Matt 5 - 7 The Beatitudes & The battle belongs to the Lord!!!

I so love reading the Beatitudes. My most favourite part of the bible I think, one in which when things are coming at me I just love to read and feel immersed by his word that gives me life and direction. Sometimes even get Jim to read it over me, just brings peace.

Anyway I want to share this as something the Lord has been showing me this week is that we most get hurt by the people we respect and honour the most. The words that those people bring can hurt right deep in our soul and it can damage quite badly.

God has been taking us on a journey that many people don't understand, have not experienced and perhaps don't want to. God sometimes calls us to do/say things that we don't understand and can't work out in our heads, but after being obedient to him, see why and see how powerful it was. But in the process people judge us, judge our motives, judge our heart. People often misunderstand us. For me that has been one of the hardest and most hurtful things of my journey - being misunderstood by the people I love. But the Lord is teaching me that I am to 'dance to the audience of one', that I need to hide in the shelter of his wing, that he protects me no matter what people think, say or do, I have to come to that place that I trust in him alone and not in man. Paul writes "I care very little if I am judged by you or any human court (1 Cor 4:3-4) indeed, I do not even judge my-self. My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me." We need to come into a place where it is the Lord who judges our heart and we are innocent or guilty to him and in that, need to change depending on what he says.

But as I say it has been one of the hardest things for me as the arrows of the enemy come at me.
In the Beatitudes Matt 5:11 says, "Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me. Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you."
I have to keep trusting in him, keep checking my heart that my conscience is clear, keep looking at Jesus and the words of his that bring life, that bring encouragement and like that above to know that I am blessed in his Kingdom, that great is my reward in heaven. Matt 10:28 Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.

I believe we are in a time where we are called to stand and be the people of God he has called us to be. In so doing we are going to be persecuted, misunderstood, judged but knowing that GREAT IS OUR REWARD IN HEAVEN!!! Thank you Lord and when we learn and come into a place that those words no longer hold power, we are free in another area of our life! Words only hold the power that we give them. Saying that, I don't have it all together all the time, but less and less am I feeling the effects of the wounds at the hand of my brother.: Feel free to pray for me in this.:) Thank you Jesus!

Song:
In heavenly armour we'll enter the land
The battle belongs to the Lord
No weapon that's fashioned against us will stand
The battle belongs to the Lord

And we sing glory, honour
Power and strength to the Lord
We sing glory, honour
power and strength to the Lord.

When the power of darkness comes in like a flood
the battle belongs to the Lord
He's raised up a standard, the power of his blood
the battle belongs to the Lord

When your enemy presses in hard, do not fear
the battle belongs to the Lord
Take courage, my friend, your redemption is near
the battle belongs to the Lord!

Obedience and Commitment are big things in Gods Kingdom

Reading in Acts 7 this morning the story through Stephen of Abraham being told by God to " Leave your country and your people and go the the land I will show you" So he left the land of the Chaldeans and settled in Haran. After the death of his father, God sent him to this land where you are now living. He gave him no inheritance here, not even a foot of ground. But God promised him that he and his descendants after him would possess the land, even though at that time Abraham had no child." As I reflected on this and the journey of Abraham stepping out in faith into a land that he received no inheritance in but a promise of what was to come for his descendants of which we live in the fruit of that, I thought of todays generations in which often is only doing things that we want to do or that will benefit us personally as we live for 'today' not worrying about tomorrow. A sense of if it feels good then do it, if it doesn't then we will move on - perhap...

I shared last night about 1 Cor 15:36 "What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. When you sow, you do not plant the body that will be, but just a seed, perhaps of wheat or of something else. But God gives it a body as he has determined, and to each kind of seed he gives its own body..." I was preaching on it last night and it will come up in video form later in the week on the GRM sight, mainly reflecting on we can sow things one way, but God raises it up as HE determines how it should look. But this morning I got more revelation which will be quite obvious to some, but to me it struck me afresh. When we sow something it get's buried, it cannot be pulled back up. It no longer has 'connection' with 'me' if you like. It gets 'covered over' unable to be pulled up. And yet I recognise in my own life how we can sow something but there are still 'strings attached' as such as we often are still determining or expecting it be rai...

The baby's been handed over

Several weeks ago the Lord shifted us out of the 'home office' into the 'market place' and in the process a spiritual shift happened - one of letting the 'baby' go, a releasing and handing over the batten, so to speak to others. In this process the nests that WE ALL have been in have been stirred up, shaken about, and pushed out, to fly in ways that perhaps we were too afraid to do previously. The amazing thing with God is that He knows the timing of all of this and where each one of us is at and what we can handle. Yes there has been a fluttering of wings in panic. Yes, we have had a few weeks of challenge as authority and structures get changed and challenged, frustrations coming to the fore, but love helps us overcome, love helps us to forgive, love helps us to see the good and not the dirt, love helps us remember our own failings and yet forgiveness and grace that the Lord has for me, that I can give to others, remembering it's the glory of G...

"And now these three remain: faith. hope and love." 1 Cor 13:13

Two pictures things the Lord has given me over the last 10 days. Firstly; Prior to going to Christchurch I had this vision where I saw this massive tree falling to the ground and taking out people around them as it fell. Then this morning I was reading in Matt 3:10 and it reminded me of that vision I saw. Matt 3:10 says “The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.” It’s a powerful word of warning that if we are living supposedly Godly lives and yet are not living lives that produce fruit in keeping with repentance, the fruit of love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, gentleness, etc, the fruit of the spirit that is found in Gal 6, then I believe we will see people who are big people to those around them, people who are leaders etc. fall and cause damage. Secondly; Something that startled me yesterday as I was sleeping, I woke up to the sound of a clanging symbol....

The lie of a lack of spiritual fathers and mothers

My ponderings this morning. I believe we have a generation (of which I am a part of) at the moment who believe that there were not the spiritual mothers and fathers who taught them in the things of the spirit; of the way they should go etc. I believe to some extent there is truth, we don’t seem to have seen the ‘spiritual hero’s’ that we want to follow in our daily worlds around us. But I also believe that our generation or those who don’t believe there have been the spiritual parents, actually need to repent for not honouring the ones that the Lord has put in their lives and in which we have not received them as such and honoured what they inputted into our lives. There have always been people around us sowing into our lives, sowing truth, sowing help and hope, but because it has not come the way we expect it, we have not honoured what those people have brought. Sometimes too those people sow into our lives with truth that we don’t want to hear and so we walk away from those ...

Things to ponder from the book of Luke

Some powerful stuff out of the book of Luke this morning that spoke to me 17:10 " So you also, when you have done everything you were told to do, should say, 'We are unworthy servants; we have only done our duty'" This really spoke to me how we expect and want the praise from man for what we do and yet we have only done what we were asked to do when we freely gave ourselves as bondslaves/servants to christ so why should we expect praise from man or from God? The other thing - actually there was heaps this morning out of Luke so take a look, but 18:8 "However, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on the earth?" The one question about will Jesus find people of faith who believe in what they have not yet seen? It is only faith that pleases God and so to be a people of faith.... A challenge. One more thing that I have to share is Luke19:11-27 the parable of the Ten Minas and about being faithful with what you have, but v24 "Then he said...

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