HAS THE CHURCH LOST THE FEAR OF GOD?

The once saved always saved debate, is what led me down a winding road, that took me on a journey that kept leading me back to this question, have we, the church, lost the fear of God? After a recent trip to visit my family in the USA, my aunt who I vividly remembered being a christian all her life surprised me when I witnessed certain behaviour and speech from her, far removed from what Jesus requires from us as his followers. It’s funny because the last time I saw her, which was before the dreaded pandemic, I was not a believer. I remember her calling me to her bedroom and asking me to get on my knees and pray with her and a friend who was on the phone. I will never forget how awkward I felt bowing my head. And as I listened to their feverent prayers to God, I kept thinking, when would this be over! Although I obliged my aunt out of respect, that memory never left me, and I can’t help but feel it was a seed that had been planted. That was the last memory of my aunt, a memory that built her up in my mind as a prayer warrior, a woman of God who had an unshakable faith. So, in my excitement to come back 5 years later, now a woman of God myself, I couldn’t wait to connect with my aunt in a way that I had never before!

We did connect in a new way, but it was just not how I envisioned it would be. I spent the first few days “correcting” her (her words), reminding her of what it meant to be a follower of Christ. But in me doing that, it brought us closer than ever, and we had long conversations about faith and her understanding. God used me to remind my aunt that He should be feared and his grace not taken for granted. Because of my own reverence for Him, it ignited her fire for the Lord, which had been smouldering for years. That was when the first thought about the lack of reverance for God came to mind. I know there are plenty of people like my aunt who have been believers for years, and for whatever reason, their faith has become habitual, instead of something you live for daily. People claim to know God, but they don’t exhibit His nature, for the bible says we should be holy because our father in heaven is holy! But how can you fear the Lord if you don’t even know Him? My aunt didn’t read the word like she should, and she could only digest a verse, never a whole chapter. This explained why she misused and misunderstood scripture. It’s hard to understand the word without any context. If you can’t understand scripture, I would think it would be hard to understand who God truly is, His nature, and His love for us! Of course, without that important information, it would be hard to revere Him.

PROVERBS 9:10 “THE FEAR OF THE LORD IS THE BEGINNING OF WISDOM, AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE HOLY ONE IS UNDERSTANDING.” When I think of having fear of the Lord, I don’t see it like the fear of an abusive partner. It’s like the fear and respect you have for your parents. When you respect and fear your parents, you watch what you do, you stay away from doing things they prohibit you from doing, because you know that there will be serious consequences if you are not obedient. You respect them so much that the thought of disappointing them would break your heart. But the most important part about that relationship is knowing that they truly love you and want the best for you. They are your safe place! To me, that is the fear of the Lord! Fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom because when you fear Him, you abide in Him, and when we are obedient, all things work in our favour! To know Him is to understand life!

I had been reading the book of Acts, and there seemed to be this theme of fearing God that kept jumping out at me. First, it was in chapter 9 verse 31, when it said the church became stronger as the believers lived in fear of the Lord. I started to think about the churches in the west and how lukewarm some (not all) appear to be. I started to think about self professing christians who didn’t even think church was necessary, how they lived like non believers, like the God of the bible was just a fable. I even thought about my church, how not every member was truly submitted to God. This is not me casting judgement, but me pointing out what is just a fact, not every believer fears God! Without fear, it’s hard to be an effective Christian. How do we successfully carry out the great commission in Matthew 28 without the fear of God? When our life is on the line, it’s only then we seem to remember that God is real and not to be played with. It’s in those times we promise God that we will be better if He would only give us more time! Why do we need to be brought to our knees for us to start taking God seriously? How do we translate that moment into our lives daily? I will never forget watching an old sermon with this Ugandan preacher sharing his encounter with God. I spoke about it before, but it convicted me in a way I had not experienced before. It was watching that sermon that brought me the fear of God. The way I crumbled and cried out to God for forgiveness, knowing how unworthy I was! I feared that He would not be pleased with me when I stood before Him, and the thought of eternal separation left me feeling fear like I had never known before. I bottled that fear, and every so often, I like to remind myself of it.

I started writing this post at the end of May so I could be on time to post in June, but God has been giving me nuggets of information and I have felt the need to take my time and listen to what the Holy Spirit is trying to tell me. It’s been clear that He has been trying to teach me the importance of fearing God. Sunday, I sat in my church and listened to one of my pastors give a great message, which seemed to lead back to fearing God. God is so intentional and has a way of affirming His message. We visited the book of Haggai, who was a prophet. I know I haven’t studied this book before, so I wasn’t that familiar with it, but oh, how it spoke to me as clear as day! In a time where God resided in a holy temple, His temple was lying in ruins and had not yet been rebuilt, for the people kept saying that the time had not yet come to rebuild the house of the Lord. So God gave a message through the prophet Haggai to the govenor of Judah and the high priest HAGGAI 1:4-6 “WHY ARE YOU LIVING IN LUXURIOUS HOUSES WHILE MY HOUSE LIES IN RUINS? THIS IS WHAT THE LORD OF HEAVENS ARMIES SAYS: LOOK AT WHAT’S HAPPENING TO YOU! YOU HAVE PLANTED MUCH BUT HARVEST LITTLE. YOU EAT BUT ARE NOT SATISFIED. YOU DRINK BUT ARE STILL THIRSTY. YOU PUT ON CLOTHES BUT CANNOT KEEP WARM. YOUR WAGES DISAPPEAR AS THOUGH YOU WERE PUTTING THEM IN POCKETS FILLED WITH HOLES!” He then tells them to go to the hills to bring timber so they can rebuild His house because the Lord wants to take pleasure in it and be honoured.

