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Living on the Fence
Before my kids were old enough to ask questions about Santa Claus I was still living that pagan ritual but now I am saved and being asked questions by my grandson. I had no idea what to say. How do you encourage imagination without lies? This is the question all Christians are faced with this time of year. Here is what I encourage you to do, and what Jesus has put on my heart about Christmas, and every day, that you would know the truth.
There was a real man, named Nicholas, who did what the Spirit moved him to do. He fed the poor, gave gifts to the orphans and helped the widows. He did what the Lord told him to do and as a result the spirit of what he did lives today, his fruit. We can believe this story and know that it was ordained by God because it lives in our knowledge. You need to bring this whole story home with the story of Jesus.
There is nothing wrong with children knowing the story of Nicholas, especially if they know who Jesus is. It is those who do not believe in Jesus who perpetuate the inflated story of St. Nick or Santa Claus. They know there is something out there, that is spiritual, and they attribute it to Santa this time of year and any other timely mythical character that man has created. The Devil is at work convincing people of the validity of these characters, so those people do not have to believe the Holy Spirit or the Spirit of God is active all year round. The fence is erected.
Now, read the Bible, Ephesians 3:15-4:3. This is a prayer for those who have jumped up onto the fence. This is a prayer that each of us who believe, should put to work each day, and be reminded of, when we are tempted to kick someone off the fence. The Lord put them up onto the fence, in our presence, for us to support Him in His work. Our calling, to support Jesus in His work on this earth gathering His people together, is more important than telling people what we know. He gives us the knowledge we need, even if it is secular knowledge, to bring His people down off the fence into the faith. All knowledge can be used to help someone who is on the fence.
If you are saved and still on the fence I say to you, keep asking questions of Jesus and He will answer them using people and the Bible. If you are talking with people who are on the fence do your best to make sure you don’t kick them off because they will not come down on the side of Jesus. You will have bruised them and left a nasty taste in their mouth about the Body of Christ. If you are saved and keep jumping up onto the fence about specific topics, stop it. Mature Christians don’t jump up on the fence because of a topic they are pondering. They question Jesus, asking for the truth, knowing they will receive it and believe it.
People on the fence are asking questions looking for the truth. We ask questions of Jesus, as mature Christians, expecting Him to answer them. We ask question, of mature Christians, expecting them to know the answer from the Bible or help us find the answer from the Bible. The goal for every Christian is to get off the fence and believe God.
I pray this prayer over you and every person who is on the fence about the truth. Pray this prayer over yourself if you are on the fence. If you are a mature Christian, pray this prayer every time you are tempted to hop up onto that fence. There is no grey area with God only with humans. When we are in that grey area we need to make sure we don’t climb up on the fence. The Spirit, in the inner man, has the strength you need to know the truth and you will be filled with all the fullness of God. Isn’t that what we all want?
Merry Christmas
May the Lord bless you this Christmas with His fullness through your faith.
Kathleen Derbyshire
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The 3 Ways to Gain Peace
As a Christian we are not to be in turmoil with the world or anything in the world. The Bible was written for us to have peace from it. John tells us that Jesus spoke to us, so in Him we may have peace. In the world we will have tribulation, but we are not to go nuts, go insane or go berserk because Jesus has overcome the world. When He overcame the world, He gave us His peace in knowing Him. In knowing Him we just have to read the Words He spoke. He spoke all of His Words so in Him we can have peace (John 16:33).
I know that sounds tough, but it isn’t. When you become a Christian, God woos you until you fall head over heels in love with Him. Imagine, when you fall in love for the first time. You cannot get them out of your mind. That is what Jesus is doing with us. He has chosen us as His bride and He is making us fall in love with Him, day by day. Peace comes with this love. There are three ways you can gain this peace: calm yourself by talking to Jesus, know the laws of God and believe unto righteousness to sow peace.
Way One: Calm Yourself by Talking to God
My favorites part of being a Christian is the ability to speak to Jesus. When I first became a Christian, I had no idea how to speak to Jesus but in time I learned, no matter where I am or what I am doing I can speak to Jesus about anything. I would rather have a one-sided conversation with Jesus than a two-sided conversation resulting in hurt feelings. I learned to keep my mouth shut and talk with Jesus after the fact. Fifteen years later, I am becoming an expert at it. We all have feelings and sometimes they get out of control or hurt. As Christians, we have a God who cares about not only us but all the other people we are supposed to serve. He knows we will be hurt sometimes and He doesn’t want us to be the one doing the hurting.
