Morning Musings

     My Heart, God’s Home (3)…. The Living Room

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      As  we walked into the living room, we could feel that this room was intimate and comfortable. I liked it. It had a fireplace, overstuffed chairs, a sofa, and a quiet atmosphere. The Lord said to me,  “This is indeed a delightful room. Let us come here often. It is secluded and quiet, and we can fellowship together”      Well, as a young Christian I was thrilled. I couldn’t think of anything I would rather do than have a few minutes with Christ in close companionship. He promised, “I will be here early every morning. Meet me here, and we will start the day together.”      So morning after morning, I would come downstairs to the living room. He would take a book of the Bible from the case, We would open it and read together. He would unfold to me the wonder of God’s saving truths. My heart sang as He shared the love and the grace He had toward me. These were wonderful times.

    However, little by little, under the pressure of many responsibilities, this time began to be shortened. Why, I’m not sure. I thought I was too busy to spend regular time with Christ. This was not intentional, you understand. It just happened that way. Finally, not only was the time shortened, but I began to miss days now and then. Urgent matters would crowd out the quiet times of conversation with Jesus.      I remember one morning rushing downstairs, eager to be on my way. I passed the living room and noticed that the door was open. Looking in, I saw a fire in the fireplace and Jesus was sifting there. Suddenly in dismay I thought to myself, “He is my guest. I invited Him into my heart! He has come as my Saviour and Friend, and yet I am neglecting Him.” I stopped, turned and hesitantly went in, With downcast glance, I said, “Master, forgive me. Have You been here all these mornings?” “Yes,” He said, “I told you I would be here every morning to meet with you. Remember, I love you. I have redeemed you at great cost, I value your fellowship. Even if you cannot keep the quiet time for your own sake, do it for mine,”

     The truth that Christ desires my companionship, that He wants me to be with Him and waits for me, has done more to transform my quiet time with God than any other single fact. Don’t let Christ wait alone in the living room of your heart, but every day find time when, with your Bible and in prayer, you may be together with Him. May it be so.

Morning Musings

My Heart, God’s Home…Whose House?

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     When I said to the Lord,  “Lord, I want this heart of mine, this house of mine,  to be Yours. I  want to have You settle down here and be perfectly at home. Everything I  have belongs to You”.      I was never more sure of anything else in my young life and I have never doubted that He came in  then,  to stay. I have never regretted that decision and I never will.

As it happened, it proved to be many years before I was willing to let Him be truly Master and Lord of everything in my house! But at the beginning I couldn’t wait to show Him around!  After a while, a thought came to me, and I asked Him, “Lord, is there any chance that You would take over the management of the whole house and operate it for me as it should be done?  Would You take the responsibility to keep my life what it ought to be?”

His face lit up as He replied, “I’d love to! That is what I want to do. You cannot be a victorious Christian in your own strength. Let me do it through you and for you. That is the way. But,” He added slowly, “I am just a guest. I have no authority to proceed, since the property is not mine.”     I dropped to my knees, and said, “Lord, I see You have only been a guest and I have been the host. From now on I am going to be the servant. You are going to be the owner and Master.”

    Running as fast as I could to the strongbox, I took out the title deed to the house describing its assets and liabilities, location and situation. I eagerly signed the house over to Him alone for time and eternity.  “Here,” I said. “Here it is, all that I am and have, forever. Now You run the house. I’ll just remain with You as a servant and friend.”

    I didn’t realise how different things would be once Jesus Christ became the owner and made His home in my heart!

Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God, and you are not your own? (1 Corinthians 6:19)

Random Devotional Thoughts

Fellowship with Jesus Christ.

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Following on from last week’s blog about fellowship, it pays to stop and think about who we fellowship with. Exactly what does it mean to have fellowship?

     Fellowship is being with others with a common interest….the Bible talks about having fellowship with others who believe in God. Not only that, but with those who have an active interest in sharing that belief with others.      To start with, we are called into the fellowship of God’s Son, Jesus Christ our Lord (1 Corinthians 1:9). This invitation is for ALL people, but many don’t want to hear about it, so they turn their back on it. What a mistake that is! They do not know what they are missing out on.

    Then there are others who think they can manage without meeting with others of like mind….another grave mistake! God knew what He was doing when He planted this need into the human psyche, the need for fellowship with others.    Most of all, He wants to have fellowship with the people He has made. Let’s look at this parable of sharing time with our Creator….

