The Onion

I like onions.  They can be used in stir fries, curries, salads, soups and many other meals, and are also medicinal in many ways.  I was looking on the internet for uses for the onion.  One of the comments in answer to the question 'How are onions good for you?' was:- 'Toxins in your body RUN from the onion, leaving your innards nice and clean'.

Why am I talking about onions?   Well, the other day I was reading Matthew chapter 8.   Verse 28  onwards tells of when Jesus and the disciples had crossed the sea of Galilee to the country of the Gardarenes.  While there he cast out demons from two demoniacs, commanding them to enter a herd of swine, which in turn 'rushed down the steep bank into the sea, and perished in the waters'. 

What I noticed as I read on to the end of the chapter was that when the herdsmen fled into the city and told  the people there everything that had happened to the demoniacs, instead of rejoicing the whole of the city came out to meet Jesus and begged Him to leave their neighbourhood.   I asked myself 'Why would they want someone who had brought such a wonderful release to two tormented people to leave their city?' Could they be more concerned about losing the pigs?

Over the following couple of days I read sections of the book of Proverbs, and I started to think about the choices we get.  I thought back to the Gardarenes citizens, and it came into my mind that pigs represent 'the unclean' to the Jewish people.  There is some controversy over whether the Gardarenes were Jews, but whether they were or not is irrelevant because as a christian reading this story it is portraying to me, as part of God's spiritual Israel (the church), the danger of  being more concerned about losing the 'unclean' in my life than gaining the spiritual cleansing.

God gives us choices and sometimes we can tend to treat the good advice given in the word of God in the same way as the Gadarenes thought of Jesus' acts regarding the demoniacs and the swine.  We can prefer to keep  our own human 'wisdom' when the wisdom of God is necessary.  Proverbs ch.26 v12 reads 'Do you see a man who is wise in his own eyes, there is more hope for a fool than for him'.  How often this has proved true in my own life.


Sometimes the food that is good for us has an element in it that might appear to cause an upsetting reaction at first.   Onions can make you cry, and maybe have a few other uncomfortable side effects  but can clear your body of toxins, and sometimes the advice in the word of God, brought to our attention by the Holy Spirit at an appropriate time, may cause a little upset at first but it has the power, once applied, to clear our lives of spiritual toxins that may harm us and hinder us in our spiritual walk. 

Our old nature tends sometimes to have a 'keep the peace' side that does not want to entertain the 'rock the boat' side, even when it may be what is necessary to enable us to work out our own salvation or be strengthened spiritually in the Lord.  For example, Proverbs ch.24 v.24,25 reads:-   He who says to the wicked 'You are innocent' will be cursed by peoples, abhorred by nations; but those who rebuke the wicked will have delight, and a good blessing will be upon them.'  There may come a time when we know that the Holy Spirit is telling us to correct someone, where 'keep the peace' or 'respect for persons' will try to persuade us to condone what we know to be wrong. 

The Lord might correct me at a time that I see something bad happening to someone who has done something bad to me by showing me Proverbsch.24 v.17 which reads:- 'Do not rejoice when your enemy falls, and let not your heart be glad when he stumbles; lest the Lord see it, and be displeased, and turn away His anger from him.'   This proverb shows me that the Lord's correction is not about revenge, and neither should I be revenging.   Just as we must eat the onion to achieve the cleansing so too must we act on the advice spoken to us even if it causes a little discomfort.



Proverbs ch.29 v.19   reads   'By mere words a servant is not disciplined, for though he understands he will not give heed', and sometimes we may be put through trials, as spoken of in James ch.1 v.2.  The Lord understands our weaknesses, and these trials are able to test us on the ability to carry out what we are shown, and know is right, and be strengthened to overcome our spiritual weaknesses, and will sometimes also help others.  The motivation behind correction is always 'repair' when this motivation comes from  God, whether it be for us or for another person in our lives.  The word 'synergy' comes from the Greek word 'synergia' meaning 'joint work and cooperative action', and it is only when we play our part in acting on the word of God spoken to us that we effectively work out our salvation.

Some time ago I wrote a poem called 'The Onion', which portrays to me the fact that what the Holy Spirit speaks to me may appear at first to upset my 'worldly comfort zone' but it can only improve my spiritual life.  When the Lord upsets the apple cart the only thing that comes out of it is fruit.



The Onion

'How pleasant is our garden' the flowers said one day, while basking in the morning sun.  Then they heard the gardener say.    'I think I'll plant an onion, to see if it will grow'.   Then looking round the garden sought a place for it to go.  

'Oh no!' cried out the marigold, 'don't put Onion next to me.  What about beside the pond or under that old tree?' 'And why then should I suffer?' replied the noble oak.

