Listen properly to God's Word

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"My son, give attention to my words; incline your ear to my sayings. Do not let them depart from your eyes; Keep them in the midst of your heart; for they are life to those who find them, and health to all their flesh."     Proverbs 4:20-22.  NKJV

How much do we listen to people, I mean properly with both ears? It is so easy to listen with one ear and be listening to something else with the other. It's great to listen to music on your iPhone as you walk along the road. But if you meet someone, do you really listen to what they say, or is a song of praise buzzing through your head at the same time?

Here Solomon tells his son, to give attention to his words. We should also be giving attention to what God is saying to us. Remember Eve? God told Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. The serpent tricked Eve saying that it would be ok to eat from it, she replied that they were not even allowed to touch the tree, which was not true. They had not listened properly and disaster followed.

It is incredibly important to listen properly to what God is telling us. It is also very important to listen properly when someone is speaking to you. You need to cultivate good attending skills. This means to not only listen properly but feed back a little of the conversation to let the other person know that you're hooked up to what they're saying. Counsellors, call this the Internal Frame of Reference. This means sitting in the shoes of the person who is speaking with you, giving them total eye contact and your attention. This way, dignity is given. This is especially important when God is speaking to you. What He has to say is of the utmost priority and we need to concentrate so that we don't get things wrong and go off at a tangent, doing the wrong thing.

God has so much to offer us. He has so much He wants to tell us but we need to spend sufficient time with Him in order to hear what He is saying. How much time do you spend each day reading your bible? Be honest with yourself. Is it enough time? Are other things distracting you from doing this? If you don't read His Word, how will you know the way forward.

How much time do you spend in prayer each day? Is it enough time, if not, ask yourself, why? If you don't speak to Him, how will He know what's on your heart. He probably knows already, yes. But He wants you to tell Him. 
How much time do you listen to God each day? Again, be honest with yourself. Is it enough time? If you don't listen, you won't know what He wants of you.

Therefore to recap, are you spending time in God's Word? Are you praying and are you listening to Him? Are there changes you need to make?

Only you know the answer to these questions.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Knock Backs

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"8 Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you."     James 4:7-10.  NKJV

Life is good and you are sailing along as happy as one could be. God has blessed you and you feel on top of the world. All of a sudden, WHAM! You go to pieces because something has happened that you were not prepared for, an attack from the evil one, and life appears to be out of control. Notice that I say 'appears to be out of control.' It is only out of control if you continue to let it be.

There is nothing unique about this. It happens to us all, at times. The difference may be how we handle a calamity. The source is nearly always the devil. He doesn't like you, not at all and he'll do all he can to prove that. We can't though, blame him for everything. Some calamities are of a natural happening, but usually the devil is behind most things bad, that happen to us.

You see he's the master of surprise. Take a look at how a snake acts when it is ready to attack. It has four characteristics.

1  It has a deadly tongue and can use all types of gossip and lies to cause us painful strife.
2  It crawls into situations. It's prey usually has no idea that it is near and ready to attack.
3  It lies in wait. It will wait a long time to get what it wants. Its success is in the waiting.
4. It strikes and bites. When its prey is in position, it will strike and kill or injure.

There are similarities to how the devil operates in our lives. He will get people to lie and gossip about us. Gossip after a while can be seen as the truth in some quarters. He will crawl into a situation, wait for an opportune moment and then fire an arrow at us. This is why we need to be kitted out on a daily basis with the armour of God. (Ephesians 6:14-18)
We need to be ready and prepared. If an attack comes and we get knocked back, don't just lie down feeling sorry for yourself, get back up again. Can you remember those blow up toys that children used to thump and kick over? No matter how much they were knocked down, they shot back up again. Do you get the idea?

Attacks will come our way. We belong to Jesus and are a threat to satan. Why? Because we can tell people about Jesus and bring them to salvation and eternal life. The devil does not want that at all. He wants everyone to go to his place - hell. This is why, Christian people are a threat to him. This is why he will slap you around whenever he can. He knows that if you stay down, you have no power over him. Stand up, submit to God and slap him out of the way, in Jesus' Name.