    One evening I invited Jesus Christ into my heart…what an entrance He made! It was not a spectacular, emotional thing, but very real. Something happened at the very centre of my life. He came into the darkness of my heart and turned on the light; He built a fire on the hearth and banished the chill. He started music where there had been stillness, and He filled the emptiness with His own loving, wonderful fellowship. I have never regretted opening the door to Christ and I never will.      In the joy of this new relationship I said to Jesus Christ, “Lord, I want this heart of mine to be Yours. I  want to have You settle down here and be perfectly at home. Everything I  have belongs to You”.     I meant every word that I said, and I couldn’t wait to show Him around!

“If anyone loves me, he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him, and we will come to him and make our home with him.”  (John 14:23, NIV)

Random Devotional Thoughts

What is Fellowship and Why is it Important?

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     This last weekend we went in our motorhome to a Christian rally group. There were about nineteen vans there, mostly of folk who we have got to know over the years we have been going. It is great to have this time together, as coming from different places and different churches, our paths don’t cross otherwise. Even though we are all from different backgrounds, with different interests, yet we all have the one thing in common….we are all in the family of God!

    It reminds me that at the end of creation it says that God made man in His own image (Genesis chapter 1, verses 26-27). I got to thinking about this one day and thought of different ways that we are made in God’s image…. First of all, God is a three part Being, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit; Man is also a three part being….body, soul and spirit. God is eternal, always has been and always is, and always will be. He has planted this seed of eternity in the man he created, and every person will live for ever….somewhere…. God is the Great Creator of all things….man in a much less way, is also a creator, able to create things whether it is in art, music, designing things, and even in cooking a good meal! At the end of God’s creation, He looked at it all and said it was VERY good, and so we too, have great satisfaction in doing a good job that is able to perform what it was made to do.

    But the point I was getting at, is that God wants to have fellowship with the man He has created. He has made all nations with different capabilities, and strengths, but all people need to have fellowship with others of like minds. We all have to learn to get along with those who think differently as well.

    When God had finished His creation, He had fellowship with  the man who was able to respond to Him in the spirit which He has planted in every human being. But the first man was on his own, and God said that this was not good. Man needed a companion, someone the same as him, to have fellowship with, and God saw to it that one was provided. One day, He put Adam into a deep sleep and performed the first operation….He removed one of Adam’s ribs and made a woman companion for him from it, breathing into her the breath of life also. He then took her to Adam and gave her to him. Adam recognised her as being the only one at that time who he could have real fellowship with,  he said that because she was made from him, she would be known as Woman. (Genesis 2:20-24)

      We too, find the need for fellowship. It is this need that is fulfilled at gatherings such as we had on our last trip. In fact, we know this desire is directly from God Himself. He tells us in the Bible (Hebrews 10:24-25)  that we are not to forget to get together with each other to stimulate and encourage each other. Just as a coal turns black and then cold when removed from the fire, so a believer who stays away from fellowshipping with others will ultimately grow cold and become  dead to the service which God had for him to do.

    Are you in this situation?  Never mind for what reason…there is no person who cannot  overcome hurt feelings with God’s help. In fact, the quickest way to do this, is to pray for those who have hurt you. We cannot stay mad at someone if we are praying for them! Let’s do something about it today!

Morning Musings

Near Enough!

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    We were working on a project together, and I was thinking it  was time we were finished. “Well, that’s near enough”, I said as I put my gear down. My brother looked at it, and said, “Near enough is not good enough, Gwenyth, you’ll have to spend a bit more time on it!” Those words have stuck with me for over forty years, and whenever I am tempted to think “Near enough”, they come back to haunt me.

    King Solomon was one who chose what was good, but it was not the best. We would normally think that the fact that he asked for wisdom to rule his people well was a good thing to ask for, but in spite of that, in his older age he stopped trusting the Lord for safety, and used his human reasoning instead. He figured that if he married princesses from the surrounding nations, that their fathers would not attack the land their daughter was in! But there seemed to be more and more of these princesses, and he ended up with “seven hundred wives, princesses, and three hundred concubines: and his wives turned away his heart. For it came to pass, when Solomon was old, that his wives turned away his heart after other gods: and his heart was not perfect with the LORD his God, as was the heart of David his father. And likewise did he for all his strange wives, which burnt incense and sacrificed unto their gods. (1 Kings 11:3,4,8)”.     What a warning this is for us! No-one could have had a better start than Solomon did and yet he allowed himself to be swayed by the opinions of others rather than what God had told him. We have to be so careful that we continue to read what God’s Word has to say to us, and to follow what it tells us. Those who we associate with closely, have a greater influence over us than we think.

