Prepare ye the way of the Lord

 This is another post I feel led to repost.

 We both heard it! My friend and I had gone into the cafeteria in the garden centre to have a drink.  As we walked through the area displaying the artificial flowers for sale we could hear a voice on the cafe radio saying 'Where is Jesus?' If my friend had not heard it too I would have doubted hearing correctly. However, when we got into the cafe there was nothing on the radio to indicate that anything to do with religion was being spoken about. It was hot and stuffy inside there and my friend said ' Shall we sit outside?' There was an outside area designated for customers with chairs and tables, so we paid for out drinks and went and sat down at one of the tables. There was a lady sat at another table who had her leg in plaster, and beside our table was a large pond with lots of fish in it.

The Lord had been calling my attention to evangelism for some time. Shortly before I had gone on holiday to Lancashire a person I had not seen for a long time asked my friend and myself to visit a home for the elderly to sing the songs and read the poetry that we have been inspired to write since becoming Christians.  I had felt a little apprehensive the day before we went there because I had not sung or played my guitar in public for some time.

That morning I was reversing out of my drive thinking about this. The CD player had started automatically when the engine had been turned on, and the first song that began to play was 'Prepare ye the way of the Lord'. After the Lord had spoken several other things to me from the scriptures I had been able to go to the home the next day with far more confidence, believing that it was indeed the Lord's will that I should do so.  How true the scripture 'We can do all things in Christ Jesus Who strengthens us.'

Sitting there in the cafe garden, I suddenly had a revelation that God was continuing to speak to me about evangelising to the outside world and was confirming it through hearing 'Where is Jesus', then moving outside to the garden to have our drinks.  I felt the woman with the plaster on her leg represented the spiritually lame outside, and the fish represented the catch that would be had because the Lord had made us 'fishers of men'.  This is the scripture that has been impressed on my heart for many years.

On the three occasions I had seen my friend while I was on holiday there had been much discussed and prayed about concerning evangelism to the world, and I felt that our last day spent together that week ended in such a beautiful way in the garden centre, with the Lord reminding me of the importance of introducing Him to the outside world.

The Lord speaks to us in many different ways, and He continued to speak to me about my part in spreading the gospel to the outside world.  While I was in Lancashire, I sketched out on a stretched canvas two tigers at a waterhole.  When I returned home and started to paint it, I noticed that the picture I was painting it from was a leaflet for the WWF, {world wildlife fund} and written across the front of the leaflet was 'Your gift of a legacy could make all the difference in the world'.  That same morning I had noticed that, where I had been wearing my sandals on holiday, the sun had burned stripes on my feet between the straps and I thought 'Gosh, they remind me of the tiger.'  It suddenly fell into place why tigers had been cropping up in my life for some time.  I felt it was to bring my attention to the words on the leaflet, that the Lord was saying through it all that whatever gift He has given me is part of His legacy and must be used to make a difference in the world, the marks on my feet emphasizing the fact that my feet must be shod with the gospel of salvation.

When I arrived home there was a letter from my brother in Australia in my mail, and in it he mentioned a book which he had acquired written by an American evangelist called Rick Warren.  It is called 'What on Earth am I here for?' For me this says it all.

As the scriptures say 'Everyone who calls out to the Lord for help will be saved, but how can they call to Him for help if they have not believed?, and how can they believe if they have not heard the message? and how can they hear if the message is not proclaimed?'

Romans ch. 10 vs 13 and 14.

Black and white

This is a post I put up some time ago which I feel led to repost.

  I  was getting ready to go to church and as I reached for my coat I realised that several pieces of clothing I had on were made up of  various patterns of black and white.    I had a strong feeling that  the Holy Spirit was revealing something to me here.    Black and white signifies something that is clear, with no grey areas, and can also stand for something that is written.

Two scriptures came into my mind, one was 'every day in  my life was written in Your book before even one of them was formed.' 
Psalm 139 v. 16.   
The other was 'It is written 'Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.'  
Matthew ch. 4 v.4.
      

