Maze Dwellers

God’s Thoughts to Me

Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to Me and you’ll recover your life … Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you (Matthew 11:28, The Message).

For I have told you often before, and I say it again with tears in my eyes, that there are many whose conduct shows they are really enemies of the cross of Christ. They are headed for destruction (Philippians 3:18-19, NLT).

Around and Around

Upington, South Africa, is the birthplace of the famous actress, Alice Krige. The Kalahari Orange Museum pays tribute to another famous character of this town in the province of the Northern Cape: the donkey.

This gentle, lowly beast has played an enormous role in the development of Upington during the pioneering days of the 19th century. Its humble contribution has been memorialized forever by the Donkey Statue.

I visited this gentle, humble statue only once and was saddened by the fact that this poor creature had to walk around and around in circles, milling at the same mill all day.

I realized that the worthy donkey was doing an honorable job just like when he carried our Lord Jesus so many centuries ago.

But there is another mill that has captured millions of people through the ages, milling around and around in circles with nothing to gain at the end of their lives.

They are mostly deceived and oblivious to the misuse and abuse happening at the hands of the ravenous wolves, not sparing the flock as they dance around to the latest religious tune.

In fact, these poor souls are the slaves of the money-hungry, power-greedy merchants. These merchants of the economy of religion trade in the souls of men and laugh all the way to the bank.

Knowingly or unknowingly, they are pawns on Satan’s chess board and use satanic authority, churchianity and empty promises of health, wealth and prosperity.

They relentlessly flog the poor, unsuspecting folk with whips of religion, creeds, doctrines, thou shalls and thou shall nots until only husks and piles of dead, dry bones remain.

I was one of these donkeys who labored like a slave under the banner of religion. I was completely lost and running around in the most scary maze of all time: religion.

But my Pappa saw my misery, took my hand and safely ushered me out of this labyrinth that was swallowing me alive, by allowing Fibromyalgia to enter my life.

I was cast aside without a second thought or glance by most of my fellow maze dwellers who prefered labouring at this monstrous mill, instead of taking those first baby steps towards the freedom our Lord so dearly paid for.

I couldn’t be on the go-go-go anymore; therefore, I couldn’t contribute to building the slave masters’ spiral stairways reaching to heaven, but I could start building the walls of the new Jerusalem in my heart.

I could join my Beloved in cultivating a beautiful garden, for at long last I was still enough to truly hear His gentle, loving, tender voice inviting me to come to Him.

There still was a desert ahead, but at least I was free and on my way to Canaan, onto the eternal Life and peace of Jesus.

I was so tired of struggling, year in and year out, in a never-ending maze of deceptive lies, going nowhere … very slowly, that my illness was like a refreshing oasis, a well of living water where I truly met our Lord.

But, as I now look at this whole scenario from the outside, I see many disillusioned travellers on this highway to hell through the broad gate of religion, honestly believing they are on the narrow road to heaven.

I see so many travellers lost in a deadly maze of deceptive teachings! The Christian bookshops are filled with book upon book upon book spewing their deadly lies.

I see a religious world joyfully adopting the ways of the world by using the successful methods of advertising for church building, church growth, worship services, etc. etc. etc.

I am crying with Paul as he was pleading with his fellow Jews who blindly trusted their Judaic religion to be right with their Heavenly Father.

I realize why Paul pleaded with the Philippians, again with tears, time and time again as I am doing through my blog.

Earlier this week I have been reading a blog post about how we, as our Pappa’s children, have access to the storehouse in heaven. I think we have all heard of this so-called storehouse filled with all the different kinds of limbs and treasures for our taking! And my heart cried.

A few months ago I read another article on how we should join the school of prophets to learn how to become prophets and prophesy over the lives of others. These schools cost a lot of money. And my heart cried.

Oh, that our Pappa would open all the blind spiritual eyes to see and ears to hear when Jesus stands at the door of our hearts, knocking gently, but never forcing Himself into our lives.

Let us become still enough to hear His gentle voice calling and open our hearts to receive our Pappa’s blessing from Heaven, our Lord Jesus. For He and He alone is the gospel of grace, the priceless Gift from God.

