Being a Mum (or a Dad)

Being a mum or a dad is not easy. Far from it. But by its very nature it is a role essential for the survival of the species.
Sometimes, we as dads and mums, take ourselves too seriously :) Yes, thats true - we take ourselves too seriously, and worry without end about the future of our children, their character, their acheivements or lack of, their vulnerabilities, their illnesses, and so on and so forth.

But hold on for a moment! Are they actually our kids? Do we really know them? Arent they entirely disparate entities, with their own mind, thoughts and functions? And above all, weren't they created by the Almighty Father in the image and likeness of Jesus? If then they are brothers and sisters to Jesus, arent they Gods children? What then are we doing worrying our head off about them?

We are merely caretakers of these beautiful gifts to the earth. God has specially crafted them and given them to us to care for and nurture in His ways. Like a loving gardener it is our duty to tend, prune and feed them. But just like the gardener goes to his own home to sleep every night so must we also (albeit figuratively). We should leave our children in the arms of their natural father, The Almighty, and retire from the belief that they are our children.

This is not to say that we have no role to play. Quite the opposite in fact. Our role is to BE the child of God so that they see Christ and His love in us. Our role is to model the nurturing love and care of God to them. Our role is to help them discover their true identity and to empower them to live it.

We dont fail if our children fail at school, we dont fail if our children arent 'high acheivers', we dont fail if they 'fail'.
But we do fail if we have not been good role models to them, we do fail if we have forgotten to tell them to store riches in heaven and only taught them to store riches on earth, and we do fail if we still keep carrying on about them as if they were our possessions.

Fruits and Gifts of the Holy Spirit

Galatians 5:22-23 'But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.'


1 Corinthians 12:8-10
The gifts of the holy spirit are
Utterance of Wisdom
Utterance of Knowledge
Faith
Gifts of Healing
Working of Miracles
Prophecy
Discernment of Spirits
Various kinds of Tongues
Interpretation of Tongues

In todays world the most popular gifts are the highlighted ones - the gifts of healing, working of miracles and of prophecy. They are the crowd pullers. And paradoxically, those exercising these gifts are at greatest risk of being subjected to praise and adulation which may result in pride rearing its ugly head especially if the person remains a child of the earth. But if the person with the Gift has grown in humility and used the power bestowed on him to truly become the son of God the most high then the Spiritual Gift will merely be an extension of the Divine in him and cause no harm. But such people are few and far between.

The common man must learn to accept the fruit of the gifts without false attribution to the person exercising it, because all Gifts and their fruits are from the Holy Spirit and not the possession of the human person exercising it. We should also use our God given understanding to discern what is being preached from the pulpit and lecterns of miracle workers especially. Saying that a person has the gift of healing or miracle working or of prophecy does not mean that he has the gift of wisdom, understanding or of faith. These gifts can be identified only with discernment.

If the FRUITS of the Holy Spirit are in evidence in a person, then there is more chance of that person being a true child of God with a close relationship with the heart of the Father as opposed to a person with mighty miracle working powers but little evident fruits of the Holy Spirit in their personal life.  

My Lord, My Lord, Why have you forsaken me. PART 2

John 1:12-13 “ But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God”.

To all who believed in his name – he gave POWER to become children of God - Real flesh and blood children of the most High God! Becoming the son or daughter of the most High God is not an automatic or electronic process that occurs with Baptism or with professing faith in Jesus. It is an active voluntary process that needs to be initiated and executed by a well informed soul seeking said position with whole heart, mind and soul.

There is no denying that God is the father of all creation. But the simple fact that He remains Father does not mean that we automatically become children of His Divine personhood. Yes we were, once,  so very long ago in the garden of Eden. But there we wilfully stepped away from our Divine sonship into the realm of earthly sonship by separating, exercising and submitting our divinely gifted human will to the Satanly inspired earthly way.

The broken chords of love and paternity purchased by the blood of the Lamb, opened for us channels for re-establishing our Divine parentage. Just as it took wilful commission from man to disengage from the divine relationship, it takes wilful commission from man's part to avail of this power that has sprung forth from Christ.

Any Christian who has not actively and purposefully sought the divine parentage of God the Father, and endeavoured to love and know the heart of the Father, remains a child of the earth.

And the failure to teach this and to DO this is the greatest failure in the history Gospel proclamation. For this is the difficult part. It is easy to believe and receive Christ—for He has freely freed us from our sins. The only thing that stands between man and mans Divine personhood is ignorance and lack of humility.  

But it is difficult to see beyond the tips of our noses to seek the person of the Father because at any cost Satan does not want you to. Even if you have been washed by the Lamb, he has hope as long as you belong to the earth. He has hope that his spawn - your pride, will allow him to triumph! His battle is against my Father and yours. His battle is against my God and yours.

