It all depends on me!

I heard a quote the other day. It went like this:

"Pray as if it all depends on God,

do as if it all depends on you"

If we all lived by this, how different would the world be?! It would be quite different. How much time do we spend in a relationship talking to the other person or the other people? If you don't talk much, the relationship won't be very strong - if you talk with them all the time it will be a very strong relationship - am I correct?!

It's the same with God, to have a strong relationship with Him, we need to continually be talking with him in prayer! I have on my keyring a reminder "Pray without cease" and I am also reminded "seek and you shall find". Many people I know in the church and also the world for that matter, say they can't seem to find God in one way or another. I think our relationship with God is in proportion directly to how much time we spend with Him generally. There are a few exceptions - a very clear example is Jesus on the cross when God appears to abandon Him - but this can be discussed in too much detail for a blog. In short though, sin is the divider - if you are feeling distant from God - confess your sins to Him! It might help.

A while ago too, a few of us were wanting to really passionatly see God perform miracles through us etc, but then we learnt a bit later that we just have to focus on God and get everything right there, and God will use us for His glory then, whether it's through miracles or just to challenge someones heart or even just help them in some worldly way.

Anyway, how's your soul today? Get yourself right before God today, you never know when He'll return.

God bless.

Go hard or go home!

I've just recently bought a new devotional book by Smith Wigglesworth a great evangelist of the early 1900's. I needed more devotional materials to quench a hunger of God's Word and I didn't want any modern material because today all our tools and resourses are watered down material of the Word of God that just doen't fill anyone.

Reading the words of this man Smith Wigglesworth, they are straight to the point not going around the round-about to get to a powerful point, but he tells it how it is. I wish we lost all timidness in our preaching and ministires and get out of our heads "people don't want to hear about God these days" and realise everyone NEEDS God and have a hunger for Him that is built into every human being that only can be filled by Him! Last year's Easter camp, one of our DYS, Mim Adams told us how it is without watering the message down and so many lives were impacted. I was so glad Mim did that - God had so much glory given to Him that night! God bless our DYS - Sandra Maunder and Mim Adams.

I've been orgainising a Salvation Army history night once a month for our youth meetings and I was just reading over some of the material from our last one. I was reading the part of how the Army started off in Australia, and when two Officers from England - Captains Thomas and Adelaide Sutherland were chosen by Willam Booth to start the Army in Adelaide they didn't even think twice about going to the other side of the world but just obeyed because they had given everything in their lives to God for His service and spreading the Word of God.

The Army took off at an amazing pace because the Salvationists weren't afraid to talk with everyone about their Saviour because they had such a strong conviction and a strong relationship with our Living God that people's lives were changed from darkness into light.

Today many (I emphasise many) soldiers today are so afraid to even let Jesus Name come out of their mouths! That sounds to me like they really don't have a personal relationship or true revelation of God.

If you claim to be a follower or disciple of Jesus, pray strongly against the enemy restricting your tongue from talking about the greatness of our Saviour!! Pray for boldness. Pray for breakthoughs in our world, just like in early Army days. Pray for a mighty revelation of God in your life. Pray God reclaims land in Jesus Name. Just pray without cease!!

Things of man mulitply, things of God explode. Pray that God controls your life, why not give it all to Him!

Jesus gave it all for us, but the world today wants to be incontrol of everything ourselves including us Salvationists. Lets try this week, this year, why not for the term of our lives, to hand everything over to God and live with Him as our Lord and serve only Him.

God is back on the throne!! Let Holliness reign. Sanctification is our aim. Saved to save! We're becoming Saints.

"Unless the Lord builds the house,

the builders labour in vain.

Unless the Lord watches over the city,

the guards stand watch in vain"

Psalm 127:1

Sins - How we see them - Do we see them?

Hi again - it's been a while!

I've been thinking over the past few weeks about our sins against God and I have just been reading James' blog entitled Fear of God and made me think all about it again. As much as I hate talking about our 'Post Modern world', we do live in a world where we mix and match everything to suit ourselves, even as Christians sometimes.

One guy I was talking to during our outreach time at Easter Camp last weekend, he and his wife were searching for God and didn't find Him in Christianity, so they've tried Buddhism etc, and they're taking the bits from all religions that suit themselves and they believe that God will honour their efforts in being the best people they see themselves as being/trying to be!

What I'm trying to say is, how do we see our sin in this light??? If we keep bending the rules and making the 'rules' for our lives to suit ourselves - take a bit of this religion, and a bit from this one - what sins are really sins, and what is going to get us into Heaven - if anything at all anymore?!?!?

This world we live in is really screwed up - where is the light in the world so full of darkess!

Our evangelists are even getting too 'busy' to make time to get out there and put the light back in the world - Satan loves us getting busy, and diverted from what we are born and called to do. People don't know where the line is drawn anymore, what is sin? "I'm a good person, god will respect that and if he won't accept that I don't want to be in his heaven anyway!" - that is a common response I get on the streets quite often (note I put god with a small 'g' since they're obviously not talking about my God who deserves the respect of a big 'G' and big 'H' for His, etc)

One of the nights at Easter camp, we had a really powerful night - we had a night of confessions, and it really was amazingly powerful!! God was honoured with all of us confessing our sins to each other, but I found a few of us, including myself, couldn't find many sins in our lives - do I think I'm too 'holy' and I don't sin?! Definitally not, but I clearly don't see sin for what it is.

We don't have Holiness meetings anymore in the Salvation Army, or at least not that I know of, and hence, we're not reaching an acceptable level of Holiness in our lives - after all, we are in the buisiness of growing Saints! Don't I see my sin for what it is, and so many of us keep making excuses for our sins saying 'that's not really a sin', when they actually are!! How's God supposed to use us, when we have sin getting in the way!!? Whether we recoginse it or not - it's still there blocking our way to God.

