Consider your ways

"5 Now therefore, thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Consider your ways'. 6 You have sown much and bring in little, you eat, but do not have enough; you drink, but are not filled with drink; you clothe yourselves, but no one is warm; and he who earns wages, earns wages to put into a bag with holes. 7 Thus says the LORD of hosts, 'Consider your ways.'                               Haggai 1:5-7.  NKJV

This is a classic example of a self-seeking person. A person who lives for their own enjoyment and doesn't allow God into the place that he wants to be. Actually, this is quite a scary place to be with God. God expects to be in first place, not an after-thought. Your life may demonstrate the life of an after- thought, a person who just sits on the subs bench, never having the opportunity to use what they have - that hidden talent. This may be where you are, but God should never be in second place. He needs to be No 1. So be careful that you honour God. You can't receive blessing and favour if you live your life neglecting Him and/or living in sin.

The Psalmist says in Psalm 119:59, 'I thought about my ways and turned my feet to Your testimonies.' The writer suddenly became aware that he was leaving out the most important person in his life - God, and therefore set out to get his life back on track, remembering all the great things that God had done for him in the past. 

This may be you. Somehow you may have drifted away from God's direction; or you may have been distracted because of one thing or another. God wants to bless you. He wants to put a shield of favour around you. Jerry Savelle offers a useful prayer to confess each and every morning:

"I walk in divine favour. The favour of God goes before me today,

changing rules, regulations and policies."

"This is another day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad

therein. The favour of God goes before me and surrounds me.

                                             Copyright Jerry Savelle 1997 Walking in Divine favour

The Greek word for Favour is Ratson which means pleasure, desire, favour and delight. 

Ratson describes to be pleased with or to be favourable towards something. It refers especially to what is pleasing and desirable to God. 

If you were to study the 39th chapter of Genesis, you would see an example of God's favour on Joseph. After Joseph's terrible treatment by his brothers, he was sold to some travellers and ended in Egypt where he became a worker in the house of Potiphar, one of Pharaoh's officers. He was so diligent that he soon found favour in his master's eyes. The problem was, he became favourable in Potiphar's wife's eyes too, for the wrong reasons. After many advances from her, he finally fled form the house and she accused him of attempted rape. He was imprisoned. 

He soon found favour with the keeper of the prison and was placed in charge. He eventually was sent for by Pharaoh because of his reputation of interpreting dreams. Pharaoh had had some dreams that had concerned him. Joseph was able to interpret these dreams and impressed Pharaoh and found favour with him, so much that he was placed in charge - second to Pharaoh, of the whole of Egypt.

Now this is favour and if you walk closely with Jesus each and every day, He will give you favour too, in all you do:

"Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us, to Him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen"

                                                                                                           Ephesians 3:20.  NKJV

Note the part of this verse that says, 'according to the power that works in us.' If we don't move in the Holy Spirit and in the Blessing of God, we will miss out on all that God has for us and that includes favour. 

Lord Jesus Christ, thank you for dwelling in my heart through faith.

Keep me rooted and grounded in Love, that I may be able to comprehend

with all Your people the width and length and depth and height of that Love

 - to grasp and experience Your Love, which surpasses knowledge, that I may be 

filled with all the fullness of God. Amen"

Prayer from The Spirit Filled Life Bible Ed 3 Ephesians 3:17-19

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

A Firm Planting

"14 For this reason I bow my knees to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 from whom the whole family in heaven and earth is named, 16 that He would grant you, according to the riches of His glory, to be strengthened with might through His Spirit in the inner man, 17 that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you being rooted and grounded in love, 18 may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height - 19 to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."
                                                                                                          Ephesians 3:14-19.  NKJV

The scripture here means to be rooted as a tree and grounded means like a building on a strong foundation. Many trees grow very tall so it is essential that their roots go deep into the ground. There are two reasons for this: (1) that the tree will be firmly established in order to protect it from storm force winds. (2) that the roots reach water which the tree will need so that it can flourish. The foundation must be a strong one; again, that it doesn't crumble under storm damage. (See Matthew 7:25-27).

We need to be rooted and grounded also - in Love, which is God, (1 John 4:8) God is Love; Love is God. We need to be rooted and grounded in this Love  - God, in fullness v19. The Greek word for fullness is Pieroma which means full measure, plenitude. Pieroma strongly empathises fullness and completion. 