Philippians 4:6-7 says, “be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.” We can say anything to Jesus and He will listen. I have said many things to Jesus including my misguided complaints against Him. There was a time when life was not as it should be, in my eyes, and I blamed Jesus for the way it was turning out. I couldn’t believe He wanted me to live that way, but He had a purpose for what was happening in my life. You are that purpose. Jesus taught me that I am not the only one He loves and taught me to calm myself and love, not only Him but His law.
Way Two: Know the Law of God
Because Jesus allowed me to say anything to Him I was able to speak until I discovered the real reasons why I could not have peace. I was so filled with sin that it had to be rooted out and dealt with. The only Person who can make that happen is Jesus Himself. I was reading the Word of God at the same time I was dealing with the sin bubbling up like ditch water. It stank, and it was good for nothing but carp. I needed to be taught how to use His Word to heal my wounds. I fell in love with the Law of God knowing its healing power in my life.
Psalm 119:165 tells us “Great peace have those who love Your law, and nothing causes them to stumble.” God says that if we love His law nothing will cause us to stumble. He is not saying you will never stumble but if you love the law of not lying you will not stumble when faced with a situation that might cause you to lie. It is one law at a time that changes us. We fall in love with one law at a time and we are changed by that love. To know the laws of God is to be changed by them. There might be some laws you don’t know yet or love, but when you know them and fall in love with them, you will not stumble. When we don’t stumble because we love the laws of God it is easy to believe unto righteousness.
Way Three: Believe unto Righteousness to Sow Peace
When you talk to Jesus about everything that is bothering you, and find He responds, you believe there is hope. Hope that life will get better. Hope the pain you are suffering will go away. Hope there will be peace in your life someday. You will learn His law more knowing He can be trusted with your dirty swamp waters. The swamp water begins to clear, and you can actually see beyond it. This is the fruit from your belief. Living, clear water, even in your ditches.
James 3:18 tells us the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace. The living clear water in our heart is the fruit of the righteousness we now have from loving the law of God. Our hearts filled with this clear living water is sown to others. John 7:38 tells us those who believe will have living water coming out of them. This is how we sow peace. We can believe in Jesus and be righteous. We can sow peace by holding our tongue during a time of strife. The calm feeling we have is felt by others as peace and they want it. Peace sown.
We must set our mind to having this peace. If you cannot seem to gain peace in your life, then the Word of God is not in you. There can be no other result from the Words of Jesus then peace. He has told us what will happen in the world. He has told us what will happen to us. He has told us what He is doing. His Word gives us the hope we need for the peace we need to do what He has called us to do.
While chaos is erupting around you, you will be the one people look to for peace in the situation. They will look to you for stability. If this is what you want than gaining a peace from Jesus is the only way you will be able to do this. You must calm yourself enough to hear from Jesus, know His laws enough to know what is right and wrong and know that you are about to sow a peace no one will be able to understand unless they love Jesus Christ. Therefore, I beseech you, brothers and sisters, to walk worthy of the calling with which you were called, with all lowliness and gentleness, with longsuffering, bearing with one another in love, endeavoring to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace (Ephesians 4:1). Our love for each other, our lowliness and gentleness with longsuffering bearing with each other comes from a bond of peace. You can have this peace, with me, and your brethren. It is the best feeling in the world to know that there is nothing you can do that God cannot handle so go live in peace.
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Awareness Makes us Abound Part 2
Being aware of our actions is something even the world preaches. How much more does God preach it? Open the first page of the Bible, is it there? Yes it is. God wants us to be aware of how this world came into being. He is making us aware of His actions. He is not shy in telling us the actions of those He created either. He tells us how some folks disobeyed Him and some obeyed Him. Our awareness of these facts gives us hope for our own behaviour. There is no way to improve any of our life skills until we are aware of the actions we are taking to create our own issues. God has this knowledge and we have this knowledge.
