Daily life with Jesus by Grahame Howard

Tuesday, 10 March 2020

'I'll be back"

"However, the hair of his head began to grow again after it had been shaved."
Judges 16:22. NKJV

It is quite a normal thing to want to get your own back when you have been wronged. This is why, Paul said in Romans:

'Beloved, do not avenge yourself, but rather give place to wrath, for it is written, "Vengeance is Mine, I will repay", says the Lord' Romans 12:19.

This can be a hard order to follow because our own will is fighting against God's will. Flesh against the Holy Spirit. When we do obey this, God is true to His word and does avenge; but not always the way that we had hoped.

Samson was a mighty warrior with amazing strength. He was a Nazarite who had been born to deliver Israel out of the hands of the Philistines. However, after a series of events he fell in love with Delilah who deceived him by revealing to the lords of the Philistines, the secret of his incredible strength - his hair had never been cut since his birth. The Philistines came and gouged out his eyes after shaving his head - the source of his strength. He was then powerless. But they had made a dreadful error. They should have shaved his head on a daily basis but neglected to do so. The result being, his hair began to grow back, as did his strength.

As time went on, Samson was in the temple, performing for the Philistines' amusement when he grabbed hold of the pillars and pushed them out of way resulting in the roof caving in, killing them all.

People may have hurt and wronged you; but that doesn't mean you should try to get your own back on them. But it also, doesn't mean that you should become a door mat letting people walk all over you. Have a Terminator mentality by thinking to yourself: 'You may have wronged me, but I forgive you and bear no malice against you. But know this, 'I'll be back - the hairs on my head are growing again, I am re-gaining my strength and I will not be prevented from doing what God has given me to do.' Amen!

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@hotmail.com

dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com

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Monday, 9 March 2020

Why are you so fearful?

"There’s no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear because fear involves torment. But he who fears has not been made perfect in love.'
1 John 4:18. NKJV

The Greek word for fear is, Phobos, from which we get Phobia. This includes, fear, terror and dread plus quite a few other areas. When we consider these areas, you may see yourself in them. Fear attacks us all at times. When a person has to give a speech in front of people, it can cause tremendous fear. You can be dreading it. For some people, just being in a room with people who they don't really know, can cause fear, especially if one of these people speak to them. Many times we put this down to being shy and this may be the case. However, many times it is total fear. If you suffer in this way, when you're in a crowd you may hide away in a corner hoping that no one notices you or if there is someone that you know and feel safe with, you may go and stand with them, again, just to feel safe.

At other times, sheer dread can come upon you. You may even feel terrified of something and the more it plays around in your mind, torment begins to take over. If you're not careful, this can totally disable you, preventing you from doing what you should be doing. A new job or school can cause this type of fear. Going somewhere you have never been before and having to take a lead role can be scary.
Even our prayers can begin to take on a fear-based theme instead of faith-based. Fear-based prayer leads to disaster, faith-based prayer brings victory.

Fear robs our soul of all joy and confidence before God. It also shows us that we are not made perfect in love; and this means we're not complete and mature in Him.
Kenneth Copeland says, 'Fear gives the curse life again.' When we look in Galatians 3:13, we read, 'Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, having become a curse for us.' The blood of Jesus has set us free from the curse and as we walk and get closer to Jesus, we can allow Him to perfect us in love, because God is Love. 1 John 4:16.

We can therefore, realise that there is no fear in Love because God is Love, or Love is God, whichever way you look at it.

2 Timothy 1:7 informs us that, 'God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power, and of love and of a sound mind.' So it is time to stand up and be perfected in this Love. God does not want you fearful. Its against His rules. It brings pain and sickness. Therefore, allow me to lead you in prayer to free you from this.

Lord Jesus,
We come before You this day and fully realise that it is not Your will that we have fear within our lives - at all. Therefore, we ask You to break the power of fear upon us and help us to be perfected in Your Love.
In Jesus' Name. Amen

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

Sunday, 8 March 2020

While you have breath - Praise Him!

Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to His excellent greatness.' V2
Psalm 150. NKJV/ NLT

Praise should always be a major part of our Christian life. This should never stop. However, there are times when God has done something so wonderful and exciting, that you just can't contain it. And this is what I want to address today.

Look at verse 2 again. Two phrases stick out above the others; 'Mighty acts,' and 'Excellent greatness.' The Amplified Bible puts it this way, 'Praise Him for His mighty acts; Praise Him according to the abundance of His greatness.' This abundance means He is our excessive God; the God of too much; Jesus the joy bringer; giving to the full, giving till it overflows. The New Living Translation says, 'My purpose is to give them a rich and satisfying Life (John 10:10).

Allow your spirit to absorb this and focus on what God has done for you recently. It was something that no one could have worked out. Something that was beyond human intervention. It required divine intervention and God turned up and did just that. Where man's help was impossible, Your Mighty God - El Shaddai, sorted it all for you. This was a mighty act according to the abundance of His greatness - His excellent greatness.

