Wednesday 30 September 2015

Grace is who God is


Grace is who God is, Grace is God’s nature

This is the most amazing revelation, that grace and God cannot be separated.

God is an infinite, complete, unending, unfailing, overflowing ocean of goodness.

God is love, God is compassion, and he is an everlasting river of power devoted to us with a passion to awaken us to all Christ abundantly gave each of us at the cross.

God reconciled creation back to himself through Christ.

God saved you by his love for you.

Love defines God, he always loves and he acts only through love
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He never fails, he never wavers, his plans and dreams are always carried out.

God’s work is finished and he invites us to participle and enjoy his rest.

God’s love means that you are accepted, loved and included into the family of heaven. His grace qualifies you, his grace freely given, has no requirements, no stipulations, no obligations, it is free with no strings attached, all you have to do, is say thank you, receive it and live in it.

God’s love keeps no record of wrongs, is patient, does no harm, thinks no evil, never gives up on you, believes all things, endures all things and will never fail you.

You can never extinguish or come to the end of his infinite love.

He has given himself in love to you forever and his grace will sustain you, hold on to you, carry you, and take you into a land of unimaginable pleasure and rest.

Tuesday 29 September 2015

Fragment of Glory



Every particle of dust is a fragment of glory. A bond of love between man and Christ.  A bond of commitment between God and Christ.  A bond of truth that every promise of God is to be trusted.  For each speck of dust is a testament of infinite love. The God never turned his back on us; He took our worst and transformed us into His best. That although we are just jars of earth, vessels of clay, his overflowing love was outpoured in the incarnation of His son, to reconcile his glorious comic creation into the glorious image of Christ.  Every dull, tiny particle of dust is an anthem to the grace of God.

Does The Mirror Lie?



Does the mirror lie? The reflection is important; I can see those hidden lines, those fading blushes, and those moments of care.  A face bruised by life, held in the hallowed dust.  But beneath the surface eternity is screaming out, deep inside the infinite shouts to be heard. For Christ himself has imparted His divine life into his chosen vessel. And as the old creation displays the glory of creation, so the new creation reveals the glory of the Son. Christ life is seen in the life of every believer, for every one of His sons is a mirror reflecting the perfect work of Christ.

Monday 28 September 2015

Every particle of dust



Every particle of dust is a fragment of glory. A bond of love between man and Christ.  A bond of commitment between God and Christ.  A bond of truth that every promise of God is to be trusted.  For each speck of dust is a testament of infinite love. The God never turned his back on us; He took our worst and transformed us into His best. That although we are just jars of earth, vessels of clay, his overflowing love was outpoured in the incarnation of His son, to reconcile his glorious comic creation into the glorious image of Christ.  Every dull, tiny particle of dust is an anthem to the grace of God.

Sunday 27 September 2015

Light Dispels Darkness.




Darkness is obscuring the door, kept hidden in a chamber of doubt. Faith is the door of hope, offering the escape into the love of God, I can see the light of life shinning through every ill-fitting crack of grace. I can walk towards the light, I can take a step, I can open the door of hope, I can delight in the power of His glory. For light dispels darkness.

Saturday 26 September 2015

Look At Creation


When you look at creation, see the fields ripe for harvest. Look at the stars, the clouds, the sky, see the living promise of the almighty power of God.  Every seed of creation is a work of grace in the expansive ocean of His provision. For inside every believer is the good ground of New Creation life, alive with abundant power to make every promise of God alive in you.

Friday 18 September 2015

From A Park Bench - In Christ



Our impressions of who God is and all that he has accomplished for us is built up over many years of listening, studying, discovering, soaking in the revelation imparted into us. Every revelation we experience influences our vision of the world around us and the God who created it. The more we connect with that revelation the more profound the impact inside our souls.

Take for example a space rocket. If a rocket suffers a course alteration by just a fraction of a degree it could miss its destination in the stars by millions of miles. 

As Christians we have a similar scenario, all those beliefs that we inherit from our teachers, pastors, speakers filter into our minds and those words shape our thinking. Everything that goes into our minds, through our senses, whether we like it or not  alters our perception of our world and slowly over time we become moulded into who we are, how we perceive and where we are going. The world in which we live in bombards us through its media and we act and live according to the information we are fed, receive and believe.

