Proverbs 3 (especially verses 5 to 6), Romans 8 (especially verse 28) and Jeremiah 29 (especially verse 11 and 29 to 32)

I was working in my garden recently and moved some boards that had been stored in a corner of the yard. There were some small plants peeping up through the boards. When I moved the boards, I noticed that these small plants had travelled for some distance from where they sprouted until they were able to find a way through the boards into the full sunlight.

These plants sprouted from seeds equipped with the programming to grow to find the light. They certainly persevered, some reached for a long distance before they came up between the boards.

THE LESSON OF THE MAZE

A few days ago, I drove past a local maze. I thought about the difficulties of finding your way through a maze and the way you come to dead ends and have to back up. This can go on for a while until you work out how to get out of the maze. 

These plants were stuck in a type of maze, they grew in one direction and had to move aside because there was an obstruction. All they had to go on was to follow the light that was way ahead of them. Just as in a maze there is no map, so the plants had no map. All they had was the desire to grow into the light.

FILLING THE GOD SHAPED SPACE WITH GOD

We are born with a God shaped space in us that only God can fill. 

We journey through life seeking that elusive hole and trying to fill it. 

Eventually, if we are open to hearing God’s call, we find the hole is the exact shape of Jesus. 

FOLLOWING JESUS

Once we have accepted Jesus into our lives, we then follow Him through life. It is hard and tortuous. There are many turns and dead ends. We hit walls and have to back up. We are disheartened often and sometimes we feel crushed when we have hit another dead end. 

Just like the plants growing under the wood, we are programmed to follow Jesus. Sometimes that is easy. Other times it is hard. The important thing to remember is that we are born with a plan set out for our lives. God knows where He wants us to go. To achieve that plan we sometimes need to take tortuous paths and encounter dead ends. We have to backtrack. Sometimes we have to wait to move forward.

FOLLOW EVEN THOUGH YOU DON’T UNDERSTAND WHY

We don’t really know God’s plan for our lives. 

We can think we know it and be totally wrong and waste time and worry trying to go the way we believe we are meant to go.

We think we have gone off track, but what if those difficult paths, dead ends and delays are part of the plan for our lives?

BE OPEN TO LEARNING

We don’t know what we can learn during those times that we need to learn.

We don’t know who we may encounter during those times that we are meant to encounter.

TRANSFORM RATHER THAN PROTEST

By protesting at the delays we create suffering for ourselves. We block ourselves off from the growth that will come if we accept the difficult feelings at the delay. When we accept the difficult feelings we transform the situation into one that promotes growth in us and keeps us following the light of Jesus.

BEWARE THE FALSE PROPHETS

As your follow that path set out for you, be wary of those who seek to tell you that you are following the wrong path. As is pointed out in Jeremiah 29:29-32 we need to be wary of false prophets who tell you to take a different path. Remember false prophets can even be religious leaders. No one is immune from that trap. Rather seek out God and follow His path. 

God has a plan for your life. Don’t lose hope. You are always on the right path, even when it looks like the wrong one.

Matthew 24, 2 Peter 2, 2 Timothy 4, Jeremiah 23, Deuteronomy 18.

Uncertainty is a product of the fall from Grace of humankind.

Uncertainty means it is never possible to be totally sure that our plans will come to fruition.

Uncertainty means we can never be totally secure because we do not know when the unexpected will happen.

KEEPING SECURE IN UNCERTAINTY

For those of us who trust God and accept Jesus’ gift of salvation we can be reassured by the knowledge that we are never alone. God will never abandon us. No matter how much happens in our lives, He always has a plan.

But we are human, and uncertainty is scary.

We like the certainty of trusting that everything will turn out exactly as we want it to.

WHEN THINGS ARE UNCERTAIN

What happens when things don’t work out?

What happens when we face a pandemic that changes our world in ways many of us have not witnessed in our lifetimes.

THE IMPACT OF THE PANDEMIC

It is a long time since most of us were impacted by war, or pandemics, or any other myriad things that can happen to disrupt the security and certainty of life.

When the Pandemic hit and churches were closed many drew closer to God and trusted Him more. They clung to the rock in faith and waited for the uncertainty to end.

But lurking in the shadows were false prophets, wolves in sheep’s clothing. People who were just waiting to spread their false stories through the ranks of those who thought they believed in God.

FALSE PROPHETS PRAY ON THE VULNERABLE

Those false prophets prayed on those who were uncertain, who lost their grip of faith on the rock.

Such terrible evidence of their power was seen last December when three professed Christians who had taken belief in Revelation to a terrorist extreme, led by an online community who preached “Pre-millennialism”, shot four policemen (killing two) and a kind hearted neighbour who had come to offer help (also killed).

THE MISINTERPRETATION OF REVELATION AND OTHER PROPHETIC BOOKS

I have studied Revelation over the years, as well as the other prophetic books and find the attempts to interpret Revelation in such extremist terms around whether the rapture will occur before or after the Millennium and exactly what it will all look like as terrifyingly alarming. 