Verse 6 says, 'Let everything that has breath, praise the LORD.' At times, He takes our breath away so much so, that it is difficult to get beyond, 'Thank You Lord, we bless and praise You.' Really, that is all we need to pray because that is showing God our gratefulness. However, our spirit wants to give Him more but we don't know how. This is where our Heavenly language - speaking in tongues - can come into being. Our spirit meets with the Holy Spirit within us and we praise Him in tongues.
As you begin to do this, you feel much more satisfied as the words that you wanted to say but couldn't, are now translated to Heaven for us.

Today, you have something to praise Him for - you know you do! Get alone with Jesus and allow your Heavenly language to reach into the very Throne room of Your Father. Let Him really know how blessed and thankful you are!

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

Saturday, 7 March 2020

God will always avenge - if you allow Him to

"37 But Paul said to them, 'They have beaten us openly, un-condemned Romans, and have thrown us into prison. And now do they put us out secretly? No indeed! Let them come themselves and get us out." Acts 16:16 - 40 NKJV

It would be beneficial to read the whole of the text in order to get the whole picture.

Whenever you're doing something for God, you should expect spiritual attacks. They are designed to stop you in your tracks or make you a laughing stock so that you will lose your confidence, integrity and credibility. Here, a girl who had a spirit of divination was following Paul and Silas around the city, harassing them and screaming out that they were servants of the Most High God proclaiming His salvation. There was demonic opposition, hindrance, humiliation, distraction and disruption in her words, which is how the enemy works. Should Paul have left the demon alone, so that he could get on doing what God had sent them to do? It's difficult to know as their reasons for being there had already been exposed. Some people would have left well alone but Paul was not having it and these demonic utterances could cause them further damage. It is interesting to note that Paul and Silas were on their way to prayer when this all happened. Demonic activity usually attempts to cause mayhem at such times.

The girl was being pimped by certain men who were making a good living from her fortune-telling. It's very much like today where evil men and women find vulnerable young people and use them in drug dealing, trafficking and prostitution. They make a fortune out of these poor, unfortunate people who have been misled and had false promises made to them of a better life. When the evil business is brought to the light - which it will be sooner or later - they lose their fortunes. The masters of this girl cared nothing for her, only what she could be used for.

When the masters realised that the girl's usefulness had dried up, they seized Paul and Silas and took them to the authorities with trumped up charges of troubling the city. It's interesting how they didn't give the real reason for their accusations. There was a strong Anti-Jewish discrimination about it all. They assumed that Paul and Silas were Jews, not Roman citizens and they had come to the city to stir up trouble. It is always wrong to make assumptions, we usually get them wrong. Paul was actually a Roman citizen (Acts 22:25) and Silas may well have been too. His name was actually Silvanus which means 'of the forest,' and this was a Roman name. Paul always referred to him in this way, as did Peter (1 Peter 5:12).

They were both brutally beaten with rods. The Jewish legal tradition gave a maximum number of blows that could be delivered but the Roman's had no such limit. They must have been beaten terribly. After this beating, they were taken to prison and placed in the maximum security suite, which was the inner prison and would have been dark, damp and probably rat-infested. Their feet were placed into ill-fitting stocks which may have caused them cramps and further pain. The jailer was told to keep them securely.

They were treated like terrorists but all they had done was preach the Word of God and drive a demon out of someone. Total injustice and terrible suffering and we have the audacity at times to moan when things don't go our way.

This didn't stop Paul and Silas, they prayed and sang hymns at the top of their voices. They would have been in agony and the other prisoners watching, would have realised this too. Things always happen when we act in such a way. Suddenly, there was an earthquake. But it was different - a supernatural one that ripped off the cell doors and broke every chain.

The conclusion to all of this is that, the jailer and his family were saved after asking, 'Sirs, what must I do to be saved?' (v30). Paul and Silas had their wounds soothed at the jailer's home but instead of escaping, they returned to the prison until the next morning. They received word from the magistrates that they were free to go. Paul, however, refused and demanded that the magistrates come and tell them personally. After all, they had been wrongfully arrested and severely beaten even though they were Roman citizens.

This caused the magistrates great fear and they came and pleaded with them to depart quietly. God will always avenge if you allow Him to. So therefore, whatever you may be undergoing at this time, find time to praise God. Don't go round like a bear with a sore head. Praise Jesus and then wait and see what the Lord will do.

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

Friday, 6 March 2020

Humbling thoughts

"So when you see the abomination of desolation, spoken of by Daniel the prophet, standing where it ought not," (let the reader understand), then let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."
Mark 13:14 NKJV

Here, Jesus foretold the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 but was also predicting the Great Tribulation that is still to come. The abomination of desolation has it's meaning in Daniel 11:31 & 12:11. In Hebrew it means, profanation that appals. This gives us a fuller interpretation. It is the height of profanity.

The origin was in connection with Antiochus, who tried to stamp out the Jewish religion and introduce Greek thought and Greek ways. He desecrated the Temple by offering pig's flesh on the great altar and set up public brothels in the sacred courts. He also set up a great statue of Olympian Zeus and ordered the Jews to worship it.

