Don't Look Back!!

"Jesus, I am so going to follow YOU!! I want to see the blind healed and see people delivered"

"Follow me"

"Yeah, Jesus, I'm just waiting for some money to come through and then I will be with You!"

"Jesus my friends are watching...I'll have to wait until they are not looking"

With the best intentions a lot of people in Jesus' time wanted to follow Him. But in Luke 9:57-62 we hear the excuses people made for not following Jesus. This challenged me in terms of what Jesus responded to the excuses:

But Jesus said to him, “No one, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”

Wooo what a serious illustration. Jesus is known for telling such creative stories - helping you to paint pictures and relate the Word of God to your life. I'll begin with why God led me to this scripture. I recently attended a conference and I heard a powerful message on going to the nations and then we had a time to pray. In myself I began to feel a sadness and started asking God why although it seems people want a change in the nations, there's little change (not dismissing all the changes that have taken place) and God replied with that scripture...now this was more directed as in a moment I'll be like - yes God I'll be praying for unity - this will last for a couple of days....and then the momentum has gone! How any times do we put our hands to tools to do work and then turn away?!
People turn away for different reasons. I love a parable in Matthew 13:44-45 where the story is told of a man who finds hidden treasure in a field. He sells ALL he has for that field. How many of us would have found out the price of that field- realise we would have to sell everything, and then just turn away?! How many of us would have turned away because our family and friends are ridiculing us?! I'm not only on about being a Christian. As a Christian we follow Christ, wherever He leads us- we are daily making decisions whether to follow Him or not. It could be in forgiving someone - it could be in letting go of a bad habit. Are we willing to follow Him even through the storm? Even when it costs us everything?! I like that in the parable the man finds treasure. When we are following Christ we have found treasure- will we hold onto the cheap metal of this world because we're not willing to let go for the treasure? We find out the cost and then we turn back....no perseverance no faith ... we turn back...

People in our lives are always turning away- we lose many people in our lives - some decide, some are taken - but we have all experienced someone turning away from us. Our examples of how to relate to people, can be affected by these experiences. We approach people or situations and when things get hard we turn away. Unfortunately our past can be filled with abandoned dreams and relationships. Two stories I want to share with you that challenge such life experiences:

A young man goes on a journey- well escapes home. He has had to run away. He arrives at the home of his uncle and is approached by a beautiful young woman; as soon as he sees her he falls in love with her. It is Rachel, his Uncle Laban's youngest daughter. Jacob said to his uncle that he will work 7 years for him if he can marry Rachel and Laban agreed. Jacob worked 7 gruelling years for the love of his life. At no point did he turn away- believing that after 7 years it would be all worth it-love spurred him on, and the 7 years flew by quickly. At the end of the time, the wedding day approached and Jacob married the young women hidden by the veil and knew her (in the Biblical sense), when he awoke he discovered that it was not Rachel, but Leah her older sister. The treachery! Jacob had served Laban for 7 years! 7 years so that he could spend the rest of his life with Rachel-but it all seemed like it had been in vain! He had not got what he worked for! (How many of us would have turned back because of this?!) Laban had tricked Jacob because it was the custom of that time to marry the older daughter first and promised to give Jacob Rachel if he served another 7 years. "Wooo, well Uncle Laban, Rachel is foine but she ain't that fine! I'll keep Leah and move on!" If some of us were Jacob that would have been the response. We find we have to work harder for something and turn back. We find we have to pray more, praise harder, love more....and so we turn back! Jacob could have just thought he had failed and then quit. But Jacob LOVED Rachel (and love is a strong word- that's a whole nother blog!), he loved and so agreed to Laban's plans and worked another 7 years. After 7 more years - 14 years in total - Jacob married the love of his life. A beautiful story....but feeling that it doesn't relate....Here's the second one....

She doesn't love Him anymore, doesn't really know He exists. Doesn't know who she is and so she is battered and bruised and dressed down - living amongst paupers. But He wants her back. Wants to treat her like the Queen she is and show her she is loved. So He meets her where she is at and treats the way she should be treated. In return she continues to hurt Him by spending time with other men, going low places. (How many of us would have said "Low her, she's not worth it!" But He thought she was worth it) He had to win her back. At the right time, when it seemed all hope was lost for her...He gave his life for her. He gave her EVERYTHING! He had His heart set on her and so He gave His ALL for her. If you haven't noticed, 'He' refers to Christ and 'she' is the Church or us. God gave His Son for us- He didn't back out of His plan and change His mind when He saw how hard it was to get us back-He gave His life for us! ( (8) Oh, how I love Jesus (8) )

We then are to love others with this same kind of love- based on the way that Christ loved us. Not based on wordly circumstances where people have left us or we have left others - but love as Christ loves. I believe we should approach our dreams in the same way. Psalm 37:4 says that we are to delight ourselves in the Lord and He will give us the desires of our heart. Some of have interpreted that as He will give us certain desires. A lot of the things that I would like to do I believe have come from God - establishing His Kingdom on earth. What happens when I turn away? I don't believe that His Kingdom will not be established but there will be a delay and I will not get to partake in the joys of His Kingdom. I'll explain it like this. An entire nation leave Egypt led by Moses into the wilderness. They have been promised a land where they will be established, however this land is inhabited by all sorts of different nations - which may not have been a problem, but they were giants! The people started complaining about the Promised Land, about being in the wilderness and wanted to turn back to Egypt. Upon leaving Egypt they were happy, but when the going got tough they believed Egypt was better! They would rather be in bondage than push to freedom! A short journey then turned into 40 years in the wilderness- a new generation emerged from this nation and they entered the Promised Land. The generation before (minus 2 people) wanted to turn back and so didn't get to partake in the promise - but it doesn't mean that their nation was not established. We daily have a choice as to whether we want to go deeper in God or stay in the shallow end.