Hugs and blessings XX

Mia

Linking-up with

Empty Lamps

God’s Thoughts to Me

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven (Matthew 5:16, NKJV).

The spirit of man is the lamp of the Lord (Proverbs 20:27, NKJV).

Religious To-Do Lists

The world commends busy people. Being without a to-do list as long as your arm at least, brands you as a failure, disqualifying you quickly from climbing the ladder of success.

To have a fulfilled life and to experience the satisfaction of a job well done, you need to be able to tick off the last item on your list by the end of the day or run faster tomorrow!

A list to help you organize your day is good, but our Lord advised us not to be worldly-minded as far as His Kingdom is concerned.

I have observed this peculiar ladder-climbing phenomenon in the Christian world as well. And it just gets progressively worse with all the new programs entering the Christian scene left, right and center.

Every true believer often experience a spiritual dryness or winter season. It is necessary for the deep inner growth, which cannot happen during times of prosperity.

Do we suffer the germination process of new seeds in our lives gladly while we allow our roots to grow deeper into the life of our Lord?

Do we eagerly look forwards to the lush new growth or do we mumble and grumble, if not complaining bitterly, when we experience suffering?

The only result we get from complaining and resisting the discipline of our Pappa is harming and stunting the growth of the fragile new sprouts!

The colder the winter and more severe the drought, the more we are sorely tempted to revert back to a “religious to-do list”. We hope that being especially good will make Pappa smile at us again.

It seems as if we believe that our God’s presence is a bartering commodity with which we can earn His love and blessings by submitting to a few religious exercises!

We suffer from this life-threatening disease that makes us susceptible to thinking God needs anything from us before He would look at us with love and favor or rejoice over us with singing.

Yet, Solomon tells us that mans’ spirit is the lamp of our Lord. In the same way Jesus told us to let our lights shine before others so that it will bring all the glory to our Pappa and not ourselves in a crooked world and perverse society.

Paul told the Corinthians,”But we have this treasure in earthen vessels, that the excellence of the power may be of God and not of us” (2 Corinthians 4:7, NKJV).

We need to do stock-taking of all the items on our religious to-do lists to keep our Lord happy and to fill up the empty lamps of our hearts.

A long repertoire of things to do can effortlessly cause us to stand out like sore thumbs by our weird expressions and programs of piety.

It is so easy to become a social nuisance when our lamps burn with the religious oil of the world.

Our evangelical zeal and our insistence that others do things our way, have caused so much spiritual abuse that people don’t want to have much to do with that god.

Does the fruit of our lives bear the stamp of Jesus or do we strive in our own strength to be a light in the darkness or salt to give flavor to those around us?

Do the lamps of our hearts burn with the oil of church attendance every Sunday as well as a few times during the week and serving in a ministry? Can our lamps even begin to burn on that fuel?

Do we rely on good things like Bible reading, having long quiet times, praying for a certain amount of time per day, being kind to the poor, tithing, attending all the new conferences, memorizing scripture, etc. to enable us to bring glory to our God?

It is so crucial not just to know of,  but also to experience our Lord Jesus living His life and godly character in and through us.

Only as we come to Him with empty hands and He draws us ever closer, are our feeble hearts readied and opened to be filled with the oil of His Spirit.

Only as we empty our hearts of the oil of our own efforts, can we shine as godly lights in the world and be a pinch of salt that adds a flavor to a tasteless existence.

Much love and sweet blessings.

Mia

Linking-up with

The Shepherd from Heaven

God’s Thoughts to Me

He will feed his flock like a shepherd. He will carry His lambs in His arms, holding them close to His heart. He will gently lead the mother sheep with their young (Isaiah 40:11, NLT).

He Feeds Us

Today is the beginning of the International Fibromyalgia/ME Awareness Week. Although research is only in its infancy, we look forward to progress and perhaps a breakthrough in the near future.

Due to unbelief, many if not most sufferers, received very bad and hostile treatment from the medical profession.

But at least we are finally beginning to be acknowledged as human beings with a real and quite disabling disease.

