I believe it’s important to soak in who God is. We have this bigger-than-we-can-imagine, all loving, incredible Father God who we don’t know all that much about. When we know who God is in our lives, we are able to better understand His will for our life and what He wants us to do. Personally, there have been so many times where I have questioned God about things; ‘why did this happen?’, ‘how do I know you really love me?’, ‘what am I supposed to do next?’, ‘what’s your will for my life?’, and so many times God has said “I have told you. It’s in my Word.”
So here are some verses that show us a glimpse of this God, our loving Father and His characteristics:

My Father……

…loves me. “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” -John 3:16

…cares for me. “Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?” -Matthew 6:26

…forgives me. “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us.” -Psalm 103:12

…is compassionate. “who redeems your life from the pit and crowns you with love and compassion, who satisfies your desires with good things so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.” -Psalm 103:4-5

…is giving. “He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all—how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?” -Romans 8:32

…is understanding. “You have searched me, LORD, and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.” -Psalm 139:1-6

…satisfies. “for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.” -Psalm 107:9

…persistantly pursues me. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.” -Luke 19:10

…is accepting. ““Come now, let us settle the matter,” says the LORD. “Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool.” -Isaiah 1:18

…pardons. “who forgives all your sins and heals all your diseases” -Psalm 103:3

…heals. “But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.” -Isaiah 53:5

…redeems. “I know that my redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand on the earth” -Job 19:25

…is loving kindness. “But you, Lord, are a compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.” -Psalm 86:15

…renews. “but those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” -Isaiah 40:31

…is righteous. “This is what the LORD says: “Let not the wise boast of their wisdom or the strong boast of their strength or the rich boast of their riches, but let the one who boasts boast about this: that they have the understanding to know me, that I am the LORD, who exercises kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, for in these I delight,” declares the LORD.” -Jeremiah 9:23-24

…is gracious. “In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us” -Ephesians 1:7-8

…is sovereign. “The LORD has established his throne in heaven, and his kingdom rules over all.” -Psalm 103:19

…has good plans for me. “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” -Jeremiah 29:11

…fights for me. “For the LORD your God is the one who goes with you to fight for you against your enemies to give you victory.” -Deuteronomy 20:4

…is my refuge. “The eternal God is your refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms. He will drive out your enemies before you, saying, ‘Destroy them!’” -Deuteronomy 33:27

Gemma Bird Matheson

Last Friday night at youth, one of our girls came onto the stage and quoted this scripture: Ephesians 6:11, “Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.” During worship, someone else had received the same Scripture. Funnily enough, so had I.
As worship was happening, an image of an empty coat hanger came to my mind and God said, ‘no more wandering around in your dressing gowns. It’s time to put on the amour of God. Its time to get ready.’ I believe this was intended for all our youth group.

Later on in the week I was praying and I got the words, ‘Take up your sword’. “But God,” I said “That’s not in the Bible; the Bible says ‘Take up your cross’, not your sword.” At this point, I slightly dismissed what He had said and went about my day.
The following week, I remembered what God had said. “Take up our sword?” Have you ever noticed that if you turn the cross around, it looks a bit like a sword? ‘You heard me’, He said. “But what do you mean?” I asked. And this is where it started to fall into place.

Banning Leibscher puts it perfectly in his book Jesus Culture: “In sports, coaches design both offensive and defensive plays for their teams to execute. Possession of the ball determines the play a coach will call. He will never call a defensive play when his team has the ball… Much of the Church has believed that the enemy has the ball, so we are running defensive plays…
But the mindset is shifting. The attitude of the new revivalists is so different because they have realized the truth that they have the ball, and they are learning and running the offensive plays.”

God says we have the ball, we have the authority. Too often we use God as just our shield. But with knights, or anyone with armor, do you ever see them with JUST the armor and a shield? No. Majority of them carry swords as well. When God says put on the FULL armor, I believe that includes a sword.

