Christ came to save sinners!

♥Christ's focus is to save even the worst sinner and give them the gift of eternal life.

▒░☆ 1 Timothy 1:15, "Here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance: Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners—of whom I am the worst."

Glory be to our Lord!

Be blessed

Julia

God's Word my tent~ By Becky Leslie

It’s amazing how alive the Word of God is. And apparently, how alive and real it can be in any of our lives is up to us! We decide to what level we allow the Word of God to penetrate our hearts and move in our spirits. While it’s possible to remain completely untouched by merely ‘reading’ passages from the Bible; if you meditate, dwell on and think about God’s Word a lot — it can spring up alive in you and start working in you. And what’s to be surprised in that? The Word IS God anyway. It’s that God (the Word) then that we’ve been spending time with that births the work of the Spirit in our lives.

It’s what’s been happening to me. I’ve been studying the book of Job for a while now and I’m really not sure when I’ll be done (if you can ever be ‘done’). I haven’t got past Job 22: 21-30 yet. I just can’t get past it. As in, I literally find it impossible to read further. I’ve been reading, re-reading, saying out loud, saying in my thoughts, thinking, re-thinking and reading phrase by phrase these 9 verses for a few days now. As I’ve been doing that, I’ve seen God start to literally bring alive these words in my life and start cutting through my flesh and dealing with my heart using these very words. I’m finding myself in situations where these words are challenged and where they’re made relevant. It’s supernatural how God’s Word can become a fire in your bones and consume you till you are purified.

My previous post was about Job 22:24,25 about “assigning your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks”. Today, the Lord has been speaking to me through Job 22:22, 23. The verses say: “Accept instruction from His mouth and lay up His words in your heart. If you return to the Almighty, you will be restored; if you remove wickedness from your tent…”

The first part of this portion talks of two aspects — accepting His instruction & laying up His words in our heart — both of which are prerequisites to intimacy with God. Both speak of a relationship with the Word of God, that most Christians today don’t really have. My whole understanding of God’s Word and the relationship I have with it has been changing lately. My conventional attitude towards His Word has been challenged.

As Christians with easy access to the Bible, we’ve become so comfortable just reading it and receiving a little encouragement from it. The Bible is a good read generally speaking too and so for the most, it does leave one with a good uplifted feel. It is easy to be satisfied with that ‘feeling’. But do we have a relationship with the Word of God? Do we accept the instruction that comes from God through it? Do we lay up the Word of God in our hearts? Do we allow the Word to penetrate, change, rearrange and rework us? If not, we’re doing it wrong. Have you wondered why we give so much importance and weight to words that come forth from prophets or men of God and hang on to those words and run after them; but at the same time, don’t pursue the Bible — God’s very spoken Word straight from His heart, inspired by His Holy Spirit? Something we can ask ourselves today: Are we laying up His Word in our hearts?

The latter part of this portion is also challenging. Especially the words “if you remove wickedness from your tent…”. God’s been wrecking me with this phrase: “remove wickedness from your tent”.

Tents are private spaces not public areas. Tents represent solitude, privacy and confinement. This has been God’s constant challenge to me through this phrase: “What are you doing in your private, personal and confined moments?” We’re such great Christians and lovable people in public spaces. Our smiles are big, our hearts are large, our giving is elaborate, our hugs are long, our speech is filtered, our actions are careful and our reactions are measured. But, God doesn't seem to care about that if there’s wickedness in our tents. If there is sin in our private lives, in the confines of our rooms, in our secluded moments and in times of solitude. He wants the wickedness gone from the secret place. He seeks righteousness in the lonely hours. Our second question to ourselves today can be this: Is there wickedness in my tent?

Shut off, pause, be still to hear God!...

We sure need to pray at all times for all things.

Prayer sure is a heart to heart communication with God! Our relationship with our Lord Jesus Christ, sure is strengthened by frequent conversations with Him! Even if our prayers are long or short, loud or soft whispers, God listens! Even being silent in His presence or tears shed at His feet are prayers too! Let us not miss talking to our Lord n Savior! 

But sometimes we need to shut off the sounds of the world to hear God clearly. Sometimes there are so...many confusing voices around that we need to go into our closets to hear the voice of truth. 

Matthew 6:6, "But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you."

Regularly let us take time to shut off and seek His face as never before.

 Mark 6:31 And He said to them, "Come away by yourselves to a secluded place and rest a while."

LORD..HELP US TO TAKE TIME OFF FROM ALL OUR BUSY SCHEDULE,TO STOP AND BE REFRESHED, RENEWED, RESTORED BY STAYING STILL IN YOUR PRESENCE AND HEAR YOUR VOICE!

Good Night!

Julia

If God said it, He meant it!

God's Word never fails!

 If HE said it He meant it. Let us hold on to every promise God has spoken over our lives, every dream and vision He has put in our hearts and opened our eyes to see. The enemy may try hard to steal, kill, destroy, confuse and distort what God has spoken over our lives but let us not give in to doubt, fear or discouragement, but let us hold on to what God has promised!

Hebrews 6: 18, ".......which it is impossible for God to lie, ...."

God's always true and we can rest secure in HIS promises. We don't have to fear or wonder if He will keep His word.

All His Promises are "YES" and "AMEN" in Him.