'And neither do we want it here' the frogs began to croak.

And so the gardener scratched his head and said 'What shall I do?'  Somewhere within this garden must be a place for you.'  The onion cried within his heart, the tears began to roll.  He prayed 'Lord, I'm created too, find a place for this poor soul'.  And then the gardener heaved a sigh and said 'The only thing is to put this onion by the fence with the weeds that choke and sting'.

The onion was so happy, at last was found a place. The gardener went and brought his spade,the onion dried its face.  How happy was the little plant once settled in the ground.  He spread his roots and raised his head, began to look around.  A sudden sound of crying began to reach his ears.  'Oh no, what now?' the onion said 'Who's shedding all those tears?'  But mingled with the crying, 'Hip, hip hooray!' was heard.  A sign of hope, and maybe not rejection as he feared.  The sobbing wasn't coming from the marigold or oak, but coming from the nasty weeds, the ones that sting and choke.  By now the weeds were withering, the thistles gasped for breath.  For the presence of the onion could only mean their death.  The flowers now with shouts of glee to the onion did lean and bend, for what was seen as an enemy had now become their friend.  So if in your midst there's an onion, who sometimes makes you cry, put him amongst your thistles and weeds.    Who knows ?........ maybe they'll die.

Believe, all things are possible

When I first came to be born again of God's Holy Spirit I experienced many things in my life that revealed the absolute power of God and His ability to do that which is not possible for man to do.  Over the years I have still seen so much of God's goodness in not only my own life but in the lives of others too, but I have felt many times that I have been in a battle.  I have always tried to seek God in areas where I have needed help, and feel that I have been shown that there is only one plumbline to go by when seeking counsel, it is the word of God.  If anything is spoken during my time of seeking the Lord on an issue, if advice is given me by other people, whether they be christian or not, I must always go back to check that it is what God is speaking to me.  I truly believe that we can miss out on blessing through not only our own unbelief but other people's.  The daily bread that we each receive from God has the ability to mature us spiritually and if someone has not reached a certain faith level, no matter what 'title' they may have in this world, then they may actually cause you to doubt what God is encouraging you to believe. Yesterday I met a young man who had recentlty become a christian, who was so passionate about his salvation and seeking God's word for guidance it was a pleasure to speak to him.  I came away from him praying that he would never become a lukewarm christian. 

The following is a testimony of an event in my life several years ago that I believe the Lord has brought back to my remembrance to encourage me to persist in seeking his voice, always believing what He is saying to me without doubting, and not watering it down with mans' doctrine or unbelief.

I thought about the dream I'd had, as I lay in bed that morning.  In it I had been walking through a Woolworth store, with a ginger cat in my arms.  First the cat had jumped down and disappeared, and then one by one my clothes had started to disappear from off my body until I was completely naked.  I had a strange feeling that there was a spiritual meaning to the dream, and that God was trying to reveal something to me, but what?  My first thought was that it involved loss, and I started to think in the negative, that maybe I was going to lose something, and I started to worry that it might be my spiritual garments of praise or salvation, but where did the cat fit in?  I decided that the best thing that I could do would be to pray to the Lord about it and wait on Him for answers.

About a week later I had another dream.  This time I was in a town, and I was looking for wedding clothes.  I had been looking in many shops and could not seem to find anything suitable.  After much searching I met a lady whom I recognized.  She lived near me, and her name was Grace.  I told her I was looking for wedding clothes and she said that she had some that I could borrow.  In my dream she lived at the top of a very high apartment building, and she went up to fetch the clothes for me.  When I looked at them I saw that they were extremely nice wedding clothes and took them, telling her that I would look after them.  I then started walking through the busy shopping area of the town, still looking at clothes, carrying Grace's clothes in a large bag.  I found nothing so I went further out away from the town looking, still nothing.  I returned once again to the town but could find nothing I wanted.

After quite some time I suddenly realized that the bag was missing.  I must have put it down somewhere and forgotten to pick it up again.  I started to worry because the clothes belonged to Grace, and I knew I had to go to her and tell her what had happened.   I felt terrible because I knew they were very expensive clothes, and regretted being so careless with them.   I went to the apartment building and rang the bell at the bottom.  Grace came down and I told her what had happened.  Although she was sad about it she was very forgiving and said that it was alright, that I was not to worry.  I realized that I had to find more wedding garments and I started to look again but could find none that I liked in all the stores. 


