Psalm 103.1-5

Yesterday...exhausted after work, and irritated by delayed and cancelled trains on my way to church, I was feeling less than ecstatic...and then I re-stumbled upon Psalm 103... a Psalm so beautiful that reminds us about who and what really counts. The passage reminded me about how much I have to be thankful for and the cause I have to celebrate. Just wanted to encourage and bless you all with it too. He is the hope that anchors us, He is what it's all about. Thank God for God.

Faith

I'm reading through Hebrews at the moment and just hit Hebrews 11 which has to be probably my favourite chapter in the whole bible (I say probably because there are so many awesome chapters that that is likely inaccurate!).

Hebrews 11 begins with an amazing explanation of what faith is...

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11.1)

It is a beautiful verse even before you grasp all that it means...but I'll do my best to explain.

Faith comes from trust, and trust comes from knowing someone really well.

Think about it like this...you wouldn't tell your secrets to just anyone. You would wait to get to know someone, see them actively demonstrate an ability to keep schtum when it comes to important information, and then when you'd seen it enough times, you would entrust them with your secret, having faith that they will keep their word to you and not tell anyone.

It's the same in faith with God. God is personal; as in He knows us inside and out and wants us to know Him and have a relationship with Him and be ourselves with Him. As with any relationship, it takes time to build up that kind of familiarity and trust and such a deep friendship only comes from spending time with Him; reading His word (the bible) and talking to Him (prayer) and hearing what others who know Him personally have to say about Him and what He's done in their lives (the testimonies of other Christians). The more you hear and see of Him the more you trust Him!

That's what Hebrews 11 is all about. It's about what happens when you take the leap of faith and get to know God and trust Him with your heart and hopes and future. Hebrews 11 is all about the amazing miracles that happened when people took the step of faith to trust God.

The thing about a relationship with God is that the faith it produces is extraordinary. It starts small. Maybe you trust God with something you feel you have no real control over anyway, like friends at a new school...and then when God blesses you with good friends you trust Him with something bigger, and so on until you're trusting God with everything, you put all your eggs in His hand and wait to see what He does with them.

What makes trusting God even better than just empty hope is the fact that in a world where nothing is certain - people are corrupt, sickness and death are everywhere, wars and famines abound everywhere - God is certain.

He is the same yesterday today and forever (Hebrews 13.8). He never leaves us (Deuteronomy 31.6). He always holds our hands (Psalm 37.24). He has good plans for us (Jeremiah 29.11). He is not a man that He could lie (Numbers 23.19). He promises that even though we see trouble in this life He has overcome and we are with Him (John 16.33).

So our hope for the future isn't an empty one. It's not this empty wish we have that maybe if we are good people, or maybe if we work hard,or maybe if we are lucky, maybe everything will work out.

The hope we have anchors us because it is certain. It is rooted in something, in someone; Jesus Christ; the author and finisher of our faith, the Saviour, the Messiah, the King, God's final word, Emmanuel - God with us!

Faith in God and His word saved the human race when the earth flooded, faith in God and His word led Abraham into the promise land, faith in God and His word gave the Israelites Jericho and that isn't even all of it, there is so much more!

Faith requires nothing more than trusting God. You don't have to be sure of yourself, you just have to be sure of Him.

If I'd moved to this country just because it's nice, the moment it got tough (a week in) I would have packed up and gone back home. BUT because I knew without a shadow of doubt that Stockholm was where God wanted me right now, even after three months of unemployment, I knew I'd made the right decision and I was in the right place.

Our feelings and emotions are about as certain and sure as on-time buses or hospital waiting times...they aren't at all!!! But God is certain. You know that if He says He'll do something He will for sure do it, and not only will He do it, He'll do it better than you could have ever imagined, over and above your expectation (Isaiah 55.9, Ephesians 3.20).

Such is the God of the bible. If you put your life in His hands, He will do far better things with it than you EVER could have.

"Commit your way to the Lord, Trust also in Him, And He shall bring it to pass." Psalm 37.5

Doubt hinders, faith in God opens doors

Hebreerbrevet 3.19/Hebrews 3.19 > After the exodus from Egypt, the Israelites who had witnessed probably one of the greatest miracles of the Old Testament were unable to walk into the fullness of what God had for them because of their lack of faith in who God was and what He could do. God proves Himself again and again to us, but when we allow ourselves to be paralysed by fear and doubt Him and His power like the Israelites (4 Moseboken 13/ Numbers 13) and Elijah (Första Kungaboken 19/ 1 Kings 19) we miss out on our 'promise land'; the abundant and exciting life God has planned for us.

