A Man Called God

God’s Thoughts to Me

The People who walk in darkness will see a great Light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness, a light will shine (Isaiah 9:2, NLT).

And He will be called: Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace, his government and its peace will never end (Isaiah 9:6, NLT).

For you have said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars” (Isaiah 14:13, NLT).

Light of The World

During my earthly wanderings in the deep, deep darkness, the chaos and the ways (especially the religious ways) of the world, I met a man.

Actually, this man is a King; a King not of this world, but from another Kingdom … a Kingdom of Light and Love … a spiritual Kingdom.

This incredible god-man is called Jesus. This man is the Light of the world, the Light of my life … my Beloved.

He stole my heart completely and ever since I have been happily lost, yet securely found, in Him.

He loves me with an everlasting love and I am learning to respond to His loving overtures for He has never been anything but good to me … my Knight in shining amour.

What is so remarkable about my Prince of Peace, is His unmeasurable love for … well … everyone His Pappa has ever created.

And that is the entire human race through all ages and time. Everyone since Adam and Eve opted out of this relationship of love with Him through the deception by my King’s archenemy, Satan.

This enemy was once called Lucifer and he was an archangel in the courts of my King. But he became proud and wanted to usurp the place of my humble Prince of Peace.

But thousands of years ago he was defeated and thrown out of the palace courts of heaven. Actually he was thrown out of my Prince’s Kingdom altogether.

For the time being, he is still roaming the earth like a roaring lion, trying to devour any gullible soul he can find to take them captive on his journey to the lake of fire our Pappa has prepared for him in advance.

He knows his sand-glass of time is running out and he is ferociously using his mightiest weapon, lies, to steal, to kill and to destroy. He is not called the father of all lies for nothing.

Of him, my King says,”How you have fallen from heaven, oh shining star, son of the morning! You have been thrown down to earth, you who destroyed the nations of the world. For you said to yourself, “I will ascend to heaven and set my throne above God’s stars (Isaiah 14:12-13).”

Only our Lord Jesus have the honor and can be rightfully called the Bright Morning Star, Wonderful Counselor, Everlasting Father.

The government of my life rests on His shoulders for He rules with fairness and justice … with love and peace … patience and mercy, gentleness and kindness.

He has many more honorary titles of which I want to mention just a few more. He is the Light of the World, the Way, the Truth and the Life.

He is the gate through which we enter into His Kingdom of matchless beauty … a Kingdom where there is no sorrow or tears … there where the lion feeds with the lamb.

His love is not dependent on anything we can offer Him. Even if we don’t love Him, He still loves us for He is love and He never changes.

He cannot become a better version of Himself for He is already the best there can ever be. He does not upgrade Himself for then He would not have been God in the first place. He has been the Perfect One from all eternity.

He cannot become a lesser copy of Himself, for the simple reason that He cannot change. He is the Great “I AM” who forever was and is and always will be … the same!

Any goodness our finite minds can perceive, is only a tiny fraction, a gracious gift from His abundant supply. Any love we can feel towards Him and one another is also just a tiny morsel from the storehouses of heaven, a gift from His Heart of Love.

He has a burning desire that everyone would hear His still, small voice beckoning us all into His Kingdom. He wants to betroth us and is preparing a feast at His Father’s table for His bride … the Lady Ekklesia.

I know that there are many travelers on this road called Life who are still seeking for His Kingdom … for His love and His redemption.

This year I want to expose the many boulders of lies I have encountered on my journey to His Kingdom. If it is the will of my Pappa, I want to bring Him glory by being His girl to clear the way for the King’s coming to many a heart.

For His name is Emmanuel … God with us … Christ in me, my Hope of Glory!

For those who are still seeking Him like the Shulamite, “Tell me, my love, where are you leading your flock today? Where will you rest your sheep at noon?”, I want to show a better way than the world’s … a way that leads to rest … into the shadows of His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

I am linking-up with,

A Rock in the Desert

God’s Thoughts to Me

You and Aaron must take the staff and assemble the entire community. As the people watch, speak to the rock over there, and it will pour out its water (Numbers 20:8, NLT).

Anyone who listens to my teaching and follows it, is wise, like a person who buiilds a house on a solid rock. Though the rain comes in torrents and the floodwaters rise and the wind beats against that house, it won’t collapse, because it is built on a bedrock (Matthew 7:23-25, NLT).