Stop trying to just shield yourself from bad things happening and start using your authority in Jesus to command things to change, to yield to the name of Jesus. We’re not on the defense, we’re on the offense!
We’re coming into a season where God is raising his people up in courage. Pray for opportunity, courage and humility and you’ll be amazed in what He can do.

By Gemma Bird Matheson
Tweet

PSALM 4:7 “You have filled my heart with great joy than when their grain and new wine abound”

The apostle Paul from the new testament encouraged Timothy to “fan the flame and stir up the gift that is within you” (2 Timothy 1:6). Paul was reminding Timothy that he should live with enthusiasm.

Enthusiasm (n.) : intense and eager enjoyment, interest, or approval. 

Do you want your life to make an impact? You can change the atmosphere of your home or your entire school with a little bit of enthusiasm. 
At times we can find ourselves living a routine, day in day out we do the same thing over, we give it the same energy, but not much actually comes out from it.

It’s important that we ‘give it our all’, whatever task we are given, whatever job we are asked to fulfill, let us not settle for mediocrity, but rather stir ourselves up and re-kindle a fire.

You might have to live or work or go to school with people who are prone to being negative, who tend to drag you down. But don’t let their lack of enthusiasm spelch your passion. Make a decision that you’re going to be happy and enthusiastic anyway. If your parents are negative, try to overcome that negativity by being positive, encouraging and uplifting. Fan your flame more than usual to make sure the fire doesn’t go out. 

By Roshni Vastrad
Tweet

At the beginning of this year I made the conscious decision to put complete trust in God for everything. By everything, I mean everything. The big things and the small, everyday things. I was sick of being anxious for things that were out of my control or just not worth worrying about. I quickly learnt that, despite my best intentions, actually trusting God in all things is definitely not as easy as it seems, especially when things get hard or decisions have to be made.

When I was anxious people would always quote Jeremiah 29:11 to me – ‘For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ It was only when I stopped merely hearing that scripture and actually thought about it, that I started to understand. God made the world; he knows what he is doing. Put your trust in Him and the future he wants you to have will become a reality.

Philippians 4:6-7 says; ‘Don’t fret or worry. Instead of worrying, pray. Let petitions and praises shape your worries into prayers, letting God know your concerns. Before you know it, a sense of God’s wholeness, everything coming together for good, will come and settle you down. It’s wonderful what happens when Christ displaces worry at the center of your life.’ I have read this scripture and others like it many, many times without actually taking hold of it’s meaning. God says do not worry. Turn your worries into prayers and let him take control. Have faith that God has got it. I can speak from personal experience when I say that giving every single worry you have, over to God, will be one of the most liberating things you ever do.

I encourage you to take the advice offered by Proverbs 3:5 literally – ‘Trust God from the bottom of your heart; don’t try to figure out everything on your own. Listen to God’s voice in everything you do, go everywhere you go, he’s the one who will keep you on track.’ Substitute worry with prayer, and uncertainty about the future with an understanding that your future is in God’s hands.

A final thought courtesy of a very wise friend of mine – How do I know everything will turn out alright? My blessings are bigger than my problems, my dreams are bigger than my reality and my God is bigger than anything I am facing. That’s how I know.

By Ruth Cochrane
Tweet

Life is often referred to as a race – a daily event of which we are contestants whether we like it or not. The final goal? Success.

But can success really be achieved? Do we get to a point where we can stop and say “That’s it, I’m successful. There is no more for me.” and just continue to live life as we then see fit? Personally, I don’t think so. Success is hard to obtain – if not impossible – because once we reach that goal we’ve been aiming for, there is always going to be another waiting right behind it.

The world we live in defines success by who we are, what we have and who we know. We elevate those who can run the fastest, jump the highest, look the prettiest or even know the most and then through these images and the media we are told that if we are to be successful we must be just like them. There is nothing wrong with being famous – because I know we need Christian people to be reaching into all professions on all levels – but I encourage you not go through life defining yourself by what these people do or look like.

E.E. Cummings said “To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best day and night to make you like everybody else means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight – but never stop fighting!” Each and every one of us is unique and each of us has been gifted with individual talents from God. He has created us the way we are to fulfill a purpose in a way that only we can.

