Sunday, November 25, 2007

Discernment

I was reading about discernment today and a quote from Oswald Chambers really stood out to me and I wanted to include it as my blog post for today.  Oswald had this to say about your God given gift of discernment: 

"When we discern that other people are not growing spiritually and allow that discernment to turn to criticism, we block our fellowship with God.  God never gives us discernment so that we my criticize, but that we may intercede."

Have you ever used your gift of discernment to criticize someone like this.  I have done it. I have even shared that criticism with other people, not knowing the consequences to my relationship with God.  I have now "upgraded" my knowledge about the gift of discernment God has entrusted to me.  I hope you will do the same my friends.

May your fellowship with God remain strong and unbroken.
Keep pressing into God's Word and "know-Him-better-man." (Muppets Christmas Carol)

Peter


Friday, November 23, 2007

Hiddenness and Manifestation

I have been reading a new devotional series which studies different parts of God's Nature.  The first book of eight in the series is titled, "Hiddenness and Manifiestation." The Author is Graham Cooke.  Here is a portion of this book which I hope will encourage you today. 

"This book focuses on the area of Hiddenness and Manifestation and seeks to help the reader to discern these "seasons" of the ways of God.  Living within the flow of these seasons is a critical spiritual dicipline to learn.  Once you understand them and learn to flow with them you will enjoy a real sense of freedom and will not be buffeted by emotions, or circumstances as you once were.  
Manifestaion describes the times when you feel God's presence and His touch upon your life in a very immediate way.  He is just there! Those times are wonderful and effortless.  But God also bring seasons of hiddenness into your life, and although He is still very much with your, you don't feel His presence in the same way. It seems at times that God strips away all the external paraphernalia of your life and denies it to you.  At those times, you have to believe that you have peace with God, because you don't feel it in your emotions. 
Manifestation is about experiencing all that God is doing.  Hiddenness is about possessing the things of God through His Word by faith.  During times of hiddenness, you must rely on the promises that God has made to you through the Bible.  

        Manifestation is a time of blessing and 
Hiddenness is a time of building.

Perhaps the simplest way to explain it is to say that manifiestation is a time of blessing;hiddenness is a time of building.  God desires to bring you through seasons of hiddenness because He wants you to learn the discipline of walking by the Spirit.  
Developing an ongoing walk with God by the power of the Holy Spirit is a discipline.  Practicing faith is a discipline.  Hiddenness is God's way of establishing these disciplines in your life.  Once established, they prevent the enemy from invading your life and touching you, because regardless of your emotions, you know how to find the presence of God; you have a constant assurance of His presence and His commitment to you.
Understanding the fact that sometimes God is hidden and sometimes manifest will ground you in your faith and help you to have more consistent walk with Him. Whether it's a "good" day or a "bad" day, you know how to live in the grace of God.  Some days you will feel very close to God, and other days you won't - but it won't matter, because you will know that you can live, enjoying God's presence when you feel it, and enjoying living in you faith when you don't. 

Isn't that great!  That has encouraged me so much.  I love when God is manifest, especially in corporate worship times.  I am also learning, more and more, to walk with God by faith when He is Hidden and I cannot feel Him.  Those are the times when God speaks to me the most, when I hear his voice ever so clearly; even though I cannot feel His presence God still remains ever so committed to our personal fellowship.  When God is Hidden to me, which is most of the time, I cannot feel His presence, but I keep an ongoing dialog going with God based upon what I know to be true about His nature.  I know that He is always with me, never leaving me or forsaking me.  His ears are attentive to my prayers.  That He desires wisdom in my innermost parts.  That God gives wisdom to those who ask.  That God is my fortress and my refuge,  and I am under the Blood of Jesus.  That His banner over me is LOVE!  That God likes 
a thankful heart and responds to my worship and praise.  That God reveals himself to His people, His son's and daughter's, that we might know Him just as He is.   That God is faithful even when I am not faithful.  That his mercy makes room for me to be free from sin (actually dead to it) and alive in Christ.  That my Father knows the plans that He has for me...   THESE ARE THE THINGS THAT I base my ongoing dialog with God upon when I cannot feel Him close by.   Expressing my thanksgiving to God for Him just being Him, for the different, brilliant aspects of his nature, is usually where I start my conversation with God each day. Then I go through His promises that I have written on my heart from the Bible and begin to thank God for them and remind Him that I need every one of them, way more than that fancy iphone I have had my eye on lately... (grin) Throughout the day I keep listening in my spirit for God and when He speaks, or asks me a question, then I just follow his lead and that is where the conversation becomes intimate and revealing.  Quite often God reveals things about myself He wants to work on, change, develop, grow, kill! (hahaha "Pride", sound familiar).  Lots of times God just wants to show me how I need to change my thinking, or even change my incorrect perceptions or expectations of God, which in turn changes my perceptions and expectations of others as well. I have committed to being 100% honest with God when we talk, and really, you can't fool Him anyways, so why be cheeky, eh!

Today I am most grateful for my lovely wife, Holly, who is always innovative by coming up with great ideas to de-complicate life and keep things simple so that our family can enjoy every precious moment we get to share together. Three Cheers to wife's everywhere, to my wife who is the favour of God in my life, and to brown eyes, just because I love brown eyes so much...  

Loving being with you God.  You complete me.  