HAGGAI 1:9 “YOU HOPED FOR RICH HARVESTS, BUT THEY WERE POOR. AND WHEN YOU BROUGHT YOUR HARVEST HOME, I BLEW IT AWAY. WHY? BECAUSE MY HOUSE LIES IN RUINS, SAYS THE LORD OF HEAVEN’S ARMIES, WHILE ALL OF YOU ARE BUSY BUILDING YOUR OWN FINE HOUSES.” When you continue reading, it goes on to say that the people FEARED the Lord when they heard His message. It was fear that brought them into obedience. And when they feared God, He said, “I AM WITH YOU.” We no longer have temples where God resides because we have become the living temples. God resides in us! So when I read that scripture that morning, it hit different. Why is His house in ruins while we worry about our life and what we have? We need to make ourselves right with God. We have been spending time worrying about the wrong things. We neglect Him, like He isn’t the Lord of Heaven’s Armies! That’s why we are not satisfied. That is why we don’t reap what we harvest. That is why we don’t see growth the way we should. We are too focused on ourselves and have neglected to give God the honour He deserves! We have lost the fear of God! I think that’s why God is so intentional by repeatedly referring to Himself as The Lord of Heaven’s Armies. Someone who holds such a title deserves all the respect and fear we can muster!

It’s time to start living like we believe what we read in the bible, instead of using it as a motivational tool when we need a pick me up. When we start to live like God is real, we start to rebuild His temple. We have His Spirit that resides in us, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the grave! And He deserves to live in a home that is fit for a King, He deserves the best! And when we give Him what He deserves, God is honoured! Look at Cornelius, the Roman army officer in the book of Acts chapter 10. He was a devout God-fearing man, and He lived that way by giving generously to the poor, praying regularly to God. He didn’t know the Gospel and didn’t know of Jesus, but God received his prayers and gifts to the poor as offerings. Because of this, God saw that He would receive the Gospel through Peter because you can’t have the Father without the Son. ACTS 10:34 THEN PETER REPLIED, “I SEE VERY CLEARLY THAT GOD SHOWS NO FAVORITISM. IN EVERY NATION HE ACCEPTS THOSE WHO FEAR HIM AND DO WHAT IS RIGHT.”

We know Jesus, but can we say we are devout God-fearing believers? Do we live doing what is right in the eyes of God? These are hard questions that I have to ask myself. I so desperately want to be accepted by God. People strive to be accepted by man, but that is a waste of time. This is why the bible says we should work out our salvation with fear and trembling, because the day when you become sure of yourself and your standing with God, is the day when the enemy enters your gate. PROVERBS 28:14 “BLESSED IS THE ONE WHO FEARS THE LORD ALWAYS, BUT WHOEVER HARDENS HIS HEART WILL FALL INTO CALAMITY.”

HEALING VS GOD’S PLAN.

Is it me, or are the months flying by before our eyes? May has been such a busy month. Most of it was spent in the USA with family, so this post is coming in just in the nick of time! The topic of conversation is something that I have been wanting to talk about on this blog ever since I heard the news of a beauty influencer, by the name of Jessica Pettway who passed away in March due to a misdiagnosis of fibroids. She was someone I had watched and followed over the years, but ever since I went on a somewhat permanent social media hiatus, I had been out of the loop and missed that she was even sick. So when I saw the news that this 36 year old had passed away leaving behind her husband and two young children, my spirit was disturbed, and I couldn’t shake this sadness. I learned that she was a Christian, and during her cervical cancer diagnosis, she had made public videos declaring that she believed that God would heal her and this would be part of her testimony. Sadly to say that wasn’t the case. The more I thought about it, the more disturbed I became. I thought to myself, what does something like this do to someone’s faith? I have no doubt she prayed with her family for healing, and others prayed for her. The bible says that the prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective. Jesus even said that if we pray for anything and believe we’ve received it, it will be ours!(Mark 11:24)

So if we pray for healing and don’t receive it, what does that mean? I thought about non-believers who would have followed her and seen her faith despite her diagnosis. I am sure they would have been inspired by her courage, maybe even pursuaded to believe in her God. What would they think about God now that she was gone? I struggled to make it make sense as a believer! But even in my disappointment and sadness for her and her family, I was 100% certain that God was still good! I just didn’t know how to explain it to someone, and that bothered me. Nobody even asked me or challenged me about it, but I knew that if I was ever in a situation where I still had to explain the goodness of God through tragedy, I would have found it hard to, and I am always reminded of the need to be able to explain the reason for the hope that I have.

Photo by Karolina Grabowska on Pexels.com

I was then reminded of my mum, who has suffered from rheumatoid arthritis which is a long-term condition that causes pain, swelling, and stiffness in the joints. As she gets older, the pain seems to be more intense, leaving her at times unable to attend to herself without assistance. I remember when she first became a Christian. I think she thought that she would not suffer and God would heal her. But as time went on and her pain intensified, she began to question God’s goodness. She didn’t even have to say it, I knew she felt it. It was almost as if she believed that God was punishing her, or worse, that God didn’t care for her like He did for others. I didn’t blame her for thinking that. If you don’t understand who God is, you won’t see Him as a good God when you go through your trials. The bible doesn’t say that life will be perfect when you accept Jesus into your heart. We live in a fallen world under the influence of the evil one. All you have to do is turn on the news or scroll social media to see the injustice in this world. But what the bible does promise is eternal life and peace. A peace unlike the peace given from the world. This peace that comes from Jesus is the peace that keeps us afloat in a turbulent sea. JOHN 14:27 “PEACE I LEAVE WITH YOU; MY PEACE I GIVE TO YOU. NOT AS THE WORLD GIVES DO I GIVE TO YOU. LET NOT YOUR HEARTS BE TROUBLED, NEITHER LET THEM BE AFRAID.”

