Never Give Up!

Sometimes I feel flat, grey, uninspired. Maybe you do too. Don't be discouraged. God has given you life. You have potential. You have gifts. God created you for a purpose, to help people in a way that perhaps only you can help them.

My wife is always helping people and she likes gardening. The elderly lady across the road had a rose garden and my wife helped to look after her roses.

I love writing, so I write Christian blog articles to encourage people to believe, to give people hope.
A retired man in our church is a good organiser. He helps to manage a store room in our church to supply people with food when they can’t afford to go shopping.

Suppose you want to serve God. Find some way to help people in need. Visit a sick neighbour. Drive an elderly neighbour to see the doctor. If you are friendly and talk to people, you can find out what they need and how to help them.

Suppose you are serving God and helping people, but you feel discouraged and lacking direction. Maybe you need to take a break, go for a walk, read a good book, listen to beautiful music, but don't give up. Keep on doing good. Ask God for fresh inspiration and keep going.

Perhaps you reach a dead end. Ask God to give you fresh energy to keep going, or if God closes the door, ask Him to open another door and give you a new direction.

Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. 
Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers. Gal 6:9–10 NIV 

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

How to Receive from God

 To rest in the Lord + get the achievements done: both are important. Wisdom is to find out, when its time for which one. (Sarah Fischer, Swiss preacher)

God has ways of giving and so there are two ways of receiving from God. Some of God's gifts require serious effort on our part to appropriate.

Great musicians like Johann Sebastian Bach and George Frederick Handel had amazing musical gifts but they worked incredibly hard to develop their gifts. Some of God's miracles can only come through intense, repeated or prolonged prayer and sometimes also fasting.

Other times God just gives you a present that falls in your lap because you are his child and he loves you.

So I say to you, Ask and keep on asking and it shall be given you; seek and keep on seeking and you shall find; knock and keep on knocking and the door shall be opened to you.
For everyone who asks and keeps on asking receives; and he who seeks and keeps on seeking finds; and to him who knocks and keeps on knocking, the door shall be opened. Luke 11:9-10 (AMP)

If God wants you to reach out and extend yourself to appropriate His gift, you will miss out if you just sit and wait for it to happen. On the other hand, if God just wants to drop a blessing on you as a present, you can miss out by fasting and praying or working hard.

We can limit God by expecting Him to give no more than we pray, work, expect and proclaim. God loves to surprise His children with little blessings but also sometimes overwhelming great gifts.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us,
to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.  Ephesians 3:20-21 (NIV)

In my youth I studied German as a foreign language and I worked very hard at it. Over the years God has used me to minister to German speaking people. I preach, prophesy and blog in German. 

Writing a blog in my second language involves serious work. I often refer to a dictionary to find just the right word. Writing in English is easier. It also took me some time to become proficient in typing in German on my computer and I still type faster in English.

But sometimes I just get a German message that flows into me and through me to others. I had a German colleague in my workplace in Australia. When she left our workplace, I sat down and wrote a lovely poem for her in German. It was so easy.

"Which of you fathers, if your son asks for a fish, will give him a snake instead?
Or if he asks for an egg, will give him a scorpion?
If you then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!" Luke 11:1-13 NIV

 If you are married, you will know that marriage is not easy. It requires work, sacrifice and patience. But if you have a good marriage, you will find that it is often easy and delightful to give and receive loving gifts. So it is with our relationship with God. 

Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning. James 1:17 (NKJV)

God lifts up the humble

Paul describes himself as a slave but also as an apostle.

Paul, a bond-servant of Christ Jesus, called as an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, Rom 1:1 NASB95

The Greek word for bond-servant is DOULOS, which means slave.

He had completely surrendered his life to the will of God, submitting himself like a slave, but God had entrusted him with a high office.

God wants us to humble ourselves before him, but not because he wants to humiliate us.

“For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted.” Lk 14:11 NASB95

Humble yourselves in the presence of the Lord, and He will exalt you. Jas 4:10 NASB95

Those who always humiliate or despise themselves do not understand God's love.

If your family, your boss or your church leader keeps putting you down, it's not from God.

I no longer call you servants because a master does not take his servants into his confidence.
You are now my friends, because I have told you everything I have heard from my Father. John 15:15

If you dedicate yourself completely to the will of God, like a faithful and willing slave, but love and trust God like a beloved son or daughter, Jesus will embrace you and cherish you as a dear friend.

KNOWING GOD.

But as it is written: "Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, Nor have entered into the heart of man The things which God has prepared for those who love Him."

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. 1 Corinthians 2:9-10 (NKJV)
God is searching your heart. Does that mean He is looking for the dark secrets, the hidden weaknesses, the shameful thoughts that sometimes trouble you? No, He knows all about those things and He loves you anyway. God condemned His own Son to die on the cross. He died in your place to pay for all the shameful things in your life. Now He sees you as His dear child, as one who He gave His dear Son for.
If you invited Jesus to come into your life, He came. God is actively involved and lovingly at work in your thoughts, in your feelings and in every part of your being.
All that the Father gives Me will come to Me, and the one who comes to Me I will by no means cast out. John 6:37 (NKJV)
But He will not interfere with your free will. He will not force you to think the way He wants you to. He longs for you to come into harmony with His love and truth. If you have opened your life to Jesus to become His follower, that means God has become your partner in life but not your equal partner, because God is God and He is your Lord and Master. God will direct your life but He is not interested in passive obedient slaves or puppets. What Jesus said to His chosen apostles is what He longs to be able to say to each one of us.
You are My friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. John 15:14-15 (NKJV)
The obedience He is looking for is the active partnership of men and women who want to please God and be led and directed by Him. The Spirit of God is searching your heart in love. He has  also opened His heart to you. He is inviting you to search His heart and know His love and understand His ways for yourself.
God is sad when we passively depend on preachers to tell us what to think about Him. I love good preaching but that must never be my main connection to God. In the Old Testament, God gave prophets and priests to stand between God and the people. Now each one of us is invited to enter into deep personal communication with Him.
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me. Revelation 3:20 (NKJV)
If you have never placed your life in the hands of Jesus who loved you and died for you, now is the time. We don’t know what tomorrow will bring. Jesus died to forgive your sins but you must receive Him to benefit from His forgiveness.