We all dream. It’s natural. God gave us imaginations and the desire to use them. Without dreams we would stagnate and eventually die. It is our imaginations that allow us to look to the future and plan. The longings of our heart spoken of in Proverbs are possible because of our imagination.

Imagination gives us hope. We live in an imagined world all the time, it’s just that we don’t see it that way. When we give directions, or if someone tells us to describe an elephant, we see in our mind’s eye the thing we are describing. That requires our imagination.

Without imagination Donald Trump would never have built Trump Tower in New York, Bill Gates would never have developed the Microsoft organisation, Mozart would never have composed his Great Mass, the Wright Brothers would never have left the ground, and Jesus would not have gone to the Cross.

That’s right, Jesus used His imagination in Gethsemane. He used it to see the joy set before Him. He imagined the resurrection – saw it’s conclusion and what it would achieve – and it gave Him the human strength to go on through the crucifixion. He encouraged the disciples to use their imaginations the very night He was betrayed. He encouraged them to think about what was to come in His Father’s House. We cannot be troubled when we focus on eternity, and that really requires an Eternal perspective – which we cannot have without our imaginations!

Dreaming of the future is something we all do. It is these imaginings that allow us to develop our lives. A God-centric imagination will result in us moving (more-or-less!) in His direction, where focussing on ourselves or the world will draw us away from Him.

In the 1990’s I went to a lot of Bible conferences in the UK. There I saw some amazing works of God, from salvation to healing to financial provision. I watched in awe as one of the leaders at one conference prayed for a young boy who had one leg over an inch shorter than the other, and at the prayer the short leg grew to match the length of the other. It sparked my imagination, and I began to pray more for healing, finance and so on. For a while I saw it too. Nothing as dramatic as the young boy’s leg, but small healings, finances provided where it was seemingly impossible, hardened atheists joining churches with tears. Then my circumstances changed and I gradually went to fewer conferences and although I still had the memories the imagination I had was not fuelled in the same way and what I began to see was less spectacular than back then.

My imagination had become less potent because I did not feed it in God’s way. I studied for 8 years towards a commerce degree which required me to watch the news reports and read the newspapers where I had previously been able to spend that time in more spiritual study, and as a result my thinking became more worldly and I began to expect the world’s results – and that’s what I started to get. Now I am more concentrated on my Spirit again, although not as much as when I was younger, and the answers I see are more expectant of God showing up and seeing results.

When Peter prayed for the cripple at the Temple he must have imagined him walking. Paul imagined planting a Church in every city he set foot in, and those places he went almost all had a Church when he left.

We must be wary of what we imagine. Books like “The Secret” will make seemingly incredible promises based on using this same concept, and the world will indeed provide some very convincing counterfeits for God’s dreams for our lives. I’m not talking about any “law of attraction” or such nonsense. These would be the very things we are told by Paul in 2 Corinthians 10:3-5 “For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh for the weapons of our warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God to the casting down of strongholds, casting down imaginations, and every high thing that is exalted against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ”

What we listen to will affect our imaginations. We inevitably burn less brightly when we are set away from the rest of the coals. But we were made to dream, and to dream BIG. But we must go to the one who dreams a dream for us. God has a dream for us. He places it in us whilst we are still being formed and gives us every chance He can to live it. But dreams are risky things to follow. They can cost us everything safe and secure, and most people never leave home in pursuit of our dreams, we rather sit in our comfortable chairs and read articles, blogs or watch tv shows about people living out their “dreams”.

Maybe your dream is to sing, or act. If it is God’s dream for you then ask Him to make a way for you to do it. Maybe your dream is to be a doctor or a lawyer or a teacher. Whatever God’s dream is for you, seek it with all your heart. Don’t let the world draw you away with shiny baubles that will rob you of the real treasure you will find when you live your real Big Dream.

For further reading on the concept of dreams in a Christian perspective, I recommend Bruce Wilkinson’s excellent book “The Dream Giver” ISBN: 978-1-59052-201-1

There’s a guy wanders around the place near my home in Cape Town putting up posters he’s made himself. They are simple, hand-written messages I’m sure he intends to encourage people. The trouble is, they only tell half the truth.

On these posters he’s written “Resist the Devil and he must Flee” along with the James reference.