When I got home I looked at what I was wearing that was black and white.   I had a black and white striped top on, a black and white floral scarf and a black mac with white doves on it.  Thoughts started to form in my mind as to what these symbolised to me.  The black and white stripes portrayed the trials and hard times in  my  life,  the black and white flowers conveyed to me the good times. The white doves on the black coat portrayed to me the Holy Spirit's presence in the dark times, and the fact that this pattern was on my outer garment declaring God's protective covering in all situations in my life.   

I thought about the fact that although I had gone through, and still do go through, days of trials and hard times since becoming a believer in Christ, those trials were predestined.  I have also gone through many  good and happy days too, receiving blessings from the Lord, including healings, and these too were predestined.    They were written in His book before even one of them was formed.  Whether it has been a fiery trial to correct me or a fiery trial to bring me to believe a word of blessing that the Lord has spoken to me, it has all been to mature me in Christ. 

 

Whatever word God has spoken to me I must accept it and try to act on it whatever it will lead me into, whether it be testing me in a trial that will refine me or believing on a promised healing regardless of what my eyes might be seeing.  The carnal mind will always try to justify it's way of reasoning, sometimes by saying it is right to retaliate to what may have been done to me, or by encouraging me to keep a record of wrongs done to me.   That is not what the Holy Spirit instructs me to do however. 

It has not always been easy and He understands that I am flesh and have weaknesses, but I believe absolutely that all things will work together for my good if I follow His instructions to me, and try to live my life according to His will.  

 

We are told in Romans ch.8 v.28 'And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose'. In John ch.14 v.15 Jesus says 'If you love Me keep My commands' 

 

From these scriptures I see that the essence of loving Jesus is in keeping His commands, the things that He instructs me to do during my walk with Him.   The renewing of my mind is done through the teaching of the Holy Spirit, not only my comforter but my counsellor.  The necessity to fully follow the instructions that the Lord gives me in His word to me personally, was emphasised to me when I got home from church. 

I had intended that morning to do some washing before I went to church.  My husband said 'Put the washing in the machine, I will see to it later.'  So I put the items to be washed in the machine before I went out.   When I returned I noticed that the washing was still in the machine.  I took it out to find that the clothes were quite wet.  I told my husband that they were very wet and said that there may be something wrong with the machine.  Then he told me that he had moved it on a couple of times because he thought it was taking a long time.  I realized that was probably why the clothes were wet, he had probably moved it on when it was in the process of draining the water out, also the machine spins the clothes twice.

I know that just as there is a cycle that my washing machine must go through to get the perfect end result, so too there is a cycle that I must go through to mature in Christ.  If I don't go through that cycle I will not end up as I should do.  Sometimes I have not been patient enough to wait for the Lord's help in my life when I have sought Him,  or sometimes the enemy has been a bit too strong to cause me not to act on God's instruction, and I have tried to sort things my own way.   All sorts of pictures would form in my mind about what might happen if I did or did not do something.  I am learning slowly not to lean on my own understanding, but to trust in the Lord with all my heart and to do things according to His way of thinking, not mine.  His thoughts are not our thoughts and neither are our ways His ways.   Isaiah ch.55 vs.8,9.   

I might not like the trials while I am waiting for the answer to my prayers and I might not always at first understand  the direction that my life appears to be taking when I try to do what the Holy Spirit is telling me, but at my weakest points the Lord has been strong.  After many  years of being a believer in Christ I look back on my worldly life and compare it to my life in Jesus and there is no comparison and no doubt as to which one I would choose.  I choose life and blessing, regardless of the trials.


What I gain from being a 'doer' of God's word to me in Christ and not just a 'hearer' of that word far outweighs what my carnal mind tries to tell me I might lose in this world, and I have always been greatly encouraged by these words.

