Miracles

It’s A Miracle

I remember years ago watching a shameful TV program about a healing evangelist at a meeting. Like rabbits out of a hat, the evangelist produced ‘testimony’ after ‘testimony’ and, like clockwork, he would turn his fake smile to the TV camera and yell, “It’s a Miracle!” The band would play and everyone cheered and clapped. Then they made their appeal for money. It was so sham it was laughable, but they seemed to get away with it. No doubt one or two of the healings were genuine but, apparently, most were ‘plants’ among the audience.

Let me tell you about real miracles. The average adult human being in Western Europe or America probably has around 30 to 40 miracles even getting to adulthood. The first two, three or four are in the conception, development and birth of the baby. Then there are the miracles of survival through childhood, school, and pre-adult years. Miracles of survived accidents, misadventures, illnesses, scrapes and near-misses. Through young adulthood, when we are at our strongest and fittest, there are more miracles, as there are throughout the course of a life lived even to very average fullness.

What I’m getting at here is that miracles don’t have to be big, stunning, world defying events. Miracles occur every day of our lives. The biggest miracle is a life lived in the watchful gaze of a loving Father God who spared nothing, not even His own Son, so that we might build a relationship with Him and receive everlasting life. A new baby is another wonderful every day miracle.

Don’t turn your nose up at the miracles around you. Miracles of provision for those unable to provide for themselves. Miracles of faith for the ones who give their lives to Jesus each day. Miracles of deliverance for those who finally give up smoking or drinking or worse, after the prayers of righteous friends. Miracles of growth and life as we plant seeds and see the fruit of our planting.

Be thankful for each and every miracle we see in our daily lives. We have so much to be grateful and thankful for. What does the old song say? “Count your blessings, count them one by one.” Certainly give God praise and glory for the healings and provision of the mighty miracles, but give Him praise and glory too for all the little things we so often take for granted. After all, we would be quick enough to ask Him for them if they didn’t happen, wouldn’t we?

As the old hymn puts it - “To God be the Glory, great things He has done.”

It's Gods Business

God and His/Our Business

It was just one of those days, in the best possible sense. We were busy busy from the very start. We had three car loads of donations to our charity shop waiting for us and another huge car load arrived within 15 minutes – we had arranged to open early to take this delivery. All hands on deck and they were busy hands too. Before long, yet another load of donations arrived just to add to the mayhem.

We had an object lesson in God’s provision today. While other charity shops are telling their volunteers not to come in because they have plenty of staff and very little to do, we are busy. While other charity shops are putting up large posters in their windows almost begging for more donations, we have not just ‘enough’ but blessing after blessing after blessing. We only have a small shop but we kept six people extremely busy all day today. I actually kept out of the girls way in order to straighten out both the stock room, and the prayer room. Both had almost gotten clogged up with ‘stuff’ dumped on the floor.

We saw God’s hand and blessing upon us today. Although close to a minor panic because of all the stuff to be sorted and sifted, there was an air of excitement that God was blessing us in the midst of a dry season locally. And we had plenty of customers too and takings were good to match donations. It was almost surreal.

I feel there is an object lesson here for Christian businesses everywhere. We have stuck to our founding principles as well as sound business principles.

-         We made sure and continue to make sure that we are heading the direction God wants us to go. This is done by prayer and our board, and our continually seeking God.

-         We begin every day with prayer asking for blessing on all who enter the business that day as well as for the staff. Without prayer we have noticed a direct correlation to ‘good’ days and ‘bad’ days. No prayer = no good.

-         We try to turn goods round quickly so as to show fresh stock all the time. If shoppers come in regularly they don’t want to see the same old stock for sale – they are always looking for something new.

-         We set our prices at probably the lowest in town and people come from miles around to visit, many of them regularly. This is our sales differentiator. We know that our prices are the best value around because our customers continually tell us so. Staff from other charity shops regularly come to us for themselves.

-         We engage every person who comes into the shop and we pray with quite a few of them. Too many shops treat customers almost as a nuisance but we like to treat them as a little bit special. We engage them if they want to talk or we leave them alone if they don’t. We hope that the shop and staff carry the presence of Jesus and that customers notice it. Many say that they do notice a difference in our shop.

-         We have prayer boards up where people can write and pin prayer requests anonymously – they can also record answers too. This is another clincher. Many people will never ask for prayer nor will they even accept it if offered. However, they will almost always leave a written, maybe anonymous, prayer request pinned on the board.

-         We keep the charities that we support very prominent and well advertised. People who use charity shops like to see where their money goes. We support a good mix of overseas and local charities – and people seem to like that.

This is why we like to keep God at the centre of our business. It is His business and we want to run it in His way.

Searching

Don’t Google it - Holy Spirit it

What a diamond piece of wise advice this is. Don’t Google it - Holy Spirit it. Our Pastor said this in the middle of his sermon last Sunday. We spend so much time doing instant things like Google where you get 9 million responses in about half a second, or so they say, but we hardly ever spend time locked in our quiet place with Holy Spirit asking Him the same questions.

It comes down to us seeking God in all things rather than just allowing Him to comment on one or two things about which we are ambivalent anyway. We so often seem to take important decisions for ourselves, then we go to God for His approval. The real trouble then is that we tend to ignore any input He may wish to make – we just don’t listen and we don’t really want to hear what He has to say.

