What do you do when you feel used?

The other night I had this picture where I had given a friend my beautiful guitar (which recently I have in the natural) and they took it and then you go to see them and they wont come out and see you but they give you the old worn out dusty guitar case back but through their daughter?

To me this was a picture that I had given my best to someone and they turned around and gave me the rubbish back and not through them but through someone else. This has happened many times to me where I have given my heart and then I hear through someone else something from that person but that person never talks to me.

What do we do with this when it happens to you? Where you feel used, where you have given everything and then got nothing in return or if you have it has been rubbish?

It is a very painful process and too often when that happens we shut ourselves up and protect our heart in the future so we don't get used or hurt again. This is our natural response to this sort of pain but that is not the love in which we see Jesus displaying.

To me Jesus is the ultimate example for us to follow. For me He is the one who understands this sort of pain and rejection. And He is the one to whom I look as to see what I do. The word says to protect your heart for it is the wellspring of Life but so many of us I believe see this in a way that is actually not the way I believe Jesus is wanting us to protect our hearts.

Jesus entrusted himself with the one who is just - the Father. He entrusted his heart to the Father. The pain he experienced through rejection, through misunderstanding did not stop him from continuing to love and continuing to give to those around him, even when he knew their heart toward him, even when he knew they would betray him, he still gave willingly no matter what it cost him. That is the call for us as Christians to keep giving, to keep loving, to keep sacrificing even at the cost entrusting your heart with Him who truly knows your pain and trusting him to heal your heart. To keep our heart soft towards everyone around us. And we cannot do that without surrendering our pain to Him who knows our heart. The rejection we suffer is not actually ours to hold onto, it is Jesus' as we are no longer our own and so we need to give him all the rejection, all the pain and not hold onto it just as we need to give him all the glory when things are going well. It is not us people are rejecting, it is Jesus in us.

So I want to encourage you when people hurt you, when they use you, when you feel misunderstood please take it to Jesus and give it all to him so He can come in and heal you and so your hurt can be turned into amazing grace without bounds which we have all received. Jesus said at the cross, Father forgive them for they do not know what they do. We too didn't know what we have done to Jesus and continue to do on a daily basis and yet He forgives us and still gives to us and we don't even see it. This past weekend Jesus opened my eyes to yet another revelation of where I had been judging someone and in so judging did not see them as Jesus sees them and so I condemn them without even realising it and when that happens and your eyes are opened you remember once again the grace you have been given towards yourself that it enables you to give grace to those around who perhaps you don't feel deserve it.

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...

Arise & Shine, let your voice be heard

To speak or not to speak – this is the question? Or perhaps it should be ‘how to speak?’ We live in a world where the rights of man are rising, the voices of differences of opinion are growing stronger and louder. The justice of the world, right and wrong as seen through our own eyes, starting to arise. I n this nation of NZ where "tall poppy syndrome' has been an issue as the accepted norm of the past, people are breaking out, rising up and learning to use their voice. As rightly we ought as Christians. All good things to happen, all needed to happen. For the bride to stand, awaken and arise and to shine for righteousness and justice. To stand up for the poor and needy, to speak on behalf of those who can't. With anything new, you have the swings in the spectrums as we all learn how to walk in a new way. We say things more strongly than we ought, or perhaps we say things weaker where watering it down and don’t come across to effe...

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...

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...

Are you comfortable and familiar with things?

This morning I had this picture where I saw two large different animals that had somehow turned up in my home and they were taking over the lounge and they needed feeding. They were peaceful animals but the space they took was huge, taking over my lounge. As I asked the Lord what these animals were I saw that they were ‘comfortable’ and ‘familiar’ and I saw I was quite happy for them to stay as they weren’t bothering anybody but they needed feeding and were taking up space. But I know that these ‘spirits’ are destructive to kingdom living. We can very easily become comfortable and familiar with things, with ways of doing things, of acceptance of things that are not of the Lord, of believing and justifying its alright if we continue to live the way we do, even of things such as pain and so we continue to accept it and live with it when the Lord may want to heal, things like ways of reacting, speaking or anger may also too be areas that you may have become comfortable and fami...

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