It’s all well meaning, and most people just shrug it off or ignore it completely. Then yesterday I was driving past a church building in the same area with an official notice board outside proudly proclaiming “Belief in God will not get you into Heaven – Obedience will”

This trend worries me. With the increase in number of false prophets proclaiming the end is near – or that we missed it a couple of weeks ago – it is worrying in the extreme that churches and their members are proclaiming half-truths in print like this.

Yes, we must resist the devil and his schemes. But it is fruitless to do that in our own strength. The whole concept in James states “Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded”(James 4:7-8) Before we can resist the devil effectively we must submit ourselves to God. Doing otherwise is fruitless. We must draw close to God. His power is what we must use to defeat the enemy of our souls.

Even blind obedience is pointless. That way leads to legalism and religion rather than a living, breathing relationship. It is the difference between expectation and expectancy. Religion places expectations on us. “We must be obedient or God will not bless us” is the attitude. Paul wrote and spoke against such things by criticising those members of the early church who were insisting new converts be circumcised and follow the teachings of the law. The Truth sets us free, it doesn’t tie us to a life of concrete rules with some transcendental Shylock sitting on his throne muttering “you’re all going to Hell, directly to Hell, do not pass ‘Go’, do not collect 200 sheckels”. Rather we are yoked to a living Saviour who seeks to lift the burdens of this world from us and free us to be the people He created us to be. Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, and all the other “paths” the world would have us look at to learn the ‘right’ way to live and find God all set out rules from what to eat, to what direction to face when you pray to how your body must be positioned. Christianity must differentiate itself from these religious ideas or it becomes the very thing it was created to destroy – dead!

Our faith is one of Life, not death. We serve a Living and Loving God who presents Himself to us where we are, He doesn’t wait for us to be worthy of His love, for to do so would condemn us all! Paul writes in Romans 5:8 “But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us”. God is on our side. The world will seek to tear us down and imprison us in itself, “What then shall we say to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31)

That is the real Truth. God is on our side. God is for us.

We all have times when we feel down. Depression hits without warning apparently, and we can be left feeling drained and hollow by the circumstances we find ourselves enveloped by.

The real issue, however, is where we draw our strength fom on a daily basis. What do we treasure most?

The Bible teaches us “Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life.”(Proverbs 4:23) This is a particularly true statement. We give our hearts over to all kind of things during the time we have. As young men and women, it is often to a partner. Our whole being becomes wrapped up in that individual, and if the relationship breaks down we are left feeling desolate. Many teen suicides are attributed to this.

As adults we are not exempt from this folly. We put our hearts into getting the corner office or the house with the pool or the Ferrari, then Bob, the 29 year-old newbie gets the promotion, the pool is cracked or the car is stolen and we are left feeling cheated and forgotten. Our hearts get crushed, bruised and beaten.

Sometimes we build our hearts on the hopes we have made for ourselves, hopes and dreams like children or continued health. Then the news comes: “I’m sorry but it looks like you’ll never have kids” or “It’s cancer”, and we are devastated because that’s where our hearts are.

We also find irrelevant issues all consuming because of where our hearts lie. I know people who can tell you the names of every player who has put on a Manchester United shirt and kicked a ball in the last 40 years, but can’t tell you what their children’s favourite food is. The focus of our heart is what will determine the kind of men and women we become. If we focus on the irrelevant then we can never be relevant ourselves to the people who matter.

One of my personal favourite teachers, Andrew Wommack, can quote hundreds, even thousands of scriptures from memory. His heart is focussed on what matters, and this is demonstrated by his expression of his faith, the way he talks of his family and the way he relates to others. I had the priviledge many years ago of meeting him a few times and chatting to him. He struck me then as a man who has a simple faith, uncluttered by caring about people’s opinions. “Only Christ matters” was the message I got from the conversations I had with him over a few days in 1997 at a bible week in England. He, Dave Duell and a few others were real and present. They had hearts which radiated love. A wellspring of life which was clearly not their own but was fuelled by something far greater than a mere man could hope to have in his own strength.

This may seem like a shameless advert for these teachers, but it is intended to be an example. I hope that one day people will see that same love and commitment in me, and in you. There is something powerful in a guarded heart. The life in it is not our own, rather it is given to us by a God who sees what we are in ourselves and loves us anyway. He places His own Spirit in us to guide us and speaks to us through our hearts daily if we will only listen.

“Today, if you will hear His voice, Harden not your hearts” (Psalm 95:7b-8a) If we will hear His voice. If we are going to hear God speaking to us, we must keep our hearts fixed on Him. King David understood this and kept his heart inclined towards God so that even after he had tried to hide his sin with Bathsheba he was sensitive enough to God that when the Prophet came to him he immediately repented and humbled himself before God.

