Monday 18 May 2020

You reap what you sow

"Do not be deceived, God is not mocked; for whatever a man sows, that he will also reap."                                                                             Galatians 6:7.  NKJV

 We bear the consequences of our choices for a long time, either for good or for bad. The choices we make today, will affect what happens tomorrow. For example, we decide to emigrate to Australia but years later, regret that we didn't spend time with our parents who have since died. We may also turn down a life-changing job that could have given us a very good lifestyle and then wish that we had said yes. Our choices affect our future. What we sow, we will reap in our lives.

 Esau sold his birthright to his brother Jacob because he was hungry and couldn't resist the smell of the goat stew that Jacob had cooked. The red meat was so appealing to his hunger base. Whether he was saying it just to gain a quick, delicious meal we'll never know; but he sold it and then began to despise it as Jacob received the blessing, after lying to his father, Issac, pretending to be Esau.

 Years later, Jacob's sons went out to look for their sheep and Jacob sent his favourite son, Joseph to find them. Jacob had given him an expensive coat of many colours, made of goat skin. The brothers being extremely jealous of Joseph, eventually sold him into slavery. They then took his special coat and saturated it in goat's blood and gave it Jacob on their return. He obviously believed that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal. The interesting thing here is, Jacob had used a goat for his stew to take Esau's birthright. Now, he received Joseph's goat skin coat, covered in goat's blood. He had sown 'goat' stew and reaped 'goat's blood'. What you sow you reap regardless of the time limit.

Jacob had lied to his father - a sin. Numbers 32:33 says, 'You have sinned against the LORD, and be sure, your sin will find you out.' If you lie, it's a sin and you will be found out even if it is ages before you do. Some marital partners, commit adultery, betraying their marriage covenant. They may think that are getting away with it, but one day, it will come to the light. What you reap you will sow and it can be very costly.

 Sowing and reaping is much more than giving a tithe and offering, it is a vast area and we need to be wary of what we do and say. We can sow bad words against someone but we cannot get away with any of it:

 'A man's stomach shall be satisfied from the fruit of his mouth; from the produce of his lips he shall be filled. Death and life are in the power of the tongue, and those who love it will eat its fruit.'                Proverbs 18:20-21

 Let us be careful what we do and what we say because, it can come back and bite us, extremely hard.


Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard










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Sunday 17 May 2020

Examine yourself

"But let a man examine himself and so let him eat of the bread and drink of the cup. For he who eats and drinks in an unworthy manner, eats and drinks judgement to himself, not discerning the Lord's body."
                                                                                         1 Corinthians 11:28-29.  NKJV

 Taking communion is a beautiful thing. We share in the Lord's supper, remembering all that Jesus did for us on the cross. It should never be taken lightly or in a disrespectful way. It may be possible, that some do this out of a weekly ritual, just going through the motions but not really giving it much thought or devotion.

 Charles F Stanley says:
'The Lord's Supper not only looks back at Christ's sacrifice and gives Him praise for His great gift of salvation to us, but it also looks ahead to that day when we will see Him again and enjoy our heavenly home with Him forever.'
                                                                  Life Principles Bible, p1798. Charles F Stanley

 Our walk with Jesus should never be a ritualistic practice but one of excitement and anticipation. After all, when we're in step with Him, one never knows what is going to turn up - blessing or the need to exercise spiritual warfare.
Therefore, we need to be ready and alert because we are on active service. A soldier who falls asleep whilst on duty, can bring defeat to his whole regiment. In the same way, a soldier of Christ needs to be alert 24/7.

 Neglect to duty, is something we need to be mindful of. As Christians, we cannot afford to take a day off to do our own thing. We should involve Jesus in all we do. We need to be careful about our thoughts, practices and our feelings. The devil is the master of deception. If he can take your mind off God, he will do. If he can cause you to neglect God's commands, he loves it. Remember Adam and Eve in Genesis 3? He caused them to neglect what God had told them and the result was, they had to hide from him in the garden when He called them. Through their neglect, they had brought evil into the world.

 Neglect causes deception. We need to examine ourselves and all we do, so that we can partake of The Lord's Supper with a pure heart and live each day as a Child of the King!

 Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard
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Saturday 16 May 2020

Your First Love

"(3) you have persevered and have patience, and have laboured for My name's sake and have not become weary. (4) Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. (5) Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works, or else I will come to you quickly and remove your lamp stand from its place - unless you repent.
                                                                                         Revelation 2:3-5   NKJV

 We can be busy for Jesus, but not obedient to Him. God created us for an intimate relationship with Him and working towards that relationship must be our priority. Serving Jesus must be out of obedience, not ritualistic or traditional. It must never replace loving Him. He is our first love.