But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.   What is more, I consider everything a loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them garbage, that I may gain Christ   and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which is through faith in Christ – the righteousness that comes from God on the basis of faith.    I want to know Christ – yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death,   and so, somehow, attaining to the resurrection from the dead.
Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me.   Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: forgetting what is behind and straining towards what is ahead,   I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenwards in Christ Jesus.
                                                   Philippians ch..3 vs.7-14

BEAUTY

 This is a post I put on my blog some time ago that I thought I would repost.

What is beauty?

I rarely call a person 'beautiful', I usually say they are 'pretty' or 'handsome', if people ask my opinion on someone's appearance.  Yet if I see a face that shows some kind of suffering on it, whether it is an old person who is heavily lined or a child from a third world country with tear stained dirty cheeks and hungry eyes, I see a beauty that causes me to weep.  I remember once painting a picture from a newspaper article of two children from Bangladesh who had been laid next to one another in a refugee camp.  They did not know one another and they were both dying of hunger.  The picture showed them holding hands, faces turned towards one another, minutes before they died.  I don't think I have ever seen two more beautiful children.  I never understood why these kind of unbelievably sad faces have appeared so beautiful to me until I became a Christian and began to know the Lord.

Suffering produces a strength of character which itself has a beauty that cannot be attained through ease of life, and is the tool used to induce compassion in the heart of the onlooker.  The word translated as 'compassion' in the new testament is from the Greek, meaning 'to suffer with', and it could not describe better what I am trying to portray here.  When I see suffering in a face, I feel as if I am suffering myself, and when the suffering of one is tempered with the compassion of another there springs forth a bonding that far surpasses what the physical is capable of achieving.

I cannot see Jesus, yet He appears as beautiful to me.  So what is it that is beautiful to me if it is not physical?  Our physical eyes will look for what the flesh desires, but our spiritual eyes search for what the Spirit desires.  Psalm 149 v.4 tells us that the Lord will beautify the meek with salvation.  It is salvation which causes us to have all the spiritual attributes which make us beautiful to the Lord.  This is the Godly beauty which the spiritual eye seeks to look upon, and the beauty that God wishes His sons and daughters to attain. 

Jesus is the express image of the God of Israel, the only true God and the creator, who desires to create mankind in His image.  God is a Spirit and in Genesis ch.1 v.27 we are told that God, on the sixth day, created man in His own image.  The Hebrew word here used for man is 'adam', which is collective, referring to mankind, and this is what God is doing through Jesus in this latter day, creating us in His Spiritual image through salvation in His Son Jesus.

As we submit ourselves to the word of the Lord we put off our physical nature, providing we are doers of the word ( as it says in James ch.1 v.22 ), and not just hearers, and put on the spiritual nature.  Just like the butterfly, who struggles to leave the shell of the chrysalis, which serves as both tomb and womb, so too we who have been born again struggle to leave our old sinful nature to emerge as a new creation after the image of our beautiful Saviour Jesus.  I do not think it coincidence that the chrysalis is a drab, ugly shell with absolutely no resemblance to the beautiful creature which will emerge from it.  It is indeed very symbolic of how our carnal, sinful state appears to God.  As we grow in the Lord we begin to recognize the difference between the attributes of the flesh and the attributes of the spirit.  Once we recognize these differences we are able to walk in the newness of the Spirit and put off the old nature of the man of dust.

New Life

Oh caterpillar slow and green
how I was so like you
weighed down with problems large and small
of how to see life through
I was in my world of fear
with Satan everywhere
You tried so hard to hide yourself
from fowls of the air

                  
               





        

             But then regeneration came               

             while hanging from your thread
             inside new life was stirring
             while outside all was dead
             So too new life is forming
             inside this earthly shell
             For faith joins me to Jesus
             who lifts me from this hell

             And just as one day you will change
             and fly away so free
             I too will be made perfect
             when Jesus comes for me


Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me His own.

Philippians ch3 v12

Renewal

Do not be tainted by a love that is not God's.
Don't let innocence be spoiled by a wisdom

that is Earthly. Always remain as a child in

your own wisdom so that the greatness of 

God's Words can be allowed to enter into the

ears of your heart, so that you may grow up

into Him and remember no more the foolishness

of this present world. For there is a part of

you which can not understand His Words

and it would seek to rob you of His truth.