We must guard our heart today. There is so much in this world that seeks to depress and destroy our life, but the Good News is “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

God is for us, and with that as the food for our heart we can live with a wellspring of life in our core being at all times, anduring the light afflictions of this world and moving beyond them by keeping an eternal perspective.

As we walk life’s path we are forever changed by the experiences we ecounter. Sometimes these are easy and incremental, sometimes they are massive and painful.

Change is a constant, which is not a contradiction. The only thing we can be certain of is that we do not leave this day the same person we were when we entered it.

In the last few days I have seen friends experience joy and sorrow. I have seen myself experience much life changing as well as a result of their experience. Every life we touch is changed. One friend has a new love in his life. Another has suffered the breakdown of a relationship where a child is involved. Still another has begun a new life in a foreign country.

These are actually minor pieces of information to me that represent major upheaval to them, both for the good and the bad as they experience it.

Business may be good, health may deteriorate. We cannot know what the world will throw at us this day. There is no constant but change…

…and God.

To give us hope and an anchor in the storm of this life we have a God who is an absolute constant. His love for us is the same yesterday as it will be tomorrow. His desire for us is constant. For God, everything is now.

I believe Einstein surmised that at the speed of light there is no passage of time. Everything is now. Jesus declared Himself to be the Light of the World. “God is light; in Him there is no darkness at all” declares 1 John 1:5. It makes sense. Everything is now.

There is no change outside time. Time exists within God, rather than the other way around. We tend to forget this. It’s easy to do that. We get caught up in what’s happening in our lives and we forget that God is outside it all. He’s bigger than our problems. He knows the beginning from the end. He is the beginning and the end!

What would life be like if, just for a moment, we could perceive it through God’s eyes? How would we change things? Would we change things?

Should we change things? What we should perhaps rather do is to understand.

Paul had an eternal perspective, and his life gradually became a constant movement towards God as a result. The world threw everything it had at him and he just kept his heart guarded and followed his path.

“Keep and guard your heart with all vigilance and above all that you guard, for out of it flow the springs of life. Put away from you false and dishonest speech, and willful and contrary talk put far from you. Let your eyes look right on [with fixed purpose], and let your gaze be straight before you. Consider well the path of your feet, and let all your ways be established and ordered aright.” (Proverbs 4:23-26 Amplified)

I love that “consider”. We move in response to circumstance. Paul considered his path. We are tossed about by the changes in our external conditions. Paul fixed his heart and moved towards Jesus with an unswerving course.

I would love to be like Paul, keep my eyes fixed on the prize and not be swayed by the troubles of this life. But I’m not. I have my moments, we all do, but generally I’m thrown about by the troubles of this world. Changes overpower me and I wrestle with decisions I need to make and those I already made. Only where I have actually cut off the possibility of change do I have peace about staying the course – my Faith in Jesus and my marriage. These areas are the strongest in my life. They are also suffering the greatest attack. I am challenged to change what I believe about both by circumstances daily.

My Faith is based on a secure and unchanging foundation – the person of Jesus. My marriage is built on this same foundation – the person of Jesus.

Change in our external circumstances is inevitable. This life brings troubles and sorrow with it much of the time, especially if you choose following Jesus as a life to live. But we must guard our hearts against being undermined by circumstances.

We must be single minded and focussed if we are to survive the constant onslaught of the changes in the world.
 

Even as Christians we are susceptible to attack. Our health and finances are the enemy’s favourite targets. We lose sight of what Christ bought for us through the atonement and when we do we are open to assault in any area.

We stop watching our backs and we become complacent because of modern medicine and credit agreements. We get sucked into darker places easily once we start relying on our own strength and “street-smarts” to move on in the world. Then once the circle is big enough to trap us, the enemy moves in ans snaps shut, then suddenly we are serving two masters. The trap catches us unaware and our life changes.

We are not aware in this modern world of the battle we are caught up in. John Eldridge likens this world to the opening scenes of Saving Private Ryan. From a Spiritual perspective we are storming the beaches of Normandy and taking heavy fire all the time. Many of us are walking around broken and bleeding from life-threatening wounds that left untended will eventually kill us.

We leave ourselves open to heartache, sickness and death both physical and spiritual when we lose sight of the battle we are in.