I watched in the late 90s as the minister in my church derailed a massive drive to bring people to faith by his insistence that the world was going to end at midnight 1999 as the year slipped into 2000. 

The fear and uncertainty caught a number of victims. People I believed to be rational were caught up in the fear and false prophesies around this event.

DID PEOPLE FEEL THESE THINGS WHEN THE PLAGUE HIT IN THE MIDDLE AGES?

I watched again as the recent pandemic again drew people in fear to believe in extremist views that told them that vaccination was “the mark of the beast” and this was the start of the tribulation. I wonder what people thought as Europe was decimated by the plague centuries ago? I am sure there were those who saw it as a sign of judgement.

continued in blog 2

THE DANGERS OF IGNORANCE

I was once told by a very destructive woman who professed to be Christian that knowledge was dangerous and we were better to be ignorant!

She and her equally destructive friend were the most destructive women I have ever witnessed as they prayed on me and other young women in our Christian circle. Their level of ignorance was staggering and very frightening.

They were the ones who bought books from Christian bookshops. Books written by people peddling their own agendas and not speaking the word of God.

THE DANGER OF “CHRISTIAN” BOOKS

For decades I have watched in horror as fellow Christians have given more credence to a populist book with a Christian theme and what it says, than what the Bible says.

The Christian book industry is a multi-million dollar industry and there is a book for every need. But those books are not necessarily peddling the truth about God. Many are pulling people away into increasingly extremist and unGodly doctrines that pull people further away from God.

MISUNDERSTANDING WHAT FUNDAMENTALISM ACTUALLY MEANS

Many will say they are fundamentalist, when they are actually being drawn away from God and His teachings.

I was always told that the way to know if someone was a false prophet was that they would deny Jesus. But there is more to it than that. 

False prophets existed in the time before Jesus too. They did not speak God’s word. 

In Deuteronomy God ordered them to be put to death.

In Jeremiah God warned the people not to listen to the false hopes being spoken by the false prophets. The ones who spoke visions from their own minds, not from God.

There have always been those who speak what others want to hear, not what God is saying.

THOSE WHO PREACH FROM PULPITS CAN BE FALSE PROPHETS TOO

And do not think that because someone stands in a pulpit and tells you what to do that they are necessarily speaking the word of God. Because false prophets stand in pulpits too.

WHAT TO DO TO NOT FALL FOR THE LIES

How do we guard against such false prophets?

Know the Bible really well. Read it every day. Read it from cover to cover every few years. Read different translations. Learn some of the history of the Bible translations. 

For example: in the King James Bible there was a concerted effort by the King to have people receive the message that they must go to church. This was not something that had been important in the past. 

People went to church to hear God’s word because they didn’t have Bibles. But this Bible translation occurred during the Reformation when the different doctrines were vying for members. Be a Catholic, no be my Church of England. I am your King. 

King James wanted people to follow his faith and to attend his church. So he instructed those translating the Bible to turn every reference to congregation (meaning those taken out to be set aside) to be turned into the word Church. 

His aim was for people to believe they were being told by God they had to attend a church, preferably King James’ church.

That deliberate mistranslation has crept into the Bible and is repeated faithfully and used as evidence that people should attend church. Certainly Paul encouraged people to fellowship, but he did not order them to attend church, there was no such thing in Biblical times. The only church was the followers of Jesus, the people, not institutions.

BE CAREFUL TO UNDERSTAND THE BIBLE TRANSLATIONS YOU READ

So make sure your Bible has a reputable translation and spend time looking up the meaning of words and instructions.

Get to know your Bible well. Read whole passages, not just a few lines that can be taken out of context.

Notice I tend to give a whole chapter as a reference because I want you to read the words around the important verse so that you can read the verse in context.

UNDERSTAND THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF THE DIFFERENT BIBLE BOOKS

Another important aspect of context is understanding the social structures of the time of the writing of the different books of the Bible. Study Bible’s often have several paragraphs at the start of a Book in the Bible explaining what was happening at the time in the world of the writer and what was understood to be the aim of writing this book of the Bible. This gives you important information. It helps you to put the verses in the context of what was happening at the time, not in a modern context which can lead to words having a different meaning.

KNOW GOD

Get to know God well. Communicate with Him. Your relationship with God is like a relationship with a friend. You talk together, share, listen. Communicating with God is not just about sitting down for a formal prayer time once a day or so. It is about constant contact. Once you get into the habit of talking to God frequently you will find it easier to hear His voice.

If you know the Bible well, then you will be less likely to believe false prophets.

IS WHAT YOU ARE HEARING CONSISTENT WITH THE GOD YOU KNOW AND READ ABOUT IN THE BIBLE?

For example this premillennialist extremists are preaching behaviours that are totally inconsistent with God. These people last December saw themselves as going to war and killed people then rejoiced that they had done this. 

God would never tell us to kill another person and enjoy it. Certainly in the Old Testament God directed people who transgressed to be killed. This was not because God condones killing but more to emphasise the seriousness of some behaviours. At that time it was customary to kill people and God was giving people references they could understand. 

