What is Your Calling?

Bible Verses Used:

Isaiah 55:11

Trust in God for He will never leave you nor forsake you, and He promises that His Word will never return to Him void. When God is moving us to a different level, we’re supposed to move on. I know that God is with me 100%. When Jesus speaks to us, He expects us to learn from our mistakes and move on. God doesn’t consult our past when He prepares our future.

Once we’ve given our heart and life to Jesus, there’s so many things we can do in serving Him – we can serve, we can pray and we can share what God is doing in our lives. In our weakness, God can be our strength, but I hear you asking – What can I do? There’s plenty that I can do. If you’ve felt it’s not my calling, get up there anyway. We’re called to serve Him.

Perhaps your calling is to clean the toilets. Whatever you do, do it to the glory of God. When you step out, just say, “Here am I, God – use me.” As situations change in your life, offer to help someone. Perhaps you’ve been asked to read aloud in church, and you’re terrified of being humiliated – just remember that God blesses your efforts. God will give you what you need, and He sees your ♥. When you feel peace in your ♥, go with it.

When you’re in any situation you can call on the name of Jesus, knowing that if He be for me, who can be against me? God is there for me; He will never leave me nor forsake me. Jesus didn’t die on the cross and endure all the pain and suffering so that we could backslide. We need to work together in unity – a strong body!

The Holy Spirit gives us an inner peace if what we are doing is right for us. We need to have faith and trust in God. If you trust the Holy Spirit 100% to guide you, you will find inner peace. Sometimes we need to step out of our comfort zone, for we are answerable to Jesus. There are people who have been Christians all their lives, and yet, they don’t have a personal relationship with the Lord Jeus Christ, nor have they stepped out in faith.

If you want Christian input, you need to approach a good strong Christian, who is rooted and grounded in God’s Word. God is building us strong and firm. If our roots are not strong in the Word of God, we don’t have the Living Water. Pine trees have shallow roots;  they wave in the wind and if they don’t receive water, they die. That’s like us – we need to have our roots grounded deep in God’s Word, so that when the storms of life come, we will be strong, and we also need to receive the Water of Life (Jesus).

We all have pressures from family and friends, but it’s up to us how we deal with those pressures. It’s important what God wants! We are all a part of the same body, and we need to fulfil our part – God will bless you for it. If we are faithful in the small things, God will bless us in the bigger things, too.

There are many areas where God can use you. Don’t wait for ten burning bushes. God can and will use you if only you let Him. Make yourself available. God is calling us to be a Holy people, and He’s opening our Spiritual eyes and our Spiritual ears. God will call the people that He wants to use. There’s no better time to make a commitment to the Lord Jesus.

If you don’t know the Lord, Jesus Christ, I ask you to invite Him into your heart, and pray the following prayer:~

Lord Jesus, I admit that I am a sinner and constantly fall short of your glory. I believe that You are the Son of God, and I give my life over to you and acknowledge you as my Saviour.

Then shout it from the rooftops that you are saved!

Pull Up the Anchor from Your Past and move On!

These are today’s sermon notes that I took during church. The lesson today is that we need to pull up the anchor from our past and move on, and not let the past hinder our future.

Bible Verses Used

Isaiah 43: 18, 19

Remember not the former things, neither consider the things of old.  Behold, I will do a new thing. The purpose of a boat anchor is to stop the boat from moving and crashing into rocks, but if the anchor is stuck firmly in the sand, there is no way that the boat is going to move, so the anchor is more of a hindrance than a help in these circumstances.

There are so many people that allow their past to anchor them to the things of the past, but God doesn’t want you to be immovable, anchored in one place. When God determines your future, He doesn’t remember your past. The best days of your life are still ahead of you. Your past doesn’t determine your future.

Mary Magdalene was one of Jesus’ most devoted followers, but she had seven demons driven from her. She remained until the last moment at the Cross when Jesus was crucified, and was one of the first at the sepulchre to anoint the body of Jesus, but found the tomb empty. She brought Peter and John to the tomb, then, after they had left, Mary Magdalene met the risen Jesus.