I then thought about a place that I had already been to, it was a small store that was away from the busy town, out in the quiet of the countryside.  Maybe I would find something there if I looked again, I thought.  I walked through the town, past all the stores that I had searched in, out to the very edge of the town and a little way down a quiet country lane to the store.  I went in and looked around but could find nothing there for the wedding I was to attend.  I started to make my way out of the door when the sales lady said 'Excuse me, you left this here the last time you were here'.  I turned and looked and saw that she held in her hand the bag with the wedding clothes from Grace in it.  I could hardly believe it and was overjoyed to have found them again.  I thanked the sales lady and made my way back to the town to tell Grace that I had found them.  When I got to the apartment building where she lived, the door was open.  I went inside, climbed the stairs, found Grace and told her the good news, that I had found the wedding clothes that she had given me.  She smiled, said she was very happy and I went on my way, telling her that this time I would look after them.

Over the next few days I started to realize what the Lord was trying to reveal to me through the dreams. The first dream represented my initial coming to the Lord, a putting off the old way of life, the clothes representing the grave clothes of the wisdom of this world, and the cat representing the natural things that I loved and adored.   God and His word to me had to come first in my life no matter what.  The wisdom and the pulls of this world must no longer govern me.

There is a peace within my soul no riches could have bought it

I found it not in wealth or fame in wretchedness I sought it

This peace that passes understanding peace that I can call my own

Can not be found in all the world, It's found in Jesus Christ alone

The second dream represented my being given the wedding clothes, and the fact that I had been given them by grace, when Jesus had come into my life as my Saviour and my guide.  Even the fact that Grace lived in a high apartment was, to me, showing the majesty of God.

I began to realize that the Lord was portraying a warning in this dream that I was, or could be in danger of, letting the busyness of this world distract me, and it could cause me to lose my wedding clothes, my garments of salvation.  I thought about my life and how I had ceased to pray in the Spirit as fervently as I used to, slowly losing the close contact that I had always had with the Lord from the moment I had been born again of His Spirit.  It was as if I was carrying my garments of salvation in a bag instead of wearing them.



I had been sustained in sickness and finances for several years by the Lord, experiencing miraculous healings and being supplied with all that my husband and I needed,with His word being my guide.  Yet it was as if I had almost begun to think negatively, allowing the voice of this world to question what God was saying, and the Lord's promises seemed as far away and mislaid as the missing bag of wedding garments in the second dream.  When I had first come to the Lord God had spoken the words 'Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you shall be saved, you and your household' to me.  Then the words 'Take every thought into captivity' had been spoken to me, and 'Trust in the Lord with all your heart, do not lean on your own understanding'.  I had listened and been very close to the Lord, being guided by Him and taking everything opposing His words into captivity.  I had been wonderfully in His preaence, and kept in good health.  Now I realized that I had let the world slowly encroach into my life.  I had stopped taking every thought into captivity.  Ones that did not confess what Christ and His words said to me had been allowed to cause doubts that all things were possible with God, or even that God was wanting my welfare in this world.   The dreams had come with the perfect timing of God, and I was being shown that there was a battle going on in me between the light of God's words in the renewed mind of Christ in the newly created me, and the darkness of the thoughts in the carnal mind of the old me.

At the time of the dreams I actually was searching for wedding clothes to wear to my son's wedding, which was to take place in Scotland.  I eventually found an outfit, a light skirt and a dark top.  Even these clothes seemed to reflect what was going on in my life, a mixture of the light of faith and the darkness of doubt.  The wedding over, I returned to Wales, stopping overnight at my cousin's house in Lancashire.  While there, I went into a shop and noticed a little scented candle in a jar with a china lamp shade that sat on the jar.  It was very pretty and I decided to buy it.  As I was carrying it to the till I noticed the label on the front of the jar had the words 'Believe.  All things are possible'.  I knew the Lord was encouraging me to do this because I had been singing a little song over and over at the time in which were the words 'all things are possible with You Lord'.  Incredibly, at the same time, a song was playing in the shop, from which flowed the words, 'I need you to be my guide'.

When I returned home, the following Sunday morning I was in the prayer meeting before the service at the church I was attending when the pastor spoke out regarding whether we really believe that God will do that which He has promised to do in our lives.   I shared with the people at the prayer meeting about the candle lamp, saying that I believed the Lord was encouraging us to keep the light of the truth of God's promises burning, casting out any thoughts from our minds which would cause doubt and rob us of those promises, and I prayed for the Lord to help all of us to take every thought into captivity, opposing doubtful thoughts by declaring 'The Lord has said..'. 

The word 'paragon' was brought to my mind several times, it was on a white van which was in the church car park and also in ;the garage opposite my house as I was writing this testimony.  When I looked up the meaning of the word, one of the things the dictionary  said it meant was 'a pattern of perfection, a model, a person or thing of supreme excellence'.  Jesus is perfection, and a paragon is what we shall become if we truly believe on Him, putting Him first in our lives, listening to and acting upon His word to us as it is spoken..

