Is God still in charge or what?

Discipleship is about following our teacher.  In this case is the LORD  Jesus Christ is our teacher and our leader. Dr John Maxwell states that in its simplest form leadership is the equivalent of influence. So how much influence does the leader have over his follower? A leader with no followers is someone taking a walk.

This begs the question 'how much influence does God have in our lives?' Jesus basic statement to his disciples was "Come follow me". We have so much teaching on leadership but we don't get taught how to follow. Before we can actually lead, first we must learn to follow. We all are following someone or something. Who are you following? Your culture? Your parents? Your church leader? The government? The Devil (usually mascquerading as something or someone else)? Or are we in fact following the leading of Jesus in our daily life?

I understand that this is far easier said than done. Which is why we come back to the development of innerspace, because this will aid the development of this process of followership. As John says learning to abide with God, learning to hear his voice more clearly, learning to do what you are told when you don't like it! 

Innerspace:A place for God to dwell a place for God lead from.

Go well until next time.

Paul

Conquering Inner space!

Scientists are now suggesting that the universe we live in is continually expanding from it's heart or centre. Considering we serve a creative God, I tend to believe it is entirely possible that He is continuing to create even as I speak (And I guess He still speaks things into existence).

I am exploring the idea that our inner space or internal capacity should also be expanding in a similar way. At the simplest form this means  the capactiy of the soul to love and be loved, to give more and more deeply. Also the development of our character in the "Fruits of the Spirit" and our level of resilience to the challenges that we face.

I also feel in "the spirit" our inner-self can be expanding. In Isaiah 54: 2 it talks about
"enlarge the place of your tent
stretch your tent curtains wide
do not hold back;
lengthen your cords,
strengthen your stakes."
What are your cords and your stakes to enable  you to enlarge the place of your tent?

I believe God is looking for room to dwell within us in the spirit, developing more room to move within us and ultimately overflow to those around us. John 14:23 If anyone loves me he will obey my teaching. My Father will love him and we will come and make our home with him.

Certainly food for thought. Is your inner space expanding??

Are we busy being busy?

I don't know about you, but I lead an extremely busy life. Our culture encourages us to work hard and play hard, but is our culture right? We fill our days (and nights) with all sorts of activities: some good, some important, some not so important - and some a down right waste of our lives.

Who is to blame for all this busyness?

Sometimes it's circumstances and economic need.

Sometimes it's us...because we don't want time to think, time to be alone, time to reflect and look back.

I find sadly that when I get busy the first casualty is my time with God. "I will spend some time with you tomorrow God." But unfortunately tomorrow never comes any differently, unless we do something to change what we do. I believe our Enemy would try and draw us deeper and deeper into our own busyness knowing that the first casualtly of our busyness will be God. The time has come for you and me to start some spiritual warfare and STOP and take stock of how we use our time.

Then place God back in his rightful place.

There is power in the questions

We spend huge amounts of our time looking for the answer!

I am convinced if we spent more of our time looking for the questions we need to ask, we would do better. There is huge power in a well defined, thought through and worked out question. This enables us to refine, define and redefine our lives.

The beauty of the process is that your initial questioning will hopefully encourage another question which will draw you deeper into what you are looking at. If you find an answer - especially if you feel you have found the answer - you stop looking. We remain shallow, when what the world most needs right now is deep people.

That's why it is said that "many things are lost in the mysteries of God." If we don't question we remain passive and dependent on other people. They tell us what we think, and what our faith and life should look like. Surely that is between ourselves and our Saviour, when all is said. That is not to say we do not need the counsel of others, but we shouldn't totally depend on it.

Don't waste your next good question!!

Seeds Of Doubt

I was reading a book by Gary Best about being supernaturally natural and it briefly looked at this idea. It just mentioned that "sowing the seeds of doubt about God" was the point at which Satan attacked Eve in the very beginning. He has continued to use this ploy with humanity ever since, doubting God and doubting each other.

I was thinking that this is a cunning ploy, because when a seed is planted, it germinates on its own  unless there is some outside interference. So when doubt is sown in issues of trust, the seeds begins to germinate on its own in the fertile ground of our mind and soul. Satan does no more real work, we do the rest, unless there is a direct counter measure on our part or from others. We develop our own concerns and anxiety that flourish if left alone to do so.

I think for me the best way to counter this is to begin to trust somewhere. It maybe God, but it may be as simple as sharing your doubt with another person you trust and hears from God. A better way may be to take the step of trying to open dialogue with your Father in Heaven. Either way, to do nothing is to allow the enemies ploy to flourish when the seeds of doubt are sown.

Until next time
Paul

Old Hillsong

I was thinking about the way we operate in the modern church. How mismatched some of our words and our actions are. We trust God - or so we say - but do we really? We may feel that we have good reasons not to. He may not have come through in some clutch situations the way we expected, but does that make him untrustworthy? An interesting question to ponder...

I suppose I came to this question while listening to some old Hillsong music: "The Power of Your Love" and "The Potters Hands". Wonderfully stirring music, it lifts your spirit but does your soul believe it? What would happen to me, if I actually believed the words,? What would happen to the "Church" if they believed the words they sang on a weekly basis? But it is so much more important that we act on our belief then just sing about it.

I guess love and action spell RISK. Until I am ready to take that Risk and you are prepared to take that RISK, not much will actually change.

God is My Co-Pilot

I have been pondering for a while about why it is that sometimes we seem to run on autopilot. Everything seems to be routine and we just function automatically. I think there is a great deal of that process in the church, I also believe a lot of long term Christians are just plain bored with their lives and their faith.  Pretty much like 'Groundhog Day".

As I was trying to work out how I would explain this, I was working beside my bookcase and my eyes rested on a book title " God is my Co - Pilot". It is war story and to be honest, I have never read it, but  the title started me thinking about how we have God in our lives. A lot of the time God can be like our Co-Pilot; we are in charge but God's around to do the small stuff  ( "God can you find me a parking space?") and in case anything goes wrong. Maybe its just me, but a lot of people seem to be like that, they carry on with life without God's help until something goes wrong!! Then we are scrambling around trying to get God's help in whatever we can't handle.

I was wondering why that may be the case and the conclusion I came to was that it was a basic lack of trust on our part. Do we really trust our Heavenly Father? Is this a transfer from when we have been let done by those who were supposed to care for us one way or another? So to protect ourselves we attempt to stay in charge of our own lives, because I am the only one I can really rely on. The root of this process is fear. Fear of being let down, abandoned or abused in some way. Danny Silk describes it as an "Orphan Spirit", which keeps us seperated from God and other authority figures; "running our own show".

Fear in this way is not of God, but it keeps us bound. The answer is love and God the Father is Love.

The scriptures say that perfect love casts out all fear. We need to return to the Father and begin to take some risks in the area of trust.

Arohanui (Love) Paul