God is more than able to do what He has promised you will He will do. Hold on to Him and see the miracle.

Psaltaren 31.5/ Psalm 31.5 " I entrust my spirit into your hand. Rescue me, LORD, for you are a faithful God "

Psalm 16.8,9

"I always keep the Lord in front of me. When He is by my side, I cannot be moved. That is why my heart is glad and my soul rejoices. My body rests securely."

Thanks and Praise

"Sing praise to the Lord, you saints of His, And give thanks at the remembrance of His holy name."

-Psalm 30.4

I posted a few weeks back about making praise a problem for our problem, and I just wanted to elaborate a bit on it.

Have you ever told someone something really important, only for them to forget it? I'm not talking 'don't forget I put the leftovers in the fridge', I'm talking 'don't forget to turn off the oven in five minutes'.

The thing is, forgetfulness is so natural. We're human, we have a lot of stuff going on, and we have a tendency to get caught up in what is happening in front of us and forget about whatever it was.

You can't deny it. You get caught up in the last few seconds of 'Deal or no Deal', or you play just one more level of 'Angry Birds', and forget about the food in the oven until the smoke alarm goes off.

I was talking to my parents a few days ago about why we are so encouraged in the bible to give thanks and praise God for what He's done, and I was struck by something. God does not require our thankfulness. He actually doesn't need anything. Which means us taking the time to be thankful, fundamentally makes no difference to Him.

So then I wondered, why encourage us to do it?

It was then that I remembered the human tendency to forget. We wake up every morning, and in the normal human way, immediately become consumed with whatever it is we are facing that day.

It could be an exam we have at school that day, and we wake up in a cold sweat, panicked about failing if (funnily enough) we forget an equation or quote. We forget that God goes with us and ahead of us, that we aren't taking the exam alone.

It could be that on our walk to work someone in a van drives through a puddle and covers us from head to toe in muddy water and we tell them to roll over and die, forgetting about the grace and forgiveness God extended to us in the sending of His son Jesus.

It could be that halfway through a really great day, we get terrible news that somebody close has died, and we begin to question God's existence, forgetting that He said that because we are in this world we will experience trouble and difficult life situations, but that we should take comfort in Him during them, as He has overcome.

I was at a Conference a few weeks ago, and a preach was given on the feeding of the five thousand and the storm the disciples were in directly after it. The preacher shared about the fact the disciples forgot about the miracle they had just seen, even though the evidence of it accompanied them in the very boat in the storm. They had evidence there with them, that nothing was too difficult or too big for God and yet in a storm, they were afraid. They'd already forgotten about God and His capabilities!

So often we are like the disciples. We witness God doing something awesome and then the moment we face any difficulty of any kind we forget about the same God that just performed a miracle!

It's crazy! But it's also human nature. We were born with the tendency to forget.

The challenge is to remember.

In Jonah 2.9, it says '...when my life was slipping away, I remembered God, and my prayer got through...' (The Message)

In Isaiah 46.11, the people of Israel are urged to remember their long and rich history, and the God who was with them then.

In Deuteronomy 7.19 and Exodus 13.3, the Israelites are urged yet again to remember what God did for them in Egypt and how He set them free.

After the salvation of the Jews in the time of Esther (Read Esther, it's not too long!), a festival is thrown in order to help the people remember, not just those that were there but also the generations to come, all that God did for them and how He saved them.

That's why God wanted us to have this book that tells us all about Him and the people that loved and served Him over the years, so that no-one would forget and so that all would know and remember, all that He has done.

When we thank God for what He's done, we remind ourselves of who He is and what He is capable of doing for us. When we praise Him, we become part of the positive testimonial of God's nature and personality as we share our experiences with others, helping them to remember too.

Make a conscious effort to remember what God has done. It helps you maintain perspective, encourages you and encourages others, and reminds you exactly who God is and what He can do.