Peter sometimes acted or spoke with too much haste and had to be rebuked, but God filled Peter with such an anointing that He preached an awesome message. God didn’t take any notice of Peter’s past, nor will He take any notice of yours. God is the ultimate makeover expert.

Jacob’s proud self-confidence had to be broken if he was really to receive God’s blessing, and God taught Jacob through a conflict with a special messenger of God. He changed Jacob’s name to Israel, that means ‘an overcomer with God’, and made Him over.

Ruth was a Moabitess and came from a background of worshipping idols, and yet, Jesus came from her line. You see, God changed her. He still directed affairs in the everyday lives of His people for their good.

Zacchaeus was an embezzler, a tax collector, and was considered by the people as a sinner and a renegade. Yet, he was considered worthy enough to host Jesus, and Zacchaeus changed and became benevolent toward others. He gave half of his goods to the poor and restored fourfold all of the money that he had embezzled.

Paul (Saul) killed Christians. He considered that Stephen deserved execution, and after this Paul led the persecution of the Christians, imprisoning both men and women alike, and yet, Paul was extremely blessed by God, as He took him into heaven and showed him glorious things.

God has set all of these people free from their past. What God did for these people, He can do for you. Do not dwell on the past. Do not let the anchor hold you back. Failing is rarely fatal – it is normal. You need to use failure to make you stronger in the future.

Abraham Lincoln lost so many elections that it’s a wonder that he ever became elected. There’s hope for us yet. You have to be prepared to let go of the past to do what God wants you to do in the future.

The humble Kleenex tissue was a failure in the beginning – in World War 1 as a gas mask filter during the war, and as a replacement for cotton used in surgical dressings. It wasn’t until someone suggested that they be marketed to remove cold cream and for colds and hay-fever that they became a success, and they are now a successful multi-billion dollar company.

Charles Darrow was married, and he promised his wife that they were going to be millionaires, but the Great Depression hit, and Charles became very disgruntled, but his wife told him not to lose sight of his dream. He had a vision of buying and selling properties and paying with cash, and that vision became a board game. Can you guess which one it is? Yes, that’s right, it’s Monopoly. Charles tried to sell it to Parker Brothers, and he was refused each time, but then, eventually Parker Brothers asked how much he wanted for the board game, and he said, “One million dollars”. They became millionaires, but only because they didn’t give up on their dream.

Stop using your past to excuse you from doing things. Pull up the anchor, hoist the sails and get ready to move on. By the grace of God, we don’t have to be a product of our past. Pull up the anchor from your past, and move on!

The Youth of Today

Bible verses used:

Acts 9:1-20

The only way that you can make sure that you are heading in the right direction is to keep your eyes focused on the one true God. We need to stand on God’s promises. God is the author and finisher of our faith. God says that He will bless those who trust in Him. We need to do what God calls us to do. Every day someone comes across your path who needs Christ.

We need to become infectious. The youth of today are the future of tomorrow, and they are witnesses to people from near and far. If our shoes (spiritual shoes) don’t look comfortable, why would anyone want to wear them? Our spiritual shoes need to look comfortable to those outside the church, so that they will want to…

…step…

…into our shoes.

When Saul had his life changing experience, it was for a purpose – as God’s messenger to the Gentiles.  The Bible tells us to be filled with the Spirit, and that we are filled for a purpose. We are to be His servant and His witness, and we are equipped for His purpose.

In our youth group, one of the youth were talking about Lazarus, and how Jesus asked Martha to roll away the stone, but her reply was that Lazarus had been dead for four days and he stinketh. Jesus said that if Martha would believe, she would see the glory of God. It is like that with us, also, for we need to roll the stone away, knowing what is behind that stone. Yes, there will be things that “stinketh”, but the longer that those things are left there, the worse the stink! We need to grant the Lord access to our own lives, and we need to roll away the stone so that God may be glorified in us.

