Growing in Jesus is awesome. I find
that I am often encouraged because I have been given a new and brighter view of
life by Holy Spirit. The newness and brightness comes because I see that view in the light of Jesus.
"Many, O Lord my God, are the wonders which You have done, and Your thoughts toward us; there is none to compare with You. If I would declare and speak of them, they would be too numerous to count" (Psalm 40:5 NASB).
"How precious concerning me are your thoughts, God! How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand .." (Psalm 139:17-18).
I am writing this at our favourite camp site by the sea in our Southwest. Soon I will walk along the shore as the sun goes down, I will come away with sand all over my feet and will be thinking about God's thoughts. Just on my feet will he hundreds and hundreds of grains; how many are there on this one shore? O Lord Jesus, how wonderful!
This is inspiring to me, very affirming. Somehow I am assured that I belong, that I should be here, right where I am. And also that I am heading in Jesus' right direction for me, towards the ".. knowledge of the Son of God, becoming mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).
God Himself has thoughts about me, about you. Many English Bible translations use the word "plans", and the Amplified who want to be truly clear, says "thoughts and plans". God's thoughts are continuous since before we were born (Galatians 1:15). I am only just recognising this. His thoughts concerning me are not angry or judgmental thoughts about the rotten things I have done. No, He has forgiven those and they are now "behind His back" and "as far as the East is from the West away from Him".
This is very good news. This means that all the other "not good" thoughts which come to my mind are being placed there by someone who is not God; that "someone" can only be Satan so I can immediately cast them off (2 Corinthians 10:5).
All this helps me to understand how God is .. He throws His shadow over us, each one, His covering, His tent, His care and thoughts and plans.
God is For Everybody: Even as we pray for and care for one another we are sharing in the thoughts God has for those people. We may think of the people of Israel at this time as they are being attacked by Hamas. But God's thoughts are for all the billions of people in the world, each one separately. His thoughts may be for every Israeli but at the same time God has thoughts and plans for us, and for each of the Hamas militants and those supporting them, morally or financially.
God's Bigness: For months I have been pondering how big God is; times like this help me see that His bigness is beyond imagining and is simply awesome, (also, they help me to know "fear of the Lord"). When we get a touch from God, when something supernatural happens which we know can only have come from Him, we know that at that very moment He is especially thinking of us. Then we realise that He will have had many thoughts for us leading up to this moment; he hasn't just helicoptered in to help now and then will fly off to help someone else. No, Jesus assures His people that He is "with you always" (Matthew 28:20), with everyone, all the time, awesome!
The Lord's Prayer: Now is a time when people are remembering the Lord's Prayer, I am encountering this everywhere I go. This is a collective prayer, and also Jesus teaching each one of us to pray to "Our Father". We call out to our Abba Daddy to "give us this day our daily bread", asking Him to think of us and everything we need to sustain us, "spirit, soul and body" (1 Thessalonians 5:23) as He has covenanted to do (Luke 12:22-34). The Lord's Prayer is for everybody on Planet Earth, because Father God is Father to us all, even unbelievers; He created us, each one, for His own purposes, even when we are wandering in a wilderness away from His path (Luke 1:79).
God's Spiritual Gifts To Help Us: Jesus wants us to share in His work on the Earth. This is spiritual work; He gives us spiritual gifts.
Note: You may have been taught that the spiritual gifts described in the Bible are not for today but were only for the apostolic age while the church was being formed. I have studied this teaching and find it wanting. What I find clearly stated in Scripture is this: Jesus helped many during His three ministry years on the Earth. He performed all kinds of miracles for all kinds of people as He saw our Father leading. After being crucified and rising from death Jesus told His people, (not just the disciples and later Paul), that He would soon leave them to be with our Father in Heaven and that He would send another "helper", "advocate", "comforter", God's Holy Spirit (John 14:15), to empower the believers so that they could carry on His work here and even do "greater works" than He had done (John 14:12). We are to "go into all the world" (Matthew 28:19-20) and do this, having "rivers of living water" (John 7:38) flowing from us to bring "salt" and "light" to others (Matthew 5:13-14). My understanding is that the "greater works" are possible because we are many millions in number and can minister in countless places to vast numbers of people at the same time; Jesus, in His humanity, was only at one place at any time. (See 1 Corinthians chapters 12 and 14, Hebrews 2:4 and more).
For a long time, my wife Trish and I studied under a couple who taught Jesus' spiritual gift of prophecy (1 Corinthians 12:10; 14:1,3). We were taught to listen with our spiritual ears (and an open heart), and to hear God speaking, sometimes for ourselves and more often to "strengthen, encourage and comfort" other people (1 Corinthians 14:3). The teaching couple had seen that the prophetic gifting is a theme in the Bible, but not often seen among Jesus' people in our city in our time. They sought out teaching for themselves, being careful to choose teachers whose theology and lives were clearly Bible based and centred on Jesus. The prophetic is a Holy Spirit gift, and Holy Spirit always reveals Jesus.