Peter

Thursday, November 22, 2007

Grace is enough

I was reading a new devotional study series called: Being with God
by: Graham Cooke, today.  One thing that stood out was his reminder
that every day is a day of Grace. Grace for enduring the bad things, and
grace to enjoy the good things, but always Grace.  Sometimes just knowing
God is always there with you makes the bad times pass easier.  In every
moment of every day, there is God's Grace available for you, just take it
by your faith and use it for everything so that you can always say: "Hey 
God, you get the Glory for this one, it was only by your grace." 

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

Staying Positive when the Poop Hits the Fan...

Today was another long exhausting day at work.  I work out in farmers fields fracturing gas wells for a living.  If everything goes well our days are about 8-10 hours long... When the poop hits the fan and almost everything goes wrong then you have to make a conscious effort to choose to be positive, to think positive, even if your work day rounds out to be a nice 16.5 hours of one problem after another...  That how today went for me...

Today I thought positively and focused on problem solving to get things back on track.  Even though I was bagged and past the "legal tired limit" I remembered what my friend Dr. Dick Dewert often says.  "Everything is a seed, every thought, every word, every action."  Because I want the best for my future and for my families future I have been taking that insight and putting it into action...  If everything is a seed, and every seed produces after its own kind a harvest greater than the seed planted, then what do I want to see increased in my life.  I want the fruit of the Spirit increased in my life.  I want good relationships, healthy habits and an increased faith.  Well... to make that a part of my future I was grateful for my Job, I expressed thanks to my co-workers for helping me fix the problems we encountered throughout the day.  I made time to pray and plead the Blood of Jesus over us for our protection from harm.  I responded out of kindness when people where unkind to me today.  I looked for ways to help others out.  I thought about how soft my bed would feel under me tonight instead of how uncomfortable the chair I was sitting on was and what it was doing to my back.  I did have some blah negitive thoughts, but I took them all captive to the mind of Christ and changed what I was thinking about so I could stay focused on being thankful to God for all the little things that made His goodness stand out to me.  

I am now going to flop onto my bed and sleep till my cell phone wakes me up!

Thank you Father for another day of Grace.  I needed your help to choose life today because everyone else was speaking the opposite.  Your my all in all.  Your son,  Peter.

 

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

I dare you to.....!!!

Have you ever been daredbefore. Has it always worked out for your best, or for the good of others? This is my first personal blog post from my life so I wanted to make it interactive. First I'll share with you a story from my life, then I'll dare you to...

A couple of weeks ago I was in another city attending a conference where a good pastor friend of mine lives whom I really wanted to see and spend some time with. I wanted to do something nice for my friend so I asked God what He thought I could do that would bless him. Godreplied and said "Buy your friend some new shoes." I asked God why he wanted me to by my friend new shoes?, and He said, "Because I want to show my kindness and my favour to my son, through you today." I felt so overwhelmed and honoured by Gods response that the tears welling up in my eyes where interfearing with my driving. I wiped them away-praising God for the means and the tremendous honour of doing this for Him. My friend is very special to me
but at that moment I felt how special he was to God too! So, I'm continuing on my journey as I drive and I'm thinking about a prophetic practice that I had learned a few weeks earlier where you ask the Lord to share with you one Great Thought that He is having towards and would like you to share with a person. Well I singled out my pastor friend and I asked the Lord what that One Great Thought He was thinking about my friend was-that I could share with him when we met together later on that day. The Lord gave me a one sentence thought. It was uber-simple, nothing deep and seemingly spiritual or profound! But it was God's Great Thought towards my friend, and I felt even more honoured to have something additional to give to my friend that afternoon. At around lunch time I met my pastor friend in his office. After our exchange of hugs and greetings I asked him if he had been thinking about buying a new pair of shoes. He told me he had been thinking just that. I asked him if it would be alright, and if he had time for me to go along with him and buy him some new shoes while we spent our time together. He said that would be just fine and that he knew of a store where the shoes he wanted where being sold. After picking out his favorite pairs I paid for them with cash and we headed back to his place. Then I remembered and I shared the One Great Thought that God was thinking about my friend with him and he was so blessed by it. It was a confirmation to, and an encouragement for a prophetic word he had received earlier from a wonderful man of God who holds the office of a prophet. This day could not have gotten better, I thought, but it did! My friend took me back to his house and showed me a silver treasure parked in his garage, which someone else who loves him paid for him to have! It was a brand new 2007 YAMAHA scooter!!!!!!!!!!!!! How exciting is that! If you knew my enthusiasm for YAMAHA scooters, being a scooter owner myself, you could picture me being beside myself with joy over my friends new blessing on wheels! I love how God loves on us! I love being the recipiant of His kindness. And I love how wonderful it feels to be His honoured vessel of kindness to others.

I had a wonderful time being on purpose to bless my friend. I heard a preacher named Joyce Meyer once talk about being on purpose to bless other people instead of waiting around for God to "move you" to bless others in your life. So I dare* you, today, to pursue somebody with your plans to bless them, then sock-it-to-them, kindly! Kick it up a notch and get God's input on your plans like I did. And if you really want to bless them further, ask God to tell you One Great Thought he is having towards your "victim/friend/etc." (he he) that He would like you to share with them. Try it, have fun being the kindness of God to others, and watch how your giving grows you, making you more like Jesus because your acting like Him more each day.

*Please post back your stories from taking this "DARE" and also share any other stories you have of how God has showed you His Kindness and favour through other people in your life.

Peter