Isaiah 40:11 reminds us so wonderfully of how well the good Shepherd from heaven takes care of mothers and their children.

He cares for the broken ones, the weak, the sick, the unimportant, the unwanted and the rejected of this world. They only need to come to Him.

When my son, Simon, was in Grade 11, we had to buy text books for Grade 12 when the Grade 12 pupils were selling their old books second-hand at a much lower price than new books.

I recall the week when we had to pay about R600 (around $67) for two text books as well as payment for the initiation camp for the following year’s Grade 12 learners.

It was in the middle of the month and we were stone, cold broke with only a few pennies we had to rub together in any case. Yet, I knew I had a Pappa who promised to take care of all our needs.

The morning the payment was due, we still had not received our Lord’s provision, but I assured my children that the money would be paid before the end of the day.

When they left for school, I had a serious talk with my God, reminding Him that today is D-day and we still were empty-handed (or rather empty pocketed).

He told me to go to the ATM, and of course I stubbornly had to argue a bit, for the previous day when I checked, I was taunted by a big, round zero. Oh, those trust issues!!!!

At the word of our Lord, in the famous Peter style with the fishing nets, reluctantly, off to the ATM I went.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I found that double the amount we needed was paid back to us from the Receiver of Revenue. We were overjoyed and my children’s faith grew with leaps and bounds.

One would think that I was now cured of my stubbornness. Oh no, not this one. As a Fm/CFS sufferer, I had my fair share of unbelief, rejection and neglect from doctors, church people and also family and friends.

To such an extent that I landed up in the proverbial pig pen; not because of my foolishness, but because I had no one to care for me when I couldn’t take care of myself. Nobody believed that I was really ill.

But I was never alone. I could hear my Pappa screaming in my pain and suffering. Faithfully He was working in His normal mysterious ways to perform His wonders in my life.

The shepherds of ancient times would break the legs of the lambs that constantly wandered away.

Then he would set the leg and carry the lamb on his shoulder until the leg was healed. After that the lamb would remain by the shepherd’s side for the rest of its life.

Pappa knew of my stubborn propensities to be a master performer to earn everyone’s love and approval.

With my religious mindset, I just could not believe that I already was loved and accepted by our God.

Because of His amazing love, He did what the shepherds did with their stubborn, wandering lambs. Allowing Fm/ME in my life, He “broke” my legs.

With such tender care and love, He gently set it as well and carried me around His neck until I was healed of my stubbornness and insecurities.

I have learned how good it is when my Beloved Shepherd Himself feeds me with the milk of His love… His grace … His life and compassion.

Fm/CFS has taught me how to always walk with our Lord and never ever to leave His side again.

Even though we suffer greatly at times, I am so grateful for the wonder and joy of walking daily with our God … for the privilege of living in His Loving Embrace.

Love and sweet blessings

Mia

We all have experienced how our Lord has provided in miraculous ways. Please, share His goodness with us!

Linking-up with

The Scabbanger Club

God’s Thoughts to Me

But His mother told the servants, “Do whatever He tells you” (John 5:2, NLT).

It is to divide between what is us in fallen nature, and what is Christ, and to get rid of the one to give full place to the other! (T Austin-Sparks).

Water, Wine and Merriment

Onwaba, the Day of Her Baptism

I have a little 5 year old friend. We have been blessed to have Onwaba and her grannie staying with us the last few years.

Onwaba has a great sense of humor. When she does something funny, she is a funny bunny.

But when she is just plain stupid she calls herself a scabbanger. She is quite chaffed with herself for creating this big word.

Onwaba’s sense of humor is just a chip off our Lord’s dear heart. I can just see Him grinning as he looks down at the human race, all honorary members of the Scabbanger Club.

When Jesus and His disciples attended the wedding at Cana, He must have been a bit amused, as well as filled with compassion, for the predicament of the poor bridegroom.

To run out of wine at your wedding was a major faux pas that would cause them to be the latest scabbangers in town until someone else messed up worse than them.

