Psalm 66

Often we blame the devil or other people for our situations and circumstances but in Psalm 66 it tells a different story.

v10 For you, God, tested us;

you refined us like silver.

You brought us into prison

and laid burdens on our backs.

You let people ride over our heads;

we went through fire and water,

but you brought us to a place of abundance.

Often the Lord allows us to go through things so that our trust is not in man but in God.
When things happen we often find ourselves blaming others or God for our situations but in the Lord he turns everything for good, if we allow him too, he brings us into a spacious place.

v16 Come and hear, all you who fear God;

let me tell you what he has done for me.

I cried out to him with my mouth;

his praise was on my tongue.

If I had cherished sin in my heart,

the Lord would not have listened;

but God has surely listened

and has heard my prayer.

Praise be to God,

who has not rejected my prayer

or withheld his love from me!

God hears our prayers even when we don't think he has and sometimes His love is withholding the very thing we are asking for as we may not be able to handle it at this stage if we received it. Often times there are things He is wanting to teach us about His love, about depths of his love that we have no idea about. He is wanting to show and teach us greater revelations of His goodness towards us but at the time we sometimes feel that His love is not there - it is.

Psalm 67

May God be gracious to us and bless us

and make his face shine on us

so that your ways may be known on earth,

your salvation among all nations.

May all the peoples praise you, God

may all the peoples praise you.

"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, ...

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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...

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