 The believers at the Church of Ephesus had laboured well, with patience and endurance. But it was not enough, they had left Jesus out of it all. In serving Jesus, they had left their first love and got on with the work in hand - working in their own strength, which achieves nothing.

 We can be so busy going to this meeting and then another afterwards, followed by many telephone calls requesting prayer, that we leave Jesus out of it all. A few hurried prayers is all we give Him before we leap into the day, doing our own thing with little thought about Him, unless we get into trouble. It shouldn't be this way. The Ephesians were doing this and Jesus spoke very strongly to them and he does to us, too. Give Him first place in your life!

 King David, left God out of his life. He sent his men out to battle, but he remained in Jerusalem and this led him into adultery with Bathsheba. (2 Samuel 11) She was a married woman and when she found out she was pregnant, David tried to rig it, that the baby was her husband's. When this didn't work, David sent her husband - Uriah,  out onto the front line to have him killed. So adultery and murder. All because, he was not in the place where God had wanted him to be - at war, deciding to leave God out of things - his first love.

 Later when the prophet Nathan confronted him with this, he repented and wrote this:
'Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me'
                                                                                          Psalm 51:10   

David was not just asking for God to clean up his heart but to create a new one for him. It was a miracle that only God could have done. He felt so crestfallen that he had let God down - that he had left his first love. God did forgive him and David accepted this forgiveness. But, at a cost. He had learned a strong lesson. Never leave God out of things, because they will always go wrong and you'll always be found out, and it could be painful.

Perhaps this is speaking to you. Perhaps you have left your first love, being busy working for God instead of loving and walking with Him. Change that today. Repent and ask God to create in you a clean heart and renew a right spirit within you. 

"Cultivate sincerity and uprightness of heart at all times and it will save you an abundance of sorrow'.     Dwight L Moody
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Friday 15 May 2020

Waiting in Faith

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

 This Psalm was penned by David - a man who knew what it was like waiting for God to move. He had to wait 10 - 13 years after Samuel had anointed him, before he became king. That was a long time, especially when he was chased about by Saul, who was intent on killing him, because of his jealousy.

 In our 'hurry up,' world, waiting for anything can cause great tension which can lead to frustration and anger. We want things now! No one enjoys waiting in a queue at the supermarket or bank; and traffic lights are a pain, especially when they're there because of road works, and they're only letting 3 cars through each time. When a car jumps these lights and we have to wait for them to come through, we are tempted to glare at the person and say a few things that are not encouraging to them.  
God wants us to have patience and wait for what He is doing. To rush ahead of Him, doing our own thing or trying to fix things ourselves, can lead to disappointment or even disaster. 

 Sometimes, God tests our patience and that is why we enter the 'waiting room.' But not always. God has a plan for us, and for that plan to be successful, He has to push a few buttons elsewhere; so that when we proceed, all will go well.

 When God says, 'Wait,' He means it and wants us to do this in faith. We ask Him for things and He tells us not to doubt but believe and then receive. (Mark 11:22-24). Doubt totally negates anything that we ask for in prayer. We have to have faith and believe, whether it is for healing, for a job or whatever else we are seeking for. It may take some time, but during this time, it would be foolish to allow doubt to creep in. The devil loves that: 'God didn't say that, did He?'  Genesis 3:1- 4.

 Waiting may be tedious but do it anyway from a faith-filled heart. Whatever you are waiting for God to do for you, stand firm and believe, because it will surely come  (Habakkuk 2:3).

 Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard
















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Thursday 14 May 2020

Life in Lockdown

"13 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended; but one thing I do, forgetting those things that are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, 14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus."
                                                                                             Philippians 3:13-14.  NKJV

 I don't know about you, but I'm getting a little tired of the endless debates and updates pertaining to the Coronavirus. Every newspaper, radio and television station, have become experts in this field. They fight for the best stories and answers and it can be so confusing.

 The virus itself is awful and we could make many comments ourselves if we don't check ourselves. I feel however, that the best comment that we could say is:

 'This is the day, the LORD has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.'
                                                                                            Psalm 118:24.  NKJV

 What with all the sickness and fear that is around, it is a tonic to just stop and declare something positive and this verse, I feel, fits the bill. We have not yet apprehended or laid hold of a cure or vaccine, and the full decline of the virus, but we can make the choice to move forward to the goal when one day soon, the virus will be conquered. 

 But until then, we can choose to rejoice and be glad in each day that God gives us. There is so much sadness, depression, fear and anger around because of the Coronavirus and what it is doing to people's lives. But as Christians, we can try to put a smile on every face we see by just giving them a smile. It costs us nothing and it is infectious. Smile and usually others smile too.