In my second dream, when I had lost the clothes and I had to go to tell Grace, the door was shut, representing my separation from God by letting the things of this world distract me from the things of God.   The fact that there was a doorbell reminded me that through Jesus there remains a connection through prayer in these times, God responding being represented by Grace coming down to open the door.   Even Grace being sad but telling me not to worry represented to me God's love, long suffering and forgiving nature when we fail Him.   The second time I approached the home of Grace to say that I had found the wedding clothes, the door was open and I went up to her.  This reminded me of the prodigal son and his Father's open armed welcome once the son had repented and was on his way back.  Even the place where the clothes were found spoke to me of finding grace in that quiet place of prayer.

For some time after I was reminded of weddings and wedding clothes and I realized that the whole of what had happened over the previous couple of weeks was encouraging me to draw closer to God in prayer, throw off the grave clothes of the wisdom of this world, put on my garments of salvation , and believe that all things are possible with God, including complete physical healing.

I believe that this testimony has been brought to my attention to once again increase intercessory prayer in my life as it once used to be.  Something happened a couple of days ago that painted a picture of what is happening to cause much unbelief amongst God's people today.

I was looking on Google for help to see street views and came accross what I thought was a download that would do this. 


I ended up downloading a search engine called 'Babylon'.  'How did I end up with this'? I thought, and wondered why I felt so uncomfortable that it was on my screne.  Then I realized that, as well as simply not liking the change, and the fact that I still didn't seem able to view the street maps, the name 'Babylon' brought disturbing thoughts to mind.   I was reminded once again of a parallel between the Lord's people being in Babylon in Daniel's time.  Babylon is the Greek form of Babel, which means 'confusion', and I believe that the church is in danger of  being in the spiritual Babylon, a state of confusion by mixing man's doctrine with God's doctrine and not believing every word that comes out of the mouth of God.  By Daniel not eating the 'rich' food of the king of Babylon, and just eating the 'vegetables' with nothing added to them, He remained in communication with God and was protected by Him in the 'fire'.   

I believe the Lord is encouraging me to believe absolutely everything that He speaks to me will come to pass.......if I only believe it.

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 thy 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

Enlightenment

There are many ways that God can speak to us in our christian walk, and I am sure that each one of us comes to recognize His voice in our lives as we grow in our Lord Jesus.  The following are  testimonies of  where I believe I was being spoken to by the Holy Spirit on two separate occasions.

The stain

There was a large stain on my skirt.  It had been there for some time and no matter what I did I could not get it off.  I had tried stain removers of various kinds but it just would not shift.  It was a dark blue stain on a maroon skirt, a skirt which I liked very much, and I wondered what else I could do to hide it.

At that time I had not been able to forgive myself for something I had done in my past, even though I had since become a christian, being told that if I repented of past sins I would be forgiven by God.  My mind could not blank out this thing that I had done and it kept causing me hurt and regret.  Looking at the skirt, I realized, in a sense, that my past sin was like that stain, and thought 'I can never take that sin out of my life.'  Just like the stain on the skirt it would always be with me.  Then it occurred to me that, instead of trying to remove the stain I should see if I could cover it over.  I had a variety of fabric paints and could paint the blue stain maroon, the same colour as the skirt, so that it would not be visible.


At that point I had a very clear revelation of Gods grace in the crucifiction. My past sins would always be there, in my past.   I could never say that I had not committed sins.   However, to God they were 'invisible' because of the blood of His sinless Son acting as a covering over them.   Just as the fabric paint would act as a covering over the stain on my skirt,   and the blood on the doorposts had long ago prevented the 'destroyer' from harming the Israelites, so too would the blood of Jesus protect me from Gods wrath.  This revelation to me finally brought me peace.  There would always be sadness in my heart for what I had done, but God had forgiven me.  There was no need for guilt.

Reflections on a puzzle

One Sunday, as I was walking home from a church I had attended, I came across a lot of jigsaw pieces scattered on the pavement.  It had been raining and they were wet.  The pastor at the church had been speaking about disunity amongst God's people, and while I was walking through the town I was reflecting on this and wondering why it was so.  These jigsaw pieces, separated one from another and scattered all over the ground, seemed to be echoing what the pastor had been saying, and I felt the Lord was trying to tell me something.  I gathered all the pieces up and placed them in my bag.