To know who God is and how he views us, it is imperative that our basis of revelation is set on the correct course and is locked into the right destination. We need to let God fill our life, our minds, our souls with his truth, and see him in all his wonderful goodness.

If you want to describe God, you need to look to Jesus, for Jesus was God revealed in flesh. And Jesus is the embodiment of grace and the extender of grace to everyone.  For God loves us so fully, so passionately, so intensely, so completely that He gave us his son in grace so that no one born of woman  ever needed to be separated from God ever again.

Grace is unmerited, unearned and undeserved favour of God in Christ Jesus, a Person not a doctrine nor a teaching but Someone who died, rose and is now seated at the right hand of the Father who is continually and consistently praying and advocating for us.

Grace brings freedom, liberty, joy, peace, righteousness and most of all intimacy with our Abba Father, it is not something we neither possess nor take hold of but someone who has caught us by His loving arms and warm embrace.

Grace has defeated sin, depicted the curse of the law and destroyed self-condemnation and self righteousness… Grace does not start nor work outside of us but has begun and deals inside of us (Rom. 8:11)…

Thursday 17 September 2015

From A Park Bench - The Glory Of Desire


Desire can be explained in many ways. Whether it is the passion consuming your emotions for something out of your reach or whether it’s appetite for the delights that have been given to you, desire is a powerful emotional force.

Desire has unfortunately been given a bad report by many, in an effort to combat the world’s influences, it has been misunderstood. Many confusing and variable reports have often misled people on to conflicting paths.

Paul understood the glory of desire, in his writing to the Church at Ephesus he wrote, ““that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,  may be able to comprehend with all the saints what is the width and length and depth and height—  to know the love of Christ which passes knowledge; that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.”  His desire was an all consuming fire to experience everything that Christ had given to him.

Paul was immersed into a fountain of eternal grace, that overwhelmed and overflowed out of his life.  The desire to be aware of his eternal union in Christ dominated his thoughts, satisfied his soul and was lived out by his actions.

We were made for intimate spiritual communion with God. The only thing that really satisfies the desire of our raging hearts is the taste of eternity deposited within us.

We have everything we need, our source of happiness, contentment, fulfillment and joy in the person of Christ.  Everyone who is in Christ lacks nothing, all has been provided by God through grace and we trust in his finished work.

Desire far from being a tainted word, is a wonderful, glorious fulfillment of grace, it is a satisfying contentment in everything won at the cross, it is the realization that I abide in Christ because He abides in me, that I remain in Christ because He will never leave me, that I have faith in Christ because His faith dwells and works inside me.

Tuesday 15 September 2015

From A Park Bench - Immersed Into Christ


Life is full.

We are attacked on every side, by every distraction, amusement, piece of gossip; a media soaked world can throw at us.

We are constantly spinning plates precariously on sticks as we try to keep up with all our commitments.

Somewhere in this land of busyness we begin to lose our sense of wonder, we become increasingly aware of trying to plug the gaps that take prominence in our lives

It is in these moments of awareness that the opportunity arises to embrace the Promise Land of Christ. To move away from the chaotic, amusement driven atmosphere that encroaches on our minds and to let our thoughts and imagination be immersed in the love God has for us.

We have received inside of us the fullness of Christ. The physical Promise Land of Canaan has now become the living New Creation life empowered by the Holy Spirit.   Our valleys are filled with his light, we now bask in the heat of his sun, our lives become fruitful with the knowledge of his presence and we flourish in the abundant provision of his grace.

We can move away from the barrenness and slavery of life and begin to experience the delight of life in the fertile, lavish, overflowing fruitfulness of Christ.

Our wholehearted, full-life response to his grace begins when we learn to lie down in his green pastures of love and realise that the satisfaction of our heart’s desire is found in the divine pleasures of God.  For within these pleasures we discover a Father who is patient, kind, understanding, who bears all things, believes in us always, hopes the best for us, plans only good things for us, has only our best interests at his heart, is always thinking of us, always giving to us, never rejects us, cherishes us, values us and see us in the value of his son.