    We all know the dangers there are in our teenagers keeping company with the wrong crowd, but here was a mature man, and supposedly a very wise man, being swayed by the opinions of his many wives. Instead of him being the leader of his household, he was being led by the women of his household. He could have said his thoughts and actions were “near enough” as far as God was concerned, but they weren’t enough to keep him safe from turning away from the things of God. So you can see that we need to be so awake to the dangers around us and not allow ourselves to be swayed by anything that will take all our thoughts….any game, club, or interest that takes all our time or thoughts needs to be pruned back out of our minds!

  • We need to remember those verses that say we are to love the Lord our God with ALL our heart, with  ALL our soul and with  ALL our strength (Mark 12:30-32). If we feel short of this command of our Lord, then we are to ask Him for the strength to do it! Everything else will fall into the right place after that.
Morning Musings

Don’t Grumble!

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                                                Don’t  Grumble!

    My Bible reading this morning was from the book of Numbers chapter 16, and was the story of how these two men were complaining bitterly about Moses and Aaron, and how they could be far better leaders if they only had the chance!      Moses heard this and was very upset. Not only Moses heard their rantings, but the whole lot of the people did too. So he did what he always did when confronted with a problem he couldn’t deal with….he took it to the Lord. He felt the Lord had to deal with this one as it was beyond him. So he told them to each bring their offering of incense in their hand and come before the Lord at the door of the tabernacle the next morning.     

    They did this, and as many people as could, crowded around to see what was going to happen. God appeared before them all in the cloud of glory, and spoke to Moses and Aaron saying, “Separate yourself from these people so I can destroy them in a moment!”     But Moses and Aaron fell on their faces before the Lord, and said, “Oh no! Will You be angry with ALL the people because of these two men’s complaining?”

“Tell all the people to get away from these two men and those with them”, God said. So the people moved away hastily from them while the two men and their families stood defiant before the Cloud. Moses said to the people, “God is going to deal with these people….if they die an ordinary death, then He has not sent me to be your leader. But if there is an earthquake and they are destroyed, then you will understand that it’s not me they have rejected but it is God Himself!”     He had hardly finished telling them this when there was a great rumbling sound and the ground began to move. The people all backed off in terror while the others still stood their ground. But worse was to come. Not only did the ground shake, but a great split opened up in front of their eyes, and these men and everything they owned fell into it. There was another shake and the ground closed up again and all was quiet.

     It is hard to visualise this scene….one can imagine the people  talking about this for days afterwards! But there were others who also had their offerings of incense in their hands all standing around watching what was happening. They had no business to be handling the incense, that job was only for the priests to do and they all knew that. They were just as guilty as the two leaders had been.

     While they were trying to catch their breath, there suddenly appeared a fire coming out from the Cloud that God was in. It was much quicker than a man could run, and there were two hundred and fifty of them that died with that. God then told the priest to pick up the censers that were being held by these people, and take them away.  

We might ask ourselves why are these stories recorded for us to read today?  We have no concept of the seriousness of sin. We are so surrounded by it, that we don’t even realise when we sin! These two men who started this complaining had no idea of where it was going to lead.      God hasn’t changed. He is still pure and holy today, just as He was then. Our complaints against things we can’t change, are still classed as sin in God’s sight. How often we fall into this trap! But there is one thing that we can do about it, we can realise and admit this, and ask forgiveness.  We are told that if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from it all. (1 John 1:9). Don’t keep putting it off!

Adult Testimonies

Don’t Leave Things too Late!

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    This week was an eventful week for us. We had a funeral to go to on the Wednesday at a place an hour’s drive away. It was for a much younger friend who had had an aneurism and just died suddenly. As is often in these cases, it was a large funeral, as he was well known in the country village where he lived.

     He was ready to go, having been an active Christian helping in the church, and always ready for those in need. It was a real shock to everyone who knew him, and especially to those who he had helped so much. There were many eulogies, as he had been involved in so many organisations around.     So we were reminded once again that life can be very brief, and that we must make sure that we are ready to meet our Maker at any time.