When I arrived home I proceeded to piece them together to see what the picture might be, but each piece began to separate into two parts because the rain had neutralized the glue that was sticking the picture to the backing card.  I started to have understanding of what I believed the Lord was trying to reveal to me.  If I pieced the backing card together I would have no picture.  If I pieced some of the backing card together with some of the picture pieces they would join together because they were the same shapes but I would only have part of the picture.  If, on the other hand, I pieced all the upper pieces together, I would have the whole picture.  I could see a parallel in these jigsaw pieces with God's people.  The blank backing card represented the old creation of the flesh, which was dead in sins, and its carnal mind, while the top layer with the picture on represented the new creation in Christ, and it's spiritual mind.   Old and new mixed together could only bring disunity, because the carnal mind is at enmity with God, and the things of the Spirit are foolishness to it. 

The element that had separated the two parts of the jigsaw pieces was water and only the spiritual water that comes down from Heaven, the word of God, can separate the old man from the new creation which God is forming in us through Christ Jesus.  As each of us allows the Holy Spirit to renew our mind in Christ we will grow up into the united body of Christ.

The first book of Corinthians ch.15 v.22 says that 'as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive'.   God had shown me through the pastor's words that there was disunity in the church, but it was only through the jigsaw pieces and the revelation to me through them could I have understanding of why there was disunity.  This incident taught me how vital it is to be alert to the ways in which God is able to reveal something to us, if it ties in with His word, and how it is for our benefit that we act on that revelation so that we might be changed into our Saviour's image to be able to soar with Him in the Spirit.

                                                                                                                                                                

To fly without wings

Trust in the Lord with all your heart

don't lean on your own understanding

for to fly without wings requires faith on your part

and don't worry about where you're landing

For the One who sustains you is able to soar

and your future He holds in His hand

as you fly over mountains and deserts galore

to a beautiful fertile land

Listening for God's voice - Unconditional love

How often do we truly listen for God's voice in our lives? We may listen to God's voice when we hear it being preached in church, or when we are reading our Bibles, but how often do we listen for His voice through our everyday experiences, and how much of God's instruction and encouragement  do we miss through not being finely tuned in to the way in which the Holy Spirit reveals things to us?

When I first became a Christian there were two scriptures that were highlighted to me very strongly.  They were '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 your path', and 'Take every thought into captivity to obey Christ' (2 Corinthians ch10 v5b.  Yet every day I am in danger of allowing my carnal mind and circumstance to create the world that I live in, and rob me of what God has in store for me, by believing what the small part of the picture that I am seeing is forecasting instead of trusting in the revealed word of the One who sees the whole picture.

Early last week we had high winds here in Llandybie.  My husband and I had painted the door in the front hall that leads out to the porch that contains the front door to our bungalow.  Merlyn had said that he wanted the door left open for two days in order to dry the paint.  On the second night he closed the painted door.  I looked across the road and noticed that a neighbour's up and over garage door was being blown open with the wind.  The next morning, as I opened the blinds in the back room, I noticed that our garage door was also wide open.  I shouted into the bedroom 'The garage door is open Merlyn', thinking it strange because he always locks it.  'I must have forgotten to close it yesterday' he said.  I then went into the front hall and opened the painted door to see how it had fared being closed all night.  It was very stiff because of the paint and the draught excluders around it, so I pushed it to without actually closing it to allow it to dry without sticking..  When I opened the blinds in the front lounge I noticed that the garage door across the road was still wide open.  Some time later I went into the front hall intending to pull the painted door open to go into the porch to see if there was any mail.  The painted door was side open.  There is no way it could have opened by itself because it had been very stiff to close to, and there were no windows open in the porch that could have allowed a strong wind to open it. 
I thought about the strangeness of all these open doors and it came into my mind also that the previous Sunday a man in the church had told me to leave the door open to the church on Tuesday after the internet session held there because someone was coming to check the fire extinguishers.  A scripture came into my mind from Revelation ch.3 v.8 'Behold I have set before you an open door', so I looked.it up.  In Revelation ch.3 the Lord is speaking those words to the angel of the church of Philadelphia for keeping His word and not denying His name.  The word 'Philadelphia' means 'brotherly love'.  Verse 7 reads 'And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write 'The words of the Holy One, the true One, who has the key of David, who opens and no one shall shut, who shuts and no one opens'.
A strange thing happened in Swansea on Friday.  I was handing out my scripture and poetry  leaflets and offered one to three Korean looking girls walking towards me.  I suddenly thought, looking at one of the girls, 'That girl is one of the girls that came to the church, the one who was so friendly'  I said 'Hello', but she looked at me as if she did not know me and appeared quite unfriendly.  I was completely baffled.  I told her my name and the church I attended, but got the same reaction.  As I turned from her a man in front of me dropped a key on the floor, almost as if he had thrown it down, then bent down and picked it up.
I have thought about all these things and as far as the girl is concerned I think maybe she was someone who looked exactly like someone else, but was she used as sign accompanying everything else, saying that there is an open door to those of God's people who show brotherly love, who keep God's word ( the word that the Holy Spirit is speaking to the individual at the time ) and do not deny His name.  Part of keeping  God's word is loving one another, and that includes loving those who don't love us.  The girl in the street appeared to be someone that I knew who appeared slightly hostile.  It is easy to love those who love us, but how do we fare if a brother or a sister, whether natural or spiritual, does not appear to love us?  Are we in danger of throwing away the key to that open door if we do not love as God wants us to love?  The love described in 1 Corinthians ch. 13 keeps no record of wrongs.  I started to see that there was a message for me in all that had happened.
I know now, looking back, that the Lord was bringing to my attention something that was happening, and about to happen, in my life which would test me as to whether or not I would react according to what my natural mind was telling me to do in the situation, or whether I would react according to what God's word to me was saying to do, to love even those who did not appear to love me.  The day after realizing this I went to look for my Bible concordence and came across a  daily devotional that I'd had for some years, but had not looked at for a while.  I opened it to the day and this was the heading. 'Love your way to success.'   One of the sentences in the article read 'Now you may know some people with whom you may not want to be knit together.  They may make some things a significant challenge for you.  But you are commanded to walk in love, so do it.'
God knew exactly what I was going through, and about to go through, at the time and not only instructed me what to do about it, love regardless, but also showed me that blessing would come from it.  I have had so many experiences like this in my life, and a peace that passes understanding come as a result of acting on what I am being shown that, for me, nothing on earth can surpass it.
                                                                                                                                                                             
Someone once said to me 'How can God allow horrible people to walk around the streets, people that have committed atrocities against others, and yet good people die before they are very old?  I reminded her that earlier that morning she had said that she still loved a man who had left her and their son for another woman, and still lived i the hope that he would return to her one day.  I went on to say that in the same way God carries on loving us even when we do sinful things which separate us from Him ( Isaiah ch.59 v.2 ), and wants us to return to Him.

the Bible tells us that only God is good, that we have all sinned, and that when we sin it is against God that we do so.  He wants us all to come to repentance and be saved and is not willing that any of us should perish
 In the parable of the prodigal son we see that although the father allows his son to go his own way, the father's desire is always that the son would return to him eventually.  It is only when the son ends up eating food that is fit for pigs that he grieves for his father and wants to return to him.
Whether we have truly known God's ways and gone away from them, or known little of God's ways at all, without Him and the guidance of the Holy Spirit we will inevitably at some stage end up in a mess.  Always after we have turned from the bad things we have got into, as the parable of the prodigal son demonstrates, God will run to meet us with forgiveness and bring us back to Himself and blessing.  Such is the love that God has for us, a love that motivated Him to send His only Son Jesus to earth as the graceful means for unholy people mankind to be reconciled back to their holy creator.

That kind of love

Lord I'll never know how a seed so small and insignificant
into a beautiful rose does grow
or why Your tender hands should form
a different face on each flake of snow
........ Could it be love?

Lord I'll never know what motivates a God so full of purity and light
to sacrifice the One most dear to Him
to save humanity from their deserv-ed plight
of dark despair brought on by sin
......... Could it be love?

Lord cause me to know that which I thought I would never know
......... Cause me to know that kind of love

I thank You Lord that You left the ninety nine and came looking for the lost one. Though there had been a wall between myself and my creator, You broke down that wall through Your crucifixion, making it possible for the unholy to have access to the holy. By grace I have been saved, and by grace I am kept.

Without Your sacrifice I would never be free

Without Your love for me my eyes could not see

How can I thank You Lord, what can I do

What can I say my Lord except 'I love You'

Coming through the wilderness

I had watched a movie on the television, it was an Israeli film about a man called Moshe.  He and his wife were religious people, and it was the time of the feast of Booths, a seven day annual festival when the people had to build a 'booth', or temporary tent-like dwelling, and live in it for seven days, rejoicing.  It was to celebrate the time when God had brought the children of Israel out of the land of Egypt, and to remind them that all things in this world are temporary, but that God is their all-sufficient provider.

Moshe and his wife had been married for five years and dearly wanted a child, which they had not been able to have up to now.  They were very poor and could not even afford to buy the booth which they now needed for the festival.  One of the things needed as an offering to God in this celebration was a lemon.  When Moshe went to see about buying one, the sellers were asking the ridiculous price of one thousand shekels.  In spite of his poverty Moshe was a deeply religious man and believed, as I do myself, that we are tested by God in this world to see if we will trust Him in all situations, and to see if we would react in situations according to God's will and expectations of us.  He also believed in prayer, and when his wife encouraged him to ask God for help in their situation he did just that, he asked God for a miracle.

In the meantime, in the Synagogue, the rabbi was asking a man if he had distributed all of a sum of money that he had been commissioned to distribute to the people.  The man said that he still had a thousand dollars left, to which the rabbi responded by saying that he must give the last thousand dollars to somebody immediately.  'To whom?' the man asked.  'Just pick a number', the rabbi replied.  'Thirty five', the man said, and the rabbi straightaway pushed a list of peoples' names in front of him and said 'Start counting'.  The man counted to thirty five and declared that the thirty fifth name was that of Moshe.  He went around to his house and knocked upon the door.  Moshe's wife was too afraid to answer, and the thousand dollars was put into an envelope and pushed under the door. 

At the time Moshe had been away building a booth that a friend had aquired for him.  The friend had aquired this booth under false pretences, but Moshe did not know this.  He assumed it had been given as a gift, which to him was an answer to his prayer.

On returning home he was overjoyed to hear of the one thouosand dollars' mysterious arrival, and immediately thanked God for the miracle.  After donating one tenth of the money to charity, he paid one thousand shekels for the lemon and he and his wife occupied the booth in extremely high spirits and praising God.  At the same time, out in the desert, two convicts on parole were returning to their prison to finish their sentence.  They decided to abscond and one of them suggested going to visit an old friend in Jerusalem.  The 'old friend' was Moshe.

The knock on the door of the booth was quite loud.  Who could that be? Moshe and his wife wondered as they feasted on the sumptuous meal they had just sat down to.  On opening the door, there was both recognition and apprehension replacing the joyous expression on Moshe's face.  'Scorpio!' The name gushed from his lips as he stared at the smiling, weathered face of one of the two men stood in front of him.  The man's jet black hair was drawn back from his grinning face in plaited mini pig tails, giving him a hard, rugged appearance.  Moshe's wife looked with bewilderment at the two visitors.  She had never seen them before, and assumed they must be friends from her husband's past, though what she did not know was that her husband's past was very different from his present.  Moshe had been very irreligious before he had met his wife, and Scorpio could not believe that his friend had changed into the person he now saw, and began reminding Moshe of the 'good old days' when Moshe had taken on three Americans in a bar when they had insulted him.  He had been quite a notorious character.

Moshe was fully tested over the next couple of days by his two guests.  Scorpio still did not believe that Moshe could have changed that much and began reminding him of more of his past days and ways, much to his wife's amazement, for she had only known him as a religious man.  Eventually Moshe could take no more and told his guests that he and his wife were going to go to her mother's home some distance away and that the two would have to go.  After they had gone, Moshe's wife finds out he has lied and leaves him, telling him that not only has he concealed his past from her but, much worse, he has now lied.  He is not the person she thought he was.  He goes after her and tries to encourage her to come back but fails.  On returning to his booth he discovers that his two guests have returned, which is bad enough for him, but he also discovers that the booth he has been given was got for him under false pretences.  While he is away seeking pardon from the owner of the booth, Scorpio and his friend are busy causing havoc in the local area of Jerusalem, barbecuing and playing rock music in the street.  Moshe's wife and the local religious men try to convict them of their blasphemous conduct at a religious festival time, the religious men becoming very unreligious in doing so. Eventually Scorpio relizes that Moshe definately has changed his ways and that he is genuinely trying to live a religious life.  He is sorry for the way he has acted and tries to make amends my making a delicious meal for Moshe.  On Moshe's return, after he has been absolved from guilt by the original owner of the booth, he finds a sumptuous meal waiting for him, and a completely changed Scorpio.  He is encouraged to sit down to eat while his friend admits that he has seen a change in Moshe that indeed has brought a change in himself and also his friend.  They have, he informs Moshe, decided to go and give themselves up to the authorities and finish the remainder of their prison sentences.  Delighted, Moshe sits down to enjoy the meal, praising the wonderful lemon dressing on the salad.  Scorpio humbly accepts the compliment commenting on how difficult it was to find a lemon for the dressing, but how he eventually finds one on Moshe's shelf.  'On the shelf?' asks Moshe 'How.... er.....where....Was -it-in-a-box?' he asks slowly as the expression on his face goes back and fore from distress to fury.  He rises from the table and screams as he realizes that one of his sacred offerings to God has been used in his salad.  After several more facial contortions he rushes out of the room and runs as fast as he can down the street making noises more fitting to a dog being attacked than a man who has just been celebrating the fact that God has rescued hin and his nation from their worst enemies.  He eventually stops running somewhere out in the countryside where, after several minutes his face regains the expression that was on it ten minutes before, when he had realized that Scorpio seeing what walking God's way had done in him, had made an imnpression and changed Scorpio himself.   Moshe had certainly been tested to the hilt!  He had been required to call on all the resources of kindness, patience, goodness, forbearance, tolerance and forgiveness that God's own love had shown to him when he had sought him in repentance years before.  He returned with a totally different attitude, realizing that true religion was far more than festivals and tradition, and the finding of it involved as much testing and trials as his ancestors had experienced the forty years they had spent in the wilderness, and that in realizing this he had just passed another test.l

He entered the booth and hugged his two guests with genuine fondness.  Sitting down to finish the meal, they chatted and laughed, all enjoying one another's fellowship.  Suddenly the door opened and in walked Moshe's wife, ecstatically informing Moshe that she was expecting the child that they had longed for.  The atmosphere was electric!  They finished their meal, all together, all praising God and rejoicing at the coming birth.

Finally, Moshe's guests announced that they were to leave on their journey back to the prison to give themselves up.  There was much hugging and tears as Moshe said farewell to his two guests, overjoyed that he was coming through his wilderness, and that they were about to enter theirs.

This film was used at the most appropriate time to remind me that there is a spiritual 'travelling through the wilderness' for us when the Lord brings us out of the world, just as there was a phyisical travelling through the wilderness for the children of Israel.  Unbelievers had been used to test Moshe and to enable God to discipline him, and so too can outsiders be used to change us.  However, if we try to keep our eyes on our Lord, being guided by the light of His word, our ears open to the Holy Spirit, we too shall experience the power and the miracles of God that they experienced while on their journey.  There will be testing and trials for us, and there will be times when 'religion' and 'tradition', which has a power to make void the word of God in our lives, will try and sometimes succeed to do just that.  We can look into the book of Numbers, or 'in the wilderness', as this book is known in the Hebrew Bible, and sometimes identify ourselves within the characters there.  God's people travelled through the wilderness in stages.  Each stage is there for us to learn from as we grow in the Lord.  Their journey involved learning to rely on God's guidance, God's provision and God's discipling, as does our journey through our 'wilderness'.

Lord You walk with me in my wilderness
I feel Your presence at my side
Lord You talk with me in my wilderness
Your loving voice has been my guide
When I am lost You take my hand
You are my shelter from the wind and hail
My friend and neighbour in a hostile land
You keep me on the narrow trail
There is a season for all things- a time and purpose too
For God has fashioned every day that we must journey through
There's a season to be strong and there's a season to be weak
There's a time to give opinion, there's a time we should not speak
And whether things be good or bad all things are passing by
For this world is a testing place for perfecting you and I
And when we've learnt within this life to be as we should be
This too will pass with all its strife and we shall be set free

HE IS RISEN

.... that He gave His one and only Son that whosoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life.          John ch.3 v.16

The power of love

There's something about You Jesus that just escapes my mind
about how You cause the lame to walk and restore the sight of the blind
and how you can take the lowly, the broken hearted ones
and place them in Your kingdom to bring them up as sons
There's something about You Jesus, there's something about Your face
though I can't see any features I see wisdom, compassion and grace
There's something about those eyes Lord that shed those tears for me
there's something about those healing hands that they fastened to that tree
What made You say 'Father forgive them, for they know not what they do'
when they saved the life of Barabbas, and they chose to crucify You
I know what that 'something' is Lord as I look to my Father above
It's the one thing that covers all others .... It's Your totally unselfish love


I look around the world

I look around the world and see
whole nations in distress
growing camps of refugees
full of hopelessness
I used to think that this was fate
the way we all must die
because the world was full of hate
but this was Satan's lie
The words 'Forgive them Father
for they know not what they do'
came to my ears when I was lost
and you can hear them too
Just turn your eyes to Jesus
who hung there on that tree
He took the shame and torture
to save both you and me

Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved        Acts ch.4 v.12

I'm on a cloud

I'm on a cloud above the world, a cauldron boils below
I see beneath me on God's earth a tale of dread and woe
of how so very long ago a man was formed from clay
and given life from God above, but sin led him astray
He questioned what the Father said and lost eternal life
and now he struggles in this world in self destructive strife

He tries to shape his future by the power of his own hand
His cry 'I'm my own master'... it echoes through the land
but while this proud confession is still upon his breath
the worldly life for which he strives has now become a death
He stumbles in the darkness, his eyes have gone quite blind
'What have I done?' he questions 'Ive lost my peace of mind'

But wait, I look towards the east... a ray of hope I see
a second adam sent to earth to set all mankind free
'Put down your heavy burdens' this Saviour says with love
'Come drink the waters of new life sent down from God above
I bring salvation to the world, your sins have all been pardoned
Come learn of me the Father's ways... don't let your hearts be hardened'

For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive.     1 Corinthians ch.15 v.22