Digging Deeper...

Hi Everyone

I went to church tonight. Now that’s not something new for me, I love going to church, but tonight I went to Moreleta Park NG Kerk.. I never thought I’d ever end up in an “NG Kerk” again in my life, but God has been talking to me again in the last week and especially in the last two days. He showed me so many things about myself. Things I was blind to or things I never thought existed. One of those things was an old “grudge” against the “NG Church”. It’s the church I grew up in and it’s where I got my Christian fundamentals. But it’s also the chruch that turned it’s back on me and caused me to turn my back on God.. Sure I still had a choice, but I was so angry with God and with the church.

So I got saved in October 2010 and since then God filled me with joy, a happiness that was better than anything and He took away all my pain and all my suffering from the past. Or so I thought...

This last week I found that I am not as strong as I thought. I still need a lot of work and that’s the reason why God wanted me here in Pretoria. Maybe He’s got more in store for me, but for now He wants to work with me and get to know me. Last week He showed me half of the story. When I wrote about how we should tell Him everything about ourselves. This week He showed me the meaning of it. The meaning of really opening your heart and soul to Him.

So as I said God took away the pain and suffering from the past and in the last year He showed me many things including a lot of miracles and He also saved my life from almost certain death.

But the “honeymoon” is now over. Now He is really going deeper with me. It’s like being butchered to the bone and exposing every single thing about myself to myself and to Him. The pain of the past might be gone, but have I really dealt with everything?

Sure, many things really is gone. God delivered me from a lot of things in my past, but I found that there are still one or 2 things that I have to admit to myself and to God before He can take it away.

One thing being the old “grudge” against the “NG Kerk” and tonight God delivered me from it. At first I felt that I should have rather gone to a charismatic church tonight, but when we started to sing, the words of the songs made me reallise that this is where I need to be tonight and when God’s plan comes together it’s just amazing as the message was so relevant, but besides that, the best thing that I can take away from this experience is that I don’t have any problem with the “NG Kerk” anymore. I realised that I judged a church because of my bad experience, but I could see how they touch many lives and in the process gives glory to our Father. They might have a few different rules and most of them are “man made”, but I could feel God’s presence and that is not “man made”. I think I know God well enough to recognise Him when He shows up and He was definitely there, sitting on the open chair next to me.

I think the one message I have tonight is something that you’ve heard before. Don’t judge. Don’t judge the church and don’t judge the people. Everyone is different and everyone has a different way of believing, but we all serve the same God and that’s the most important thing. Do we all have a personal relationship with God? That is not deteremined by the church you go to, that is determined by you and you alone.

The other message I have relates to my previous blog post.

Getting to know God on a very intimate level.

So I spoke about my “grudge” against the church, which is now gone. Just please know that the word “grudge” sounds so harsh and since I’ve been saved I didn’t really hate the church, I was delivered from hate, but I still had this small thing somewhere deep inside that I didn’t even know of.  

Now God also showed me a couple of other things that I didn’t even know of but became very apparent this past week. Now I must say, the way God showed me these things is just amazing.

He first made me face my weaknesses by events that occurred this past week. He didn’t come to me in a dream and pointed out a few things that I need to repent off and then I’m fine. He showed me these vulnerabilities in real life. So I had a very hard time facing them and then, this weekend, after I’ve dealt with it all in the wrong ways and after I screwed up, yet again, He showed me the meaning of it. When you think you figured something out, thats when you have to realise that you just explained the obvious and that you are nowhere close to the root of the problem. God came to me and showed me the roots of these “issues” that I had. I can now give all of these things to God as He reveals them to me. Now something I also realised is that we are never going to be perfect in this life. There will always be things underneath the surface, but we should not stop digging and we should not stop talking to God about it. He is the only doctor who can really take away all the bad and heal you. I saw a bumper sticker tonight reading: “Stay healthy... walk with God” .

God is really taking me on a "soul-trip". I knew He wanted to work with me, but as soon as I boarded His plane a few weeks ago, it took of like a rocket. He is showing me things all the time and is really digging deep into me.

I am not going to mention everything He showed me as this is a blog and my relationship with God is as personal one between me and the Father, so sorry, no details, but the point I am trying to make is that I want to reiterate what I said last week...

You have to be honest with God. Remember that He already knows everything, but it’s only when you tell Him about all your pain and all your weaknesses that He will start talking to you and show you how to go about it.

A personal relationship with God is a 2 way interaction. It’s not a monologue. Tell Him what scares you, tell Him what hurts you. Tell Him about your fears and your weaknesses. You have to give it all to Him. Everything. Only then will He take it away, but you have to take that first step.

God heals. He fills us with joy and He gives us a new life. Do you want it? Do you accept it?

Something I will share tonight that God showed me is His tremendous love. Now I thought I had experience His love in the last year, but in this past week God showed me how much He really loves us. I don’t think we can ever explain it, but just think of it this way. Would you give up your son?

Easy question? No. You would never? Would you give up anyone that you care about? Would you let them die if you had a choice? Would you even be able to look at them while they suffer? All of us has lost loved ones. Maybe just an aunt or a grandmother, but we had to stand at the grave, watching the coffin lowered into the ground. It’s right at that point where it usually hits me that hardest. That realisation that it’s over. It’s the end and you will never see that person again. The only thing you have left is memories and overtime this will also fade away. It breaks your heart and you never really heal from it. We go through years of mourning and sometimes we find something to fill that gap, but even 20 years after you have lost someone to the grave, you could still feel something is lost when you look at a picture or when you are remind of a specific memory.