Paul writes to the Ephesians about the Armour of God and lists the items – breastplate, shield, sword, helmet, foot-guards and belt. The list is based around the armour of the Roman empire. Roman legionaries were famous in antiquity for not retreating or turning their back on the enemy. There’s no protection for the back. It’s a blind side.

If we keep facing the enemy we are fully protected. The Belt of Truth holds all the rest of the armour in place. The Helmet of Salvation protects our minds. The Sword of the Word is an offensive weapon which Paul says is mighty to tear down strongholds. The armour of preparedness on the feet lets us move forward to spread the Gospel.

All of this is great, but the most essential part that gets forgotten so often is the shield. Faith is our shield. It protects our blind side. The “fiery darts” Paul speaks of in Ephesians 6 are a likening to the flaming arrows fired in ancient warfare. The shield in Roman armour was thick and heavy. The wood it was backed with would absorb the arrow deeply enough to extinguish the arrows fired. It had to be hooked onto the belt because of the weight. It was not enough to have the shield alone. Truth supports the shield.

What much of the trap of the 21st Century has delivered to us is a false truth. Medicine, although useful – it must be added that right now I myself take several medicines daily for unresolved chronic medical conditions – is not God’s first choice. We are comfortable with it because we can live with the issues that just 50 years ago were almost always fatal unless God intervened. When we need finances we turn straight to a bank or “micro-finance” lender. The concept of turning to God to meet financial needs, despite being a central theme through Jesus’s own teaching, is virtually condemned by most churches (note the lower case “c” there). Christ’s teaching of reliance on God for our daily needs has almost been completely lost. We need to get back to basics, and it protects our blind side.

The enemy will sometimes get a shot past us. We may get wounded or even killed by those shots, but if we keep our mind set on the Truth and build our Faith on that Truth, then we can overcome even potentially fatal wounds.

It’s easy to sit back in our comfortable chairs and spout platitudes about how to live as a Christian. Platitudes are easy. They are pure theory, like the scientist who sits looking at pieces of paper and uses mathematics to explain how a star can exist, or more accurately a business man called in to “streamline” a company talking about how many jobs must be cut, then returning to his million dollar job in his million dollar car.

Reality is harder.

In World War One the soldiers doing the fighting sat up to their knees in filth, mud, water and rats. Many lives were lost because of the conditions the men were forced to live in. Even today, you can visit places and see sanitised versions of the trenches. I saw the reconstructions as a teenager at Vimy Ridge. I saw the massive memorial at Thiepval to over 70 000 men whose bodies were never recovered on the Somme battlefields.

But the Generals who sent these men to their deaths sat growing fat at HQ, eating steak and attending dances whilst their men were close to starving and waiting for death to call.

As Christians we can fall into the trap of believing we’re Generals.

We sit and spout theory about why things are the way they are. God being God allows certain things to happen to teach us. He has His “master-plan” and we can’t understand it.

We’re living in a world where we are at war but we think we’re at HQ. Then the shells start falling around us. Cancer, unemployment, death of loved ones strike at us and we are reminded that we are not safe behind the lines, but rather we are stuck in the middle of the front line, and the enemy soldiers are well trained and relentless.

Suddenly we have to start to walk the talk. And we usually fail.

Peter was so filled with the Holy Spirit that people placed the sick in the street so his shadow could touch them. When it came time for them to look for someone to wait on the tables they sought out those anointed men to do it – Primarily Stephen, the first martyr.

They talked the talk, yes. But they walked what they talked. Peter laid hands on the sick, He raised the dead. He had freely received – not in theory, but in reality – and he now freely gave. He taught others what he knew, sometimes he even used words to do it.

We are quick to talk, but walking it is another matter. It’s hard to stay strong when it looks like your life is falling apart. Death and sickness haunt your every step. Loved ones die and are diagnosed with terrible illness. Fear is a natural response. Grief hammers on the door of our heart and we open it up and weep.

It’s normal. It’s part of healing. It opens the door to what comes next…

hang on…

Next?

Next…

“Therefore, when Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her weeping, He groaned in the spirit and was troubled. And He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to Him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus wept.  Then the Jews said, ‘See how He loved him!'” (John 11:33-36)

Jesus wept because He loved Lazarus and He loved Martha. He felt the grief tey felt. He felt the loss. He wept.

Then He acted.