We all know this parable where our Lord Jesus helped the poor groom out of his scabbangerish predicament. But He did much more than merely turning water into wine.

Our Lord never allowed an opportunity to pass without confronting and exposing the uselessness of the Jewish religion; actually, any religion for that matter. It only has the ability to bind us in chains.

He did so in this parable by using the empty clay pots that were used for the ceremonial, legalistic cleansing, instead of the empty wine jars.

After the servants filled the pots to the brim with water, the master of ceremonies gave some to the groom. They were all amazed at the superb quality of this “bubbly” wine and that, only being served near the end of the wedding feast.

The new wine symbolizes the new covenant wine of Jesus’ own life; ever active, dynamic, full of joy and spiritual blessings, replacing the old dirty water of the purification vats of the law.

Jesus’ command to the servants to fill the jars to the brim, shows us the abundance of His provision. There is no short supply in heaven. Unlike the water of religious cleansing, the new wine of His life never runs dry. As we allow Him to restore sight to our spiritual eyes, we become aware of the empty futility of filling the jars of our hearts with religious water of self-effort to clean our consciences and to find favor with our Pappa.

This new delicious wine is only served in abundance when we come to Him and learn how to abide in Him. It is way above and superior to the wine which we drank before.

Some modern-day Pharisees, in defense of abstinence, try to explain this new wine to be diluted grape juice, while others are calling Him a drunkard and a glutton, finding fault with His social life! Preposterous!! Mary told the servants at the wedding to do just as Jesus told them to do. They had the common sense to do just that. Something I used to be in short supply of.

I have been a scabbanger without an iota of common sense for a time. I labored so hard, trying to wash my dirty feet, hands and face with my own brand of religious soap and water.

Yet, with such patience and wisdom our Pappa allowed me to be refined in the refiner’s fire of suffering. He didn’t burn away only the stuff He considered bad and left and refined the good. Not at all!

Paul informs us that there is none who is truly good; not even one who seeks the Lord  (Romans 3). If it was not for His prevenient grace, none of us will ever be able to even think one right and true thought about our Pappa. Only He and He alone is good.

He burned away everything pertaining to my scabbangerish self and replaced it with only Him and His new Life. This didn’t happen without a lot of complaining from my side.

But, He enabled me to realize that giving Him free reigns of my life, was the greatest gift of love I could give myself. He dared me to be brave enough to truly love myself by allowing Him to burn away all the dross of the flesh.

I am immensely grateful that He opened my mind and understanding to the uselessness of the legalistic purification methods of washing with religious soap and water. He gently showed me another way … a better way. Oh, the joy when I was able to hear, listen and heed His still small voice asking my hand in marriage … asking permission to fill my heart with the new bubbly wine of Himself.

Much love XX

Mia

Linking-up with

Freedom in Captivity

God’s Thoughts to Me

For the Lord is the Spirit, and wherever the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom (2 Corinthians 3:17, NLT).

It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery (Galatians 5:1, NIV).

My Freedom Manifest

During World War II, Corrie Ten Boom and her family helped many Jews to escape the Nazi Holocaust.

The Ten Boom Family

They were arrested in 1944 due to an informant. Corrie, her father and her sister, Betsie, were imprisoned in Ravensbruck, a Nazi concentration camp.

Only Tante Corrie survived and in 1953 her book, A Prisoner and Yet, was released where she shared their suffering and torture.

Despite everything she went through, she was released with her soul free and her mind intact. She found the secret of living free in our Lord Jesus whilst being a prisoner in the worst of prisons.

Corrie Ten Boom

I have to confess that I am an experienced jailbird. For a long time, I have been a prisoner, imprisoned in the narrow confines of my mind. Lies were the jailers, torturing me relentlessly.

Unlike Tante Corrie, I was free in the eyes of the world! Yet, my heart was captured in many dark prisons of self.

Self-contempt and his brother-in-arms, self-condemnation, were trampling and destroying the last tatters of self-respect I was clinging onto for dear life.

I was well versed in the language of abuse, but instead of unmasking this monster as the fiend he really was, I internalized all his lies.