It is the mind of your first father, Adam, a

fleshly mind.

The Lord speaks and your heart receives, 

but your mind tries to intervene and to reason

with logic. Oppose that which is at enmity with 

God, and receive into your heart only that which

is pleasing to Him - His Words, which are

Spirit and Life.

'Trust in the Lord with all your heart, don't

lean on your own understanding; acknowledge 

Him in all your ways, and He shall direct you path'

Proverbs ch. 3 vs. 5 and 6.

Peddler of death

This is a song that I wrote some years ago, that I sang out in the streets with my friend, and also in a prison when I was a prison visitor.

There's a guy in the street
looks like you - looks like me
and he's trying to sell his wares

but he's making his living from misery

maybe yours - maybe mine - who cares

and he's hoping you'll walk right up to him and say

'Look, how much does what you've got cost?'

Then He'll say 'You can try before you buy'

but son if you do then you're lost

Say 'No' to the peddler of death my friend

he'll take you for all you can give

Tell him you'd rather not follow the trend

tell him you'd much rather live

There's a girl in your class

that you've known for a while

she likes discos and dances, like you

but one day she will come with a wry little smile

and say 'Hey have you tried sniffing glue?

And she'll tell you that all the kids try it

That it's all the rage in your school

Then she'll offer to take you to buy it

but child if you do you're a fool

Say 'No' to the peddler of death my friend

he'll take you for all you can give

Tell him you'd rather not follow the trend

tell him you'd much rather live

Yes there's plenty of jokers just looking for mugs

and they don't give a damn about you

'cos son if they did then they wouldn't push drugs

and a true friend won't offer you glue

so don't play the game of a loser

or you might just be counting the cost

for there's a shroud as a gown

when the chips go down

and the last dice are finally tossed

say 'No' to the peddler of death my friend

he'll take you for all you can give

Tell him you'd rather not follow the trend

tell him you'd much rather live.

My Testimony

I feel led to repost this that I posted a few years ago.

I Many years ago I had recorded onto a cassette some poems and songs that I had written.  They related part of my testimony.  While I was living down in West Wales an elder of a church I was attending put them on an mp3 disc for me.  As I know very little about this kind of technology I have just been to the library to ask if anyone can link this disc to my blog.  A young lady there has done her best regarding this, and so I am going to see if this link has worked - the young lady was not sure if it would.  Most of these songs and poems I may have already put up, and I am definitely no  'singer', and only learned a few chords on my guitar to be able to play the tunes that came into my head at the time of writing the songs.

However - one thing I learned at that time of learning from the Lord was that that as we are taught by God through His precious Word, and go through our trials trusting in Him, we are able to get stronger spiritually.  My journey is still on-going, I am forever learning, and I will not know whether this link will work until I publish this post.  If it doesn't work, then I will have lost nothing through trying.:-)
 

To listen to my testimony  press the link below.

Testimony by Brenda Rees - Soundcloud

You taught me how to love

This is a song I wrote some time ago.

You taught me how to love when all else was failing

You taught me how to love, You showed me how to care

You taught me how to love, You showed me the way Lord

for when I needed You, You was always there

By grace am I saved, through faith not of myself

by grace am I saved, through faith alone

You taught me how to love, You showed me the way Lord

for when I needed You You was always there

You taught me not to fear when all around was failing

You taught me not to fear, You showed me how to stand

You taught me not to fear, You showed me the way Lord

You said 'Build upon the rock, don't build on shifting sand.'

By grace am I saved, through faith not of myself

by grace am I saved, through faith alone.

By grace am I saved, through faith not of myself

by grace am I saved, it is the gift of God.

'And without faith it is impossible to please Him, 

for whoever would draw near to God

must believe that He exists 

and that He rewards those who seek Him.'  

Hebrews ch. 11 v.6