 At the moment, unless God intervenes, we cannot change things. But we can spread a few smiles around. What's more, it will make you feel good about yourself too. So press towards the goal  and each morning, shout out:

'This is the day the LORD has made, we (I) will rejoice and be glad in it.'

Lift the pressure off. There's life out there, let us live it and help others to do the same. Put some praise music on; get your bible out and start praying. As Winston Churchill once said, 'We will never surrender!'

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Wednesday 13 May 2020

Living for Jesus

"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."
                                                                                                      Galatians 2:20.  NKJV

In verse 19, Paul had said that he had died to the law that he might live for God. He knew that Jesus had died in his place - for his sins and that he now had a new life, although he was still living in the flesh. He was now alive in Jesus, Jesus lived in his heart. The old Paul's life was over.

And if you're a Christian, yours is too. You belong to Jesus. You were crucified with Him and have risen to a new life. However, you still live in the flesh at the moment; and at times that can be a problem. We can only live our new life by faith, we can't do it any other way. Therefore, we will still make mistakes; we will still fail at times and we'll still undergo temptations.

Living the Christian life is not that we are trying our best, but rather that we allow Jesus to live in and through us by faith. By doing this, we become His representatives, we make a stand for Him wherever we are. We need to take promises such as, 'I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.' Philippians 4:13 and 
'Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us.' Romans 8:37. Don't forget that as Christians, 'We walk by faith not by sight.' 2 Corinthians 5:7. To try and make it alone - without consulting with Jesus, we will only make a fool of ourselves, in fact, things may go horribly wrong. We need Him. 'Yes, but I keep letting Him down,' you may say, 'I try not to do what I do but then end up doing it.' Then, join the club. We are all the same. We are works in progress and we do things by faith; we never give up, although we may be tempted by this or that or say something bad. We still live by faith in our fleshly body.

Are you worried that you are not doing enough to deserve a relationship with Jesus? And are you fretting that you could lose your eternal life because you have and keep messing things up? Firstly, You can never earn God's love or be worthy of it by doing good works. It doesn't work that way. We receive His love by Grace. Secondly, there is nothing we can do or fail to do that will force us to forfeit our eternal life. God is faithful and He gave Himself for you so that one day, you will meet Him face to face, in Heaven and I know, He will throw His arms around you.

 Copyright 2020 Grahame Howard

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Tuesday 12 May 2020

You are an Epistle of Christ

"(2) You are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read by all men; (3) clearly you are an epistle of Christ, ministered by us, written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart."
                                                                                               2 Corinthians 3:2-3  NKJV

 In the early church, letters of recommendation were often sent with Christians clarifying their position of ministers of God. Otherwise, anyone could turn up claiming to be a prophet, apostle or whatever. These letters, although probably not foolproof, helped to certify that they were who they claimed to be and with the rightful qualifications. In today's world, a certificate of ordination helps to clarify a person's credibility as a minister but not that they are born again or baptised in the Holy Spirit.

 Dwight L Moody said:
'Where one man reads the bible, a hundred read you and I.'

The recommendation that Paul is speaking about here, was not written in ink. It was written by The Holy Spirit and Jesus was the author. As Dwight L Moody said, many men may read and study the bible; they may know it off by heart and be able to quote every scripture they need. But that is only head knowledge if there is no fruit from their labours. As we've seen in our earlier commentaries, people are not all that impressed with what you know, it is what they see - in you and I. 
Dwight L Moody went on to say:

'I wouldn't give much for what can be accomplished though sermons, if we don't preach Christ by our lives.'

Again we come to, what do people see in you? Do they see Jesus or the knowledge that you may have? If you have both, that is fine. But if it is just knowledge they see, then some tweaking needs to be done before anything of spiritual value will come.
You can preach a great sermon and have no fruit from it at all. If that happens, you need to be ready to analyse yourself, seek God and find out what is missing. You may speak to many people about Jesus but, if nothing happens, are you doing this in your own strength or through the power of God?
Look at our scripture again and focus on, 'written not with ink but by the Spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone but on tablets of flesh, that is, of the heart.'
We can have stony hearts, made brittle by life events - things that have wounded us over the years. These can prevent us from flowing in the Holy Spirit. If this is the case with you, lay it all before God and let Him deal with it all - heart surgery. Once that is out of the way, just allow the Spirit of God to lead you and speak through you in all ways so that you become an epistle of Christ with God's recommendation of your credibility, written on your heart.

'Lord Jesus, Come and live in my heart in such a way, that I am a living testimony of Yourself, to all I meet and speak with today. In Jesus' Name. Amen.











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