I labelled myself as the perpetrator and considered these cruel, murderous words, my own fault and my just reward for being such a detestable person. Yet, I could never pinpoint my behavior that caused this treatment.

I did my utmost to placate the violent temper of the one who was slowly killing me with verbal bullets instead of loving me more than life. I soon learned that for survival, silence was the name of this game.

When I was at the bottom of the pit of self-contempt, I turned to alcohol in an attempt to lessen the pain of rejection.

It is one thing to be the innocent recipient of such abuse, but quite another to believe the lies that you deserve nothing less.

I knew I was walking a very dangerous road of self-destruction, but truth be told; it seemed preferable to being jailed in the prison of my life. But my love for my children compelled me to look for a better way.

So I turned to God. Or rather; I became very active in organized religion. I tried to find answers in a myriad of religious do’s and don’ts. It was no surprise that the biggest don’t was , ” Thou shalt not DRINK!”!

My mind was completely veiled by a burqa weaved of the finest silk of deception and religious lies. No wonder I was totally powerless to overcome anything destructive in my life.

I was trusting my non-existent abilities to keep laws and another set of laws and then another set of by-laws!! I was doing hard labor in this prison of religion and before long I was chucked away into the worst of worst kind of imprisonment: solitary confinement.

If ever there was a brutal crowd of cruel jailmasters, it was the Scribes and Pharisees throwing stones of condemnation and shame.

I hoped to find help and support amongst these people, but experienced the worst kind of abuse one can think of: spiritual abuse.

I call it by another name, the rape of the heart. The rapist, to my mind, was none other than our dear Lord Jesus!

But a still, small voice kept beckoning me on another journey; a journey to freedom … a journey to truth … a journey to life.

Our Lord Jesus started clearing my mind of all the inroads of lies and redeemded me from its destestable father.

This is the first time I am able to lift the veil of shame and offer a peek into this sector of my life where I was a prisoner of alcohol. Nothing I tried could enable me to stop this terrible addiction!

When I came to the end of all I could call “me”, I fell to my knees, telling our  Pappa that if He didn’t heal me, I was going to be a drunkard for the rest of my life. I got up and never drank again. I didn’t even experience any withdrawal symptoms.

Sharing this is still awkward and it still hurts at times. But I have received grace upon grace to not only forgive myself and the perpetrators of the abuse against me, but our relationships have been beautifully restored to wholeness in Him.

With a grateful heart, I want to bring glory to our Pappa for the freedom that can only be found there where His Spirit reigns … the freedom Tante Corrie experienced when she was a prisoner and yet.

Much love and sweet blessings

Mia xx

The End of The Fig Leaf Fashion

God’s Thoughts to Me

He died for everyone so that those who receive His new life will no longer live for themselves. Instead, they will live for Christ, who died and was raised for them (2 Corinthians 5:15 , NLT).

Christ is writing a letter in you each day,
The message, that is Him, must be true,
‘Tis the only Jesus men may see
The life of Christ expressed as and through you.
(Author unknown)

A Letter Being Written

Sigmund Freud spoke of a childish king, reigning in the hearts of SELF in the Kingdom called ME.

He wittily labelled this little pompous tyrant ruling in our hearts, “His Majesty, The Baby”. I would like to add another childish ruler, Her Majesty, Queen Self.

These two tyrants used to hold the reigns of  my life. Queen Self fought valiantly to retain her crown and the throne of her Kingdom of Self.

She was smartly dressed in all the latest fig leaf  fashion of religious teachings she embraced with such delight.

Whenever she read Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, she used to think that serving her God was just business as usual, albeit with another emphasis.

Her thinking told her that God Almighty is so good and aloof that she dare not approach Him without being the best performing religious artist of all times!

She loved titivating and dressing-up in her law-keeping Sunday best before she considered herself worthy enough to go to her Pappa.

The monarch reigning in my heart, drove me like a slave, forcing me to build with bricks of straw like the Israelites in Egypt thousands of years ago.

Just like the Pharaoh in the time of Moses, she didn’t provide any straw for she was convinced that “I” was perfectly able to do everything necessary to build her Tower of Babel as well as producing the building material!