The Rock of All Ages

Quite a few passages and incidents in the Bible used to intimidate me into the most horrible feelings of dread and terror towards our Pappa God. I was like a frightened child of an abusive God who only desired to punish me with the letter of His Law.

Reading it brought an image to mind of His finger pointing straight into my face, indicating how bad, useless, unlovable, unsavory etc., I was. Loving me was a real stretch, even for Him! Time to clean up your act, Mia, the sooner the better!

The incident of Moses striking the rock the second time after our Pappa explicitly told him to speak to the rock, was one incident that made me feel that way. I mean, it resulted in Moses not being allowed to enter the Promised Land. He could only look at Canaan from afar, from the top of Mount Nebo.

Doesn’t the Bible say that Moses was a friend of God? One of the most humble men who ever walked the earth (Numbers 12:3)? And wasn’t his disobedience understandable because that moaning bunch of Israelites was enough to drive anyone up the wall?

If this is how our Pappa treated this child of His over one act of disobedience, what will become of me for whom this kind of disobedience seems just a minor offense?

Then I read an article by Darin Hufford, “Beating the Rock”, in which he explained how these two incidents in which our Pappa provided water in the desert from a rock to His chosen people, were actually metaphors explaining the two covenants … the Covenant of the Law vs the Covenant of Grace.

I realized I was looking at the whole scenario through my religious glasses, seeing only Moses and the punishment he received, but not our Pappa and the reason for His actions.

The first instance where Moses struck the rock, they were at Mount Sinai, at the beginning of Israel’s wanderings in the desert; there where they received the law. Following the law blindly only leads one into fruitless wanderings in the desert of self-effort.

The second time occurred at Kadesh, near the beginning of their entrance into the Promised Land.

The first time was a picture of the covenant of law where Pappa is perceived as a law master giving us directions or a formula on how to find His favor, if we can just follow those rules.

If people are like me, they would certainly try their utmost to keep the law, only to find that it is a heartless, loveless, mindless sort of relationship without the slightest trace of life. Although the law is holy and good, we are unable to fulfill its requirements.

A relationship of love cannot be built on rules and formulas, and in any case, our Lord Jesus was only struck once for all of us, to pay for our sin and to enable us to enter into His Canaan Life of Love.

The second instance where our Pappa provided water from the rock, symbolizes the essence of a new covenant, the transition from following rules to moving into a relationship with Him. Striking someone is not condusive towards a relationship of love and our Lord Jesus is not a woman beater.

Our Lord Jesus was trying to get the same message across with His reference to the two houses built on two spiritual foundations.

Although these two houses looked similar, the one was built on the solid foundation of the Lord Himself while the other was built on religious sands of self-sufficiency with materials of self-righteous wood, hay and stubble (1 Corinthians 3:12). This house was unable and will always be unable to withstand the trials and tribulations of life.

Dear Ones, when we are spiritually dying of thirst, let us go to the Rock of Ages, speaking to Him … allowing Him to quench our thirst from His Fountain of Life … leading us into His Loving Embrace.

We don’t need to strike the rock anymore to drink freely from the Living Waters of Life.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with.

Linking up with

Egyptolidolatry

God’s Thoughts to Me

What sorrow awaits those who look to Egypt for help, trusting their horses, chariots, and charioteers and depending on the strength of human armies instead of looking to the Lord, the Holy One of Israel (Isaiah 31:1, NLT).

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel says: “Only in returning to me and resting in me will you be saved. In quietness and confidence is your strength” (Isaiah 30:15, NLT).

Then Jesus said, “Come to Me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28, NLT).

The Flesh Pots of Egypt

As a child, I always refered to important sounding words I didn’t understand as “big words”. Well, Egyptolidolatry would have seemed larger than life to my little mind.

And there, is a great deception, for apart from the fact that this “big word” is only my brain child, it actually refers to the eternally uselessness of the ways of the world … the “Egypts” through all the ages. The idols man so willingly pays homage to.

Looking at ancient Egypt, we see they had at least the common sense, if you could call it that, to worship something bigger and apart from themselves. They were very religious and had a whole plethora of gods and goddesses.

Each one had their own role to play in maintaining peace, stability and harmony accross the land. They even had a god, Nun, who together with a few other like Ben-Ben, were the gods of creation. Nun was the dark waters of chaos.

Looking at the current political, economical and social scene of modern Egypt, we see that the sorrow the prophet Isaiah spoke of so many centuries ago, has finally caught up with the Egyptians.