I always begin each Life Skills Session with awareness training. We can only begin our abundant life with awareness. We need to know what we are doing that is robbing us of abundance first then we need to modify the lies into truth to pursue the abundant life. It makes sense but how often do we try to skip the awareness phase and move right into the doing phase. If we do not know where we are going when we go how can we get to this unknown place. This is why so many people, including Christians, are going in circles all of their life. Let us stop, learn what we are doing wrong and go in the right direction. This is the way to go from foolishly spinning in circles to the straight path of knowledge.
Abound in Knowledge
If we incline our ear to wisdom and apply our heart to understanding we will find the knowledge of God (Proverbs 2). The straight path to knowledge is wisdom and understanding. There is only one place to learn – the Lord. Reading the Word of God is the only way to acquire the knowledge we need to dispel the lies that make us into fools. We first learn of our sin then made aware of the lies causing us to go down the path of sin. The devil fears God because His truth sets us free from those lies. The last thing he wants us to do is abound in knowledge so he feeds us lies so close to the truth that we believe them. When we read God Word He will feed us truths so thoroughly we will begin to learn of the lies. This can only happen if we are reading His Word and gaining the knowledge of Him. The devil wishes for us to be enslaved but God wished for us to be enriched in everything by Him (I Corinthians 1:5). Being enriched in the Lord makes us abound in knowledge all day long.
“Gold there is, and rubies in abundance, but lips that speak knowledge are a rare jewel.” (Proverbs 20:15) How rare is it to speak to someone who knows what the deep lies are that cause them to sin. Jesus said when you are His disciple you shall know the truth and IT shall set you free (John 8:32). This alone should send you searching for the truth in His Words. The freedom of knowing why we act foolishly helps us to put the lies off and strive to prevent sin from happening again in the future. If we feel foolish behaviour bubbling up we can push it back down with the Truth. Knowing and using the Word of God is how we will be able to push those lies back down (Matthew 4:1-11). This knowledge first comes from a fear of the Lord (Proverbs 1:7) and knowing the devil has come to destroy everything God has created including you (John 10:10). Jesus has come to give life more abundantly and He does this with His Word. Do not let yourself be destroyed from lack of knowledge. He will be with you as you learn. He will neither leave you nor forsake you (Hebrews 13:5). Speaking the Truth will make us abound in knowledge all day long.
You know where to go to get this knowledge and you know speaking the truth makes us abound in knowledge the only place left to go is to set our heart on seeking it. This is not easy but worth every minute we go seeking. We need to decide if we want to be the rare jewel that speaks knowledge in our world. If our answer is “yes” we need to set our heart to go after it at all costs. Is living a life free from anguish worth it? Is living a life free from sin worth it? Is the current pain for the future joy worth it? I say, “YES!” Jesus says, “YES!” “The heart of the discerning acquires knowledge, for the ears of the wise seek it out.” (Proverbs 15:14) Your ears have heard His Word now we must have a discerning heart that acquires knowledge with ears that seek to hear it. This is harder than it looks today because there are fewer “rare jewels” than there used to be. Check the statistics on church going Canadians today compared to yesteryear. There are more false churches and more false prophets today (Matthew 24:11) we need to weed through for the one who actually teaches the truth. It is easier to weed through people is we do not rely on them for the knowledge we need. No one knows you better than the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 2:11). Don’t look to people for the truth but to God’s Word. It is the only place we can trust to find the whole truth. Always seek the truth from the Word of God and you will abound in knowledge all the day long.
Your Choice to Escape
Being aware of our actions and the ramifications of them is how we can become aware of our thought process too. Sometimes admitting to the general lies leads us to begin seeing the deeper lies that made us who we are today. The general sins are the sins everyone already sees, it is the deep sins we need to get too. When we start recognizing them we can either ignore them to continue in the foolishness or we can pay attention to them to become knowledgeable. We have the choice. How can we choose anything else but God? If we call ourselves a Christian the choice should be easy. There is a lot of pain involved in gaining this knowledge but we have one thing on the world when it comes to dealing with it – Jesus! We can call on Him to give us the knowledge we need to endure it. We might be tempted to walk away because of the anguish but God will always provide an escape before we sin (1 Corinthians 10:13). The escape will be based on whether you chose to abound in foolishness or abound in knowledge. Choose to abound in knowledge and God will tell you the escape.