I asked my pastor what he thought about it, and he directed me to Job from the bible. Job was a man said to be blameless in the eyes of God, a man of complete integrity. He feared God and stayed away from evil. God had blessed him with a large family. He was the richest man in his entire area, yet he still gave offerings to God. He never let money corrupt his heart. Then, one day, Satan came before God and challenged Jobs character, claiming the only reason why he feared God was because of all that he had. If God took it away, then Job would curse God. So God allowed Satan to test him, with only one condition, that Satan was not allowed to harm him physically, but he had free reign to do whatever he wanted with whatever he possessed. Of course, Satan did his worst to Job, killing all his children and taking away his riches by killing his livestock, farmhands, and servants. In all of this, Job did not sin by blaming God, instead he fell to the ground in worship and said JOB 1:21 HE SAID, “I CAME NAKED FROM MY MOTHER’S WOMB, AND I WILL BE NAKED WHEN I LEAVE. THE LORD GAVE ME WHAT I HAD, AND THE LORD HAS TAKEN IT AWAY. PRAISE THE NAME OF THE LORD!” It was clear that Job understood who God was. Then I started to think about if I understood who God was, could I have that same conviction as Job?

I’ve always heard that it’s never good to plan too far ahead because God might suprise you. God’s plan for your life might not always be in line with what you plan for your life. We can pray for a long, fruitful life here on earth, but that is not guaranteed. Sometimes we forget that we are here for a short time, this world is not our home. Our assurance comes from knowing Jesus and the promise of eternal life for all who believe. If God takes us back to Him early, could that mean that our work here on earth is finished, or are we to take it as punishment? Job remembered that everything he had, God had given him. Even in his grief, he still knew the goodness of God. Ultimately, as a believer, we want to submit to our Fathers will. His way is always better, even if we can not see it at the time.

I started to think about what life actually meant to me. How attached I was to the things I knew and the routine of my life. If I got sick and God didn’t heal me, would I curse God or praise Him anyway? Then I started to think about my life before I knew Jesus. How everything was dark and meaningless. If I had been sick then. Never knowing Jesus. Dying in my sin. Forever separated from the Father! I felt a wave of fear and dread come over me. I realised that God will always be good because He called me to Him, and He chose me. He saved me from death. Jesus paid the price I couldn’t by shedding His blood for me. He has given me more than I could have ever dreamed of by that one act alone! For that reason, God will always be good! If I get sick tomorrow, God is good. If I lose a loved one, God is good. If I lose my job, God is good. If I lose my home, God is good. GOD. IS. GOOD. PSALMS 34:8″OH, TASTE AND SEE THAT THE LORD IS GOOD; BLESSED IS THE MAN WHO TRUSTS IN HIM!”

If you are a believer, death is not bad. It’s the people that you leave behind that suffer the most. But the comfort we have is knowing that we will not be separated from them forever. It is just a short time. If we are still here on this earth, that means that we have an assignment to complete, and we have a purpose. Going home to be with the Lord is exactly that; going home to a place that Jesus prepared for you. How beautiful to know that is what awaits you. How comforting for a family like The Pettways who are left behind. Maybe they might not see it now because the grief is still raw, and we that are left behind have to sort through life and find a new normal without the ones we’ve lost. But I pray that they find the peace that surpasses all understanding. I pray that they draw closer to God PSALMS 34:18 “THE LORD IS CLOSE TO THE BROKENHEARTED AND HE SAVES THOSE CRUSHED IN SPIRIT.”

Through the good times and the bad times, God will forever remain good. Whatever you suffer through now, whether it’s sickness or struggling financially, whatever your trial is, just know that it will not be forever. When we enter into heaven, there will be no sickness, no tears, no pain, just joy! Our riches await us in heaven, so keep your eyes focused on things from above! My wish is to be like Job. Someone who, when grief, knocks at my door, I will fall to my face and declare through tears, “I came naked from my mother’s womb, and I will be naked when I leave. The Lord gave me what I had, and the Lord has taken it away. PRAISE THE NAME OF THE LORD!”

GRATITUDE.

It feels like we are flying through the year. It’s March already! This is the month where we celebrate what Jesus did on the cross for us. I chose to call this months post “gratitude” because sometimes I think we can easily forget the magnitude of the cross and what it meant to have Jesus defeat death. As followers of Christ, we sometimes get caught up in the cycle of life; looking after the family, working but never feeling like it’s enough, making sure the kids get to school on time, wondering why the cost of groceries keep going up but your money stays the same. So many things can weigh us down, and we forget about the power of the cross! We start to complain about life being hard, how everything is bad, bad, bad! We come to church on Sunday feeling the stress of the week, singing the worship songs on auto pilot, and trying hard to listen to the message given and resonate with the words spoken. We stop living like we believe God because life is just too hard!

Well, I am here to tell you that life is hard! In fact, Jesus never said following Him would be easy. The bible tells us that there will be trials and tribulations that we must endure to the end! Even Psalms 23 tells us that we will walk through the valley of the shadow of death! What sets us apart from the rest of the world is that we don’t walk through times of danger, scarcity, and the unknown alone, for God is with us! He is the cloud by day and the fire by night, and He goes before us and follows us. Because of God’s love for us, we don’t need to fear or be weighed down with anxiety because life is hard. Our strength to endure comes from the Lord.