Lord, I pray for all of us, please let us know our sin - let us see it clearly and know what is sin in Your eyes! Jesus, I want to to be gloryfied through my life, so please let me identify my sin and know when I do sin so Your blood can wash me as white as snow, so You can use me through Your Holy Spirit! God I pray this for your whole army - call us back to Holiness. I pray this in the Holy Name of Jesus.

"I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who belives in me should stay in darkess" John 13:46

P.S. also, you might like to read the mercypeacegrace blog entitled 'my roadblock to Holiness' - another interesting read on a very similar topic along with James blog on 'The fear of God'

Trials and Easter

Hi all,

I was remided of the Salvation Army's fourth doctrine where it states that we believe that Jesus is both God and human natures combined and as we approach our Easter season we can only imagine how our Master would have felt in the garden of Gethsemane knowing what was about to come.

Being human, and knowing pain and dessertion, which is actually worse?? I think being desserted by all his closest friends would have hurt more than the actual crucifiction - not that I've been crucified lately to compare!

On Thursday my Grandfather is going in to have a cancerous kidney removed and just at lunchtime he said to me 'You can take my place if you want' which remided me of Jesus in the garden, which also occured this Thursday in the Easter events. If Grandpa could give it up he would, but Jesus having walked in our 'sandles' - having experienced being human knows exactly the fear that we go through in situations like this.

I'm just so glad that our God loves us so much he sent His only Son to not just judge us from His mighty Throne, but actually come down and walk with us and mingle with His creation. In doing this He showed that He actually understands situations we face so we can't say to Him 'You don't understand' or anything similar 'cos He does! Our God knows what we're going through more than we even do!

Easter is an amazingly powerful time in the Christian callendar - He showed He was Lord of all and King of kings and He has power over live and death!

Praise You Jesus, thank you for revealing yourself to me, and for taking my sin upon yourself.

Get results when you pray

“When a believing person prays, great things happen.”

James 5:16 NCV

Sandra P Aldrich says, ‘Early in my widowhood as I prayed … about a possible move, I ended with, “Thank you God that you’ll show us what to do”. My 12-year-old said, ‘Mom you didn’t say Amen.’ I nodded, ‘That’s because God and I are going to talk about this all day.’ And we did. Eventually my family made a cross-country move that opened a new career for me. But more importantly, I began a new adventure with God. Here’s what I learned:‘

(a) You don’t pray into thin air: where I live, Pike’s Peak rises above the city … but when clouds obscure it we don’t say, “The Peak’s gone!” It’s there even when we can’t see it … and God’s working even when you don’t see Him. ‘

(b) Just jump in: James says, “When a believing person prays, great things happen,” so while reading about prayer and learning about great intercessors can be helpful, you’ve got to start talking to God yourself. ‘

(c) There’s no ‘right’ way to pray: one lady remembers her grandparent’s prayers being filled with “Thees” and “Thous”, that made her feel unfit to pray. Then one day as she wrestled with a stubborn lawnmower she simply said, “Lord, I really need your help”. Suddenly the responding roar of the engine gave her a fresh awareness of God’s presence. ‘

(d) Pray like you’d talk to a friend: Jesus said, “Be direct. Ask for what you need” (Lk 11:10 TM).’ Aldrich continues, ‘My grandmother talked to God so naturally that I’d meander into the kitchen expecting to see a neighbour.’ That’s how to get results when you pray.

SoulFood Reading: Job 21-23, Luke 20:27-47, Ps 55:12-23, Pr 8:19-21

Let it go!

God really pointed out to me recently, how often I've heard passionate prayers about how the church is caught up in tradition and then begging for God to help us to move on. Yeah, nice prayer, but it started to get a bit old by the 15th time I heard it!

I think God pointed out to me that they wern't moving on, but they were allowing it to effect them and they were actually the ones who were being 'effected' by the traditions. I know God is telling many of us to do a new thing, but many, I have noticed are worried about what everyone else is doing and not what their orders are

God continually tells us, individually, He requires of us, so we just have to be obdient to that which He calls us too and not get distracted by what the world, or even the rest of the church is doing.

Big prayers are great, especially when they are from the Sprit and the passion of the pray-er, but it can often turn into a 'stand on the corner and pray to be heard' saga. Pray in the Sprit and don't be afraid to 'wrestle with the Angel until you get a blessing' . Pray without cease, my keyring remids me continualy.

Just a final note, Easter camp is going to be great this year, God's already been giving his prophets dreams for our preparation and His glory.

He is risen!! Tell the world that Jesus lives!

Restore our sense of wonder!

VERSE: Restore us, O God Almighty; make your face shine upon us, that we may be saved.

Psalm 80:7

THOUGHT: This passage makes me want to cry out to God: "Please restore us God! Restore us, your people, O God, who have lost their sense of wonder! Restore our old withered hearts to their innocence. Restore our lives to their unsoiled perfection and intention. Restore us to yourself, O God Almighty!" While not every Christian has lost his or her sense of wonder and while not every one of us has an old withered heart, we all need God's presence to shine upon us and renew us!

PRAYER: O God, the maker of new things, sometimes I feel so old and worn; my soul is weary from the fight. I need your presence and strength to restore me. Please restore me to your side and make your grace alive in me. Please restore me to your love and share it with others through me. Please restore me to your righteousness soothers can see your character in me. Please restore me, and not just me, please restore all those who call on your mighty name so that the world may see you in us and come to know your saving grace.

In Jesus' name I pray.

Amen.