I think that to be truly successful we need to transfer our perspective from one that focuses on the now, to one that focuses on eternal things. Life is the longest thing we will do during our time here, but it will pass in a flash. I encourage you to use the time you have wisely; work as hard as you can during your education, practice your best during sport or music rehearsal, read books until your brain is filled with stories and information, but never lose sight of what God has planned for you, what his final goal is for your life.

If you ever go through a moment of self-doubt, or feel like everyone around you is doing better than you are remember this statistic: The odds of your being born in this particular time, place and circumstance is about 1 in 400,000,000,000.

The fact that you are alive, right here, right now is a great success!

By Allie Greensmith
Tweet

Recently, the topics of the heart and love have come up around the place. After consulting Google for the definition of ‘heart’, this was the third definition:

center: an area that is approximately central within some larger region.

This idea brought me to the well known Bible verse found in Proverbs 4:23:

Above all else, guard your heart, for everything you do flows from it.

If your heart determines what you do, it consequently must determine what you think and what you desire, for, as the saying goes “Watch your thoughts, for they become words. Watch your words, for they become actions.” This quote continues on to say “Watch your actions, for they become habits. Watch your habits, for they become character. Watch your character, for it becomes your destiny.” When we follow it all back, what is in our heart determines where we go in life. So what is in your heart?

I believe there is a balance we need to master when it comes to guarding our hearts. No guardianship can result in pain, hurt and anger, however too much guardianship can stop good things entering our hearts as well as the bad things. The other week God showed me a vision of a beautiful maze made up of vines and wire. Two guards stood in front of the entrance to the maze, not allowing anything or anyone to enter. This maze, I believe, was a heart. Because the guards let no one in, the maze was empty. At this point I was confused, did that mean we weren’t supposed to guard our hearts? And then God showed me the maze, filled with a kind of mist. When bad things tried to enter the maze, they could not because the maze was already so filled with this mist.

It was then that I could see that this mist was God. If we fill our hearts with so much of God’s presence, His joy, His love, then there is no room for anything else. Recently I read this post by a teenage girl whose blog I follow;

If I am not fulfilled in God, I will seek fulfillment in others.
If I do not know that God approves of me, I will not feel approved of by others, and will begin to strive for their approval.
If I do not feel secure in God, I will beg others to make me feel secure.
If I am not resting in God, I will always feel anxious around other people.
If I am not loving God and giving all of myself to Him, I cannot love another person in a way that is selfless.

When our hearts aren’t filled with God, we tend to go looking in all the wrong places for something that will fill what we are missing. But only God can do that. My challenge to you this week is to seek what God thinks of you, how God sees you, what God says about you. Become so filled with God that nothing can take His place.

by Gemma Bird Matheson
Tweet

Assignments. Homework. Exams. Yuck! Sometimes there is just too much to do for school. Just when you think you have finally got on top of an assignment, you get given another one. Not only is there school to keep up with but there are friends to love on and keep up with, and youth and Mum and Dad and brothers and sisters… Oh and then there’s God too.

Sometimes life gets so full and stressful that we forget the very source of life itself. It’s God. God is our life source.

It says in John 15:1-8:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful.  You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.”

Without God we can do absolutely nothing! Nothing at all! It’s so true though. I know when things start to pile up and life starts to get really busy and my God time starts to dwindle things just seem so much more impossible and overwhelming. It’s then that the Holy Spirits reminds me that He is my source. He gently calls my name and tells me that He misses me. I hear His voice and I can’t help but fall to my knees in utter surrender as I realise I have shut out my very source of life in an effort to keep it all together and stay on top of things.

The Holy Spirit is so gentle. He never forces Himself on anyone. He gently reminds us of what it says in the Word of God “Remain in me” (John 15:4).

Remain in Him? How?

