What are you saying? And what are you saying by what you’re saying? Matthew 15:11

“What goes into someone’s mouth does not defile them, but what comes out of their mouth, that is what defiles them.” (Matthew 15:11 NIV)

Often quoted but how often do we choose to live by this? We say we’ll try to be more loving and patient, verbally we want to be like Jesus. But it’s always worth reflecting how our thoughts and actions reflect our progress? What is the tone and language that you use to get points across? When people talk to you do they explicitly comment on feeling encouraged or happy when you’re around?

Ephesians 4:29 “Let no foul or polluting language, nor evil word nor unwholesome or worthless talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good” (AMP). On the face of it this is a verse that my cousin gave me to prove I have to stop swearing. She was right. But delve deeper. The verse doesn’t discourage foul language for the sake of it. It isn’t legalistic because God just felt like saying it but because our words carry the power to cause great harm when they aren’t said in a spirit of love or righteousness.

Surely everything we say can’t be said in such a spirit? If my mum asks me to do the washing up is that necessarily loving? Yes and no. On one hand she may be asking me to alleviate something my grandma would otherwise do, on the other she might just not feel like it. But that bit isn’t our responsibility. My reply on the other hand is. In politely saying “sure”, I’m honouring my parent. In doing it and not moaning, in being positive and doing a decent job on the plates I am glorifying God, I’m not complaining, I’m being obedient and I’m doing things as well as they can be done. I know she’s going to put this into practice now because I’m not one for washing the dishes, but you get the point. Furthermore, if Christ dwells within us, what would such coarse language be doing coming out of our mouth. God lives inside of us, we can’t be doing things that pollute His temple, it’s so wrong in the face of everything that He has given us. God gives us the tools to do so much but there must be intention in us to strive to be obedient, to strive to reflect His love and beauty.

“How we undertake a task tells an awful lot about us. Our identity, mindset, experience and creativity are all evidenced in the life that we bring to each assignment. So too is our attitude, our demeanour and our standing in God. Our identity comes to the surface when we engage in any enterprise. Our doubt reveals the current state of our being” Graham Cooke

God bless and keep you always x

“Seek good, and not evil, that you may live; and so the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be with you, as you say. Hate evil, love good, and establish justice in the courts. It may be that the Lord, the God of Hosts, will be gracious to the remnant of Joseph. But let justice roll on like rivers, and righteousness like a mighty stream”

Amos 5:14-15, 24

Unfair, Habakkuk 1:2-4

“How long, O LORD, must I call for help? But you do not listen! “Violence!” I cry, but you do not come to save. Must I forever see this sin and misery all around me? Wherever I look, I see destruction and violence. I am surrounded by people who love to argue and fight. The law has become paralysed and useless, and there is no justice given in the courts. The wicked far outnumber the righteous, and justice is perverted with bribes and trickery.”
(Habakkuk 1:2-4)

Sometimes we can pray for particular things and not see those change in the way that we expect or in the timeframe we want to see them. “You do not come to save”, “You do not listen”. Habakkuk wasn’t frustrated because he’d prayed about getting a new job or working on a friendship, His people were struggling and their future looked pretty bleak. He was praying for His nation in the face of looming disaster and he wanted an explanation.

Habakkuk is one of the twelve minor prophets of the Old Testament. He saw that his people were far away from God and going to fall to the Babylonians. So he went to God….and He complained.

He knew that the punishment of the Jews was righteous for many had turned from God after numerous chances. That is pretty much the Old Testament after all: God creates man, God gives them bountiful gifts, they throw it back in His face, they realise life without Him is not that great and go back to Him, He is merciful, they throw it back in his face again and through wise men and prophets He reveals the gift of the Messiah because they keep messing up. So Habakkuk saw that God was “perfectly just” (1:13) in punishing and correcting the Jews for their sin, but the Babylonians were a “cruel”and “violent” nation, “notorious for their cruelty” (1:6,7). He felt it unfair that the “wicked [should] destroy people who are more righteous than they” (1:13).

Whilst it’s unlikely you’ve echoed this point in the same language, you’ve probably said something similar. “That person’s so lovely, it isn’t fair that they are suffering like this”, or “How can HE be doing better than SHE is, he’s a horrible person?” We recognise injustice in the everyday, the woman who gives everything she can to others but barely has for herself. And then we see their foil, the consultant whose bonus could secure ownership of her home or help support a GOSHCC initiative but instead splashes it on drinks, greed and hedonism.

Your prayers don’t have to sound pretty or be worded perfectly, Habakkuk implored of God to reveal to Him HOW such injustice could go on? And God responded. Twice.

God doesn’t work on our time scale. Why would He? If you could choose between seeing things one step at a time or the past, present and future simultaneously, which would you choose? God encourages Habakkuk to wait on Him, to trust in Him because a change gon’ come (sorry).