"Hallelujah! Thank God! Pray to him by name! Tell everyone you meet what he has done! Sing him songs, belt out hymns, translate his wonders into music! Honor his holy name with Hallelujahs, you who seek God . Live a happy life! Keep your eyes open for God , watch for his works; be alert for signs of his presence. Remember the world of wonders he has made, his miracles, and the verdicts he's rendered— O seed of Abraham, his servant, O child of Jacob, his chosen." [The Message Version]

- Psalm 105.1-6

Psalm 22.24

For those of you struggling to read your bibles I would definitely encourage you to read Psalms amongst the easier books (the ones that tell the stories of people in detail - like Ruth, or Esther, or 1&2 Samuel - it's really easy to see God's hand in such books and see how He arranged the details of people's lives and answered them etc) because it is such a goldmine. There are so many verses in Psalms that show evidence of God's forward planning and setting of the stage for Jesus coming later in the New Testament, as well as whole chapters of poems written to God that will tug personally at your heart strings when you identify with how the authors are feeling. Anyway, it's an amazing book, and a good place to start when you are looking at the bible, but I just wanted to share one particular verse with you that I read recently and think can massively bless you.

"For He has not despised nor abhorred the affliction of the afflicted; Nor has He hidden His face from Him; But when He cried to Him, He heard."

- Psalm 22.24

The verse talks about the fact that God hears us when we cry out to Him. With God there is no hierarchy; He doesn't hear the prayers or cries of the rich before He hears the cries of the poor. He doesn't only hear us if we have an important job. He hears everyone.

Don't believe me?

Read the story of Hagar the servant girl in the Old Testament (Genesis 21.1-21). She was thrown out by Abraham's wife Sarah into the desert with her son Ishmael. God heard the cries of the son of a servant girl, and not only did He hear the boy's cries, but He blessed him too.

It doesn't matter who you are, if you cry out to God, He will hear you. And even if the answer you get is not what you would have wanted or chosen for yourself, trust and remember that God's ways are higher than ours, and He never lets anything happen without having a reason for it in His ultimate plan.

Let Him know what's up, and listen when He responds. He loves you.

Psalm 46.10

This life is so crammed full of things to do, things to see, things to hear, chores, homework, friends to see, family to help, etc...that sometimes we get so busy we don't have time to know God.

Sometimes the best way to hear from God is to pause in the middle of our oh-so-busy lives and take the time to listen to Him.

Stop rushing for a second, pause and re-evaluate.

It's a simple thing that can be as easy as just taking a couple of minutes in your day. You can be anywhere; on the toilet, on the train, in the shower. I find it easiest to just 'be' for a couple of minutes, to stop thinking about everything around me or getting distracted by things/people/noise, and just take a second to thank God for where I am in the exact moment, to bless my day, to take time to zone out from the world and zone in to Him.

Find your way of doing it. I'm big into music, so I find the quickest and easiest way for me to get God centred is to put on a worship album and meditate (as in deeply think about - not necessarily chanting, but whatever you feel comfortable doing) on the words of the song.

It's just remembering God in my day-to-day, not allowing myself to get caught up in the trifling little issues I face each day, but to remember God, who He is and what He's done, and the real calling on my life.

"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth!"

- Psalm 46.10

Eternity and Beyond

"Man is like a breath;

His days are like a passing shadow."

 - Psalm 144.4

This life is short, and we never know which day will be our last. Thank God that even after death, we can continue to have a relationship with Him that will last for all eternity.

Jeremiah 17.7 and Psalm 125.1

Yesterday the sermon in church was about hearing God; whether or not we understand Him to still be speaking today and if so how. There were many ways; the bible itself, things around us, a confidence 'I just know', other people, sometimes even an audible voice.

Anyway, as I go through this somewhat trialling time in my own life, I felt God drop the phrase 'but the man who trusts in the Lord is like...' in my head.

I googled it, the following two verses came up:

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord, And whose hope is the Lord." - Jeremiah 17.7
"Those who trust in the Lord Are like Mount Zion, Which cannot be moved, but abides forever." - Psalm 125.1

My hope is in Him who cannot be shaken, therefore no matter my circumstance, I will hope and trust in Him alone.

The earth may shake, my world might change, my circumstances will always change... but He will never change. The same yesterday, today and forever (Hebrews 13.8).

♫ Jesus, You're my firm foundation, I know I can stand secure...♫

Psalm Sunday: Psalm 5.11

"But let all those rejoice who put their trust in You;
Let them ever shout for joy, because You defend them;
Let those also who love Your name
Be joyful in You."