He's defeated already and he wants you to be defeated too. When things go wrong and you take a kicking, get back up and keep on, keeping on with God's work. The devil will really worry about you then.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com








  

Good Health and Prosperity

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"Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things and be in health, just as your soul prospers."                                                                        3 John 2.       NKJV 

The verse above is not be be taken as a blueprint and prayer so that we can all prosper and be in good health.  David Guzik tells us:

'Some have wrongly taken this as a guarantee of perpetual wealth and perfect health for the Christian. Of course, we should always remember that God wants our best and plans only good for us. Often present material prosperity and physical health are part of that good He has for us – and this prosperity and health are absolutely promised as the ultimate destiny of all believers. Yet, for the present time, God may – according to His all-wise plan – use a lack of material prosperity and physical health to promote greater prosperity and health in the scale of eternity.
Nevertheless, some live in poverty and disease simply because they do not seek God’s best, follow God’s principles, and walk in faith. As well, there are some others who say we should use God’s general promises of blessing as a way to indulge a carnal desire for ease, comfort, and luxury.'           Copyright David Guzik

The actual meaning of, 'Beloved, I pray that you may prosper in all things,' metaphorically means, 'I hope you have a good journey, and I hope that you succeed and prosper.' In literal terms, it is saying, 'I hope things go well for you.' However, we can still pray and stand on this verse and should do really. However, knowing the exact meaning for this phrase in its original form can be helpful. It helps avoid just plucking verses out of the bible at will and naming and claiming them. This absolutely is not recommended. Let The Holy Spirit lead you instead of just opening the bible and selecting a verse at random. I'm not saying this is wrong, but that, we need to ask God to lead us in His Word for the situation.

John made an analogy between the condition of our health and the condition of our soul. Many Christians would be desperately ill if their physical health was instantly in the same state as their spiritual health. God wants us to prosper in both our physical health and our soul. At times, God appears to allow us to go through testing times. This may be to teach us something or perhaps to strengthen us. When we have learnt this, He may, but not always, restore us to more prosperity in our health and soul. Basically, if we learn to place God in the driving seat of our lives, then all will go well for us. If we deviate from this path, we are taking over the driving of our lives, on our own. We need God in control. (Read Proverbs 4:20-27 for more clarity on this.)

You may be going through a real testing time at the moment. It happens to us all and many times, it is not nice to go through. However, as children of God, we need to learn and sometimes we can be stubborn in learning or slow to pick up on what He is teaching us. He may stretch our faith, to see just how much we really trust Him. He loves us and wants the best for us but we must do things His way. That can be the hard bit but far more rewarding in the long run.

Let Him prosper you in all things and allow you to be in health.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

The Word Stands

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"Now the Word of the LORD endures forever."    1 Peter 1:25. NKJV

Peter was quoting Isaiah 40:8 here and letting us know that we need to abide by its teaching. We can never water it down. It stands forever. What God has said, He means and He isn't about to change His mind. It is time to live holy lives; to live up to our calling. We need to love people the way Jesus commanded us to. Not in a half-hearted fashion but with a genuine, caring love - the kind that Jesus has for us.

Hypocrisy has to go, as well as envy, deceit and evil speaking. As babes in Jesus, we started on the milk - the milk of His Word. We now need to get into and abide by, the meat - the full Word of God which is our spiritual food.

People over the past centuries have tried to stop Christianity. They've burned bibles and had men and women of God burnt at the stake or murdered in some other evil manner. Today, throughout various parts of the world, men and women are in prison for their Christian faith. They suffer terribly and some are killed and a lot of families are forbidden to read the bible, go to a church or even hold prayer meetings in their homes. Even in our own country, people are facing dismissal from their job because of their faith. I read today of a Christian GP who may be struck off because He spoke to patients about Jesus. 
It's beyond belief in our day and age, but it is true.