But another dangerous, monstrous, peculiar Egypt has pitched its tent around the minds and thought processes of the human race; Humanism! This one is a subtle foe … beautiful in appearance … heroic in action … the pulling-yourself-up-by-your-bootstraps kind of foe!

This is the one who whispered to our first parents that they were able to know what good and evil were apart from our Pappa who alone is good. In other words … they had the ability to be their own gods.

Solomon did say that there is truly nothing new under the sun (Ecclesiastes 1:9). Am I correct when I come to the conclusion that humanism was birthed by the first lie ever told to the human race by the father of all lies?

According to the Free Dictionary, humanism means, “A system of thought that rejects religious beliefs and centers on humans and their values, capacities and worth.” And it says it all! Man has started to worship himself … not just an Egypt, but the chariots and charioteers as well.

Is it any wonder that chaos, darkness, sorrow, decay, destruction and all the rest have taken over in this world, with an evil prince ruling the hearts and minds of those who do not follow our sweet, loving, gentle, kind Lord Jesus, for the whole world lies in the evil one (1 John 5:19).

Even the modern church scene speaks a funny language with words like positive-thinking, self-potential, self-worth, self-this and self-that!

But our Lord Jesus, the King of my heart, the Love of my life, said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it (Matthew 16:24-25, NIV).”

This is a mouthful and can be easily misunderstood or misused by religionists to have power over those they want to lord it over.

My translation of this verse goes someting like this, “Mia, stop trying to save yourself, dear one, for you truly don’t have what it takes. Just come to me, for with you nothing is possible, but with me, everything is!! Stop huffing and puffing … striving and trying … chasing your shadow or the wind! It is of no use.”

And when we, at some stage of our lives, come to that place where we understand these words of our Lord, we still hear and always will, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest (Matthew 11:28, NIV).”

Dear Ones, let us all run to the One who is able to save us to the utmost. Let us leave our Egypts behind and run into His Loving Embrace!

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with

Ring-A-Ring-A-Roses

God’s Thoughts to Me

When we were at Mount Sinai, the Lord our God said to us,”You have stayed at this mountain long enough” (Deuteronomy 1:6, NLT).

You have been wandering around in this hill country long enough, turn to the north ( Deuteronomy 2:3, NLT).

Enough is Enough

Ring-a-Ring-a-Roses
A Pocket full of Posies
Ashes! Ashes!
We all fall down.

And then we get up from the ashes and go around the mountain …

again … again … and again!

Around Moses’ Mount Sinai where we were lost in our shattered dreams of promises to keep your law! Moving on …

To Mount Seir of the Edomites … the hill country where we, like Esau impatiently sell our birthright for a pot of lentil soup …

Again … again and again …

Until we hear your voice calling us forward …

To the next mountain …

Where we go around …

Again and again and again …!

Dying of our Pockets full of useless Posies …

The Roses of the Black Death …

Looking at the clouds from both sides now, I realise that it is all just a cloud-illusion, blocking out the Rays of the Son …

And I sigh …

When will we ever learn … ?

Much love xx

Mia

A God Who Flies

God ‘s Thoughts to Me

Like an eagle rouses her chicks and hovers over her young, so He spread His wings to take them up and carry them safely on His pinions. The Lord alone will guide them; they followed no other gods (Deuteronomy 32:11-12).

Keep me as the apple of your eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings (Psalm 17:8, NIV).

An Empty Nest

The year of 2013 is leading me into a whole new era of my life. Both my sons have spread their wings and are flying away into the big wide world, finding their own place and purpose in life and in the heart of their Pappa God. But this world is big, and cruel and dangerous!

It is not easy … actually, it is downright horrible for a mom who’s heart is not and will never be ready to have an empty nest … a mother who wants to pick them up and carry them constantly on the wings of her love … a mother who has to carry them now even more on the wings of her prayers to the Throne of Grace.

They have always lived so close to me that they were like sweet summer apples of my eye. When I looked at them, they could see their reflection shining with love and affection on the smooth rounding of my eye.

Just like I am the apple of my Pappa’s eye as I live and love and have my being in Him … nestled in the shadow of the wings of His love (Acts 17:28).

This made me realize that my love for them is only a faint reflection … a glimmer … a morsel … a beautiful fraction of the love our Heavenly Pappa cherishes in His heart for each and everyone of His children.