John 20:17 ‘Jesus said to her, “Do not hold on to me, because I have not yet ascended to the Father. But go to my brothers and say to them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

The children of the earth do not comprehend the rich parentage into which Our Lord has invited us to. Our Fathers heart burns in pain. For he waits for us, patiently and lovingly. Hoping that one day we will decide to rise from our earthly wretchedness into the richness of His sonship. He waits for the day that we will love him and him alone with all our heart, all our mind, all our soul and all our strength. He waits for the day that our hearts begin to beat with His, in love and compassion. And for the day we join our will with His.

My Lord, My Lord, Why have you forsaken me? PART 1.

We have all heard innumerable times, and perhaps have said it ourselves that we are unable to do the good we desire to do. This has been quoted to me in the context of evangelisation, one to one interaction, spousal relationships and such like. Remarkably I have never heard people say they are unable to give to charity or help the poor when they feel inclined to do so.

We have also seen many of our near and dear ones, and sometimes even ourselves, though ardent Christians and God fearing people, suffer immeasurably from anxiety, depression and profound loneliness.

We have also seen religious, spiritually powerful men and women of God fall away from grace, become absorbed with fame, recognition and wealth or simply leading double lives. Sometimes we follow such spiritually powerful people, believing all that they preach, because we see the extraordinary miraculous works of healing and conversion that happens at mighty crusades and events.  Sometimes WE maybe one of these. Often we do not even SEE the error of our ways, always imagining that the Lord is pleased with us because the spirit still works through us.

Oh how deluded and misguided we are!

If you are seeking a true relationship with God, today is the day that the truth will be revealed to you. But for those of you afflicted with the greatest and severest affliction of a believer, that of spiritual pride, what you are going to read will bring unease, anger, haughtiness, and spite. You will find numerous reasons to vilify and castigate me, question my faith and rubbish all that I write as pure nonsense which you were already aware of and believe that it does not need retelling.

But believe me, even if you have heard it before (which I doubt), it definitely needs retelling. Not for my sake. But for the sake of my Father and for your very own sake.

Most Christians are in either one of two broad stages in their spiritual life. Those in the first believe in Jesus Christ as the son of God, and in His redemptory mission on earth. They try to live as good a life as possible but are constantly challenged by the contrariness of this world. They struggle, they fall, they rise up. But most persevere and Our Lord loves them for that.

Some Christians have come to see and experience the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity. They are ecstatic in this experience and are knowledgeable of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Some amongst those in this group even possess many gifts of the Holy Spirit and earnestly desire more. They generally wish to use the gifts of the Holy Spirit to preach, heal, and pray. Many love to see miracles and many love to work miracles. Many are ‘high’ in the Spirit. They too try to live as good a life as possible and are sometimes challenged by the contrariness of this world. The Lord loves them too for their ardour and passion.

What happens then? Why and how does Satan manage to get a foot hold in believing Christians? To understand this we have to understand who Satan is. Satan is the Lord of the earth. And we of human kind are children of the earth (there is a qualification to this statement which I will come to later). Church tradition has taught us that the cardinal sin of Lucifer was pride. Pride was the reason Lucifer and a third of the angels were kicked out of the heavens. They freely roam the earth in authority.

 As long as we remain children of the earth we remain susceptible to his nature within us. The pride which we have been bestowed with rears its ugly head. It manifests in the nature of spiritual pride and haughtiness.

We may be great men or women of God. We may have learnt to sacrifice much for the Kingdom of God, we may know how to fast and pray for spiritual graces, and we may know how to work mighty miracles in the name of the Lord.  But we may also be infected with pride. Pride of knowledge, pride of spirit, pride of works. Pride can take any and every form. Pride grows stealthily and steadily. And all this while we may be working mighty miracles and giving mighty sermons. We might also have constructed an entire set of theological beliefs to go with our scheme of things. And there may be hundreds or hundreds of thousands who are besotted with our word.

The refiners’ fire awaits each of us. Every word, every work and every wisdom that we have said done or professed will pass through the refiners’ fire. All that will remain is that which is done out of pure unadulterated love for the Father.

As long as our earthly roots are intact and we remain children of the earth nothing much will pass through the refiners fire – none of our works, none of our words and none of our wisdom.

We have come to the end times. We have accepted the salvation from the Son of God, we have been baptized in the Holy Spirit, but have we made the last and important journey to the bosom of the Father? Are we still standing at the foot of the cross being bathed by his precious blood? Have we not seen and heard that the ardent desire of the Christ was to reconcile us to the Father? Have we not read the Gospel of John which tears open the heart of Christ to reveal the Father? Have we used the POWER bestowed upon us according to John 1:12-13 to break free from the shackles of earthly personhood to accept the Divine childhood?