    Then on the Saturday, we attended a baptism of another man about the same age. It was to be held at a Youth Camp venue which had no indoor baptistery, and a portable swimming pool had been organised for the event. For two days before the event, the weather had been very wet, with rain such as we hadn’t seen for years, and the organisers were wondering if they should cancel it. But they were reminded that God is the God of miracles, and that there was no need to cancel it. Somehow it would be handled alright.  The morning of the baptism dawned bright and sunny, and it stayed that way all day….what a blessing that was! Then the next morning, it was raining again! So we had first hand experience of one of God’s miracles.

    The story of this man was very interesting. He worked in the police department, and was dealing with all sorts of people from hardened criminals to those with minor offences. He had become a Christian as a young man, and had attended church when he could, but never gone any further. But with the current climate in the Middle East, he felt that time was getting short and that he had better finish what he had started with! So he had asked for baptism (by immersion) and this occasion had been organised.

    People came from  all over the place….some were relatives of his wife, all of his own family, as well as those who had known him for years. It was a very meaningful occasion, both for him and all those there.      Now he felt ready to meet his Maker, having obeyed what he saw in the Scriptures, and what he had put off doing for so many years. We left the place, thankful for the things that God is still able to do with those who seek to please Him.

     So the challenge remains….what about us? Are we prepared to do the things that we know we should do, but have kept putting off? Remember, the time left to us may be shorter than we think!

Life Lessons

Help Needed; Help Received!

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    Last week I wrote about how to be prepared in some sort of emergency, and of course, about the greatest emergency of all, that which affects our soul and spirit.     About thirty years ago, we had a sailing boat, and one of our greatest pleasures was taking our visitors out for a sail on the beautiful Bay of Islands in New Zealand which was our base. We had done this many times, and this particular time we had visitors from England with us. Coming back to base after a pleasant three day trip on the water, the skipper thought he would give Howard a chance to take the steering wheel.       The wind was directly behind us, taking us gently up the channel to the mooring. The sails were in what is called the “goose-wing” position, which means that one sail is out one way and the other sail the other way. But it is most important that the boat stay with wind directly behind.

     I was inside the cabin, packing things away when I heard Howard calling out from outside. On going out into the cockpit, I saw the skipper lying on the seat, moaning , and with blood everywhere.      Howard, with his lack of experience, had let the yacht wander just the slightest bit off beam, and a gust of wind had swung the boom over with a bang,  catching the skipper unawares and throwing him down onto the gunwales.     I started the motor and quickly ran up front, and dropped the sails. This made the yacht easier to steer and I felt capable of taking it in to the mooring. Once this was done, it was imperative to get help as quickly as possible.      I sent Howard ashore with instructions to go to the end house and ask them there to ring a friend up the road who had his yacht moored next to ours, and ask him to come down to help.  “Oh, that’s no good, he’s at work”, the lady at the house said (I had completely forgotten it was a Friday!). As Howard turned to leave,  the lady called out, “Here he is, coming in the gate!”

    Howard quickly explained the situation, and our friend went out to his yacht, and called up on the radio telephone for help and for an ambulance to come. By this time, the skipper had just about filled a pillow with blood from the gash on his head, and  was decidedly light-headed. The ambulance eventually came to the beach, and as the tide has risen quite a bit more by then, the yacht was able to be taken in much closer to where the ambulance was waiting. We managed to get him ashore and into the ambulance where the two staff were able to attend to him.

     I went with him in the ambulance, leaving our friend to take the yacht back to the mooring and put it away, while Howard drove our car behind the ambulance to the hospital where the staff were waiting with a bottle of plasma to put into him. This perked him up pretty quickly, and he was ready to go home with the rest of us. “Oh no, you don’t!” said the doctor, “You are staying here overnight to make sure you are alright!”

     Much later, I asked the friend who had just turned up, what made him come to the bay at that time. “Well”, he said, “Work was pretty slack and I thought I might as well go home early and take the money that I owed the man at the end house on the way!” After asking him what time of the day that would have been, I worked out that he would have left his office at the very time that the boom had swung over causing the ropes to catch the skipper’s head! I couldn’t help but marvel at the Lord’s timing and prompting….nothing would persuade me that it was mere coincidence! Everything had dovetailed together perfectly to get us help when we needed it most!

See what God has to say to YOU.