Sometimes, we can be guilty of thinking too much about what we don’t have, feeling like we are being punished because the desires of our hearts have not been met. We complain, and we obsess about what we feel we lack, and we forget about what we already have, the best gift of all; salvation! We complain so much that we become ungrateful. We act like spoilt kids when we don’t get our way. What saddens me is that we have become entitled when we don’t even deserve all that God has sacrificed for us! God gave us His one and only begotten son as payment for our sins. Jesus knowingly gave His life as a ransom for us. He chose to die a horrific death because He knew that was the only way we could ever have a relationship with God. God gave us the ultimate sacrifice, and here we moan when we don’t get what we want! God doesn’t have to do another thing for us! He has done enough already, but he still blesses us, even though we are ungrateful, because we serve a good God who loves us like no other!

Often, we find ourselves walking a thin line between the standards of the world and the standards of God. We live in a world opposed to the message of the Gospel, and we can sometimes get drawn into what the culture tells us we should have, instead of what God wants us to have, the two can often be very different! PSALMS 37:25 “ONCE I WAS YOUNG, AND NOW I AM OLD. YET I HAVE NEVER SEEN THE GODLY ABANDONED OR THEIR CHILDREN BEGGING FOR BREAD.” This verse has stuck in my head of late, and I think it has been a powerful reminder that I have everything I need. I haven’t been anxious about anything in particular, but I think it’s verses like this that keep me humble and thankful. They remind me of how blessed I am! There was a point where the things I didn’t have became almost like an idol in my life. One of my desires was to have my own house, the idea of living alone became the most important thing, so important that I became sad when I saw others living the life I wanted, what I thought I deserved. I almost started to think that maybe God was punishing me because my dream felt unattainable. It made me ungrateful, and I stopped noticing all the ways God was blessing me in my life, I just took everything I had for granted. Then, one day, God revealed my heart to me, and I was repentant! Every morning, I opened my eyes to see a new day, and I was grateful. Every day, my body didn’t fail me in some way. I was grateful. Every day, I never had to worry about what I was gonna eat, I was grateful. Every time I never had to stress about my bills, I was grateful. Every night I went to bed, I knew I had a roof over my head, and I was grateful. All the things that seemed so small and insignificant, I knew somewhere out there someone else was not so blessed. When I realised what I had made an idol of, only served me, I felt selfish. Now, don’t get me wrong, I am not saying it’s bad to ask God to fulfil the desires of your heart, He pretty much tells us to ask, and we shall receive. But it becomes an issue when our hearts desires become a stumbling block for us. MATTHEW 6:33 “SEEK THE KINGDOM OF GOD ABOVE ALL ELSE, AND LIVE RIGHTEOUSLY, AND HE WILL GIVE YOU EVERYTHING YOU NEED.” Notice it say’s NEED, not want!

Since the begining of man we have been ungrateful, and it all started on that fateful day when Eve convinced her husband Adam to consume the only fruit forbidden to them, because she was conviced by the serpant that God was holding out on them, when the reality was God had given them Eden, He had given them everything! It really is in our nature to question the goodness of God, to be unsatisfied. But yet God still overlooks that part of us because of the depths of His love for us we will never comprehend! So He hatched a plan, a plan He already had in motion before the fruit was consumed by the man and woman in the garden. He knew the nature of man who He created, a flaw you may say, but it was the only way He could create us to exprience love, love that came from having the freedom to choose. So He honoured their choice to be separated from Him and banished Adam and Eve from Eden, cursing the land as punishment. From that point on, men grew evil and cold, murder tainted the land. But God watched on reaching out to those who still called on Him. Until the only God fearing man remained, and God instructed Noah to build an ark because the evilness that grew angered Him, and He saw that nobody but Noah and His family were righteous enough, so he plunged the earth back into the depths of the water He seperated it from. Starting again, the great reset.

As the land became dry and life began to spring from the ground, God made a promise with a rainbow to Noah, never to flood the earth again. As man once again populated the earth, so did evil. But God still remained faithful to those who were faithful to him, His chosen people Israel. But even Israel would fall into temptation time and time again, so God would choose people and raise them up to prophesy on His behalf. But still, Israel were hard headed and refused to listen. Then He sent them the law through Moses, a law that was meant to show them their sin, a law that they could never follow because of their nature, a law that was meant to bring them to repentance, but never did. All this setting the stage for His plan to save us from our sin, the plan from the beginning. Then, one day, a child was born, a virgin birth, concieved by the Spirit of God. Gods plan wrapped in flesh, His promise now a reality. The child named Jesus full of wisdom grew into a man, and this man filled with the Holy Spirit preached a message of repentence. He called on all who knew they were sinners, and He taught them about the Kingdom of God, about faith, hope, and love. He healed the sick, raised the dead, and freed the demon possessed. He was God incarnate. Come down from His mighty thrown to be a lowly servant to an ungrateful nation. He was the plan from the very beginning. He knew we would never be able to make ourselves right. We failed every test given, and we could never pay what was owed. So He chose to pay our debt for us. Jesus drank the cup that was given, and He gave His life on the cross, beaten, humiliated, disgraced, nailed to the wood born of a tree, a reminder of a tree that once produced fruit forbidden to man.

But death was not the end, Jesus defeated death, and on the third day, the tomb He was buried in was now empty! Jesus is alive! Sending out His disciples to spread the good news to all nations, He left us with the gift of the Holy Spirit in His absence, promising to return for His final judgement. Now that He paid our debt, we all recieve the free gift of God’s grace, and all we have to do is repent and accept Jesus Christ into our hearts as Lord and saviour, believing in the finished work of the cross. This is what reconciles us back to our father in heaven, and that is all He ever wanted, not to have us separated from Him. It’s the greatest love story ever told! And because I accepted Jesus, I get to be a part of that love story. Eternal life is something that I find hard to fathom, but it is mine, and it is worth more than gold! Salvation means we are being saved from something and that something is judgement, the wrath of God when Jesus returns. God never breaks a promise, so rest assured, judgement will come. The question is, where will you find yourself?

