Captivated

12 Sep 2015 Leave a comment

by Minstrels wife in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Psalm 113:4-6 says,

“The Lord is high above all nations,

His glory above the heavens.

Who is like the Lord our God,

Who dwells on high

Who humbles Himself to behold

The things that are in heaven and the earth?”

LaMar Boschman says in his book A heart for worship, that he wanted to look for new words to describe the Lord. Words we don’t use normally, that we havn’t repeated so many times we forget how awesome our God is. He found these words, and I think they truly do describe God in new and exciting ways. LaMar uses them before services and shouts the to the Lord as part of his worship.

Lord, You are unrivalled, unparalleled, unequalled and unsurpassed.

You are peerless, matchless, faultless and flawless.

God, you are choice, fine, elite splendid,

marvellous, glorious, fabulous and wondrous.

Phenomenal, sensational, spectacular, majestic, fantastic and terrific is my King.

Your presence is amazing, awe-inspiring, astonishing, outstanding, stirring, stimulating and electrifying.

You are so large, grand, great, immense and massive.

You are magnificent, brilliant, radiant, resplendent and transcendent.

Your Person is superior, superb  and sublime.

I have discovered you to be excellent,  exquisite, exceptional, extraordinary, remarkable, incomparable,

impeccable, irreproachable and unimpeachable.

There is absolutely none like You.

You stand alone.

How good is it to be able to recognise the Living God in all of those words. He does indeed stand alone as the only One worthy of these descriptions. Thank you God.

Pray or not?

08 Sep 2015 1 Comment

by Minstrels wife in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Leonard Ravenhill in his book Why Revival Tarries says,

“The Cinderella of the church today is the prayer meeting. This handmaid of the Lord is unloved and unwooed because she is not dripping with the pearls of intellectualism, nor glamorous with the silks of philosophy; neither is she enchanting with the tiara of psychology. She wears the homespuns of sincerity and humility and so is not afraid to kneel!”

I find it incredible that across most of the Western world, prayer meetings are the least attended meeting in the whole church calendar. It is the forgotten hours during the week, not given much thought and quickly cancelled. I believe that you can gauge the spiritual life of a church by the prayer meeting numbers and quality of prayers given.

How can we expect to see revival in our community when we can’t be bothered to go to prayer meetings and not see that we are in a battle to see souls saved. If our prayers are dead, then what are we?

Ravenhill goes on to say, “Victory is not won in the pulpit by firing intellectual bullets or wisecracks, but in the prayer closet.”

D.M. McIntyre,D.D. has been quoted “Before the great revival in Gallneukirchen broke out, Martin Boos spent hours and days and often nights in lonely agonies of intercession. Afterwards, when he preached, his words were as flame, and the hearts of the people as grass.”

How much more could be done in the spiritual if we spent more time on our knees, pressing into God and His Word. How much would our lives be changed, to become more like Him.

Apologies

11 Aug 2015 4 Comments

by Minstrels wife in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , ,

I am so sorry for how long it has been since I last wrote anything. It has been so crazy busy in our home and I just havnt had time to think.

Our church are looking at revival, and it has been a burning prayer for some of us for a while now. We are not interested in the numbers game, but desperately want to see souls saved, especially those around us within our friends and family circle. It is a cry from our hearts, but is it something we are willing to get our hands dirty for? It is a question I have been asking myself and this is not aimed at anyone but me first. What am I willing to do or say to bring those I love to Gods mercy seat? Am I willing to be laughed at, to be derided, to be a fool for Christ? Am I willing to put the hard work in place to be there whenever anyone needs me to be? These are very serious questions I am asking myself, because I need to make sure I am not putting my own needs first, not putting my feelings or fears before telling those around me the gospel.

I see a worrying trend within the Church of allowing the World in. Our conversations are full of it, our love of things, of money, of power, of position. It is on our lips more than God and His Word are. We are getting to the point of more interest in the world than seeing our loved ones saved. Can this really be true? Can all our topics of conversation be that lacking in heavenly things?

Watchman Nee says in his book, Love not the World, “Never in this sphere of things have we needed to know the power of the Cross of Christ to deliver us as we do at the present time”. And he goes on to say, “When we are faced with alternatives and a choice of way confronts us, the question is not: Is this good or evil? >Is this helpful or hurtful? No, the question we must ask ourselves is: Is it of this world, or of God? For since there is only this one conflict in the universe, then whenever two conflicting courses lie open to us, the choice at issue is never a lesser one than: God…or Satan”.

Now Watchman Nee wrote this a long time ago, and my book of it was copywritten 1968. It seems to us that he lived in a different time than the 21st century, but if so, then how is it that what he wrote is so relevant to us today? He could have written those words this week! We need to ground ourselves in Christ and His Word to us. Do we want to see more souls saved and if so how much? Do we long to see it? Is it something we are desperate for? Is it our hearts cry? If not, then why not?

I feel it is time for the Church to be seen in communities, to make ourselves visible. I think it is a wrong attitude to expect the community to come to us for answers. We need to show that we have the answers already within us, our changed lived are the proof we need. With God on our side, what do we have to fear? Living for God is our answer to any question.

Amen Lord, come Lord!!!