Just a quick one! Throughout the Old Testament, satan is called our accuser [Job 1.6, Job 2.1]. He reminds us constantly when we fall short of God's standard. When Jesus died for our sins, Hebrews tell us that He became our High Priest, (standing in the gap between ourselves and God, pleading mercy and grace on our behalf). We can be joyful in hope for the future because God defends us. That's why the bible says this:

"[There is] therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit."

- Romans 8.1

God bless, have a great week.

Psalm Sunday: Psalm 118.24

This is the day the Lord has made;
We will rejoice and be glad in it.

- Psalm 118.24

Psalm Sunday: Psalm 18.6

"In my distress I called upon the Lord,
And cried out to my God;
He heard my voice from His temple,
And my cry came before Him, even to His ears."

- Psalm 18.6 NKJV

Who is Jesus?

The Lord is near to all who call upon Him in truth - Psalm 145.18

I never once heard of a person who earnestly inquired after Jesus and was left feeling disappointed. Ask Jesus into your life today and He will make His presence known in your life.

God bless

†

A Promise

I am feeling a little stressed out at the minute with my Final Year Project for University. Coming home late tonight after work on it, frustrated, confused and worried, my bible fell open to a well-thumbed passage: Psalm 91.

When I lived at home I would read this everyday with my dad and my sister, and now I only read it every so often, but when I read it just now, I was particularly encouraged by the last few verses and thought I would share them with you:

"Because he loves me," says the LORD, "I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

He will call upon me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honour him.

With long life will I satisfy him

and show him my salvation."

- Psalm 91.14-16

Psalm 100.5

"For the LORD is good.
His unfailing love continues forever
and his faithfulness continues to each generation."

Five To Be Thankful For: Psalm 136.26

1. Jesus - Honestly, don't where I'd be without your son God. I'm far from perfect, and I really don't deserve your love, but you gave it anyway in the form of your son. Thanks for loving me and making me perfect in you.

2. Helping me get all my uni work done - I've found the last three months very very stressful, but you were with me and I didn't crack under the pressure.

3. Teaching me - I'm learning little by little how to be more like you. More peaceable, gentler, humbler, and I'm not quite there yet but with you I'm making my way there slowly but surely.

4. My job - It's probably the best job I've ever had, it pays the bills and allows me to save, and is pretty flexible, thank you for ensuring I got it.

5. One of my friends came to church this year! It's amazing and I am so so grateful to you. I know you will continue to work wonders in her life and show her how much you love her.

"Give thanks to the God of heaven. His faithful love endures forever."

- Psalm 136.26

Psalm 136.1

"Give thanks to the Lord, for He is good. His love endures forever."

Psalm 147.3

"He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds"

We all suffer disappointment, anger, upset, and hurt in this life. God says that we will (John 16.33), but also that He has overcome the world.

"Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you'll recover your life. I'll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won't lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you'll learn to live freely and lightly."

- Matthew 11.29-30 [The Message]

Psalm 77 - A cry for God's mercy in times of anguish and anxiety

¹ I yell out to my God, I yell with all my might, I yell at the top of my lungs. He listens.

^2-6 I found myself in trouble and went looking for my Lord;
my life was an open wound that wouldn't heal.
When friends said, "Everything will turn out all right,"
I didn't believe a word they said.
I remember God—and shake my head.
I bow my head—then wring my hands.
I'm awake all night—not a wink of sleep;
I can't even say what's bothering me.
I go over the days one by one,
I ponder the years gone by.
I strum my lute all through the night,
wondering how to get my life together.

^7-10 Will the Lord walk off and leave us for good?
Will he never smile again?
Is his love worn threadbare?
Has his salvation promise burned out?
Has God forgotten his manners?
Has he angrily stalked off and left us?
"Just my luck," I said. "The High God goes out of business
just the moment I need him."

^11-12 Once again I'll go over what God has done,
lay out on the table the ancient wonders;
I'll ponder all the things you've accomplished,
and give a long, loving look at your acts.

^13-15 O God! Your way is holy!
No god is great like God!
You're the God who makes things happen;
you showed everyone what you can do—
You pulled your people out of the worst kind of trouble,
rescued the children of Jacob and Joseph.

-Psalm 77.1-15 (The Message)

"You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book."

-Psalm 56.8