Receiving from God

Receiving from God.

Everyone has received from God. Life, abilities, talents. Everything.
Everyone is born with different talents, inclinations.

But talent is not enough. You need to develop your talents. Beethoven was incredibly talented but he worked extremely hard to write great music.

The same thing applies to spiritual gifts. John Wesley was wonderfully gifted to preach, teach, evangelise and write spiritual literature, but he did not achieve any results without very hard work.

CS Lewis was a wonderful Christian writer and a profound original thinker, but his books did not just fall out of the sky. He was an academic teacher at Oxford and Cambridge Universities. He was an expert in English literature. He was a professional thinker and writer. God used his talents and skills to win many people to faith in Jesus, people who were not attracted by any form of conventional Christian religion, whether Anglican, Catholic, Evangelical or fundamentalist.

Jesus was not just a preacher but also a story teller. God used story tellers like CS Lewis to show children and adult intellectuals the eternal truths of the Bible.

One Christian writer tells how the Narnia fantasy stories taught him to believe in the Christian values of right and wrong, and the battle of good against evil. He explained that conventional Christianity turned him off.

“Why did one find it so hard to feel as one was told one ought to feel about God or the sufferings of Christ? I thought the chief reason was that one was told one ought to. An obligation to feel can freeze feelings.” Barney Zwartz

We can receive from God by responding intuitively to music and stories.

We can also receive from God through prayer and God’s answers to our prayers or the prayers of others for us.

Sometimes answers to prayer come quickly and easily. You are running late for an appointment and you ask God for a place to park in a crowded city. Less than a minute after your prayer, a car pulls out of a parking place in front of you.

Once I cried out to God from the depth of my heart for a friend who had taken a fatal overdose. I prayed non stop for hours. A week later my friend recovered completely without any physical damage.

Then there are persistent prayers. I prayed for my unbelieving parents to believe in Jesus. I prayed for my mother for 25 years and for my father for 40 years. Both made peace with God on their deathbeds.

“Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Mt 7:7–8 NIV

God Changes Everything

 When Jesus appeared in Israel, he was the saviour for many. Prostitutes were freed from their torment and shame. Lepers were healed and the blind were able to see again.

But through the presence of God's Son, many prominent leaders also failed.  

The official leaders of the Jewish religion were not interested in the Son of God. The self-righteous Pharisees and high priests were rejected by God. At the same time, God raised up a new leadership.

Scholarly rabbis and priests failed to recognise their Messiah and God appointed unknown fishermen as apostles.

Then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary, his mother: “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against, Lk 2:34 NIV

The official leaders of the Jewish religion had gone astray. God had to establish a new order.

When Jesus gave his life on the cross, religious leaders scoffed, but a Roman soldier believed.

Then God changed everything. Before the cross, non-Jews were allowed to come to God, but they had to submit to the laws that God gave through Moses. They had to become adopted Jews.

After the cross, non-Jews could be saved by putting their faith in Jesus. Jews could not be saved through Moses. They had to trust Jesus as the Son of God.

Before Jesus appeared, the Jews had expected their Messiah, but they could not imagine that God would transform everything so completely.

In recent years, many Christians have been praying for a mighty worldwide move of the Holy Spirit, but we can't imagine what God's new order will look like.

The mighty manifestation of the Holy Spirit in these last days will deeply shake the order in this world, but not only the order in the world, but also the traditional order in the Christian religion.

Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Eph 3:20 NLT

Are you hoping for a miraculous revival? God will work far beyond your wildest dreams, but God will also often intervene in a completely different way than you expect.

“My thoughts are nothing like your thoughts,” says the LORD. “And my ways are far beyond anything you could imagine.

For just as the heavens are higher than the earth, so my ways are higher than your ways and my thoughts higher than your thoughts. Is 55:8–9 NLT

Jesus the best Therapist

 Many devout Muslims live under the dark clouds of fear. They never know if their obedience will be enough to save them from the flames of hell.

Some compare themselves to not so virtuous nominal Christians, and they feel proud and superior.

Others compare themselves to extremely religious Muslims, and they judge themselves as failures.

Then they can become extremely fanatical because they can never be sure if their religious virtue is enough to save them from hell.

Unfortunately, there are also some Christians who live in this kind of religious no-man's land.

There are Christians who are caught in pornography addiction. They feel helpless to escape from slavery and are full of fear of God's judgement.

There are other Christians who believe in Jesus, but they have never understood that they can only receive their salvation as a gift from God. They live rather like Muslims, with the feeling that they have to earn their salvation.

When you think like that, you can become very strictly religious, and look down on Christians who are not so strictly virtuous. That's exactly how the Pharisees were.

Or you can condemn yourself as inferior because you keep failing.

If you are addicted to pornography or gambling, you desperately need help, from God but also from people.

Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The earnest prayer of a righteous person has great power and produces wonderful results. James 5:16 NLT

Many Christians need deliverance from demons and many need good counselling or a good therapist. 

Jesus did not come to burden us with guilt complexes. On the contrary.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full. John 10:10 NIV84

Such a life is only possible in close communion with God. God is love. Only those who experience the love of God daily have access to this abundant life.

Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 NLT

How do these morbid religious attitudes arise, where legalism, pride or guilt complexes keep us away from the love of God?

Legalistic religion, tradition, unbending or manipulative parents or pastors, narrow-minded culture.
Sin, perversion, abuse, shame.

I know Christians who were seduced or abused as children. That can lead to all kinds of feelings and thoughts, all kinds of waywardness, so that we are full of shame.

If you cannot get rid of wrong thoughts and feelings, you need to know that Jesus loves you unconditionally. Let Jesus be your therapist. He wants to help you, not condemn you.

 Then Jesus said, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Matthew 11:28 NLT