A.W. Tozer wrote of our Pappa,”An infinite God can give all of Himself to each of His children. He does not distribute Himself that each may have a part, but to each one He gives all of Himself AS IF THERE WERE NO OTHERS,”.

This brings joy to my heart, for I know that my Pappa cherishes them even more than I do. Moses told the Israelites in Deuteronomy of their Heavenly Father’s extraordinary care while He led them out of the Egypt of their captivity.

He uses the metaphor of the eagle, who of all the bird species, lavishes extraordinary care and attachment on her eaglets … who cherishes her young more than most of our other feathery friends.

When her newly fledged progeny has grown and developed enough to soar on their own into the big wide sky of the big wide world, she helps and supports them on the tips of her wings in their first feeble attempts at flying. She directs them and encourages them with her heart soaring all over the world wherever they go!! That’s me!

Frederick Buechner said in his work, Telling the Truth, “You can kiss your family and friends good-bye and put miles between you, but at the same time you carry them with you in your heart, your mind, your stomach, because you do not just live in a world, but a world lives in you.”

It gives me the assurance that although my fledglings are soaring far, high and wide into the Egypt of this world, their omnipresent Pappa goes before them.

He gives all of Himself to each of my two treasures, carrying them … leading them through all the horrors of the wilderness of life lying ahead … guiding them safely into their eternal inheritance of His Kingdom of Life. For they are the apples of not only my, but also of their Heavenly Father’s Eye.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with Charlotte.

Linking with Emily at Imperfect Prose.

The Scales of Life

God’s Thoughts to Me

The Lord detests the use of dishonest scales, but He delights in accurate weights (Proverbs 11:1, NLT).

Instantly something like scales fell from Saul’s eyes, and He regained His sight (Acts 9:18, NLT).

Dishonest Scales

My husband is a master mimicker and has brought us endless entertainment and many tears of belly-aching laughter through the years, mimicking the guides at the snake park in Port Elizabeth. My precious, black fellow countrymen speak English and Afrikaans VERY dramatically! Priceless!

Everytime he is compelled by someone’s nagging to do his snake-park-guide act once more, I enjoy myself all over again as if it is the first time that I am part of his audience. This time I am expectantly waiting for all my favorite cliches and funny twists!

A closer look at this magnificent species, gave me a new appreciation of how they tell us much more about the human race than what we would care to believe.

After all, this is the creature that baptized the whole human race into destruction and death! Or was it now Eve’s or Adam’s fault? Oh, well, we all have this tendency to blame everyone and everything around us for our faults and flaws, even if it just lies dormant!

We all enter this world with the propensity towards sin and shame like the scales of a baby snake, which are all already in place, yet undeveloped.

Our undeveloped, innocent frame of reference is soon raised and fed on the lie telling us that richer, bigger, better, stronger, more talented or intelligent, prettier, slimmer, etc, etc, etc, are the ingredients for a life of success, acceptance, love and respect.

We soon realize that the scales the world uses to measure a person’s worth requires a lot of self-effort and weight from our side to balance the scale. And the majority of our poor souls just do not have what it takes. Add to this mixture a chronic debilitating disease like Fm/ME , and you are heading towards becoming a monstrous, disastrous  failure!

So, we protect our hearts with layer after layer of scales … scales hiding us from the intensity of the fire of shame … scales to hide the incredible pain of rejection … scales to replace our unworthiness with pretense.

A snake’s scales protect its body … aid in locomotion … allow moisture to be retained … and acts as camouflage against the predators of this world.

In the same manner, we soon learn how to hide behind the beauty of scales which we present to the world as the truth to protect ourselves, to help us along on this Road called Life, to retain just the measure of sanity that we think we still possess. But all to no avail. Life catches up with us all.

Sooner or later we all meet the end of ourselves when we take a serious, thorough inventory of our hearts. Usually, what we find is not pleasing to us or our Pappa God.

The song of our life is sung on the scales of falsehood and despondency. When we reach this crossroad of life and cry out to our Heavenly Father, He is finally able, like Saul, to remove the scales from our eyes.

Oh, and then … yes, then, there is the One who waits for us at the end of our Road called Life … the One who does not condemn … the One who forgives … transforms … heals … loves unconditionally … measures with balanced scales and accepts us with wide open arms into His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with,

The Shadow of The King

God’s Thoughts to Me

Those who live in the shelter of the most High, will find rest in the shadow of the Almighty. This I declare about the Lord: “He is my refuge, my place of safety. He is my God and I trust Him” (Psalm 91:1-2, NLT).