Who I am

30 Jan 2014 6 Comments

by Minstrels wife in Christian Worship, God, Prayer Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

I know a lot of my failings, and there are many more that others can see in me or that God can see that I don’t recognise yet. They will be shown to me at the right time, or at Gods timing for my life. It amazes me that He uses me with all my failings, warts, sins and all. God loves me and uses me for His kingdom as I am right now, and not who I will be 10 years from now, because who I will be then will be a different person. I know I am on a journey, but if I stop learning and growing in God, then I won’t be any different, but will stand still. To be different, I have to grow, learn and change my attitudes and heart to be more like God, then I will change into a more Christ-like child of God.
When I look in the Old Testament at some of the old “heroes” of the faith like Samson, Solomon and perhaps David, they were never super spiritual. God used them as they were for His kingdom and His purposes. They didn’t change for God to use them, they didn’t change who they were in God. We have consequences of living a sinful life, but God made us because He loves us.
We need to pray and ask God what He wants us to do for Him; who He wants us to speak to; how He wants us to live for Him; how we follow Him.

Which Heart?

26 Jan 2014 1 Comment

by Minstrels wife in God, Jesus, meditation, Prayer Tags: , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are so many ways of describing our hearts and attitudes towards God. Looking into it, I have seen four types of heart that I have seen or experienced.

A calloused heart, one that is hardened to God and His Word.

A shallow heart that has no roots and no depth spiritually and possibly in life.

A distracted heart that is pulled many ways or is torn about what to do.

An open heart that is receptive and responsive to God and His Word and Spirit.

We need to keep a daily intimacy with God, and base ourselves in His Word. If we live more in prayer and the Word, we have a better grounding when the trials and troubles come our way. We will be able to put on our spiritual armour and battle knowing from the Word that God is always there. We can fight with the Word and use our sword to cut through doubts and distractions.

God changes us if we let Him. He gives us a hunger for the Word and lets us live in a new way so we put ourselves under the ownership of our Father. We begin to see new habits forming that make us more like Jesus every day.

The Word of God is our direction. Use it. Change my heart Lord to an open heart for you and what you have to say to me.

God hurts too

01 Nov 2013 Leave a comment

by Minstrels wife in God, Jesus, meditation, Prayer, Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , ,

Psalm 51 vs 4 says “Against you, you alone have I sinned.”

Its hard to imagine sometimes that when we do something wrong, God hurts. We may feel that we have to defend our actions, we may be aggressive, we may be sorry, but how often do we say sorry to God for the hurt we cause Him? We may hurt others by our actions or by our words, or in some cases lack of action. Yes we hurt the other person or people, but God is hurting even more. How often are we more concerned with straightening things out with the other person, trying really hard to get back in their good books. How about we straighten things out in a spiritual sense first? We never know, but it may be easier to sort things out with the people concerned.

Does it affect us that our Lord God can be so hurt? My God is full of emotion which we can see right through the Bible. Can we learn to see things in Gods perspective? Can we learn to improve our spiritual reflexes to understand the hurts we put on Him, and when we need to get on our knees first before running to others to get them to “like” us again?

God is “slow to anger and abounding in love”. Thats for us, every day, every minute, no matter what we do. We can hurt Him over and over, but He will never stop loving us. We are made in His image. He set us apart for Himself. Is it any wonder then that we wound Him?

Maybe its time to let God shine His torch into our hearts and let us see the things we hold on to, the things that are wounding us and we won’t let go of. Let His light shine right through all the dark places in us, showing us the things we are ashamed of, so He can clean us out and let us feel new again. Spring clean the dirty, dark, horrible bits.

Sanctuary

22 Sep 2013 Leave a comment

by Minstrels wife in God, Jesus, Joshua, Prayer, sanctuary Tags: , , , , , , ,

Sorry I have been absent for a few days. Went for a week to Wales with the family. The area we were in was so oppressive! It was such a sad place to see how the recession has hit the area. So many houses, shops and churches all boarded up. I cant see how we can be told that Britain is on the up when in a first world country I can see so much deprevation and poverty! Maybe we need to pray more for these areas to see and feel a touch from their Maker and Father. Life is hard but much harder when we see no way out of the poverty and situations we are in.

On a different note, I was reading Joshua while away, and got to Chapter 21 and verse 45. “Not a single one of the good promises the Lord had given to the family of Israel was left unfulfilled; everything He had spoken came true”

What an awesome verse!! Every promise God makes He keeps, even though we are disobedient and rebellious children who spend our lives pulling and pushing boundaries set out for us for our own good. We are like young children given boundaries by our parents and breaking them all the time, even though our parents want our safety and happiness.

Throughout the Bible we see promises given. Those promises are there within the bounds of relationship. We have a two way relationship with our heavenly Father, which is how it has been from day one. God had a very special relationship with Adam and Eve. He came to the garden in the evenings and walked and talked with them in a way that has never been done since, except for those few precious times we read about in the Word. Thats a place I long to be in. My Father coming and talking to me, just me for that time, where I could see Him and hold Him. I know He is always with every one of us all the days of our lives. He never goes anywhere. We do the walking away, not Him.

I am very proud to be grafted into the amazing Israel in such a beautiful spiritual way. I see how they messed up, and I also see how they were forgiven over and over when they repented. It gives me the hope to keep going, to keep my faith when life is hard. My Father will forgive every single time I come to Him for love and repentance. I have my Sanctuary in Him. My place to go in the storms that rage and the waves that seem to cover. My sanctuary, my safety is in Him.

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