PHILIPPIANS 2:10-11 “SO THAT AT THE NAME OF JESUS EVERY KNEE WILL BOW- IN HEAVEN AND ON EARTH AND UNDER THE EARTH- AND EVERY TONGUE WILL CONFESS THAT JESUS CHRIST IS LORD, TO THE GLORY OF GOD THE FATHER.”

So this is a friendly reminder that God has given you everything, He has given you Jesus! He has given you everything you need, and your treasures await you in heaven. So keep your eyes focused on things from above. Everything else is just noise. Tune it out. It will give you contentment when you have abundance and contentment when you lack. Be grateful because you are saved! And that is more important than anything on this earth. God bless you all, and Happy Ressurection Sunday.

THE CULTURE VS THE WORD.

Is it still acceptable to say Happy New Year? 2024 is only nine days old, and it has gotten off to a wild start in terms of the Church and what I have been seeing in the media. God is definitely not playing with His Church! Jesus is coming for His bride, and He requires her to be spotless! As saddening as it has been to see leaders fall off, in one way, I’m happy because I want false teachers to be exposed and their minsitries to be put to an end. I’m sad because the number of people whose faith will be scattered because of these accusations. It reminds me of the parable that Jesus gives in Matthew, about how the servants eager to pull up weeds, were warned that in doing so would result in rooting out the wheat as well, and because of this they should let them grow together until the harvest.

Now, we see churches with no reverence for God, treating places of worship like the club. It is getting out of hand, and honestly, I am upset! Instead of the pursuit to please God, it has now turned into the pursuit to please the culture. I hate the word “culture” because, to me, it means the world. The culture will be the death of you! The culture tells you that God’s way is wrong, the culture tells you to live by your flesh! So, in order to please the culture, now, we have to change the Word of God to fit the way of the culture. Now, we say the Word of God is outdated, and we have to speak in the way of culture so that we can draw the culture in. Remember, we live in an inclusive world, so not only are we changing the standards of God to fit the culture, we are affirming what God says is sin to be inclusive of the culture. Now, the Church looks just like the world. Again, I say the culture will be the death of you!

JAMES 4:4-5 “YOU ADULTERERS! DON’T YOU REALIZE THAT FRIENDSHIP WITH THE WORLD MAKES YOU AN ENEMY OF GOD? I SAY IT AGAIN: IF YOU WANT TO BE A FRIEND OF THE WORLD, YOU MAKE YOURSELF AN ENEMY OF GOD. DO YOU THINK THE SCRIPTURES HAVE NO MEANING? THEY SAY THAT GOD IS PASSIONATE THAT THE SPIRIT HE HAS PLACED WITHIN US SHOULD BE FAITHFUL TO HIM.”

God is so clear in His Word, and the fact that people twist it to fit their evil desires makes me sick. We are in the time when people have itching ears, and instead of humbling themselves before God, they instead search for “teachers” who speak to the desires of their flesh. There is no fear of God. Instead, they fear the loss of popularity or the riches that aligning with the culture brings. They sing praises with their lips, but their hearts are far from God! Because we live in a world that esteems man higher than God, this mindset trickles into our churches, and now these leaders have gone from being the mouth peice of God to God themselves! Now, bibles remain unopened, and people carry it as a prop to Church, and instead, whatever is preached at the front of the Church becomes the Word of God. Without the knowledge of God’s Word, we perish! The bible talks about a great falling away, and it’s honestly not hard to see! With people deconstructing every week (it seems), it is clear that the heart issue behind it all is evil. People no longer want to be Holy. They no longer want to be righteous. They just want to be happy and do what feels good! The bible warns us of our evil hearts and how our desires can not be trusted. But because the people don’t open their bibles, they think God is leading them and can no longer discern the voice of God. They say, loosen up, don’t be so serious, stop being a judgemental Christian! Well, I say judgement starts in the house of the Lord! We are called to give righteous judgement. Yes, there are ways to do it, but we must do it all the same.

God tells us to live decent lives for all to see because we belong to the day, He also tells us to not participate in the unfruitful deeds of darkness but rather expose them! So why participate in things that look evil? All to draw people to your church? How about we draw people to Jesus? What we have to do to get people into our churches is what we will have to continue to do to keep them! If Jesus is not what is pulling people into your church, He definitely won’t keep them! So you can’t boast about your numbers of Church antendees if Jesus is not even invited to the meetings!

God set us apart for a reason! We are the salt of the earth, the light of the world! We are different! Why would you want to look like the world? People of the world should look at Christians and see Jesus. If we look like the world, we have now lost our taste, and as the Word says, if salt loses it’s taste it is useless. The time of persecution draws near, and the real chosen ones of God will be left standing! The culture will ask us to choose. We can’t serve two masters. Some people think they can have the culture and have God, but we serve a jealous God who wants an exclusive relationship with us. MATTHEW 6:24-26 “NO ONE CAN SERVE TWO MASTERS, FOR EITHER HE WILL HATE THE ONE AND LOVE THE OTHER, OR HE WILL BE DEVOTED TO THE ONE AND DESPISE THE OTHER. YOU CANNOT SERVE GOD AND MONEY.”

If you are a part of a church that looks to the culture instead of Jesus, run for your life! Your very soul depends on it! If the message preached at your church doesn’t direct you to Jesus, run for your life! It’s time to find a new church. God left us His word for correction, for instruction, to teach us, and to equip us to do every good work. It’s not an outdated book that needs a refresh to make it applicable for 2024. It is truth, and it is unchanging like the mighty God we serve! 2 TIMOTHY 3:16-17 “ALL SCRIPTURE IS INSPIRED BY GOD AND IS USEFUL TO TEACH US WHAT IS TRUE AND TO MAKE US REALIZE WHAT IS WRONG WITH OUR LIVES. IT CORRECTS US WHEN WE ARE WRONG AND TEACHES US TO DO WHAT IS RIGHT. GOD USES IT TO PREPARE AND EQUIP HIS PEOPLE TO DO EVERY GOOD WORK.”