More is definitely required- listening more to the voice of God- following as He leads, spending more time in prayer! Do we give up when loving others? Do we give up when our dreams flop? Even when our characteristics contradict who we are in God, will we push forward until we look more like Him-trusting Him to complete what He has already started?! We get distracted when we look back, like Lot's wife. We look back to what we thought was better. We look back and let our past shape our future afraid history will repeat itself. We look back when as Paul said we should be looking ahead!

As difficult as the journey to deeper may seem we can not turn back, especially in these times. We need to keep moving forward. Galatians 6:9 says not to grow weary in doing good. Though it feels like we are not getting anywhere or receiving results that contradict what we are working towards (a Leah) we need to continue to push forward. In Luke 18 Jesus encourages us to persevere.  I want to be fit for the Kingdom of God - I want to be known as a faithful servant who doesn't turn back when things get tough but know that God can trust me with His Kingdom and I move forward in Him! In Ezekiel 47 Ezekiel describes a vision where he is shown the temple and water flowing from it. The water gets deeper and when it is really deep there is more life in and around the water. Will we stay in the shallow end, where everything is nice and easy but dead- or go in deep where there is LIFE?

Here is an example of somebody giving it all: http://whydidthescotsman.co.uk/
And I know there are many more! Will we join them in going deeper, or turn back?

The Goodness of God

A long time since I have written so I hope whatever writing skills I had has not grown rusty but I will get started...so.....

It all started when I was en route to Audacious conference in Manchester- making a decision to go in faith, however in the morning I was feeling that it was a bad decision and when things started to go wrong, I felt that that was 'confirmation'. Well I began my journey to Manchester, LATE :( *sigh*, enjoying good worship music getting me ready for the week ahead when I miss a turn and find myself in Liverpool!! That was the last straw! I had tried to keep positive all morning but now I had been pushed over the edge! Everything was going wrong - but just at that moment I began listening to a song "Glorious" by Katie and Bryan Torwalt and there's a line that says 'I know nothing apart, apart from Your Goodness God' - that challenged me ALOT! I made a decision to stop seeing the negatives of the day but to focus upon God's goodness :) .....and this is where I was led .......

....well I arrive at the conference (in good time I must add- if I had stressed any more that would have been a waste of a rise in blood pressure) and a scripture is shared:

Psalm 31:19

 Oh, how great is Your goodness,
Which You have laid up for those who fear You,
Which You have prepared for those who trust in You
In the presence of the sons of men!

Amazing! Now that was confirmation!!! I had encountered God's goodness - not because on that particular day, at that particular time God had decided to share His goodness with me - but I had chosen to set my eyes on something that existed before time began!!

David said 'Taste and see that the Lord is good' in Psalm 34:8. If anybody knew about negative situations it was David! A number of times people tried to kill him - his own son tried to take over his throne!! But during all those circumstances what did David focus on? In Psalm 27:13 David says:

I would have lost heart, unless I had believed
That I would see the goodness of the Lord
In the land of the living.

He sounds like somebody who has tasted the goodness of God because he is looking forward to seeing more of the goodness of God - he knows it is something worth expecting! What are we expecting to see? And what are we even taking in with our eyes? Hebrews 12: 1-3 says how we need to keep our eyes on Christ (the goodness of God) and lay aside any hindrances - we should be focussing on the goodness of God- that's all we should be drinking. We can see that in all his situations, David looked for the goodness of God (Psalm 63). 

It can be hard to believe that the goodness of God exists at a time when we are surrounded by suffering and pain, but like David we must believe and expect - Jesus tells Martha when He goes to raise Lazarus from the dead, “Did I not tell you that if you believed you would see the glory of God?". We have access to God's glory, His goodness. In John 1:51 Jesus tells a man that he will see heaven open and angels descending on Jesus. Now remember the last time we heard such imagery was in Genesis when Jacob went to sleep and had a vision of a stairway into Heaven where angels were ascending and descending. This tells us that Jesus is the stairway into Heaven - and where is Jesus - Christ IN US the hope of glory (Colossians)!! If that is the case we have constant and open access to the goodness of God! Let me give you an example:

Two thieves receive the death penalty for their sins. Life seemed unfair from the start- having to steal to survive- and life was consistent with being unfair to the end as they are strapped to a wooden cross waiting for cold greeting of death...but life unexpectedly throws something at them. In between the two thieves was a Man called Jesus. One of the thieves turns to look at Jesus and with hate in his eyes spits curses at Jesus - he's glad to see the back of this life - it had nothing for him anyway.... the other thief corrects the man and turns to look at Jesus, and sees the Saviour of the world and asks Him if he can go to Jesus' Kingdom. Jesus looks at this man , this robber, who has known nothing but crime and tells him that he will be with Jesus in Paradise! ... Woooo! The goodness of God in motion! One man chose to dismiss the goodness of God and the other received as he saw the goodness of God! The goodness of God is on display - Romans 1:20 says we are without excuse! Titus 2:11 says that the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men!! We are constantly exposed to the goodness of God, He is the Father of Lights- but how will we respond?

In Romans 12:1-2 we are challenged to give our lives to God in response to His mercies- in response to His goodness we are to worship Him with our lives! Lamentations says His mercies are new every morning!! Great is His faithfulness! And in response I do all to His glory!

This week I have learnt to focus on God's goodness and 'forget not His benefits' - anytime I need a reminder- i will have to watch the Father of Lights DVD where God's goodness can be seen in action! 

*Meditate on His goodness*