I totally misunderstood the meaning of Paul’s words and was convinced that living for Christ only meant working hard to ensure that I stay on the narrow road of life once I had been saved by grace.

Yes, Her Majesty, Queen Self was convinced she could safeguard her redemption through the deceptive lust of her flesh to become righteous on her own steam.

We often see the lust of the flesh just as those overtly sinful deeds like murder, rape, corruption and the like.

Yet, the other side of this coin, includes all those deceptive, noble, good religious deeds we are so fond of doing and are so proud of.

I was being chained in captivity to the Western theological mindset which is very scared of allowing grace to function freely and unrestrained in every individual believer.

This kind of reasoning considers the freedom of grace quite a risky, dangerous business. Something at best to be avoided at all cost.

I imprisoned the sweet Holy Spirit in church structures … I encased Him in my understanding of the Scriptures … I relegated His redemption to a judicial courtroom in Heaven.

So I had a cupboard full of the most beautiful religious robes made of self-effort; all in different colors and styles, according to the newest designs of the religious fashion houses.

My valiant efforts to be noble, humble, truthful and righteous, adorned me with garish fake jewelry, glittering like the brightest rubies and diamonds!

This selfish lady expected our Lord Jesus to revolve around her needs and wants.  She never spared a thought for the possibility of living for Him alone.

Doing that would certainly rob her of her kingdom’s false security by allowing her life to revolve around the Son of Heaven.

She was so wary of the rays of His love shining bright and beautiful from His glorious countenance into the cold darkness of her heart.

But, my stupidity posed no threat to our Pappa. Through the teachings of men like James Fowler and Michael Clark, He dethroned that despot.

That cruel monarch reigning over my life with his iron fist of deception, keeping me chained to the slave of self.

Of course I never succeeded in covering those two lackeys, shame and guilt, who endlessly pestered Her Majesty, Queen Self, with terrible accusations of worthlessness, fear, rejection, self-condemnation and the whole enchilada.

Our Pappa offered me a new way, a new robe, a new heart on which He writes the Gospel of Grace and Love.

He taught me the wonderful freedom of living for our Lord Jesus by allowing Him to live His life in me, as me and through me.

He destroyed all my filthy rags of SELF and gently clothed me with the Beautiful Robe of His love.

He covered all my shame with His blood that purchased my freedom from the kingdom of the evil one … He paid the ransom for my redemption from Her Majesty, Queen Self.

Much love and sweet blessings xx

Mia

Linking-up with

Knocking on Heaven’s Door

God’s Thoughts to Me

The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me (Galatians 2:20, NIV).

Immediately the father of the child cried out and said,”I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24, ESV)”.

Enoch’s Secret

There was a nagging thought that had the habit of pestering me every Sunday after church, “What makes you any different from all the people who walk the aisles of the grocery store when the first thing you do after church is walking with them along the same aisles in the same store?”

My heart was compelled by a persistent still small voice urging me to find the reason for this thief stealing my pseudo peace.

I had no idea that it was our Pappa convicting me through the avenues of my conscience about my hypocrisy.

This peace had the abilty to make me feel smugly superior to these poor lost souls. I know now that it was only a fabrication of the latest great gospel songs we sang at church. Music does have the ability to lull the soul. And today’s gospel music has a great beat and melody.

I envied Enoch who knew the secret of just walking with God and I did the only thing I knew how to do well. I went knocking on heaven’s door, imploring Pappa to teach me Enoch’s secret.

And my Pappa answered!! I admitted to Him and Him alone, alongside many voices through the ages, that I had no idea what true faith really was!

I lamented alongside Mike Yaconelli, “I had totally misunderstood the Christian faith. I came to see that it was in my brokeness, in my powerlessness, in my weakness that Jesus was made strong. It was in my acceptance of my lack of faith that God could give me faith (Abba’s Child)”.

Together with the father of the boy with the evil spirit, I cried out to our heavenly Father,”I believe; help my unbelief (Mark 9:24)”.

