One step forward, two steps backward?

A few nights ago I had this dream where I saw some friends of mine they had put their house on the market, sold it, but shortly after selling went and bought back the original property that they had sold. The house had been upgraded slightly in the process but I thought what a waste of money and time because it had cost them so much in the buying and selling of properties through the real estate agent only to go back to the original house.

I believe the Lord is wanting to say something here to His people. The Lord is shifting us out of the old season and into the new, and in the process of taking us from one thing to another there is a cost at some level involved in letting go of the past. Which you are happy to pay but after being out in a strange place for a little while, a perhaps unknown place, a place where perhaps you don't yet have all the answers, it is easy to revert to what we have known in the past, what we have been familiar with and fall back into old habits and routines of doing things.

I believe the Lord is saying be careful in this place of change and uncertainly not to fall back on familiar but to allow the Lord to take you into new places. Matt 9:17 "Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins, if they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and wineskins will be ruined. No they pour new wine into new wineskins and both are preserved."
It is a new day, a new way of doing things, and although we may not see ahead clearly, and we may be trying to work things out according to the old pattern of doing things or how we think things should be done, be careful to wait upon the Lord and let him reveal the next step and not to worry about tomorrow as he will show us the next step to take when we get there.

We have had an interesting and challenging few weeks recently but the Lord spoke clearly through the book of Nehemiah yesterday about the challenges that were faced by Nehemiah as he started to rebuild the wall, as he started to make headway in rebuilding the house of the Lord. Confusion and distractions came in chapter 4 v7 through Sanballat and tried to upset and take away from what the Lord was doing through Nehemiah. Yet in verse 9 "Nevertheless we made our prayer to our God and because of them we set a watch against them day and night." I believe as we step out of the old places we have been in and go into new places be careful who you listen to, challenges will come and try to keep you where you were 'safe, comfortable and familiar' but as we trust in the Lord, as we pray and set a watch, day by day he will lead and guide us in paths we do not know.

It is a real time of faith walking in the dark at times not knowing the way forward but we only have to take one step at a time. His peace will lead you and if you are not in peace, wait upon the Lord. Faith is believing in what the Lord has spoken even though you may not yet see it and so to be a people of faith we need to take a hold of the words the Lord has spoken in our lives and look only to him and not to all the obstacles that may be in front of us as in Him, he can remove those in a day.

John 14:27 "My Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid."

"I am ruined for the ordinary"

“I am ruined for the ordinary” A statement that can possibly be to some, come from a place of judgement, or it can be from a place of there is more in the Kingdom of God that I am yet to experience or understand, revelation that I have tasted of something that actually shows me that I have not tasted of anything yet. A place where there is such a contentment and joy in what I have seen and longed to see and yet a revelation that there is way more "beyond what I think, ask and imagine" (Eph 3:20) and one that spurs me on to seek and discover all the fullness that could be ours in the Kingdom of God. When we as Christians see other Christians going places or experiencing things that we don’t understand or perhaps we have not yet moved in, we can either become jealous of that person and judge and bring them down to our level, exclude them from our lives or we can choose to be excited by what is happening and be encouraged and spurred on in the Lord for the more than ca...

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...

"A man's enemies will be the members of his own household" Matt 10:36

Recently we have been pondering how to deal with situations in our family that don't line up with the word. What action do we need to take? Are we being too harsh? Do we accept the behaviour or be considered by those around us as "too radical" or "too black and white"? "Where is grace in all of this? How do we love the sinner but hate the sin? What about forgiveness? What is the role of discipline? What makes that sin any worse than lying? What is true love? And there are a lot more questions going through the mind in how to work through this and know God's will and desire for the situation and the person. And firstly to say we have not come to any conclusions and are growing and learning day by day in this but I want to throw it out there. In Matt 10:34-39 says "Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to turn "a man against his father, ...

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...

Perhaps a change of perspective might be needed

This morning I had a dream and in the dream I saw I was shifting a nest of blackbirds as they were in a bad place that was going to get destroyed shortly, but as I went to shift them, the Father of the babies came and tried to attack me. I wasn't going to hurt them, just shift them so they wouldn't get damaged. Of course the Father was just trying to protect what was his and thought I was bringing harm to his family, but actually my intent was to help them. Often we can have the wrong mindset about a situation as illustrated by this picture. Both had the intent of heart to help and protect, but because of the mindset of how we see things, often our reactions comes from our point of view without even taking the time to understand why another is doing what they are doing. 2 Cor 2:10 "The Spirit searches all things, even the deep things of God. For who knows a person's thoughts except their own spirit within them." We often find ourselves fighting with those w...

Private or Public? Kiwi culture or Kingdom culture?

The other week I had a dream and I was taking my child to a new private school and while there, I was invited by the teachers for lunch. But just before lunch I decided to go to the toilet, along with other teachers. But what I noticed was I was on a toilet that was like that of those we have had experience on in the Tibetan Plateau in China, open, exposed and very public, no embarrasement but a part of every day life, but the other teachers were on the style we have here in New Zealand, private and a personal cubicle. As I pondered this I was reminded of a book title the Lord gave me a while ago about Kiwi Culture vs Kingdom Culture. And the picture in the dream above illustrated a wonderful of example of how easily people can be misunderstood because of the culture that they have lived in and by the experiences that one has had which determines world view, verses that of what is actually a Kingdom culture. In dream interpretation, going to the toilet often repr...

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