I like the story of the man who went to a financial advisor. He sat and listened attentively for an hour than said, “OK, thanks for your advice, but I’ve already decided to do it my own  way!” The man threw away good advice in favour of his own thoughts which had already brought him to the verge of bankruptcy. We do the same with much of God’s advice. We ignore Him and continue on the path that has already led us into problem after problem because God’s advice doesn’t fit into our framework of thinking.

The moral of this is not to ask Holy Spirit for advice unless you are prepared to follow His leading. It’s no good waiting for the ‘right moment’ to agree with Him, because the right moment is now otherwise why would He advise you at all. It’s not for next week, it is ‘now’ advice. We have been so used to Googling the problem and being told where to find the answer. That leaves the door wide open to the solutions not even being looked at, let alone being ignored thereafter.

"If you wait for perfect conditions, you'll never get anything done!" Ecclesiastes 11:4 (LB)

Provision thank you Lord

God our provider

Jehovah-Jireh, God our provider, what an amazing God. What amazing providence for His children. We have recently been going through the mill a little bit. We, particularly me, have been under all kinds of attack. It has been a time when our faith has been tested, put through the refiners fire as it were, and it has been vindicated by our wonderful loving heavenly Father.

I have never known times like these of late but my wife has. Her testimony includes times when, without God’s provision and plan for her life, she would have been in all sorts of problems. Consequently, she has seen God’s provision on a scale that I never have. Indeed I never even knew such provision was even possible. I have known times of hardship certainly, and looking back, I can see God’s hand all over my life, but I never truly realised where it all came from.

During the last three years however, and very specifically these past 6 months, I have been privileged to experience God’s provision at first hand, even down to the weekly and daily level. Money on our doormat, food on our doorstep, a wee job even “in retirement”, and just this week a spontaneous gift of provision. I have wept many tears these few months. Tears of fear and concern over basic needs, and tears of joy and gratitude over needs being met in unimaginable ways.

So, my faith has been built up and strengthened, and my knowledge of my heavenly Father has been multiplied exponentially. My precious wife has had the amazing satisfaction of “Told you so!!” LOL – I am not usually lost for words but this past week I have been lost in wonder, praise, thanks, and worship of my wonderful Saviour God.

So my advice to anyone in a bit of a corner right now is this. Just cling to God, hang on to Him. Don’t let anything distract you from Him. Just pray to God – He already knows your needs – trust Him and tell Him so too.. Focus on Him. Don’t focus on His hand but focus on Him for Himself – His face, His person, His presence, and His friendsgip and fellowship This is so important. If we focus on God, all other things work out for our good. “For we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” Romans 8:28

 Then Psalm 33 will be our song. “Sing joyfully to the Lord, you righteous; it is fitting for the upright to praise him. Praise the Lord with the harp; make music to him on the ten-stringed lyre. Sing to him a new song; play skillfully, and shout for joy. For the word of the Lord is right and true; he is faithful in all he does. The Lord loves righteousness and justice; the earth is full of his unfailing love.”

Hallelujah, Thank you Lord \o/

Do What God Says

Just DO It

I am not a teacher, nor a preacher, nor an exhorter – neither am I an evangelist. I am a repeater – I repeat those things about which  God speaks to me. I learned a long time ago not to question Him too much other than for clarification.  So now, when He tells me to say something or do something, I hopefully just do it.

It is amazing to me how much we question God. It’s not so much what He’s doing but, like any 5 year old kid, it’s why He’s doing it. I think the questioning, or lack of it, is what separates the sheep from the goats, the wheat from the tares. Most of us, as all kids do, trust once. If things go the way we think they should, then we trust again. If not, however, we start to question everything. Trouble is that when God does something it hardly ever goes exactly to our plan. So we question Him.

Can you imagine any other army where the Commanding Officer has his instructions queried all the time? It’s called mutiny. Fortunately God has inexhaustible patience and, when He asks you to do something, if you demur too long asking too many questions, then He will quietly find someone else who will do what He asks without any fuss. As we do what the Lord asks of us, we learn, just like kids do, that His instructions can be trusted, and we obey quickly.

When we do the Lord’s bidding, we can stand back and watch His words fulfil everything they were sent out to achieve. Hebrews 4:12-13 “For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.  Nothing in all creation is hidden from God’s sight. Everything is uncovered and laid bare before the eyes of him to whom we must give account.” That’s right, we have to give an account of ourselves one day – hmmm. That makes me think a bit – don’t know about you?

Another thing to remember, while the world is getting all shook up, is that God’s Kingdom, unlike any in His creation, is unshakeable.  Hebrews 12:28  “Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us be thankful, and so worship God acceptably with reverence and awe,” I wonder if the reality of that has sunk in yet? A kingdom that CANNOT be shaken because it God’s kingdom, His realm, the one unshakeable place – God’s Kingdom.

So, when God gives you a Word, check it out with Him by all means, but give that Word to whomsoever God tells you. You will have done your job. The Word may shake their ‘kingdom’ but it will not shake you. It will be up to the receiver to deal with it then.

Just do it – whatever He tells you – just do it.