I’m very passionate about the Word of God if you can’t tell. My fear, when I became a Christian, was being led astray. I believe the Holy Spirit revealed the need to know the Word when I became a believer, so I immersed myself in the Word, and because of the renewing of the mind, my faith became unshakeable! I was all in as soon as I accepted Jesus into my life, and I have never regretted that decision. The enemy has never been able to lure me away. With new years, come new year resolutions. I decided not to do any, I just want to be open to whatever God has for me this year. But a suggestion to you reading this little blog is to open up that bible collecting dust that every year you keep promising to read more. If you are a believer and you read your bible regularly, may God continue to burn that fire within and keep you hungry for His Word! If you are unsure of what you believe, and you stumbled onto this post by God’s divine appointment, this is your calling to go and read one. I know you see what is going on in the world, I know you have questions, I know things don’t make sense. Trust and believe what will make sense is the God breathed words written in that ancient book that people have told you is irrelevant!

I don’t know where 2024 is going to lead us, but wherever it leads us, stay true to God and know that He will keep us safe and hide us from whatever scheme the enemy has for us. Stay prayerful because I believe this year will require it more than ever. Let’s await with eager anticipation for all that Jesus has for us this year. We got work to do!

1 THESSALONIANS 5:19-23 “DO NOT STIFLE THE HOLY SPIRIT. DO NOT SCOFF AT PROPHECIES, BUT TEST EVERYTHING THAT IS SAID. HOLD ON TO WHAT IS GOOD. STAY AWAY FROM EVERY KIND OF EVIL. NOW MAY THE GOD OF PEACE MAKE YOU HOLY IN EVERY WAY, AND MAY YOUR WHOLE SPIRIT AND SOUL AND BODY BE KEPT BLAMELESS UNTIL OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST COMES AGAIN.” Amen.

FISHING IN YOUR POND.

I have spent the last few weeks talking and thinking about what it means to be a Christian and my purpose; the point of it all! It has led me to have some interesting conversations with other believers, who have made me delve deeper into understanding why we even exist. We all know about Jesus, and we all know that because of Him, we are reconciled back to the Father through the wonderful gift of grace, which cost nothing but our faith in Jesus Christ, and His death on the cross to absolve our sins. Hallelujah, we cry! Salvation is ours! But what next? Now, we work out our salvation on the narrow road, trying, and at times failing, to resist the temptations placed in our way by the evil one, all while we try our best to keep our eyes focused on Jesus! But what next?

While that might seem like work enough, it doesn’t end there. If I am honest, I have spent the last four years worrying about MYSELF, MY walk, MY struggles, MY growth, and MY relationship with God. Don’t get me wrong, that is exactly what I should be doing, but God requires more from me. I have learned to love God with all my heart and all my soul, but now it’s time to love my neighbour as myself! Part of loving my neighbour is sharing the good news of the Gospel, something that I haven’t been doing as well. It’s easy to meet fellow believers and talk about the goodness of God. It takes no effort to engage with each other when we share our love for Jesus. But when we have to explain the reason for our hope to someone who has no idea of who Jesus is and often has no interest in finding out, our mouth suddenly becomes dry, and we stumble on our words, praying that we don’t get asked something theological because we don’t have all the answers! When I think about sharing the gospel, most times I picture myself standing on a street corner, talking loudly about Jesus to strangers who look at me like I have lost the plot, or shout out abuse at me. The thought alone doesn’t make me want to run and grab my bible and make my way to the local town centre. The first thing this fear highlights is my pride, my worry of how I will be perceived by others, or just my fear of persecution. A reason why I am forever reminding myself of 2 TIMOTHY 1:7 “FOR GOD HAS NOT GIVEN US A SPIRIT OF FEAR AND TIMIDITY, BUT OF POWER, LOVE, AND SELF-DISCIPLINE.”

Photo by EKATERINA BOLOVTSOVA on Pexels.com

I then told myself to slow down and take one step at a time. I asked myself, what does sharing the good news of the Gospel really look like for me? Then, my sea suddenly became a pond! All this time, I was picturing myself talking to strangers, and my sea felt too big and overwhelming! Now, I saw all the people I knew, whether friends or colleagues, and now my sea turned into a manageable pond that wasn’t as frightening! It’s no secret that I live for Jesus now. I am constantly reminded of how much I have changed, becoming someone seen by some as wise and full of truth, and others, as a former shell of myself who is no longer fun! Well, you can’t please them all, and that’s fine by me. My faithfulness to God’s word, and how my faith gets me through lifes difficulties, has made it easier for me to naturally get into conversation about what I believe, but I know I haven’t been intentional with most of those conversations.