Our Pappa tenderly showed me how I desperately tried to manufacture faith through striving very hard, on my own, in the flesh. What a futile endeavor!

He knew of my fear of being included in the crowd who were chided by Jesus, “You faithless people! How long must I be with you?” (Mark 9:19).

He knew of my uncertainties and insecurities that made me believe our Lord was speaking to me in particular. He was well aware that in my vocabulary and my mind, “faithless” meant, “unlovable, useless, nuisance, shameful” and so forth!

When I came to that place where I had to admit defeat, our Pappa showed me the beauty of relationship. He didn’t give me faith as an entity per se; He gave me Himself.

The deep longing to desire Him and love Him, and then to love Him and desire Him even more, was the answer to my persistent prayers of years ago! Truth be told, I didn’t think I was worthy or important enough for Him to listen to my prayers, let alone, respond to my requests.

First, He patiently had to remove the veil of law still covering my mind. The glorious truth and understanding of grace were veiled in my heart.

Like a bridegroom removes his bride’s veil, He removed the veil that prevented my heart from KNOWING His love … His grace … His mercy and compassion.

He gave me the wedding gift of receptiveness to receive Him into my longing heart and taught me the secrets of any relationship of love.

He convinced me that to get to know one another, I had to share with Him not only my life, but also my heart with all its secrets and my depreciating thoughts of myself.

I willingly had to open the door of my heart to the room where a little girl was still hiding in fear, rejection and pain. I had to allow Him to gather her in His arms and heal her with His Kisses of Delight.

I had to dare to believe that He truly loved me unconditionally before I was able to show Him my spiritual nakedness and allow Him to clothe me with His righteous robe of His blood and redemption.

He whisked me off my feet to our private garden where He showed me the beauty of true love … where He overwhelmed me with His grace and forgiveness.

He taught me Enoch’s secret of how to walk with Him, living in His Loving Embrace.

Much love and sweet blessings XX

Mia

Linking-up with

The Empty Tomb

God’s Thoughts to Me

Then the angel spoke to the women, “Don’t be afraid!” he said. “I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead, just as He said would happen. (Matthew 28:5-6 NLT)”.

Jesus told her, “I am the Resurrection and the Life. (John 11:25a NLT)”.

He Is Risen

Our Pappa God knows the human race from the inside out. He is the only one that knows us better than we do ourselves. His eyes sees our smallest DNA structure and understands perfectly why we do what we do!

After all, He created us! Even when we are unable to love ourselves and have a heart filled with self-contempt, He loves us nonetheless!

To explain His Kingdom to us mere mortals, He often uses parables for He knows we are slow of understanding when it comes to spiritual things. Sometimes we find a parable hidden in the most unlikely places.

The Sunday morning after our Lord Jesus’ crucifixion, we find such a pearl buried in the happenings at the tomb and the words of the angel. I needed eyes to see and know the signifigance of what happened there.

A worried Mary Magdalene and a few other women went with perfumed spices to annoint our Lord’s body, not knowing how they would open the tomb.

But our Pappa, as always, took care of that when He sent an angel on the wings of an earthquake to roll away the stone.

Yet, not to make a way for the women to annoint the dead, but to release our risen Lord Jesus from the jaws of death that was not able to keep Him in its grip, for He is the sinless One.

I can just picture in my mind’s eye the magnificence of the scene; the bright, marvellous light of our Pappa’s angel, dressed in brilliant white clothes, rolling away the stone. No wonder the guards fainted of shock and the women were frightened.

The ladies were short of memory and forgot our Lord’s words that He would be raised after three days. I seem to have at least a short memory in common with them!

The angel chided them for seeking the Living amongst the dead when he showed them the burial cloth that was placed at the spot where our Lord’s head was lying.

I have been pondering this issue during this Easter season and realized that too often we do the same as these women. We seek the living Lord Jesus amongst the dead tombs of religion, theology and doctrines.

Even before the crucifixion, Jesus told us that He is the Resurrection and the Life, not the crucifixion and the death!

In the past, I also attempted to please our Lord Jesus by annointing the empty tomb of my heart with well prepared spices of nonsense.