It starts with positioning yourself in line with Jesus. Just simply tell Jesus that you can’t do it on your own and that you choose His ways. Then throughout the day just keep checking in with Him and saying hi and seeing where He is at and what he wants you to say or do. Keep telling Him throughout the day that you are choosing to remain in Him no matter what.

When we choose to remain in Him it says in the word “If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” God wants to help us out! He is on your side – all He wants is for you to remain in Him and he will give you all that you need to succeed.

Give it a try. You will see that you stay positioned in line with Jesus and will seem doable and conquerable rather than impossible!

- Amy Minda
Tweet

Some of the things I’ve been praying about and struggling with for the past week or so are the topics of responsibility, right and wrong, and accountability. I’ve come to the conclusion that If Jesus wouldn’t do it, then I shouldn’t do it. It’s so easy to make excuses for why we did something, and brush it off. I’ve found that I excuse a lot of things in my life because it’s the “norm” in our culture. But we’re not called to be part of this culture, we’re called to Kingdom culture. We need to remember that. It’s so hard to go against the grain, but that comes with being a Christian. We’re different. We can’t fight that.

And as Christians, I believe we need to be accountable for all we do. As Christians, we have a lot more responsibility. We aren’t just promoting ourselves to the world. We’re promoting a new culture, a different lifestyle. We’re promoting Jesus. Everything we do needs to reflect Jesus in our lives.

What I’ve learnt from this week is, we can go about our lives calling ourselves Christians and doing what everyone else does, or we can rise to our calling to be different, to be culture-changers. And with that comes a responsibility. A responsibilty over the way we act in front of others, the things we say in front of others, and how we treat others. We are no longer responsible for leading our own lives in a Godly manner, but promoting a Godly life to a fallen world.

- Gemma Bird
Tweet

There always come times when we are asked to step to a new level. This can be in our school, tertiary institution, our workplace, our business, or our ministry life.

The biggest problem that we face with more responsibility, is exactly that: More responsibility.

What is responsibility? Responsibility is being in a position where you are required to give a ‘response’ on that which you are responsible for. It is being ‘answerable’. Often when a project fails or hits a bump the question is asked, ‘Who is responsible for this?’. Our response usually sounds something like, ‘That’s my area, but I’m not resposible for the mistake’. Unfortunately for us, if we are ‘responsible’, then we are responsible.

This is even more so the case in ministry. In ministry, we are responsible for the people that God has put under our care, and we are answerable (responsible) to God for the way we have ministered to and shepherded these people. This is the highest level of responsibility that has been asked of us. It is because of this that we encounter our second problem. This problem is that greater levels of responsibility are always coupled with greater levels of selflessness.

Galatians 5:24 (NASB) tells us that ‘Now those those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.’ What is this saying? It is basically telling us that we are part of a cause that is greater than ourselves, and if we are serious about being part of this cause, we are to die to ourselves and our selfish nature.

It means that if we are committed to this cause, then we must be prepared to put ourselves out for this cause. It means that the phrase ‘make it happen’ actually means that we make it happen. I would hate to see the state of the world today if Jesus had backed away from His cause on the Mount of Olives. He was in so much mental anguish and turmoil, knowing that He was about to die the most painful and excrutiating death imaginable, but He turns to Heaven and speaks the words, ‘O My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me; nevertheless, not as I will, but as Thou wilt’ (Matt 26:39 – NKJV).

How can this not give us the courage to totally sell ourselves out to His cause? How can we see such a selfless fulfilment of destiny and shy away from that which God has put in front of us? We can not! If we are truly committed to those that God has placed under our care, then our convenience, our preference, our schedule, our pride, and even our feelings becomes secondary to this cause.

If we are to come to the end, stand before God and respond to His questions of the people that He entrusted to us, the time to start working on these responses is now!

Now is the time to get up and take hold of His cause. Now is the time to suck up our pride and ego and forget the times we have been offended, or inconvenienced. Now is the time crucify one more part of ourselves, so Christ can become more alive in us.

Now is the time to forget all that is of our own, fleshly nature, take hold of His cause and make it happen!

– David Lewis
Tweet