Genesis 1:26 tells us that God created man in His own image - in the image of God. As we spend more and more time with Jesus, we become like a mirror-image of Him. We are transformed:

'But we all, with unveiled faces, beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord.'
                                                                                                        2 Corinthians 3:18.  NKJV 

We are like Him, transformed by the Holy Spirit. And if we are like Him - made in His image, then as we walk with Him - rooted and grounded in His love, we are able to do what He is asking us to do - be just like Jesus to the world we live in. But it takes discipline on our parts. It doesn't just happen. We have to position ourselves to receive from Him; to serve Him and to place Him first place in our lives. He must have the first call on our lives, and we must get our lives right so that we are walking in the Spirit - walking in Love.

A lot depends on what we confess - what comes out of our mouths. Proverbs 18:21 says, 'Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.' We can confess death or life; victory or defeat or success or failure. We need to stop speaking about failure in our lives and how sick we feel today - 'My back is killing me,' 'I'll never be able to do that,' etc etc. You are highly favoured. Psalm 5:12 says, 'For You O LORD, will bless the righteous; with favour You will surround him as with a shield.' Favour is recognised as grace, pleasure, favour, goodwill, delight and even fun; and God has placed this as a shield around us. His blessing and favour envelope us.

You may ask a trusted friend if they'll do you a favour and they probably will. God, has given us the best favour of all. He did us the greatest favour by giving us Jesus as our friend and Saviour. He is all we need to be rooted and grounded in. He is all we need to walk in this world, firmly planted in His love.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Get Exercising Part 2

"Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamour and evil speaking be put away from you with all malice. And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another even as God in Christ, forgave you."                                                                                                         Ephesians 4:31-32.  NKJV

Yesterday, we looked at exercising joy and love in order to be able to master these areas. They take time to get on top of and only thorough exercise will we achieve this. Today let us look at rudeness and how we may respond or react to this and whether or not, we are rude to people, ourselves.

Are you rude? Do a little self-evaluation and ask yourself, 'Am I rude to people?' Do you show disrespect to those you meet up with, including family? Are you intolerant with them? Does your patience run out with certain people and when you see them, do you feel like avoiding them because of this. This behaviour fits under the heading of rudeness. 

It takes exercise to be able to overcome this; again, it doesn't come easily. Jesus is never rude with us and boy, must we have tested His patience since we accepted Him as our Lord and Saviour. However, He is tolerant towards us and reacts in a royal manner. Thank goodness!

What about people who are rude and disrespectful to us? Do you react or do you respond? There is a difference here. To react, is to be on guard and ready for action. Someone says something bad to us or really winds us up and, if we're not careful we react in a volatile way.
Yet to respond is different. We are still reacting but it is done with self-control. We are in charge of the situation and thus, act accordingly.

Galatians 2:20 says:

"I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live but Christ lives in me; and the life that I now live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me."

In other words we have died to Christ. We have surrendered our life to Him in such a way that we live our lives through Him. We are dead and DEAD MEN DON'T REACT. Did you get that? DEAD MEN (OR WOMEN) DON'T REACT. We are dead to reaction, we only respond to things.

Now this is not easy. It takes practise but we do it by faith - we exercise this area until it becomes a natural thing to do. We're in training. We are still under construction and will be until we stand before Jesus. The Apostle Paul wrote: 'being confident of this very thing, that He who has begun a good work in you will complete it until the day of of Jesus Christ.'  (Philippians 1:6). We are in training and God is going to get us there; but it will take exercise on our parts. We have to do our bit. If we don't exercise, we seize up.

We need to exercise ourselves until we are able to read situations better and respond accordingly. Take for instance s person who is incredibly shy and in company is almost introvert, hiding away in the crowd to avoid having to talk. We may class this as being rude but it is not the case, the person is struggling. We need to train ourselves to understand people and situations better. This however, will only come by spending time with our trainer - the Holy Spirit - and exercising our faith.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Get Exercising Part 1

"Do not sorrow, for the joy of the Lord is you strength."                Nehemiah 8:10     NKJV

When we want to get fit we may go to the gym and start exercising. The fitness doesn't happen overnight, it takes time and practise. We have to undergo a program of regular exercise and discipline our bodies in order to achieve the results we are aiming for. The exercise can be difficult and hard going as we strive to overcome the pain and reject the words in our head that are saying, 'give up, it's useless to believe that you can do this.'

It's the same with most things. In order to succeed, we have to press on, work hard and grit our teeth. Nothing comes easily. When we go to Uni, we don't receive a diploma or degree without doing anything. We have to be committed and work hard to gain the prize.

