Posted on by Lesley

God’s Great Love

Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.

1 John 4:7-12

PRAYER

Dear Father,

We lift up all those who are suffering in Syria and Turkey right at this moment, all those who have lost their homes and families, the injured and those who will fall prey to hunger and disease. We also send our prayers of thanks to all the brave people involved in the rescue mission. Please give them the strength that they need to carry on with their strenuous and dangerous task. Thank you, God, for each miracle of another saved life.

In Jesus Name, Amen.

Posted on by Lesley · 3 Comments

You Hold Me

Your peace envelops me. The distractions of the world seem so very far off and last week seems a million miles away. There is no busyness, no worries of things to do and of those left undone. There is only You and I, Lord. I feel Your comfort and Your strength holding me up and You won’t let me go.

“And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

Phillipians 4:7 ESV

“He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.”

Isaiah 40:29 ESV
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The Pursuit of God

God is the author of our salvation. There is nothing we can do on our own to gain it – not any amount of church attendance, not a lifetime of ‘good works’, not by praying to saints nor by the granting of indulgences. All the credit is due to God who secured our redemption by the blood of Jesus who willingly died for us on the cross.

We cannot even claim credit for ‘accepting’ Jesus for it is God who draws us to himself, and it is the Holy Spirit who guides and strengthens us from thereon. Just before he returned to his Father, after he had risen from the cross, Jesus said he would not abandon us and leave us on our own.

“But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you.” – (John 14:26 – English Standard Version).

The following excerpt is from The Pursuit of God by A W Tozer.

“Christian theology teaches the doctrine of prevenient grace, which briefly stated means this, that before a man can seek God, God must first have sought the man.

We pursue God because, and only because, He has first put an urge within us that spurs us to the pursuit.

“No man can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him.” (John 6:44 – English Standard Version), and it is by this very prevenient drawing that God takes from us every vestige of credit for the act of coming. The impulse to pursue God originates with God, but the outworking of that impulse is our following hard after Him; and all the time we are pursuing Him we are already in His hand: “Thy right hand upholdeth me.”

“My soul clings to you; your right hand uphholds me.” (Psalm 63:8 – English Standard Version )”

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Thinking Is Not Enough

We humans want to help each other and that is good insofar as we can, but God wants us to press through to His presence where there is no natural or artificial help. Our denominations have their place, but they cannot aid us at this point of aloneness. He asks that we come with a naked intent unto God. We must want God Himself – and nothing more!

When we present ourselves to Him in this way, what a blessing to have His assurance that God Himself has removed all of the legal hindrances to our access. It is a glorious hard core of fact that Jesus Christ has removed all of the legal hindrances!

There are many legal reasons why I should not go to heaven. There are governmental reasons why I should not go to heaven. I believe that a holy God must run His universe according to holy law – and I do not belong there because I have broken every one of those holy laws in some way. Therefore, there has to be a redemption, a justification of some kind if I am to have God and He is to have me.

Thank God, it has been done! The New Testament language is plain as can be – in Jesus Christ and through His death and resurrection, every legal hindrance has been met and taken away. There is nothing to stop you except yourself – no reason why we cannot enter into all the depths of the fullness of God!

Here I must repeat – too many people are trying to think their way in. The only way to get in is to believe Him with our hearts forevermore, crying after Him and looking unto Him with a naked intent of love! The time comes when all we can do is believe God – believe what He says, believe Him and love Him!

The thinking process is not enough in this realm. The great God Almighty that fills the universe and overflows into immensity can never be surrounded by that little thing that we call our brain, our mind, our intellect – never, never, never! Never can we rise to face God by what we know and by what we are, but only by love and faith are we lifted thus to know Him and adore Him!

This excerpt is from the book I Talk Back to the Devil: The Fighting Fervor of the Victorious Christian by A W Tozer

(Emphasis in paragraph Four is mine)

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Posted on by Lesley

Enter His Gates With Thanksgiving

 “Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!” Psalm 100:4

 “I will give thanks to the Lord with my whole heart; I will recount all of your wonderful deeds.” Psalm 9:1

“Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows.” James 1:17

Prayer

Wonderful God, you are abounding in strength and splendour, yet I can approach you because of your forgiveness and grace. You hold the sky and command the stars, but you reach down to shower me with your unfailing love. Thank you that I am a child of your promise, that you love me, that I have received your eternal compassion, and that I have been forgiven by Jesus’ sacrificial blood. You convert tragedy into triumph and suffering into glory. Your compassionate mercy makes me happy. Through the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

Posted on by Lesley

Trust in Christ Jesus

Don’t worry about anything; instead, pray about everything; tell God your needs, and don’t forget to thank him for his answers. If you do this, you will experience God’s peace, which is far more wonderful than the human mind can understand. His peace will keep your thoughts and your hearts quiet and at rest as you trust in Christ Jesus.

Philippians 4:6-7 (Living Bible Translation)

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The Avowal

The Avowal by Denise Levertov (1923 – 1997)

As swimmers dare

to lie face to the sky

and water bears them,

as hawks rest upon air

and air sustains them,

so would I learn to attain

freefall, and float

into Creator Spirit’s deep embrace,

knowing no effort earns

that all-surrounding grace.