For these rules are only shadows of the reality to come. and Christ Himself is that reality. (Colossians 2:17, NLT).

They serve in a system of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven (Hebrews 8:5, NLT).

A Sabbath Rest

The apostle Paul had a hard time with the first believers in the epistile to the Hebrews. He needed the patience and endurance of a Job when he wrote the letter to the forever nursing baby believers.

They seemed to be unable and slow to understand the better things in our Lord Jesus and wanted to revert back to their old religious system under the law of Moses. Their minds were still veiled, unable to comprehend that it was all only the shadow of the King!

I have been searching in vain for a long time for the wings of our Pappa. I craved the shelter of His love … the rest of the Shadow of His Presence. I couldn’t understand why I never seemed to be able to find that safe place of refuge, for I was trying my utmost best … yet … not a single step of progress was made. Until … I suffered a severe case of total  burn-out.

Did I learn my lesson the first time? No ways! The futile, useless cycle started again when I recovered enough to try again! I was like King Nebuchadnezzar who roamed the fields for 7 years. And just like him, after my time had passed, I looked up to heaven, when my sanity returned (Daniel 4:33).

According to Wikki Answers a shadow is formed when an opaque object blocks the travel of light. Light travels in straight lines and any barrier along its path averts the rays striking the barrier. This forms a region of darkness, shaped like the surface of the object obstructing the light.

The verses from the epistle to the Hebrews became alive to me and I knew that I was still dwelling in the shadow of the Law of religious traditions, ways and efforts. And to me … oh well … it looked like the real deal!

What an incredible burden I carried, breaking me down one step at a time. Mix that with my well-meant heroic efforts to impress my Pappa, I was cooking a poisonous brew, just like Snow White’s stepmother. It guarantees to kill with just one bite! And just like that disastrous apple, it all looked so beautiful and delicious … so … just right!

Crying out to Pappa, light dawned from heaven, expelling the darkness clouding my mind and understanding. I have sold my heart to a shadow of our Lord Jesus that was only a shadow, a faint preview of the good things to come.

All these traditions, self-effort and THINGS were a barrier blocking the Rays of the Sonshine Pappa lavished upon me. But all I could see was the shadows, resembling the good things we were made to experience when we live our life abiding in the reality from heaven, our Lord Jesus.

Our Pappa promised us that the old system of law observance will cripple us, as it did the Hebrews in Moses’ time. Not Moses nor Joshua were able to lead them into the spiritual place of rest.

But our Pappa prepared another oasis of rest … a place under His wings … a place in the Shadow of His Presence to shelter us against the scorching desert heat of this world (Hebrews 4).

Dear Ones, let us cease from all our useless labours … let us not harden our hearts when we hear the gentle voice of Pappa urging us along into that special place of rest … into His Loving Embrace.

Come, let us leave the shadows of futulity behind and enter into the Life of our Lord Jesus … the true Sabbath Rest.

Much love xx

Mia.

Linking-up with.

 

The Genesis of Morality

God’s Thought to Me

As the Scripture say,”No one is righteous, not even one. No one is truly wise, no one is seeking God (Romans 3:10, NLT).

The Lord looks down from heaven on the entire human race; He looks to see if anyone is truly wise, if anyone seeks God (Psalm 14:2-3, NLT).

A Kingdom Beyond

C.S. Lewis wrote in his classic, Mere Christianity, “Christianity seems at first to be all about morality, all about duties and rules and guilt and virtue, yet it leads you on, OUT of all that, into something beyond … Everyone there is filled with what we should call goodness as a mirror is filled with light… They do not call it anything … They are too busy looking at the source from which it comes.”

The Chronicles of Narnia, also the work of Mr Lewis, gives us a small peek into that something beyond, a Kingdom of Love and Light … the Kingdom of our Lord Jesus!

In 1963 the song, Little Boxes, was released and caused quite a stir. It is a political satire, telling the story of suburbia. But veiled between the lines, is the story of conformist middle-class attitudes.

This reminds me so much of the conformist attitudes and thoughts of the adherents of religion. We love to have all our religious rules, structures, programs and behaviours neatly worked out, all packed, sealed and stacked in little boxes.

