard to bear. Thirsts rage.

Here, the word, 'Soul', is made up of the Mind, Will and Emotions. With the Mind, our thoughts can play tricks with us when we're under pressure. In a stressful situation, and when we are low on spiritual energy, we can be tempted to believe that God can't help us in this situation. If He could, why has He allowed this to happen to me? Mind games can rule. We need to keep our minds on God because He won't let us down- ever. This is where the Will part comes into play. This is over-ruling any negative thought that tries to come in and making it subject to Jesus:

'For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself  against the knowledge of God bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of God.'
                                                                                            2 Corinthians 10:4-5

Emotions are very strong and if the evil one can get a thought into our head that God doesn't care about us, and we don't have the will power to block this attack, then negative emotions can begin to kick in and lead us to despair.

The Psalmist was struggling in this area and so will we at times of great sadness and chaotic thought. Tears had been flooding for him as he tried to make sense of it all. This was not helped by the fact that onlookers were saying to him, 'Where is your God?' A paraphrase of this would be, 'I thought that God loved you and yet, look at you, you're in a right state. I'm glad I'm not a Christian.' 

Hey come on. We all have days where everything goes wrong. We also have times where total despair tries to take over and make us question our faith. It's part of the course of being a Soldier of Jesus. The thing is, our Commanding Officer will not let us down and will give us the Living Water- water that will never run out. 

Don't despair; look up. Jesus is right beside you and wants to carry you through this trial. 
Allow Him to do this for you. Allow Him to quench your spiritual thirst. Hearts break but somehow He mends them. Don't ask me how. Only God knows this.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com