In the above verse, we see that the joy of the Lord is our strength and this is very true. But we can't just quote this verse and then expect to receive this joy immediately. Again, it takes practise. Joy is a mighty weapon to have and it's essential that we grab hold of it. However, it only comes and remains in us with diligence and commitment to God's Word. It takes practise.  It only comes to us and remains with us when we exercise His Word, and condition ourselves to receive this. It will then become a part of us - our daily routine. 

Exercising God's joy comes by praising Him and living our lives in such a way that we receive the victory. The opposite of joy is despair. This includes misery, depression, anger, moaning and groaning, criticism, judging and aggression, to name just a few. All of these equate to weakness, failure and spiritual decay.

As with joy, love also needs to be exercised. We need to train ourselves to walk in love. It doesn't just happen. It needs time to develop. Love and joy are Spiritual weapons that we can use to oppose spiritual attack from our enemy, the devil. We need to train ourselves in these areas by reading our bible, studying it, spending time with Our Father and putting God's (or Love's 1 John 4:8) Word into action.

Tomorrow, we will look at these and other areas that will help our walk with Jesus.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

Opportunities

"I know your works. See I have set before you an open door and no one can shut it, for you have a little strength, have kept My word and have not denied My name."      Revelation 3:8.  NKJV

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, was an imminent Baptist preacher in the 1800's. It is said of him, that: 

'A man once came to Spurgeon and asked how he could win others to Jesus. Spurgeon asked him, "What are you? What do you do?" The man said, "I'm an engine driver on a train." "Then," said Spurgeon, "is the man who shovels coal on your train a Christian?" "I don't know," said the man." "Go back," said Spurgeon, "and find out and start on him."
                                                                                                          Source Unknown

Often, many Christians feel the urge to go out and do great things for God and yet neglect what is on their own doorstep - our families, our neighbours and our friends. This may be due to embarrassment or the fact that familiarity is difficult for us to overcome. People have wanted to go out knocking on doors to tell people about Jesus but have avoided going around their own area, possibly for similar reasons.

Thomas Edison said, 'Opportunity is missed by most people because it comes dressed up in overalls and looks like work.' This may also be true to some of us. We want to be involved in church planting and street evangelism until we are asked if we would join the team. We can then come up with all the excuses in the world why we can't do this.

Another area where we may struggle is when we have an opportunity to do something we have dreamt about. In our dreams, it seemed marvellous but now we are faced with it, it puts great fear on us. "What if this happens?" or "What if I cannot do this?" Someone said, 'For of all the sad words of tongue or pen, the saddest of these is It might have been."
Think about this for a moment. Picture all the times when opportunity has knocked and nobody answered. Let me ask you, "Are you standing before a door of opportunity today? Are you afraid to walk through it? Don't be; God is with you.

Many people reach the end of their lives with regrets. Many wish that they had taken that risk; gone to this place or started that business. Memories and wishes that never came to fruition. Don't be like that. God may have opened a door for you. It may be wide open, the opportunity may be there. God won't push you through this door. He provides the opportunities but the choice is yours. If you share this opportunity with other people, they may try to talk you out of it - in other words, close the door. They can't, because if it's from God, it will burn away within you. Only you can say yes or no. But the door is open and you know it, so why not go for it. If you do, God will not let you down. If you don't, He will still love you and take care of you. He just loves you so much and gives each of us opportunities because He can see the potential in us.

You may have felt God speaking with you today and you may need to shut yourself away and ponder on this. Don't rush things but on the other hand, don't leave it too late. You know in your heart that God is faithful and you know that He will never let you down.

Today is your day. Your day of opportunities!

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

The Beatitudes Part 8

"(10) Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sakes, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven. (11) Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. (12) Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in Heaven, for they persecuted the prophets who were before you."                Matthew 5:10-12.  NKJV 

We come to our last study of the Beatitudes today and these last three verses are extremely important to us. The cause of persecution is loyalty to righteousness. It is the price that we pay for Love and the Love I speak about here is God. Let's take a look at 1 John 4:7-8 for more detail:

'Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. He who does not love does not know God, for God is Love.'

Do you see it? It says God is Love. He can be known as Love because that is what He is. He operates in Love, He creates in Love, He walks in Love and He is Love. God is Love. Because of our love for Him, we present ourselves to the enemy and all who do not know God, as fanatics, religious and pious people who live hypocritical lives and all the other stuff that is loaded upon Christians. It all comes in the form of persecution.