Then Jesus, again groaning in Himself, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone lay against it.  Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of him who was dead, said to Him, ‘Lord, by this time there is a stench, for he has been dead four days.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not say to you that if you would believe you would see the glory of God?’ Then they took away the stone from the place where the dead man was lying.<sup class="footnote" value="[c]”>[c] And Jesus lifted up His eyes and said, ‘Father, I thank You that You have heard Me. ⁴² And I know that You always hear Me, but because of the people who are standing by I said this, that they may believe that You sent Me.’ Now when He had said these things, He cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come forth!’ ⁴⁴ And he who had died came out bound hand and foot with graveclothes, and his face was wrapped with a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Loose him, and let him go.'” (John 11:38-44)

First Jesus felt the grief, then He acted. And Lazarus came out of the grave.

Jesus walked the talk. Peter and Paul and Timothy and all the apostles walked the talk. They saw miracles. Jail cells opened, blind eyes seeing, lame walking, deaf hearing.

When my dad was diagnosed with cancer in 1999 I tried to believe for a miracle. I wanted him to live and recover. He didn’t. I didn’t understand at that point. I said all the right things, even outwardly did all of them, but my heart saw him die when the doctors made the diagnosis. As a result I prepared for his death in my heart, and not for his health being restored.

I talked the talk, but I didn’t walk it. I know that now, and although I’m saddened I don’t feel guilt or shame about it. It’s been taken care of by giving it over to Christ, something we all must do.

Walking the talk is hard. It means taking hits, often from people we are very close to.

It means having to watch sometimes and wait for the moment to call our Lazarus out.

We weep. We bleed. We feel the despair and the heartache this world holds.

We drown it out most of the time. Numb ourselves to the cry of our hearts by watching TV or drinking, or partying. Sex, drugs and rock and roll. But then we go to sleep alone, and in the darkness He calls to us, and our thoughts return to where we should be.

So we get up and we talk the fight. Once in a while we even fight the fight.

Then a new attack comes and we crumple.

Unless we consistently walk out our faith. We can build ourselves up through fellowship to a point where when the storm comes we can weather it. The wave breaks on the Rock on which we stand, rather than swamping us

Talk the talk, yes. But we must walk out what we believe, whatever the cost personally if we are to stand.

Walk the talk. “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only” (James 1:22)

Every so often in our walk something truly catastrophic happens. The Enemy of our soul gets a shot in and on target and we are left reeling and wounded in a huge way.

It’s happened several times in my life.

Each time, however, life goes on.

My younger brother was killed in a road accident, my favourite aunt died in a house fire, cancers in the family, more and more things went wrong.

Each of these incidents had the potential to destroy my life. And they nearly did.

Thankfully, God is here.

These incidents have all been redeemed. Jesus used Robin’s death to reveal His amazing Love for me to me. My dad’s first cancer shook me, but eventually drew us closer to each other and to God. His second cancer, which took his life in 1999, led us into a level of closeness and relationship we’d never experienced before, although we had a very close relationship. I was able to hold his hand as he went home, and I believe he could have been healed but chose to rather go as he knew our Lord was with me.

The issues we face are not sent from God to test us. He loves us unconditionally. He redeems us perfectly. He gives us only good gifts.

Cancer is not good.

Death is not good.

No illness is good.

God gives us only that which is good, perfect and pleasing. If it’s not all of those things, God didn’t send it.

BUT…

He can and wants to redeem it.

 “You intended to harm me, but God intended it for good” (Genesis 50:20a) That doesn’t mean God sent it – I’m certain when God showed Joseph his future He didn’t intend for him to be sold as a slave and imprisoned on false charges for years before it came to pass. Joseph’s brothers were motivated by jealousy and greed. They were filled with anger and acted on it.

But God redeemed their actions and saved thousands through Joseph despite their hate.

No matter how negative the situation you’re facing God can redeem it, and wants to. He has a perfect plan for our lives, one with a hope and a future. He wants us to live in an abundant life. Jesus Himself said “The thief comes only in order to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have and enjoy life, and have it in abundance (to the full, till it overflows)” (John 10:10 Amplified)

So basically, if you are going through hell right now, God wants to redeem it. If you went through hell recently, God wants to redeem it. God will guide us through the valley of the shadow of death, not help us set up home in it. He leads us through the darkness in this world into life and light.

Life is short. It has hard knocks in it. We all miss what God is saying to us from time to time and then we have consequences we must deal with. But God wants to redeem them and make us live better, setting up a table for us in the very face of the enemy who tried to destroy us.