Artifacts from Ur of the Chaldeans

For some peculiar reason we seem to be afraid to leave our little boxes of religion behind, to leave the prosperity of our Ur of the Chaldeans and to move on to our Canaan … to the Sabbath of rest.

We shy away from uncertainty and rather prefer a false man-made system of security, in place of the only unshakable certainty found in our Lord Jesus. For many years I have wandered in the Lost World of Religion and these words of Mr Lewis would have seemed like blasphemy to me.

Religious morality, or shall I call it correct conduct, was the cornerstone of my temple of beliefs. My security was built on the quicksand of a performance driven salvation and I was drowning rapidly!

Morality offered me a neat stack of little boxes, telling me which one to open for the correct behaviour or to fulfill a need. The only problem though, was that they were all made of “ticky-tacky” and they all looked just the same. The same program, methods or conventions, the only difference being the color.

There are green ones, blue ones, pink ones and yellow ones, but in the end, they are all just the same-old, same-old with a different wrapping.

Granted, that was the way I have been taught by almost every religious orginization I attended, but I always longed for something more.

What I found in every congregation I was part of, was just their own set of neatly stacked boxes, all containing their own set of rules, wrapped in their own brand of wrapping paper.

To be accepted, I only had to squeeze myself into the confines of their own tailor-made range of box sizes. By nature I am quite skinny, but believe me, that was quite a tight fit!

“Longing” is not a strong enough word to describe the yearning, that consuming craving in my heart … a longing that could not be satisfied by any kind of good behavior … according to my estimation.

There was not a single little box that I could open that contained the love of our Heavenly Father, the only kind of love that could satisfy my heart, there where deep cries out to deep (Psalm 42:7)! They all contained death … no life … no Jesus.

I realized that I had been traveling around the same moutain long enough and needed to press on further (Genesis 2:3). Going around another time was only delaying the inevitable.

So I decided this year to open all the different little religious boxes I have cherished for such a long time and to start throwing out the religious clutter.

The rules of morality were always the criteria for how I needed to behave. And I was drowning … drowning because of a lack of love … the true love of our Lord Jesus.

They all offered only a broken cistern that could hold no water and definitely not the Living Water of Life. Going back to Eden, we see the first lie whispered to the human race, resulted in the genesis of morality.

Before Pappa God led Adam and Eve into the first Sabbath, He created everything they would need for their sustenance. He knew the way He created them would render them unable to determine even one correct thought about what good and evil really were for there is no autonomous good and evil apart from Him.

He warned them to stay away from such folly and that eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil would result in their death.

This one forbidden meal separated them from the Presence of their Pappa and since He is Life, they subsequently started to die, not just spiritually, but also emotionally and physically for they were seperated from the Sustenance that upholds all life.

Pappa is not at all surprised by our stupidity. He promised us that He will destroy the wisdom of the wise! (1 Corinthians 1:19). And if I want to be honest, for a long time, I was part of the gallery of the wise.

True wisdom is the common sense to seek Him, our Creator, Sustainer, Provider … our everything. Solomon told us in the Proverbs, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. And the knowledge of the Holy One is understanding” (Proverbs 9:10).

The whole creation suffered as a result of this terrible foul revolt, for Adam was given the responsibilty to look after Pappa’s creation (Genesis 1:28).

It was His gift to us. And today we all suffer because the world we know, is slowly, but surely dying! We all groan as we wait for our Pappa to make all things new.

With my next post I want to explore the deception of morality, what it is and is not, and why it is the biggest joke Satan has ever pulled on man.

Much love xx

Mia

With joy, linking-up with Mindy.

Linking-up with The Weekend Brew. Thank you Barbie!

Also with Charlotte at Spiritual Sundays.

Tears from Heaven

God’s Thoughts to Me

Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones God’s messengers! How often I wanted to gather your children together as a hen protects her chicks beneath her wings, but you wouldn’t let Me (Matthew 23:37, NLT).

A God who Weeps

Lord, when I look at you and your outstreched arms, longing, weeping over Jerusalem, sorrow fills my heart. You knew Destruction was approaching like a ruthless monster, who voraciously wanted to devour the jewel of your affection.

You wanted to gather the apple of your eye under your wings like a hen gathering her chicks. You wanted to cherish them … snuggle them … and love them even though you knew they were a city that killed the prophets and stoned Pappa’s messengers!