The thing this, these people who are out to purge Christianity from our world can try, but they won't succeed because Jesus Christ is bigger and more powerful than they ever could be. His Word will endure forever.

Maybe God has told you something special. It may be a promise about your future or perhaps your family. If it hasn't happened yet, don't give up. It will happen. If God has said it, it will happen. Read and stand on the following two verses in Habakkuk 2:

'Write the vision and make it plain on tablets, that he may run who reads it. For the vision is yet for an appointed time; But at the end it will speak, and will not lie. Though it tarries, wait for it; Because it will surely come, it will not tarry.'   (Habakkuk 2:2-3)

If God has told you something that is going to happen with you, believe Him and wait. It's going to come. I don't know when but I do know that it will happen. Stand on this Word from God and pray the promise. The Word of the LORD endures forever!

People may let you down; the world may let you down, sadly, even family may let you down but God is faithful. He will never let you down. He is faithful and can be relied on. Nothing can stop Jesus from fulfilling His Word. Nothing can stop Him from taking you out of where you are and into something or somewhere else if He chooses to. He has a key and when He opens the door, no one, not even yourself, can close it. (Revelation 3:7-8.)

Stand on His Word, the Word that endures forever!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

It's your fault, not mine

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"9 Then the LORD God called to Adam and said to him, 'Where are you?' 10 So he said, 'I heard Your voice in the garden and I was afraid because I was naked; and I hid myself.' 11 And He said, 'Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you that you should not eat?' 12 Then the man said, 'The woman who You gave to be with me, she gave me of the tree and I ate.' 13 And the LORD said to the woman, 'What is this you have done?' The woman said, 'The serpent deceived me and I ate.'
                                                                                                       Genesis 3:9-13. NKJV

What a catalogue of blame. Adam blaming God and then the woman and the woman blaming the serpent. No one willing to take the responsibility and own up to their failings.
Blame really is the ability to put the responsibility of something onto another person instead of owning up to the problem and putting it right.

Here we clearly see that that the serpent tricked Eve into eating the forbidden fruit. But let's not forget, Adam was standing right there with her. He should have stopped her right there and then. But he allowed her to do what God had said not to do, and he as well, ate the fruit. 

When God asked Adam if he had eaten from the tree, he didn't even admit that he had done this. He blamed firstly Eve, but then he quickly went on to tell God that He had given him the woman in the first place. 'You gave her to me, God, really it was your fault'.  How impertinent was that?

This reminds me of a man who would not accept an invitation to go to church, no matter how hard anyone tried. When finally asked why not, he replied, 'Because my mum forced me to get up early on a Sunday morning, have a bath, put on my best clothes and then go to Sunday school. When I became older, I said that no-one, including my mum, would ever force me to go to church ever again. Really, it's understandable when we first hear this story, but the sad thing is, he is blaming his mum for this. This blame stops him from taking the responsibly for himself and deciding whether to go or not.

We could all come up with similar things that have happened to us- things where we blame someone else for what happened, and this prevents us from moving forward. Young people may have been taught to steal at a younger age by some other child. This may have developed into adulthood and the person may be saying, 'It wasn't my fault. It was so and so who taught me and made me do it.' But, he could have changed this if he had taken the responsibility.

We need to wise up and stop passing the buck. We need to take responsibly for our actions and determine that whatever has happened to us in life, it doesn't have to be a part of us any longer. You can say, 'I pass this over to God. He is great at taking my cares.'

Have you been blaming someone for something that has happened to you? Isn't it time to let it go; to take the responsibility that, whatever has happened, it will not stop me from moving forward with God.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Know who you are

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"I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God who loved me and gave Himself for me."                                                                   Galatians 2:20 NKJV


Basically, we are saying here, 'I died to the law when Jesus died on the cross. He died in my place on the cross, so it is like it was me up on the cross. He died, and I died to the law when He died.' This comes from the fact that when we are baptised - submerged in the baptismal waters, we symbolically die with Christ, are buried with Him and then risen to a new life in Him. It is no longer we who live, but Christ lives within us. This is why when someone knocked on Martin Luther's door and asked to speak with Martin Luther, Mr Luther told him, 'Martin Luther no longer lives here, only Jesus Christ.'