MATTHEW 28:18-19 “THEREFORE, GO AND MAKE DISCIPLES OF ALL THE NATIONS, BAPTIZING THEM IN THE NAME OF THE FATHER AND THE SON AND THE HOLY SPIRIT. TEACH THESE NEW DISCIPLES TO OBEY ALL THE COMMANDS I HAVE GIVEN YOU. AND BE SURE OF THIS: I AM WITH YOU ALWAYS, EVEN TO THE END OF THE AGE.” The great commision Jesus left to His disciples in His day is also for His disciples today! And if you have accepted Jesus Christ into your heart, then you too are a disciple. We have a mission to go and make new believers and teach them to obey God’s commands. If you have wondered what your purpose in this life is, then look no further. You have found it! Too many Christians do not think this is their resposibility, they think this is reserved for others, but no, we all have a job to do. We need to stop living a life that is dead, wake up! You have risen from death into life! This new life you have been given is not to be wasted. It’s to be fruitful, to be made to be a blessing to others. It’s not about what God gives you, and what you can take from your brothers and sisters in Christ, but instead, it’s about what you can give to God and how you can meet the needs of others! This is why churches remain stagnant because people only attend, thinking about what they can get from it or what the pastor can do for them. Only a few come thinking about how they can serve the church. When we attend church thinking about how we can serve others, only then will we see and start to live out what it truly means to walk with one another, the Christian who is devoted to each other, the ones who love and do life together, true brotherly love!

So now that you know your calling, what will you do about it? Because in the end, if we are only hearers of the word and not doers, we are only deceiving ourselves.

The topic of evangelism has been coming up at my church recently. My church wanting to equip the flock to be able to carry out the great commission has been very enlightening for me. Like I said before, the idea of sharing the Gospel filled me with fear. But now I see it so differently. I was reminded of the story in the Gospel of Luke chapter 8, when Jesus healed a demon-possessed man and sent the demons into a herd of pigs. After the man had been healed, as Jesus was preparing to head back to the other side of the lake, the man begged to go with Him. But Jesus said no. LUKE 8:39 “NO, GO BACK TO YOUR FAMILY, AND TELL THEM EVERYTHING GOD HAS DONE FOR YOU.” SO HE WENT THROUGH THE TOWN PROCLAIMING THE GREAT THINGS JESUS HAD DONE FOR HIM.” Imagine wanting to follow Jesus and his disciples, but being told no, but instead, to just go and tell the people you know, your family, about the great things God has done for you!? Wow! This really blew my mind and made me think differently about what evangelism meant. All the time, I thought it meant that before I could do anything, I had to become a scholar overnight, having read all 66 books in the bible. I thought I had to understand everything in the bible so that I could debate anyone who challenged my faith! I definitely wasn’t a scholar, and I know I didn’t understand everything, I’ve only been walking with the Lord for four years, I just wasn’t qualified! But Jesus says you are qualified because your testimony is your good news! He says, “Go and tell your family about what God has done for you!” You don’t have to be a scholar. You don’t have to know or understand everything. So what, if you meet someone who seems to know more and wants to challenge your belief, because the one thing they can’t debate is your testimony, your experience with God! You will never lose talking about what God has done for you.

My church challenged me to be able to give my testimony in three minutes. It really was a challenge to condense it because I am a natural born waffler. But I mangaged to, and now I will be able to share it with people without fear of losing their attention, and giving them the highlights opens up the door for questions and genuine interest. I really encourage you to do the same. So start with your family, share with your friends, your colleagues, work your way down the list of the people in your life, and before you know it, it will become so natural that you too will be going through your town proclaiming all the good things Jesus has done for you!

When Jesus says, follow me and I will make you a fisher of men, all we need to do is make our way to our own personal ponds, our family, our friends, the people that we have V.I.P access to in our lives, and fish! Keep talking and sharing about the goodness of God, pray for them, and live a life that is holy and righteous. Live a life that speaks of Jesus, and just let the Holy Spirit do the rest. You will be surprised when you ask people who they think Jesus is. The answers will make you realise how misimformed people really are. My mum came to Christ through me and my walk with God, I know this works, God used me without me even knowing what was happening!

So be encouraged, my brothers and sisters. Your testimony is unique. Your testimony is powerful! Go and share what God has done for you confidently and boldly! And remember, you can be sure of this, that He is with you always, even to the end of the ages.

Thank you, Lord, thank you, God, for you are good, for you are love

Forever faithful, full of grace, God of mercy in this place

King of kings, Lord of all, the Alpha and Omega, my cornerstone

The right side of the Father, where you wait, my advocate, who prepares my place

The hearts of men, you know them all, no river too wide, no mountain too tall

Nowhere to hide, for all things you see, from the beginning of time to eternity

Then, one day, when it’s time to rest, I’ll sit and hope I’ve done my best

Faithful servant, righteous and true, is who I hope I’ll be to you.

Cerise Vidal.

HOW DO WE KNOW WE ARE REALLY SAVED?

So this wasn’t what I planned to talk about this week, but life happens and sometimes God presses on your heart and you have to listen and respond with a YES. A lot happened this week, I had a scare with my mum which as you can imagine wasn’t fun, although we know that we are not immortals and death is guaranteed, it still doesn’t make it any easier to deal with! I am happy to report that my mum is alive and well, praise Jesus! But this led to an interesting conversation with my mum about her salvation! As you know I haven’t been on my faith journey for long, and I am still a new Christian compared to some, but my mum sincerely accepted Christ this year through faith and faith alone! Let me give you a little back story.

I have a close relationship with my mum, we talk practically everyday, we have a great friendship! So during my coming to Christ my mum knew everything, she was very supportive and encouraging! Through me God was reaching out to her, he was transforming her and she didn’t even realise! My mum had always believed you had to be perfect to come to Christ (this was bad teaching she experienced in her life having a brief encounter with Jehovah Witnesses) it was this belief that kept her away from God! She felt unworthy, and I remember her always saying “I need to get my life together first.” God used me to show her that He wanted her as she was, and that nobody would ever be perfect! As we all know covid happened, so a lot of plans had to get put on a shelf as the whole world shut down. I had initially hoped to get baptised in 2020 but that wasn’t possible so I put that on hold along with the rest of my life, I just used that time to continue to learn about Jesus and the goodness of God, sharing everything with my mum. During that time I prayed for her, asking God to soften her heart and to help her come to know Him!