Now just try to think how much pain God had to go through to give up His Son. Remember that sadness and pain is emotions that God created because He can also feel it. He knows exactly what it means. Just think how much it must have hurt Him to give up His only Son.

Now let’s go further... How much do you need to love someone to give up your Son for them?

Just imagine how much God loves us that He gave His Son and watched Him being tortured, being humiliated and watched Him die on a cross. What would you do if you had to see your son go through all of this? Would you not get angry? I think some of us would instantly go mad and end up in a mental institution.

But God loves us so much that He endured the pain of the death of His Son for us.

In John 17:23 Jesus prays to the Father:

”I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

So God loves us as much as He loves Jesus.

Can we even begin to understand what this means?

That God loves us, you and me, useless sinners and pittiful beings as much as He loves Jesus.

I challenge you this week to still pray to God and open up to Him, but also to sit and think about His love for a minute or 2. Just sit in silence and think about how different things would have been if not for God’s infinite love.

Blessings and joy for the week:-)

B 

B's Blog is Back

Hi Everyone!

So it’s been months since my first blog post and so much has happened in this time. My apologies for being so quiet, I’ll make up for it... somehow.

Let’s give you a quick update: I’ve seen a man being healed from 15 years of suffering from a stomach illness. I’ve experienced physical healing myself.  I’ve seen how 3 people get jobs and some against all odds within only days of praying. I’ve seen how people give their lives to God and how God can change it. I’ve seen miracles and experienced them myself.

Even in my life I’ve seen God work every day and He truly blessed me with so much, I can only praise His Holy Name!

It’s been almost a year since I started walking with God, learning, growing and experiencing His love and now He has even greater plans for me. I moved to Pretoria at the end of August and I would not have been here if it wasn’t for God’s plan. I tried to fight it, but He very clearly said to me that He wanted me to come to the capitol. In fact, He took control and changed my circumstances in a way that I had no other choice.

I am not yet 100% sure exactly what God has in store for me over here, but one thing I’m certain of is that for the next few months He wants me to get to know Him even better. He wants to spend time with me, alone.

It’s very exciting for me as I know that I’ll get to know Jesus on a very intimate level. I really want to know 

God, I want to know His heart and I believe that He will be using this time to prepare me for something bigger.

I have many ideas on how I’d like to serve Him, but for now I am just waiting on Him to show me the way forward. I know one thing though, there is never a better time than “now” to spread His Word and sharing my experiences and testimonies with the world... hence this blog update.

Something to think about

God showed me some things this weekend. Some of it very disturbing and some very scary, but also some positive things.

Let’s start with the bad news.

Now I don’t ever want to be negative, so I don’t really like telling you this, but God showed it to me and I think it’s important to have a little reality check sometimes. I know it’s nothing new, you read it in the papers and you see it on TV every day, but this world is shattered. Evil rules it and no one seems to care. I don’t even have to tell you about the wars, the hate, the greed and the sinful practices of this world. Today is the 10^th anniversary of the 9/11 WTC attacks. 10 years and we cannot see any improvement. It was a huge shock for every single person who saw it on the news that day, but still, we continue in our wicked ways. We ask the question: ”Where was God?”, as if it’s His fault, yet we do not allow Him into our lives. We want Him to be “on call” in times of emergencies, but when the tragedy has passed, we go on with our lives and forget about God.

Here is the awkward reality. God is not your “emergency service”. God is not your slave who needs to jump into action as soon as you need Him. No. No. No!! Yet we treat Him that way.

God doesn’t need to do anything. He is God...

And what a great and wonderful God He is...

God also showed me something very positive. He showed me that despite everything going on in this world. Despite all the hate and fear and the evil in this world, He is still there for His children. Let’s call a spade a spade... the way things is going in this world, we’re all going to hell. A scary thought and something I don’t think we all realise.

But God said to me that we do not have to be afraid. We do not have to fear anything that’s from this world, but we need to seek Him.

We need to shift our focus from ourselves to Him. We need to seek His will. We need to stop thinking of what I want. What’s best for me, what’s my needs or my desires.. we need to ask: What does God want? What is His desire? What is His will and how can I best serve Him.

When we realize that this life’s purpose is not about us, but about God’s will something amazing happens. When we open the door for Him, He steps right in and changes things.

That’s the time when He heals, when He saves and when He revives.. better than any emergency service. His mere presence in your life will change everything for good.. and it will be great.

Something very specific that God showed me is the way He wants us to interact with Him and it’s all through prayer. Prayer is our most powerful weapon against any evil from this world and prayer can be used for many things. Yes, you may ask God for a lot of things through prayer and He will give it to you when and how He sees fit, but you also need to connect with Him through prayer. Praise Him and thank Him. We are so used to just praying when we need something.. especially in “emergencies”. But do we spend time with God just trying to get to know Him better?

Do we just ask favors from Him or do we really want to know the Person who is God?

I challenge you, as I also challenge myself(because I’m also a sinner), to try and pray at least one prayer every day in this week, where you do not ask God for anything, but to help you to get to know Him better and also tell Him things about yourself. Your deepest fears, your darkest secrets. Things you are ashamed of. Anything that you could never tell anyone else. Also tell Him about your weaknesses. The things you hate about yourself. Tell him about the people in your life that you hate. Tell Him about everything that’s wrong in your life. Tell Him. Open your life to Him and see what happens. I suggest doing this behind a locked door. Yes you might think He knows it already, but tell Him. Open up your heart to Him and He will open His heart to you. Spend some private time with God. Just you and God.

He wants a relationship with you, what an honor and privilege. Don’t you what to know the God who created the universe... and you?