We were called the Eagle School Of The Prophetic and we all grew over those years; we saw miracles as Jesus' love and life were imparted to a great many people.
For several years one lively local church would hold a week of tent meetings by the river in the centre of our city. Besides the big marquee tent there were smaller ministry tents, one was for prayer for healing, another for tea, coffee and cool drinks, (we would bring home-made muffins and scones to go with people's cuppa), another may hold helpful Christian resources, mostly to be given away. Our tent was for people to come and hear what God had to say to them, their own personal word from Jesus. Trish and I were part of this ministry. We saw miracles, we saw Paul's words come to life: ".. our gospel came to you not simply with words but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction" (1 Thessalonians 1:5).
One man came to us who was a surprise; he was clearly very well off, his bike would have cost thousands and his Lycra and sunglasses hundreds more. He was not Christian and told us that he did not know why he had come to our tent. We were in small teams. Sometimes the person coming to us would share their story but often they would not know what to say or to ask. This man was quiet. We all sat for a few minutes then the person whose turn it was to pray prayed a simple prayer asking Jesus to let this man know His word for him. After a brief silence one of us spoke and drew a clear word picture, then the next spoke a different picture, then the last of our trio, once again, spoke a third different picture. Immediately I saw that all three pictures for this man contained the same message: the man was much admired and had great worldly success but his personal life and his relationships were empty; all the precious things of life seemed to have passed him by; Jesus knows and understands isolation and loneliness and was ready to come alongside this man and bring him into His life and His family of believers.
The man cried, great deep sobs. It was so good to hug him, here was new life. This man now knew that he was in God's thoughts and His love. We passed him on to another person who was gifted in presenting Jesus' gospel and suggesting ways that people can find a suitable local church. That man left our tent with a much lighter step than when he arrived. Jesus had been love and salt and light to him by using us (Matthew 5:13-14; John 7:38).
We often saw tears it that tent, and in the many other times we ministered Jesus in this way, we also saw great joy as people heard the thoughts God had for them; God was waiting until the person inclined their ear and was ready to hear. We were simply Jesus servants. Every Christian can see Jesus at work in this way: ".. with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction". We were, and still are, available, we have learned from the Bible and the vast Christian literature, we listen and obey. This is very satisfying work (Ephesians 2:10), bringing God's thoughts to our neighbours and our brothers and sisters (John 13:34; Romans 13:8; Galatians 6:2).
Recently I was in a devotion with friends. One of us began by saying "God is truly relational", (she is a very relational person, thoughtful, kind and a great mixer). We all nodded our heads, "yes, we see the same thing" we seemed to be saying, "we all see this in our Jesus". I find it hard to make friends, even to mix in a crowd of strangers is so difficult; I see myself as being shy but also as trying to be helpful and to show Jesus' generous heart that He has given me. So I am excited about the "thoughts" verses I have been finding in my Bible; God's thoughts for us are completely part of who He is and who we are in relationship with Him. God created the Creation so that He could be relational towards something "other" and share His glory (Jude 1:24). That “other” is us, people, humankind.
All this encourages me to keep going, to keep walking in Jesus and continue in fellowship with His people. "Therefore, as you received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, abounding in thanksgiving" (Colossians 2:6-7 ).
Eternally God "is", He calls Himself "I AM" (Exodus 3:14). Father, Son and Holy Spirit are eternally loving, giving, sharing. This relationship within the Godhead is so special it has its own name, "perichoresis". Now God includes us in His love and thoughts. We are "born again" (1 Peter 1:23) into Jesus and His church where we learn to get along together, to "one another" one another, "being confident of this, that He who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus" (Philippians 1:6).
Amen.
Favourite Bible Verses
"May our Lord Jesus Christ Himself and God our Father, who loved us and by his grace gave us eternal encouragement and good hope, encourage your hearts and strengthen you in every good deed and word" (2 Thessalonians 2:16-17).
"See to it that no one takes you captive by hollow philosophy and vain deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ" (Colossians 2:8).
"We destroy arguments and every lofty opinion raised against the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ" (2 Corinthians 10:5).
"There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body - whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free - and we were all given the one Spirit to drink" (1 Corinthians 12:4-13).
"Follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the Spirit, especially prophecy. For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit. But the one who prophesies speaks to people for their strengthening, encouraging and comfort" (1 Corinthians 14:1-3).
Hallelujah! Praise Jesus!
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