“Then the Lord said to me, “Write my answer plainly on tablets, so that a runner can carry the correct message to others. This vision is for a future time. It describes the end, and it will be fulfilled. If it seems slow in coming, wait patiently, for it will surely take place. It will not be delayed. “Look at the proud! They trust in themselves, and their lives are crooked. but the righteous will live by their faithfulness to God. Wealth is treacherous, and the arrogant are never at rest. They open their mouths as wide as the grave, and like death, they are never satisfied. In their greed they have gathered up many nations and swallowed many peoples. “But soon their captives will taunt them. They will mock them, saying, ‘What sorrow awaits you thieves! Now you will get what you deserve!”

The greedy oppressors will secure their death through the very same actions that made you aware of the seeming injustice in the world. Remember that your God is just.

Living by faith, is living in confidence that your God is always in control, that you will never be helpless because He orchestrates everything, and always for the good of His children. In trusting God, a person can look beyond the unpleasant exterior of things into God’s deeper purpose and find the strength to live no matter what they may see or experience. We don’t know the future but we belong to a God who exists outside of space and time, who sees all tenses as they occur, in Him we can trust fully.

A few months ago a friend told me to write down something to the tone of “by the grace of God I am happy, filled with the joy of the Lord” and wait on Him and see it come to fruition. You know how that went 😎. Wait patiently on the God who delivers His children, who sacrificed His only son to account for all of the wrongdoing which was leading us straight to death. We don’t know and understand everything but the Omniscient One does.

God bless and keep you always x

Not My Portion, Isaiah 41:10

Isaiah 41:10 : “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.”

I don’t feel like sugar coating or playing down the element of the supernatural today. People were raised from the dead, demons were exorcised from people’s bodies and a number of challenges in the life of the Christian come from the enemy. Simple. Don’t try and replace cases of such for alternative arguments.

As people grow in Christ they can feel increasingly tested, even at the early stage when people accept Jesus Christ as their Saviour they can feel like they’re not worthy. This is not of our God, He wants us!

Think of it in this way. My aim is to stop you from knowing and living with God for eternity. I don’t have much power beyond trying to trick you into sin, into distancing yourself from Him. This takes effort so I’d much rather knock you off of your path before you’ve got confidence in God and His Grace, it would save me a lot of work. Should you grow in confidence, my job won’t be done and dammit I will keep trying.

Sometimes when we work to strengthen our resolve not to do particular sins our progress can feel like it hits a bit of a wall. Take sexual immorality (because its a simple one to illustrate). You and your partner could have agreed to wait until marriage, a month or so later your resolve is still high but your girlfriend/boyfriend starts saying “this wasn’t what she/he signed up for” or “you’re being selfish depriving her/him of what’s theirs(!)” You know that abstaining is what your God wants yet you feel like perhaps you are being too cautious. You begin to doubt that what you’re doing is right…

The Bible warns us of the overwhelming power of doubt. Remember James 1:6, “a doubtful mind is as unsettled as a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind”. Doubt is debilitating to the life of the Christian which is a life led by faith and obedience. When we doubt our God our actions may not seem to make sense. When we start to question things, cracks will form and make our very structure precarious.

God says do not be “dismayed”, “I will uphold you with my righteous right hand”. The enemy knows that when we lean on God He will revive us, He will comfort us and envelope us in His “unfailing love” (ps 5:8). God will get us through everything, even when we don’t ask Him to, God hears the cries and groans of our hearts ! Even when you can’t word your cry out for help, He will be there ready to comfort you. He is our “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (ps 46:1).

The enemy (I refuse capitalisation, he doesn’t impress me) wants you to wallow in condemnation and dismay because it will make you self impose distance between you and the Father. Spiritual warfare is real yo. It is real and at times it is really tiring. But the God you belong to is one who will use such episodes to help shape your faith and resolve to achieve the you that He intended you to be. Through Jesus you already have the victory so those attempts to make you doubt, to make you afraid and weak in spirit can only ever be just that: attempts.

Get out your boxing gloves and fight because fear, distance and doubt are not of the God you belong to, who reigns inside of you. Don’t have it ! Pray against it, seek counsel from friends and remind yourself who it is you belong to; He isn’t ever going to abandon you. Moses was a murderer, Paul a persecutor, King David an adulterer and murderer – there is nothing you can do to take you out of God’s love forevermore, He is there for us always.

God bless x

Leaving It Up To God, Proverbs 16:33

“We may throw the dice but The Lord determines how they fall.” (Proverbs 16:33)

When we say that we devote our lives to the Father, when we give ourselves to Him, we must do it wholly in heart. When things don’t seem to go the way we had planned we can despair or let this message really resonate with us, reminding us in all things His Will be done. And what a blessing it is to submit to and recieve the manifold blessings of relying on an all-knowing, all-powerful, just, loving and merciful Father.

Sometimes a door may feel closed to us, but that’s God’s plan, and providence will make whatever is coming so much more than what our minds could have envisioned. All we have to do is accept it! To trust wholeheartedly in God providing for us, in a God who is steadfast in His ways will transform our lives. Our relationship is not based off of what we can do for Him, because He sure doesn’t need us to achieve anything and yet He’s always there, ready and waiting to provide things beyond our wildest dreams.

Look at your friends who follow the Way, God has such a plan for you and for them, be grateful that you just get to witness and experience such a thing.

Always remember: “But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.”

God bless x