Revival
Faithfulness springs forth from the earth, and righteousness looks down from Heaven. Psalm 85.11
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Israel asks for a King
I have been reading my way through Samuel lately and God has been bringing a number of things to my attention.
This evening I have been reading Samuel chapter 8. In this chapter Samuel appoints his sons as judges over the nation of Israel, but as the sons seek dishonest gain and did not walk in the same righteous ways of Samuel, Israel asks for a King instead
Samuel 8:5
“They said to him,”you are old, and your sons do not walk in your ways; now appoint a king to lead us, such as all the other nations have,”
How horribly wrong had Israel got it, their motive was to be like ‘all the other nations’, the nation God had set aside as His own, to be different, wanted to be like everyone else!
Much later Israel was given the King they so eagerly desired, the King of all Kings, Jesus! But they rejected him because He didn’t come the way they wanted him too!
The story of Israel echoes out lives as people.
Despite Gods massive grace and his provision for us still we yearn to be like others or to find a false glory in a false king we ourselves appoint to rule over us.
Even when we get what we want we don’t like it because it doesn’t come in the way we expected it too or the way we wanted it too.
Things may not happen the way we want or come the way we expect, get used to it!
God likes to be different, he thinks outside the box, because its better outside the box, life is more fun outside the box!
We need to stop looking for things the way we want them, and focus our attention on God. Put down our vision and pick up Gods!
Only then will we start to see the full picture and see that God knows what He’s doing. He provides you with everything you could want or need, but he does it His way which is always better than our way!
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Called To Sonship
Recently I have started to read through the Psalms, as I was reading Psalm 2 God spoke to me. In verse 7 it says ‘I will proclaim the decree of the Lord: He said to me, “You are my Son; today I have become your Father.”
For me this was a WOW moment! It stood out to me in particular because of my own experience of growing up in a broken home. I never got to see my father as much as I would have liked and as a result as I grew up lost to the concept of true fatherhood. When I was told that God was my Father I could never quite understand what that meant to me or what I was supposed to do with this information so I just put it to the side. It never made sense to me because I didn’t know what a father was supposed to do, because unfortunately I was separated from mine for a large portion of my childhood. Yes I knew God loved me because I know my father loves me but that was all it was, a subtle reminder that He loved me like a father loves his son.
But this is so much more than that, God doesn’t love me like a father loves his son, He loves me as His son! When he looks at me he sees the perfection of His Son Jesus. I never understood this until now, in the moment I read Psalm 2 God said “today I have become your Father” not I have become like your father, but simply I have become your Father.
For so many in our generation the story is all too familiar, a large proportion of us have grown up either without a father or with one who has not displayed fatherhood as it should be. The enemy has attacked one of the most fundamental parts of the family and has destroyed the relationship between earthly fathers and children, which then robs us of the knowledge of our connection to God. Too many of us have been lead to believe that fathers are don’t care, are absent, mistreat their children, punish, disrespect our mothers, don’t care about their families or don’t show any love, affection or emotion.
This leads to knock on effects; firstly children grow up with anger and unforgivness towards father figures, secondly they don’t know what a real father looks like. Therefore God as the Father becomes an unattractive prospect. When one father has failed us why would we want a second one?
We let earthly models define what fatherhood is. This is not how it should be, we need to look at the heaven model and bring it down to earth, and the way fatherhood is displayed in heaven is how it should be displayed on earth! Not the other way around. What God does and says as a Father is what earthly fathers should say and do for their children.
We need to correct our thinking and direct it heavenwards, once we get the correct concept of God as a Father then we can see how he sees us, the perfection of Jesus. Then we can step into sonship, into what we have been called to be.
W get treated like His child, like His Son Jesus, we are dearly loved, cherished and cared for. We are then given access to our Fathers wealth in heaven, His knowledge and resources. We inherit his power and bring it to earth. We are in relationship with the King… we are called to be Royalty!
Wake up and step into the family, step into what your loving Heavenly Father wants for you, He wants only the best for His royal children.
“How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!” - 1 John 3:1
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The Works of the Father
Recently I have been given a real hunger to see more of the supernatural things of God, the things that can’t be explained.
I have become fascinated by the unexplainable nature of God. Isn’t that a part of the very glory of our God, He is unexplainable! Unexplainable in His love for us, unexplainable in His desires for us, unexplainable in His grace for us, unexplainable in His relentless pursuit of our hearts, unexplainable in His mighty power!
A particular verse has been placed on my heart regarding this, it is from the book of John 10 verse 37, ‘’Do not believe me unless I do what my Father does.”
The verse is taken from an interaction between what seems like a group of Jews and Jesus. The Jews confront Jesus and ask Him to plainly say He is the Christ. Jesus responds by pointing out that He has already told them and the miracles He performed speak for Him as being the Christ. After a bit of an exchange of words, Jesus states that they should not believe Him unless He does the works of God the Father, and when He does it they should believe the miracles, so that they can know and understand that He is the Christ and He is true.
His miracles testify about who He is! They also testify the heart of the Father!
Shouldn’t this be the cry of the church as the body of Christ? People struggle to believe that God exists because we as a church have failed to testify the heart of the Father and the identity of Christ. Something tells them that it could be true but no one is truly witnessing to them the power and love of the Father so things don’t match up.
Yes we can tell them a story of how God has impacted our lives but rarely is that enough; we need to impact their lives by bringing the power of God to them. We need something more; we need something that can’t be argued with.
We simply need God. I certainly wouldn’t fancy my chances in an argument with God!
What if as a church we said to the world, “Do not believe me unless I do what my Father Does.” And what if we then went and actually did what our Father does, what if showed his love to our communities, what if we stood by the poor and oppressed, what if we healed the sick with the power and love of the Father? What if we rained light on the kingdom of darkness? What if we gave the world a true experience of the glorious beautiful God we know? What if we took a step of faith and asked God to show his power?
I was told ‘’a man with an experience is never at the mercy of a man with an argument.” What if we gave the world a little bit more experience and little bit less of our arguments. What if we let the Kingdom of God speak for us!