We die to self and that is the best thing to do. Really, our old life has gone, we have been made new and raised to a new life. This is what Jesus wanted; to die in our place so that we could be free to live a new life, in Him.

For some it is difficult to get their head around this but really, Jesus, chose to take the sin of the world on His shoulders and die in our place, so that we could be free. Pretty good really.

This is the way that we should live from this day forward. We are no longer who we originally were, we have died to that and been raised to a new life in Jesus. Yes, we are still the same person, with the same name but, in spiritual terms, we belong to Jesus, we have taken His Name upon ourselves. We are in Him and He in us.

This is why we should not let trifling things bothers us. We have far better things to do. In Jesus, we have the power to bring people to a knowledge of Jesus too- just like we were once introduced.

When I was doing my ministerial training many years ago, we used a course that was called Evangelism Explosion. This course was designed for people to knock on people's doors or speak to them in the street, asking them questions about God and Heaven. One very important one was, 'If you were to die today and go up to Heaven and be asked by the person on the gate,"Why should I let you into Heaven, What would you say?' It would be no good to answer, 'Well I've always been good and led a quiet life.' It would also be no use in answering, 'I've read my bible through twice and been to church all my life.' That also would be no good. The only answer that would be acceptable to God, would be, 'Because Jesus is my Lord and Saviour. He has forgiven my sins.' That would open the doors into Heaven.

We need Jesus. We need to say, 'I have been crucified with Christ.' We need to wise up because, one day, we are going to be asked some question such as this when we die. Can you honestly answer, 'I have been crucified with Christ. He is my Saviour and He has forgiven my sin.' Honestly, can you answer this? Are you certain that you will go to Heaven? You can be, but only if you know Jesus.

If not, use this prayer:

'Lord Jesus, pease forgive me my sins. I ask You to be my Lord and Saviour; to fill me with Your Holy Spirit and be my friend. Amen.

If you have said this. You are born again. Please let me know.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard 
dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Will I ever get it right ?

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"being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you, will complete it until the day of Jesus Christ."     Philippians 1:6. NKJV

When God starts something, He finishes it too! If there is a beginning, there will be an end. Look at this verse again. He has begun a good work in you and He will complete it. 

Spurgeon says:

'Where is there an instance of God beginning any work and leaving it incomplete? Show me for once a world abandoned and thrown aside, half-formed. Show me a universe cast off from the Great Potter's wheel, with the design in outline, the clay half-hardened, and the form unshapely from incompleteness.'

This work in us will not be finally complete until the day of Jesus Christ, or in other words, when we go to be with Him. Until then, we're a work in progress. No matter how hard we try to perfect our failings, we will always be unsuccessful. We should though keep trying and never give up.

We'll still mess things up now and again. For some of us, that may be every day. But some works in progress are harder than others. Think of jobs we do. Sometimes it all fits in place, yet at other times, it can be very difficult indeed. But we don't give up. We continue until the job is complete and that is what God does with us.

This very morning, we may have blown it big time. We may have lost our temper and said some unsavoury words. We may have had an argument with a neighbour or spouse, or perhaps, a fellow motorist complete with those strange hand gestures that we can do at such times. But whatever we may have done, we're still a work in progress and God gives us His Grace to try again, forgiving all we do.

Don't think that you're the only one who can't get it right. We're all the same at times. Don't forget there's the 'Behind Closed Doors Syndrome.' I call it that because we often seem fine and upstanding Christian people in church or the community. But when we're home, behind those closed doors, we can become more relaxed and unguarded. This may be when the real 'us' seen. Gents, ask your wife about that. I'm sure she'll have something to say about it.

Joking aside, we're all like this at times and we're all works in progress. We'll get there though and when we do, we'll be perfect. But there's not a chance we'll be like that until then. 
So accept yourself for what you are; try to make some changes, yes, but don't beat yourself up in the process.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com