Jesus predicted what the end times would be like - man separating man from God and in return, exalting themselves above all - a figure to be worshipped. There was a similar occurrence recorded in Daniel 3, where Nebuchadnezzar also set up a gold image, some 90 foot tall and 9 foot wide and demanded that people worship and bow down to it. Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego refused and were cast into a red hot oven.

All over history dictators have put themselves into the position of God and have demanded that they be worshipped and adored. Probably one of the most well known of dictators was Hitler, who during his atrocities, attempted to stamp out the Jewish nation as well. But even though it was totally awful, God was greater and He had the victory!

Brother Andrew of Open Doors, has been smuggling bibles into such countries where Christianity is forbidden. He has been doing this for many years. North Korea is such a country as this. People there are forbidden to even have a bible or to meet in Christian groups. To do so, would result in years of horrific imprisonment in awful labour camps or even death.
Their leader there Kim Jong-Un, has set up a statue of himself, which is possibly the same size as the one that Nebuchadnezzar had built. All the inhabitants of North Korea have to bow down and worship it. To the North Korean's, he must be known as God. They have no choice. He controls everything - TV, the media and news, in fact, their whole lives. To these people, it has been indoctrinated into them that we, in the west, are the evil ones.

And yet, God is there. He cannot be stamped out and the North Korean believers, who have nothing of any value, are the most dedicated of worshippers. God will give them the victory. He will be victorious over North Korea and of all the other dictatorship-ruled countries. He will avenge.

What these people go through and how they still manage to praise and worship God with so much vigour, is really humbling. It makes one realise that, in comparison, we live the lives of millionaires.

http://dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com/

Probably we need to remember this when we next get into a critical or grumbly moment over something that really is trivial. We have all we need and yet their devotion to Jesus can leave us standing at times.

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

dailylifewithjesus@hotmail.com

dailylifewithjesusbygrahamehoward.blogspot.com

HAVE YOU A COPY OF MY BOOK?
IT WILL REFRESH YOU EACH DAY WITH GOD'S WORD!

Paperback https://www.amazon.co.uk/Daily-Life-Jesus-Bible-Commentary/dp/B084DFYKHD/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=Daily+Life+with+Jesus&qid=1581852824&sr=8-1

Kindle
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Thursday, 5 March 2020

God's Benefits Part 2

"1 Bless the LORD O my soul, and all that is within me, bless His holy name. 2 Bless the LORD O my soul and forget not all His benefits. 3 Who forgives all your iniquities, who heals all your diseases. 4 Who redeems your life from destruction, who crowns you with lovingkindness and tender mercies. 5 Who satisfies your mouth with good things, so that your youth is renewed like the eagle's."
Psalm 103:1-5. NKJV

Let's continue our study of God's Benefits and look firstly at:

CROWNS
David Guzik tells us:

'God's greatness extends beyond sparing us from sin, disease or trouble. Through God's blessing, we are crowned with His great love and mercy.'
David Guzik Enduring Word

God is so kind and loving towards us, it would be impossible to realise how much in a million lifetimes. He just thinks that we are wonderful. That doesn't mean that He will put up with all the things that we do. There are somethings that He feels, we need to limit. There are some relationships that we need to look at and determine whether they are wholesome to continue to be a part of. There are some friendships that are not good for us - they are able to lead us astray. You know the ones. Whenever you are in the presence of certain people, they may do or say things that are not in line with our faith. If you're with a gossip for instance, you can be so easily dragged into this conversation. If you're with someone who is critical or speaks unwholesome words, then, don't you think it's time to draw back?
We are Kingdom people, kings and priests unto God. We have been crowned and we should act as such in all we do and say and wherever we go. He has set us free, let us not be tempted to look back at what we left.

SATISFIES
People throughout the world are looking for something - for comfort, peace, excitement, satisfaction and love. They will not find this with what the world has to offer. Drugs, booze, gambling, sex and whatever else takes their fancy, does not bring a permanent fix. It is temporary because the world is fake compared to what Jesus Christ has to offer. Having a load of cash is helpful at times and can provide luxuries. But they can be taken away in the blinking of an eye. Having them is like building a house on the sand. major problems come along and the house collapses, leaving the owner with nothing. The one who builds his house on the Rock (Jesus) withstands all the major problems that come its way. (Matthew 7:24-27)
Jesus satisfies every part of us and He is all we need.

RENEWS
The life that we have in Jesus is secure. We can feel content because He is in charge of everything - if we let Him be. We may wake up feeling drained as if we haven't slept; we can have the problems of the world on our shoulders, we can see no way out, but when we look at Jesus, when we give Him the things that are troubling us - leave them with Him instead of trying to help Him - we can be sure that He will take care of our needs. We then feel renewed.

You may feel unworthy and down in the dumps; like there is no way through this mess that you're in right at the moment. But there is a way - Jesus. But He doesn't just click His fingers and everything is ok. He expects something from us - Faith, Love, Obedience and our Commitment to Him. God's benefits far outweigh anything that the world will ever be able to offer, but it means you trusting Him, giving of yourself to Him and being faithful to Him.

Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard