The Restless Soul

When Jesus sees the multitude of people thronging to hear from Him, He realises they are ‘harassed’, people without a shepherd.

Matt 9:36 (NIV) ‘When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd.^’

One of the Bible’s recurring themes is God’s ability to give peace. Of the many reasons we humans are not peaceful, the biggest, is we are troubled in our conscience. No matter how many justifications well meaning people attempt to placate our troubled conscience with, there is within us a God-part, and when we violate that part by doing the wrong thing, no matter how deeply buried that God-part is, we will be tormented with the fact that we have cheated on ourselves.

Integrity is our inner life aligning with our outer life. This is being ‘integrated’, which is harmony between the inner and outer us. We are ‘disintegrated’ when this fails. This breaks our ease in living. It could even be called our ‘dis-ease’. Living with unresolved guilt leaves us in a state of dis-peace. Our inability to live happily with ourselves spills into us having conflict with others. One follows the other. Even though we try to achieve calm within through many different means, meditation, remote places, none can actually deal with the spiritual reality crying out for peace with God.

Our restless soul has it’s own consciousness. It only comes to rest when we are reconciled with God and this can only happen when we repent from sin and we receive forgiveness from God. The payment for our sins has already been made. The only payment that satisfies the penalty for sin is death. Ours! However, in His love for us, God has provided a substitute, His only Son. So when we accept Christ and believe in His substitutionary sacrifice for our sins, a spiritual experience takes place in the deepest parts of our created being and we finally come to rest with God, knowing that all is right and all is well with Him. Our sins have been forgiven and washed from our entire lives. He has imputed to us the perfect life of His only Son, Jesus, as though it were ours. So, all that Jesus has received from God, so have we, even being seated at the right hand of God.

This knowledge should bring us considerable peace!

If you’d like to read more about peace, you can grab my book here.

Also, check out one of our services this Sunday. We’d love to meet you!

 

FEAR NOT.

2 Timothy 1:6-7  Therefore I remind you to stir up the gift of God which is in you through the laying on of my hands. For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Fear shuts down our gifts, talents, and potential in life. Fear pushes itself into our emotions. Unlike God, fear does not wait for the invitation to enter our lives. Fear simply forces itself on us. To be free from phobias we have to take charge deciding we will not be afraid, to literally, ‘fear not’.

The power of a fearless life rises from our relationship with the Holy Spirit and the Word of God. If we are filled with the Holy Spirit, the spirit of fear has no place to live. Secondly, if the Word of God lives in us, in our thoughts and hearts, then the words we speak become reality in our lives. The Word of God must reign in us if we are to reign in life.

Why does it need to be stated that God has not given us a spirit of fear? Because the devil works hard to make fear feel as though it was from God. If we believe that the anxieties we feel are from God trying to communicate with us, then we will open ourselves to that emotion. If Christians can be deceived into believing their fears are from God, then they will be rendered powerless. Know this, any fears you have are not from God. Any voice that accuses you, intimidates you, makes you feel guilty, worried or unsettles you is not from God. It’s the devil. Take your stand, resist the devil and gain the victory over those voices.

The family of fear is intimidation, timidity, anxiety, despair, doubt, unbelief, confusion, hardness, negativity, complaining.

Faith is the antidote to fear.

The family of faith is believing, trusting, courage, confidence, positivity, praise, thanksgiving and decisiveness. This is the spirit we walk in. We are saved by faith, not fear. Faith rests in the finished work of the cross. Fear tries to gain assurance of salvation through standing on its own efforts, appeasing an unhappy conscience. Faith accepts that the grace of God Himself has already provided in Christ all that is needed to be accepted by God Himself. A fearful person worries that God is displeased with them, and tries to gain acceptance with God through their own goodness.

The irony is that when we live in fear we are far more prone to sin. People lie when they fear the truth becoming known. People steal because they fear they will not get what they need, not believing that God will provide.

Dr. David Yonggi Cho says, ‘the two most powerful motivators are the fear of loss and the hope of gain’.

Thanks the reading this week! To read more about this you can get a hold of my book Peace on my website here.

Also, check out of our services this Sunday. We’d love to meet you!

7 Fears That God Dismantles

‘Fear not’ is proclaimed in 365 Scriptures in the Bible. One for every day! The Lord doesn’t want you to be fearful on any one day of your life.

In the book of Isaiah, the prophet clusters seven ‘fear not’s’ together in quick succession. The background is that the Israelites have been dispersed in foreign lands from their homeland for nearly seventy years and now Yahweh’s promise to cause them to return is coming to pass. He is telling them he will use a Gentile, foreign King, Cyrus, to do this. They need not fear because God will keep His Word, His covenant and His promises. On this basis they need not fear anything at all. Their God is reliable and has the power to do anything He wants.

In these Scriptures we can see seven reasons that fear gets a hold of our lives, but then also seven reasons to neutralise those fears. All of those reasons to not be afraid are because God gets involved personally.

1. Fear of abandonment – ‘I am with you’
2. Fear of helplessness – ‘I will help you’
3. Fear of our own mistakes catching up with us. – ‘I am your Redeemer’
4. Fear of not belonging anywhere – ‘I have bought you, you are mine.’
5. Fear of being disconnected from family – ‘I will gather your descendants’.
6. Fear of being left out – ‘I have chosen you’.
7. Fear of having no significance – ‘You are my witnesses’

Let’s get the magnifying glass on the first line;

Isa 41:10 Fear not, for I am with you;

‘Fear not’. Why not?

‘for I…’

Who is ‘I’?

This is the God who has created the entire universe, the Earth and everything in it. The God that has created every human that has ever lived, giving them life and consciousness. He is the author of eternal life for those choosing to receive it.

He is the same God who guides one man to build and ark that saves his family and a multitude of animals from a flood that covers the entire Earth.

This is the same God that worked with a shepherd called Moses to deliver a nation single-handedly out of 400 years of slavery from the most powerful nation on Earth.

This is the same God who descended to Earth healing every sick person who came to him, cast demons out of the possessed, who stopped a storm with a simple command, who multiplied small amounts of food to feed multitudes.

This is the same God who allowed men to crucify Him, but then who came back to life after three days, rising from the dead ascending into heaven.

This is the same God who came down from heaven on the Jewish festival day, Pentecost, overwhelming the disciples so they began speaking in languages they had never heard.

This is the same God who turned the world upside down then and has been doing the same in millions of people’s lives ever since.

This is the ‘I’, the God who says, ‘fear not, for ‘I’ am with you.’

Life can be lonely, but when God is with us, we do not need to be afraid.

If you want to read more about the peace of God, you can get a hold of my book Peace on my website here.

Also, feel free to swing by one of our services. We’d love to meet you!