Hold fast to the Cross. Anchor to the Rock of Christ and never let Him go. No matter how bad the situation looks now, God wants to redeem it.

Every so often something comes into your life that you don’t expect. It can come in many forms, but it is so out of the blue that you can’t brace for it.

“Mum, I’m pregnant” – and 14
“I’m sorry, it’s cancer”
“There’s been an accident…”

The ground gets pulled out from under us and we just stagger under the load.

God didn’t design us to cope. This isn’t a flaw in the design, or in the programming of Mankind. We were made for paradise. We were designed to live for ever. When God made us, He made us in His image. Immortal and unflawed.

Enter Satan…

When sin entered into the world God had made everything in creation changed as Death entered with it. Everything except our programming.

Suddenly we were going to die. There was a finite time period for existence in this world. Worse, we were separated from the only one who could help us.

Sin, sickness, Death. This world was opened up to everything Hell had instead of the riches of Heaven.

Adam was over 900 years old when he ceased to exist in this world, but we don’t know how long he had existed before the fall. It’s possible he and Eve had lived for centuries before they tasted the fruit of the tree of knowledge. Adam sinned and condemned all of us.

Jesus came to put it right. God had a choice. He could eliminate everything and start over, or He could redeem His creation. From the very moment Adam ate the fruit he had been forbidden to eat Jesus began to move. “And I will put enmity Between you and the woman, And between your seed and her Seed; He shall bruise your head, And you shall bruise His heel” (Genesis 3:15) It was the child of a woman, not a man who would crush the serpent’s head. Jesus was born of woman, but His Father was God Himself, just as Adam’s was. He would face the same temptations and the same trials as Adam, but where Adam had fallen, Jesus would succeed. Instead of surrendering to Satan, Jesus did what Adam was meant to do –  He rebuked Satan and walked away. Satan was left powerless against Him.

It’s because of this that we have a share in Eternal Life. Jesus chose to give to everyone who accepted His sacrifice a share of what He had gained. He gave us a piece of Himself, and took from us what we were never designed to cope with.

The enemy will still try to put a load onto us. Cancer, HIV, alcoholism, addictions – the list is long and sounds daunting. Whatever comes against us is merely a distraction designed to draw us away from God and trusting Him and His goodness though.

We are bombarded with facts. They add to the load. Words like “inoperable”, “Incurable”, “chronic condition” and “lifetime illness” are thrown around and destroy our faith. The facts can build us up, but the enemy will use the facts to distract us from the Truth and to put onto us a load we should never have had to bear.

We have been given the Name of Jesus. In His name we have authority over all sickness, and even death itself is not an obstacle that is insurmountable.

Until our faith develops to the point that we can do like Jesus and then Peter did and see health return at the command in Jesus name we have the Comforter to teach us and convict us. But even this is twisted. The Spirit comes, but “…when He has come, He will convict the world of sin, and of righteousness”. (John 16:8). He will convict of Sin, but He will convict of Righteousness. Since He has come, we are therefore convicted of our status. Satan deafens us to the whole message though. We readily accept te burden of being a sinner, and accept the sin we have been living in, because we can see it. But we get so bogged down in that we don’t hear the rest. Because of Jesus we are righteous. We are made in right standing with God. He sees us as sinless as Jesus because the burden was taken from us again by His sacrifice.

Lift the load from our shoulders and give it to Jesus. He said we must take His yoke. His burden is light. He wants us to take His load, and He will take ours.

There seems to be a shift in thinking in some places today that we are on our own as Christians. God has set things in motion and now just lets everything run until the end of time.

This is simply not true. God knows the end from the beginning, yes. He does NOT however pre-destine individuals. There is a big difference between knowing what will happen and making the choice.

In the Matrix movies, the problem the machines have is they cannot comprehend choice. Free will is a mystery to them. They are bound by the programming in them and cannot comprehend choice.

We seem to think God is like that – or that is the impression you can get. I once heard Tony Campolo say when he was young he believed in predestination so strongly that when he fell down the stairs he thanked God it was over with!

The problem of Free Will is that we make choices that are bad for us. God allows them, and ultimately uses them to further His will in our lives, but the enemy has a plan to drag us away from His love into destruction, and Jesus Himself said most people will take the broad road to destruction rather than the narrow, hard road to salvation.