You wanted to win the heart of the beautiful Lady Jerusalem, you wanted to sweep her off her feet, to take her away in your carriage built of the wood of Lebanon … a carriage with posts of the silver of your smile … with a canopy of the gold of your love and purple cushions to remind her that she is your royal princess.

Those outstreched arms, instead, were rejected, nailed to the cross. You were a man of sorrows acquainted with grief. And still you heart uttered words of forgiveness for you knew they did not know what they were doing.

Lord, as you look at the world and see your bride waiting for her Bridegroom to return, you whisper love filled words, asking us to wait patiently for it is not Pappa’s will that any should perish in the coming worldwide destruction, but that all would come to you … to your waiting outstreched arms … to be redeemed.

Much love xx

Mia

I am linking-up with the ladies at Five-Minute-Friday. Thank you, Lisa-Jo!

The Art of Encouragement

God’s Thoughts to Me

After the Lord has finished speaking to Job, He said to Eliphaz, the Temanite,”I am angry with you and your two friends, for you have not spoken accurately about me as my servant Job has” (Job 42:7, NLT).

So encourage each other and build each other up, just as you are already doing (1 Thessalonians 5:11, NLT).

For when we ourselves are comforted, we will certainly comfort you. Then you can patiently endure the same things we suffer (2 Corinthians 1:6, NLT).

Freely You Have Received, Freely Give

Encouraging is an art, a beautuful fine art. Only the Creator of all things … the lover of our souls, can paint encouragement on the painful canvas of a broken heart … a heart bogged down with sorrow. Only He can transform the blacks, greys and browns of a desolate heart into a rainbow of colors from His palette of love.

For far too many years I care to remember , I was wrapped in a cold, rough blanket of insecurity, imprisoned in a dungeon of unworthiness. I was desperately trying to escape this prison of darkness. Like the deer that pants for water, my heart panted for unconditional love, acceptance and encouragement (Psalm 42:1).

But I was ignorant of our Pappa’s economy of “freely you have received, freely give” ( Matthew 10:8). It seemed to me at best like an enigma, and at worst, total foolishness.

I knew only one modus operandi … earning, earning, earning! After all, this is the way of the world. My fellow black South African countrymen have a saying that nothing is for “mahala”, meaning nothing is for free.

For a long time encouraging and loving others was a law written on the stone tablets of my heart … a list of “thou-shalt” and “thou-shalt-not”. I had the bad habit of sticking my nose in wherever I thought I could still the hunger in my heart … there where people needed arms to hug and ears to listen and hear! I was technically a bit slow, actually, stone deaf in heading James’ good advice to be quick to listen and slow to speak (James 1:19).

I reminded myself of Job’s friends. Discovering the meaning of their names, gave me a much better understanding of their harmful comfort and encouragement. “Bildad” means “the Lord has loved”, “Eliphaz” means “God his strength”, and “Elihu” means “my God is He”.

They were deceived into believing that they could be all those beautiful blessings of our Pappa to poor Job and obviously talked much too much. I have to give them credit for their silence during the first week!!

I was not loving those I tried to comfort and encourage … I was serving my own insecurities and quest for love. I wanted to earn their admiration and God’s favor, but  I didn’t realize it at the time.

Like Job’s famous, or shall I say notorious, friends, I was under the illusion that I could be to them: the Lord-who-loves, the Lord-who-is-their strength, the Lord-who-is-He in their suffering. I had to repent and ask our Heavenly Teacher to teach me His ways, for just like Eliphaz, Bildad and Elihu, I have not spoken accurately of our Pappa!

He gracefully brought me to a desert place … a place where illness left me unable to look after even the basic needs of my body. I was completely dependent on others. And my family still believed the most famous diagnosis of all times for my illness, “The-all-in-your-head Syndrome”. I never knew that one could have so much excruciating pain, be so exhausted and not die, and that from imagination.

But Pappa called me gently to return to Him, assuring me that He would lead me through my barren wilderness (Jeremiah 2:6) and that He would make my sins as white as snow and as wool (Isaiah1:18).

There in the wilderness He enabled me to drink deeply, freely from the Rock of all Ages. He patiently taught me that true encouragement, comfort and love cannot come from cisterns that can hold no water. No, I needed to become an empty vessel for Him to love and encourage others from the abundance of the overflow of my heart.

Today I am grateful that He enabled me through suffering to comfort and encourage others with the comfort I have received from His Hand as I was resting in His Loving Embrace. I can give freely for I have received freely from the abundance of His love.

Much love xx

Mia

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