God is faithful!

Praise You Lord Jesus Christ!

Good Night

Julia

WHERE ARE MY NUGGETS, MY GOLD OF OPHIR? ~Becky Leslie

Hi Family and friends...

May this week be the most blessed week...

May we see the world through the eyes of God and not miss a sigh or tear of someone who is hurting or in pain around us. May we reach out to the lost and forgotten ones. May we be imitators of Christ. 

God is sure on the move, He will cause the Body of Christ to shine so... bright, that every power of darkness will be dispelled and overpowered!

May we be His light as Jesus was and is the light! 

Let us choose to rejoice and sing even in midst of opposition from the evil one, rejection, pain because God is with us through it all! 

He will raise us up! He is the Glory n The Lifter of our head.

Last week was so...blessed by something our daughter Becky wrote for "Kerygma", our Church weekly newsletter. 

Let us lay our all at our Savior's feet...!

Stay blessed...

In Christ...

Julia

WHERE ARE MY NUGGETS, MY GOLD OF OPHIR?

When we go through tough times, challenging situations and turmoil in our lives; it’s good for us to have something to come back to in God’s Word that will put our lives back in perspective. If we don’t have a close relationship with the Word of God and keep coming back to it to derive our strength, portion and substance from it; we are sure to end up allowing our circumstances to get the best of us. 

The book of Job has always been that source of timely perspective for me. Surely, Job went through far much than any of us have been through and his life sort of covers almost every situation a Christian could possibly walk in. Dealing with financial loss? Job did too! Mourning the death of a loved one? Job did too! Have a sickness or illness you’re battling? Job did too! Have friends that criticize you? Job did too! Have marital problems? Job did too! Have people falsely accusing you? Hello, Job did too! Don’t know when your chaos and pain will end? Job didn't either! Don’t know why God doesn't seem to be moving on your behalf? Job didn't either. You get the drift of what I’m saying. This is a great book to come back to at any time and be encouraged. 

So, getting to what I actually intended to share in this article...here’s a portion I read a few days back and have been meditating on. It’s Job chapter 22: 24, 25 (NIV): “If you remove wickedness far from your tent and assign your nuggets to the dust, your gold of Ophir to the rocks in the ravines, then the Almighty will be your gold, the choicest silver for you.” 

Since I read this, I started asking the Holy Spirit to teach me what it meant to “assign my nuggets to the dust, my gold of Ophir”. I was lead to read about Ophir in the Bible and its significance. 

This is what I learnt: 

• The land of Ophir has been mentioned a few times in the Bible but always in reference to its gold. 

• 1 Kings 9:28 speaks of how King Solomon sent ships to Ophir to bring back the best gold from there into his kingdom. 

• 1 Kings 10:11 tells us that when the wealthy Queen of Sheba came to visit King Solomon she gifted him the gold of Ophir. 

• 1 Chronicles 29:4 shows us how the gold of Ophir was brought in to build the temple of God. 

• Isaiah 13:12 refers to the gold of Ophir as a rare thing.

• In Psalm 45, David sings to the Lord saying, “at your right hand is the royal bride in gold of Ophir”.

The Lord started to stir my spirit and show me that He isn’t looking for the best that we can give him at any given point. He isn’t looking for a people who will give him a certain place in their lives. He even isn’t looking to be ‘a part’ of  our daily routines. He wants our everything! Everything. 

Church, even as we go through a month of learning from this theme “Let Us Build”, I’d like to share some hard truths about building His Kingdom that the Lord has been teaching me. If we don’t lay down our everything — our best and our worst, our firsts and our lasts, our strengths and our weaknesses and everything we consider precious and hold close to our hearts — if we don’t lay all this down and bury it in the dust, there honestly will be no “building” at all. 

The verse uses the word ‘nuggets’? Nuggets are small pieces not huge boulders. What are those small areas in our lives that are so precious to us, that we’d rather keep them in our hands than bury them in the ground? Is it a dream that we’d like to see fulfilled? Is it a relationship we’d like to have or maintain? Is it a love for money or a desire for success? Is it a need to be seen, heard and noticed? What are these nuggets that we choose to hold on to?

What is our ‘gold of Ophir’? People went on missions to look for gold in Ophir. What is our life mission? Are we on a search for significance? Is the conquest of our lives something materialistic or temporary or earthly? If so, are we willing to bury our gold of Ophir — our prized accomplishments, our unique talents, our expensive efforts, our costly callings, our lavish desires and extravagant objectives. 

You’ll notice that the verse clearly says that only when we render our nuggets useless and assign it to the dust and our gold of Ophir to the rocks, only then will God be the choicest of gold for us. 

Church, if we are passionate about building anything for the Lord, how can we start unless buried deep in the foundations are the things we consider precious? The Lord is looking to build a Church in these last days, that will stand on a foundation of precious stones that are the sacrifices made by Christians who have given their everything to Him. This last day Church will stand on a grave that has buried deep inside it dead desires, dead dreams and Christians dead to their flesh. 

Are you willing to be a part of this end time remnant? If so, ask yourself this today: “Where are my nuggets, my gold of Ophir?” 

God richly bless you this week and may you have your own revelation of the King and His Kingdom. 

In Him, 

Becky Leslie.