God’s timing is always perfect! There is a good reason why I didn’t get baptised in 2020, God was still doing work in my mum! I got baptised in June 2021, and the week leading up to my baptism I prayed like I had never prayed before! I was going through my own feelings of unworthiness, the enemy was desperate, he was doing everything to sway me from my decision! That week I asked God to do something big on the day of my baptism, something so big that I couldn’t deny it was Him moving! When I think back on that time I laugh at the audacity and boldness I had to challenge my Father in that way, but My God is loving, full of grace and mercy, He understood my heart and what I needed at that time, and our God always gives us what we need! Jesus told his disciples “I tell you, you can pray for anything, and if you believe that you’ve received it, it will be yours.” (Mark 11:24) so that’s exactly what I was doing, I was believing with my whole heart that something would happen on that day! When the day of my baptism arrived I was excited, nervous, happy that my mum and brother were gonna be there to experience an important day of my new life. That morning as I was writing my testimony in preparation, my phone rang, I looked and saw my mum’s name on the screen, my first thought was she was calling to say she wouldn’t be able to make it (she suffers with arthritis, so sometimes she isn’t mobile) I answered the phone and she was tearful and emotional, of course I was worried thinking something had happened! I asked what was wrong? and her words were ” I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I woke up emotional and in tears, I am gonna bring extra clothes with me!” of course I was confused, and asked what did she mean bring extra clothes?! that’s when she said “I wanna get baptised!” I think that’s the first time I was truly overwhelmed and speechless! I told my mum YES!! God had answered my prayer, He had done something so big that I couldn’t deny him! That day me and my mum got baptised together! A day I will never forget! There is so much more I can say about what happened on that day but that isn’t the point of this post, I am showing you how she believed through faith, nothing more than pure faith! EPHESIANS 2:8-9 “GOD SAVED YOU BY HIS GRACE WHEN YOU BELIEVED. AND YOU CAN’T TAKE CREDIT FOR THIS; IT IS A GIFT FROM GOD. SALVATION IS NOT A REWARD FOR THE GOOD THINGS WE HAVE DONE, SO NONE OF US CAN BOAST ABOUT IT.”

I remember sharing that verse with her before she got baptised, and I believe she truly received it because she came to Christ in confidence that no matter what she was doing with her life, God still wanted her! This kind of reminds me of the parable of the sower (Matthew 13:1-9) I really encourage you to read it if you haven’t before, but a basic summary of it is about how the Word affects us, whether it sticks to us, or it is snatched away from us (this is a very basic summary lol) My mum had forgotten that she was saved by grace, she had reverted back to her old way of thinking! So when her mortality was challenged this week and she considered life and death she believed that she wasn’t saved because she wasn’t doing any “works”, she hadn’t attended church for a couple of weeks and she wasn’t picking up her bible, she even admitted that she was having what I like to call “imposter syndrome” where you feel like you don’t belong. That’s when I realised the word had fallen on the surface, it had not taken root!

The thing we need to understand about this walk of faith is the adversary is very real! When we choose Christ and become children of God, he hates it! He starts to throw everything at us to break our spirit! He lies to us and tells us we are not worthy and God doesn’t want us! He is so desperate to corrupt our hearts and have us back in a life of sin, a life of death! We start to feel so under attack it can become very easy for us to reconsider the narrow road and exchange it for the wider more treaded path! But think of it this way, if you had thirty more years guaranteed on this earth, but after the thirty years are up you have eternity to contend with, what would be more important to you? thirty years or eternity? Would you trade your eternity with Jesus at the throne for thirty short years of a somewhat comfortable life? I know what I’m choosing! An eternity without Jesus is something I don’t even wanna think about! The Bible warns us of all of this, God show’s us in many ways the kind of afflictions we can be subjected to as Christians, but the great thing about the Bible is it tells us how to overcome it all! We just have to pick it up and read it! EPHESIANS 6:11 “PUT ON THE FULL ARMOUR OF GOD, SO THAT YOU CAN TAKE YOUR STAND AGAINST THE DEVIL’S SCHEMES.”

Our battle is not against flesh and blood, it is a spiritual one, against the powers of this dark world and the forces of evil! I know that may sound like a movie and the reality of it can invoke fear, but we have nothing to fear if we turn up to the battle fully equipped! God gives us the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the spirit (which is the word of God) all while our feet our fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace! We have everything we need to slay our enemy, we are capable, we have the authority in the mighty name of JESUS! The enemy doesn’t want us to know this so he keeps us distracted so that we don’t arm ourselves the way God intended us by picking up our bibles! The enemy lies to us and makes us think we have no power, this is what keeps us in bondage!

The thing is we are all on our own journey’s, and they may all look a little different! We all arrive at our own revelation at some point, and that is ok because that is what shapes us, God uses it all to give Him the glory! But these are the last days, so please do not be asleep and miss our Lord all because you wasn’t prepared! You believed and received so you are saved! But that is only the start of your journey! God is calling you to seek Him, He wants to do so much in your life, He chose YOU! He knew you before He sent you into your mother’s womb! He loved you from then! That is a long time to love someone! And through it all, even when you were not perfect, and even now when you knowingly do what you shouldn’t He never stopped wanting you, His hand was always outstretched to you! When you start to move, when you put that faith that caused you to believe into action, watch Him move mountains in your life! You will start to experience Him like you could never imagine! Get to know Him, pick up your bible and discover how good He is! Whatever the enemy is throwing at you right now, trust and believe it is only for a short time, once you start to learn your true identity in Christ, you will have the power to overcome and the enemy has no other choice but to flee! I say this all with my mum in mind but this is for anyone who may be feeling weighed down! God is calling you! But will you answer?…..