When I was still quite young, probably in the summer of 1984 when I was 12, my family went on holiday to the Gower peninsular in South Wales. We used to walk together from Langland Bay to Caswell Bay and back by following a footpath round the headland. It was a wonderful walk, uphill in both directions, or so it felt! We would wander slowly round the cliff walk and sometimes get an ice-cream before heading back. This one paqrticular day was hot. Very hot. We walked in shorts and t-shirts, or just shorts, and open sandals. As we walked we heard crying from above us in the gorse bushes over the path. Two young girls had wandered off the path and got lost in the gorse, somehow managing to get into a place where they couldn’t get out by going up or down.

My dad was a schoolmaster, and had a real love of children. Without hesitation he pushed through the brambles and thorns, lifted the two girls up onto his shoulders and carried them back down through the brambles to the path, then on to the lifeguard station at Caswell bay where they were reunited with their parents. Dad’s legs were badly cut and bleeding from the thorns, and it took the first-aid attendant over an hour to clean him up.

I have often had the image of my dad that day come back to my mind. He gave no thought of what it would cost him in terms of pain to help these children who were complete strangers. I remember marvelling at the way he just brushed through the thorns. I did ask him why he’d done it later. He simply smiled and pointed out that he knew he could help, so he knew he had to. He could endure what they could not, and they were rescued as a result.

Now my dad was not perfect. He was as flawed and fragile as any human, yet he retained a strength throughout his life. His faith carried him through the ups and downs of existence, and although he eventually succombed to cancer in 1999 he held fast to his convictions to the end. I had the honour of holding his hand as he went home, and although it hurt immensely to lose him, he left us in such a peaceful way that I was strengthened by his example.

We all have to endure things in this world we were not designed to bear. The human psyche as designed by God is not designed to deal with the loss we experience when death comes, or sickness or poverty. We were made for paradise and designed for peace, and we spend our lives trying to find it in spite of the world.

Endurance is something we must learn, but it is something we can do. He promised we would never be given more than we can handle. We forget this and it leads to depression, anxiety, stress and a myriad of other problems. Illness follows and we succomb to the ravishes of the dread diseases of this world. But even then by turning to Christ again He will support our feet and lead us through to safety held high on His shoulders through the brambles and thorns that surround us until we are reunited with our Heavenly Father.

Sometimes we can do everything right and still the Enemy of our soul scores a point. It’s not that God doesn’t care, or is incapable of intervening, rather it comes down to something in us missing the ball. Eventually we all must encounter this experience, since in this world we are far from perfect. Even St Paul may have had some issues, and we know Timothy did from Paul’s advice to him to take wine for the sake of his stomach!

Our health and our prosperity are perhaps the two area where Satan will attack most, since they are the areas most of us are most vulnerable in. We can generally cope if our health is intact, but then the bills start piling up and we scream “God these BILLS!!!” He gives us prosperity and we find ourselves with sickness in our lives, either in ourselves, or in those we love.

Sometimes it’s easier when the sickness is in our own body. We can rationalise that. But having to sit by whilst a loved one, even a saved loved one, is diagnosed with cancer, diabetes or some other illness with no “cure” can be even worse.

I wrote recently on the difference between Truth and  Fact, and the point I was trying to make is that facts are subject to change. Truth is, by it’s nature, unchangeable. Jesus said “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.” (John 14:6) He was also heard to say “Most assuredly, I say to you, before Abraham was, I AM.” Either that was very profound, or Jesus had no concept of correct grammar. I suspect the former. Truth is unshakeable. If we place our trust in the Truth of God’s Word, which He places above His Name, then our foundation is solid.

For us to trust God in our lives, we need a foundation of Truth. When that is in place, we can endure whatever the enemy throws at us. The house may shake, but it will ultimately stand.

Building a relationship on fact alone when talking about God is like building on sand. If I base my relationship with Him on the fact that there is money in my bank account and health in my body, then I am set up for a fall. But if I build it on the Truth that if He is with me I am prosperous whether I have money or not and He has healed me according to His promises in Isaiah and Peter, then whatever my bank balance or my doctor may say the Truth will hold me firm.

So the circumstances will come in this life where we have the occasion to accept or reject Truth because of what the facts tell us. We then start to live under the circumstances, and we are tossed about in the storm. It is infinitely better to anchor deep, hold on to the Truth, and ride out the onslaught of facts. They can always be changed. The Truth is eternal.

So smile at your issues. Laugh at your problems. Trust Jesus with your heart in spite of the circumstances, and live life to its fullest.