Why is this? Quite simply it is because we make stands. There are things that we will not accept. Jesus didn't accept it so neither do we and this causes divisions and hatred towards us. Some of the major topics are:
HOMOSEXUALITY
The bible says that it is an abomination for a man to lie with a man as with a woman, or a woman to lie with woman as with a man. Leviticus 18:22; 20:13. In the New Testament, the apostle Paul called it 'shameful,' the result of being given up by God to 'vile passions,' Romans 1:24-27. God loves the homosexual but not the act of homosexuality. He created man in His image and declared that a man should leave his father and his mother and be joined to his wife and the two shall become one flesh. Ephesians 5:31.There is no compromise here, even though the world may say that - today, it is ok, we've moved on. We have not, not in God's eyes. He holds us accountable.
SAME SEX MARRIAGE
Another major topic today is same sex marriages. Modern churches today may say that it is acceptable, but as the above states, God does not accept this type of thing.
ABORTION
The murder of a child is not acceptable unless there are very strong reasons, medically, why this should take place. If it means that the child has died in the womb or that the mother will die giving birth, then this may be deemed as acceptable. Children are a gift from God and every effort should be made to preserve the child's life.

These are just a very few of the topics that are contentious and where a Christian will be persecuted if they make stands against them. However, persecution can take place in the home, where families are divided, because one of the members become a Christian and the remaining family members refrain from this. It can bring heated arguments, in fact, some families throughout the world can evict family members who have been born again and in extreme circumstances, murder them. Christianity will always bring division, it can be a never-ending battle.

Our work life can suffer too as a believer. Many times we may be asked, or even ordered to do something that is totally against our faith. To make a stand, can bring problems, even dismissal; to compromise means that we are being disloyal to our faith and to Jesus.
As Christians, the road can be difficult and as we've seen, the price of love - of following Jesus, can be very costly. People can rebel against us and even tell lies so that we will be disciplined. When you look at things, we are in a war. We're on active service and our Commanding Officer- Jesus trusts us to do battle for Him when it is required. He hung on a cross for us. That is the price that He paid. Is it too much to ask that we, as His chosen people, can make a stand for Him when we need to?

The world when you look at it is in chaos. The ever-rising violence and murder, accelerated drug use, child trafficking, abuse, lawlessness and so on. Isn't it about time that we, as Ambassadors of Jesus make a stand for Him, refusing to compromise? Times running out, we're possibly the last days of decay. Jesus may be returning soon. Let us be ready. God has promised that a great reward for us is in Heaven and we have His Spirit and the protection of our angels too. Let us get the job done.

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com

The Beatitudes Part 7

"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God."   Matthew 5:9.  NKJV

God is the supreme peacemaker and as His sons and daughters, we need to follow in His example. There's a lot of unrest about, therefore we need to establish peace wherever we are.

David Guzik says: 'This verse does not describe those who live in peace but those who actually bring about peace, overcoming evil with good.'

One way that we can do this is through evangelism - the ministry of reconciliation - 
(2 Corinthians 5:18). We help bring peace between people who have never known God and of whom they have hurt and rejected. The Hebrew word for peace is shalom. The meaning is that peace always means everything which makes for a person's highest good.

When you're out and about, take a look around you and note the unrest; the lack of peace and the aggression and violence that is on the increase around every corner. It may be unwise for us to stand up in the middle of all this and try to bring about reconciliation, unless God tells you to do this. We need to be wise. However, we can be on the lookout for people who want to offload and are willing to speak with us. We may not be counsellors but we have the Counsellor within us - The Holy Spirit, and He will guide us and give us the words to say. Often, people just want to pour out their frustration and it is helpful to allow them to do this - to vent their pent up frustration and unwind a little.  As we just sit and listen to them, hopefully they will notice that there is something different about us - and that is Jesus. 

Many people ridicule Jesus and openly curse Him but when the chips are down - when they have hit rock bottom and are in a situation they cannot get out of easily, who is that many call on in prayer? The same one they have persecuted - Jesus. He is the main peacemaker and has lots of experience in bringing people's lives back together and He wants to use YOU to let this happen. YOU are His chosen vessel. YOU are His peacemaker. YOU carry the words of Eternal life and can bring salvation to the desolate and hurting crowd. 

So that is what He is calling you to do, each and every day. Are you willing?

Copyright 2019 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@protonmail.com