LOVE AND JUSTICE

Throughout the early books of the Bible and even woven through the later books is the theme of justice. God’s biggest concern was that we treated each other with justice and compassion. He never directed people to delight in wholesale slaughter. 

When Jesus came He proclaimed that Loving God, then loving your neighbour as yourself, were the law. Jesus reached out to the poor, the outcast, the needy. He submitted himself to being brutally crucified. These are not the actions of one who condones the behaviour of these three people last December.

HATE IS NOT OF GOD

God does not tell us to hate those who are different from us. He tells us to love others. Yet there are those who will speak words of hate to those with gender dysphoria or those who are homosexual. That is not from God.

I am not going to get into the politicising of much of God’s doctrine that turned such things are abortion, gender dysphoria and homosexuality into major crimes when they hadn’t been in the past. I don’t have time to write the hundreds of words necessary to do that justice and I doubt you would have time to read them.

A CALL TO ACTION

Turn to God, read your Bible. If you haven’t read it cover to cover for more than a few years then start now. Pray constantly and communicate with God so that you can hear Him. Protect yourself from false prophets.

Don’t think you are immune from being caught by them. We are all vulnerable to their whiles if we do not make sure we know God well.

Job 12:7-10, Romans 1:20, Psalm 8, Psalm 104, John 4:21-24

One of the most powerful messages I learned as a child about God was that He is everywhere. This has been my encouragement throughout my life as I have been able to confidently turn to God wherever I am and whenever I want to talk or need help.

Many years ago I spoke to a young woman at a church I attended. Her focus was on the church she attended. On the building and the name of the church. She would stand aloof from newcomers and stated that people had to wait to be welcomed. She believed you couldn’t just welcome people as Jesus did until you had known them for a long time. She even subjected the wife of the new Youth Pastor to this treatment. Her behaviour was so foreign and unchristian.

This young woman had just come back from overseas and had said she loved visiting the churches because walking inside a church building with the people there made her feel closer to home. This was her obsession. Not just turning to God to feel at home but seeking the people. She didn’t feel turning to God felt like home. To her, the church was not God, it was people. More to the point, it was the people she had known for years. 

That made me feel very sad because she was missing the point of finding God everywhere. She believed she had to attend her church with the same people she had grown up with or she could not commune with God. But God is everywhere. If you wait until Sunday to commune with God, what do you do on the other days of the week?

God is I AM. He is. He is what this is all about. Jesus came to earth because God sent Him. 

We see His handywork in a beautiful sunset and know He is delighted as we gaze in awe at it. 

We see His handywork in a beautiful interaction between a child and their parent. 

We see His handywork in a majestic tree, a beautiful cloud formation.

We are in God’s hands and when we stop and contemplate God we realise that and it should bring us to a point of deep awe and worship. (Job 12:7-10)

We can clearly see God’s eternal power and divine nature in His creation. Nature, people, the earth. (Romans 1:20)

When we consider all God has created. We see the evidence of Him everywhere and we can wonder at Him creating us. We are so insignificant and we cause so much destruction to creation and to each other, yet God created us and loves us. (Psalm 8).

I have always known that at any moment I can reach out to God and know He is there and I am not alone. (John 4:21-24)

For those who don’t have that relationship with God, like that young woman, I feel so sad. Because they lack the one thing God wants from us. A relationship with Him.

Do you have a relationship with God?

1 Corinthians 15:1-9

This is a lovely passage that is often overlooked.

It is simple in its message.

Paul reiterates the message he proclaimed to the Corinthians and that they made their own. He described it in The Message as them taking their stand on that message and it being the way their lives were saved. He does add the qualifier that he is assuming they really believed and weren’t just caught up in the idea and never took it fully on board. This is much like the seed that grew up on the rocky places. It had shallow roots and withered fairly quickly. Paul is assuming the message he gave them did not fall on the rocky places.

Paul reminded the people of the message.

Jesus died for our sins.

The way he died was exactly as Scripture told us would happen.

Jesus then appeared to Peter, then His closest followers , then to five hundred and then James and the others. He then reminded them that Jesus finally presented Himself alive to Paul.

Paul adds that he did not deserve to be in Jesus’ inner circle because he had spent many years trying to stamp God’s church out of existence.

Two things really struck me about this passage.

The first is that we receive the message, but it is up to us, personally and individually, to respond to that message and remain faithful to it. No one else is responsible for us and how we hear that message.

The second is that none of us is worthy of the gift of salvation given by Jesus. None of us is worthy to enter God’s presence. Yet we are given salvation. And God calls us to be with Him, even to sending the Holy Spirit to witness to us about Jesus.

The learning from this?

It is up to you to accept the truth of Jesus’s salvation.

And second is to live your faith in humility. Never forget you are unworthy of the precious gift of salvation. You will never be worthy. And that is okay. Because I am not worthy either. In fact there is no one on this earth who is worthy.

So don’t put on airs and graces and consider yourself better than others, because you aren’t.

We are all in the same boat, it is just that some of us have chosen to accept the message about Jesus and live our lives in the truth. It doesn’t make us better. It just makes us saved.