God makes wounded people whole. One of the things that we need to do is to guard our tongues, as gossip destroys faith. When you are sitting around your table, guard your tongue, as the youth of today don’t need to hear all of the gossip about the church that you are in – it destroys faith!

When David was called, he was tending the sheep, but he didn’t go straight to be king in flowing garments – he went back to tending the sheep. He was marked out as Israel’s next king, but in the years before he became king, he matured in mind and body, becoming skilled in speech, writing and music;  developing his brave fighting skills and defending his flocks from the wild animals and marauding Philistines. God had a purpose for David, but he had to mature into the sort of person that God could use. It didn’t just happen overnight.

Nothing speaks louder to an unbelieving community than a large youth presence in church, and God will prepare them into the sort of people that He can use. The youth of today are the future of the church and this country.

Run that You may Obtain

Pastor Q preaches an excellent sermon, and we are extremely blessed to have a church where we can be taught well of the things of God. These are my study notes from this morning’s sermon, and they are not a patch on the sermon itself. Unfortunately, when I was at business college, I couldn’t see the value in studying shorthand, but it sure would have come in handy right about now – God knew what I would have need of, even if I didn’t! I have missed almost as much as I have transcribed, but I hope that it will bless you as much as the sermon blessed us this morning. We travel about 150 kilometres to church each week, but it’s worth it to be able to hear the Word preached well.

Bible Verses:

Blessed is the man that perseveres under trial, for when people endure, they will receive the Crown of Life. What are we required to do? Persevere, and we will be blessed. Being blessed is more than being happy – it is about that spiritual joy that occurs in the heart. Jesus went to the Calvary for the joy of the cross. Do you think that Jesus really enjoyed what God asked Him to do? No, but He did it for the joy of the cross.

The picture in James 1:12 is of a winner of a race receiving the crown of glory, but the crown we receive is of eternal life. Picture yourself victorious with the crown of life – can you really picture yourself like that? That is how God is seeing you right now.

There are televisions that have PIP, which is where you can have one screen showing, and another screen as well. Picture yourself as the top screen and God’s screen is the bottom one – what God sees is the real you, and the top screen is how you see yourself, but God’s screen shows us victorious, which is sometimes not how we see ourselves, and if we can’t see God’s screen of ourselves, we only see our own perspective.

We try to do things in our own strength, but we should trust God and persevere through to the other side. You are not meant to understand everything, only that God calls you to persevere. God told Eve that she could eat of any tree in the Garden of Eden, but of the Tree of Knowledge of good and evil. Eve knew what God wanted her to do, but she began to doubt when Satan planted thoughts into Eve’s mind, saying that she would not surely die, but her eyes would be opened and that she would be like God, knowing good and evil. Eve was tempted because she wanted to know what God knew. The trap is that you need to understand the mind of God.

There are seasons of hardness and easiness. We need to be in the position where our first response is a spiritual response, rather than a human response. Then we feel guilty, and that is Satan’s infiltration. Our first response, if we have someone do something wrong to us, is to criticise.

A certain prominent female politician attended a vehicle accident, and when she was there, the person in the car needed medical attention before the ambulance crew arrived, so she went into doctor mode, which was her previous profession. Note that she went into doctor mode – interesting, isn’t it, that when she was under pressure that she went into doctor mode??? We need to go into Christian mode when things go wrong.

There are seven main points for a Christian to remember, and they are:

1. Refuse to give in to wrong thoughts – guard your mind. There’s an old saying, “Garbage in, garbage out”, and this means that if you take garbage into your mind, that is exactly what you will get out of it. Be disciplined and determined – don’t entertain wrong thoughts about yourself or others. Note that I said, “Don’t entertain wrong thoughts” because that is exactly what Satan is getting you to do. The devil will put wrong thoughts into your mind, but what you do with them is your responsibility. Protect your mind!
2. Resist the temptation to psychoanalyse yourself. If you do, you’ll see all of your failures, but that’s not how God sees you. If He didn’t love me, would He have sent His Son to die on the cross for me? When God wants you to change anything in your life, He will reveal Himself to you.
3. Fight by using God’s Word. You can have no more powerful weapon than God’s Word. Jesus used God’s Word to defeat Satan when He was tempted, but you need to know what it says.
4. Listen to God – God speaks to you in a still, small voice that only you can hear. God wants to speak to you, but you need to let Him in the busyness of your life.
5. Be willing to move to a higher level of faith. Expect God to respond to a higher level of faith, and He will, as you step out in faith.
6. Get your life into proper alignment with God – this can only be found in God’s Word. This needs to be a part of your daily routine. We need to be lined up with God’s plumbline.
7. Understand and accept the place that you are in right now. When you know that what I am being put through is a part of your eternal destiny, life becomes easier. You need to place your life into perspective with the eternal crown of life that is promised to you.

When the going gets tough, God blesses you abundantly.

Run that you may receive the ultimate reward:

the

Crown of Life

and

eternity in heaven with God.

Do we Remember to give Praise and Gratitude for all that God has done in our Lives?

We have recently begun going to a new church, and the Pastor’s message is excellent. I take notes whilst in church, and  phoned our Pastor today to ask whether he would mind me posting my study notes onto my blog – his answer was that he wouldn’t mind, so here is today’s message. I enjoy taking notes,  as in the process of taking notes, much more of  the sermon is remembered, and I can meditate on God’s Word in the afternoon.

And as he entered into a certain village, there met him ten men that were lepers, which stood afar off:
And they lifted up their voices, and said, Jesus, Master, have mercy on us.
And when he saw them, he said unto them, Go shew yourselves unto the priests. And it came to pass, that, as they went, they were cleansed.
And one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, and with a loud voice glorified God,
And fell down on his face at his feet, giving him thanks: and he was a Samaritan.
And Jesus answering said, Were there not ten cleansed? but where are the nine?
There are not found that returned to give glory to God, save this stranger.
And he said unto him, Arise, go thy way: thy faith hath made thee whole.

Luke 17: 12-19

Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

Hebrews 4: 8

Three Main Points:

1. Rejection
2. Healing
3. Great Achievement

The ten men in Luke 17 : 12-19 had leprosy (skin conditions) and were rejected by society and their own families. They were forced to live together in groups outside the village (Numbers 5:2). Rejection is as alive today as it was then. The lepers in India are just as isolated and rejected as these lepers were, and yet, they could be healed for the cost of a cup of capuccino. These ten lepers were totally rejected, and they expected Jesus to reject them just as everybody else did. No matter who rejects you, God doesn’t!

Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. In our Christian walk with God, who makes the first move? God waits for us to draw near to Him, so it is up to us to make the first move.

The ten men experienced God’s love and affection through Jesus Christ. Jesus said to the men, “Go and show yourself to the priest.” This would usually only happen if they were healed – the priest would pronounce that they were healed, and that they could return to live with their families. In this case, however, the men weren’t healed, but during their journey to see the priest, something miraculous happened. As they went, they were cleansed – it was their faith that made them whole.

The things that God does in our lives don’t have to make sense. The ten men didn’t know why they had to go to the priest – they “Just did it“. Change happens step by step. You never know which step is going to lead to victory in your situation. We need to keep plodding away on our faith walk, and God will do what God wants to do in our lives.

Jesus saw the ten men as if they were already healed, and Jesus sees you as if you have already overcome the obstacles in your life. God will deal with your situation. Only one of the ten men came back to thank Him, and interestingly, the one thankful one was a Samaritan. Jesus wants us to give Him thanks, too. We deserve nothing, but we have so much to be thankful for.

Where are we in our faith walk with God?  Has your faith made you whole? Do we remember to give praise and gratitude for all that God has done in our lives? Jesus wants you not to have to deal with the pain of hurt and rejection – give it all over to Him, and remember never to take God’s blessings for granted.