I didn’t like myself at all and had a hard time grasping the FACT that my Pappa loved me unconditionally!

But, the better-smelling my efforts, the harder I battled to find the Living Lord amongst the empty, lifeless spaces, amongst the shadows of death.

I had to carry my own cross to Golgotha and crucify the “self” that struggled so hard to redeem itself from the grip of death that was imprisoning my heart in the dungeons of the world. To dare to love myself, I knew this was the first step I had to take.

I hung there, so lost and so lonely, dying slowly but surely from everything that pertains to self. I needed to allow our Lord to kill the monsters of shame, self-condemnation, spiritual pride, guilt and all their cohorts.

Especially their Commander-in-chief, General Self-Hatred, died a slow, agonizing death.

Like our Lord Jesus my heart also experienced the terror of being separated from my Pappa’s presence and I cried out,

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? (Matthew 27:45b)” even though He never, not even for one second, left me.

This is what sin does to us.

Only when I was able to trust our Pappa enough to allow my emptiness to cry out to deep, following our Lord’s example, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands! (Luke 23:46)” could He safely allow me to die to self and enter into His promised rest.

When I breathed my last, our Pappa God Himself, rolled away the stone of my heart, filling me with the eternal life of His Son, allowing me to be reconciled with Him. I was free to love the Source of all Love and myself! What freedom … what peace … what joy!

At long last I was able to say with the centurion and the soldiers, “This man truly is the Son of God (Matthew 27:54b)” .

At long last I lost my life in order to find my new life in Him where I joyfully live forever in His Presence and peace … in His Loving Embrace.

Much love XX

Mia

Linking-up with

Taste and See

God’s Thoughts to Me

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God (Psalm 42:1, NIV).

Taste and see that the Lord is good; blessed is the man who takes refuge in Him (Psalm 34:8, NIV).

Panting Hearts

I grew-up in a family who attended church faithfully every Sunday. It was quite a fundamentalistic kind of denomination.

Even then I could feel the faintest stirring in my heart for a God who was larger than the confines of the doctrines I was taught.

I remember thinking often of the Word who is alive and not imprisoned by the dead letters of Scripture; the One who is living high up in the sky looking down at me with love.

These thoughts developed through the years into a holy desire, a consuming hunger … a hunger for love … a hunger for God.

In retrospect, I realize that my heart was only responding to the overtures of love fom the Lover of my soul as He was pursuing me, beckoning me,”Rise up, my darling. Come away with me, my fair one. (Song of Songs 2:10).”

At first I tried to quench this thirst in the loving embrace of my husband, the sweetness of my children and even studying the works of some excellent Bible teachers.

But all, to no avail. Nothing and no one could satisfy this proliferate hunger that was begging to be stilled.

A.W. Tozer describes this hunger splendidly in his work, In Pursuit of God, when those with that kind of hunger are confronted by theologians who, for once, are expounding the Scriptures correctly,

“They will admit the force of the argument, and then turn away with tears to hunt some lonely place and pray, ‘O God, show me thy glory’. They want to taste, to touch with their hearts, to see with their inner eye the wonder that is God”.

He mentions that the fragrant heart theology of a grand army of saints is rejected in favor of a smug interpretation of Scripture.

King David was a man after our Pappa’s heart. His psalms and hymnody are filled with the cries of a longing, thirsty seeker who longed and panted after our God who is Love. We have all experienced that longing he so poignantly described in Psalm 42:1.

And who can remain unmoved by his exuberant joy, praising our Pappa after he found Him. The finding is made so much sweeter because of following hard after God (Psalm 63:8).

We find the same longing in the heart of Paul, who left all his religious credentials behind to follow his Lord Jesus.

The cry of his heart,  the all-consuming hunger was to know our sweet Lord, to be found in Him, to share in His sufferings and to experience the ressurection life of our Savior King.

At the crossroads of my life, I knew I was confronted, just like Paul and David, to choose; either the empty religious ways of the world or to follow hard after Him … to know Him … to taste and see that He is good.

For me there was not much of a choice for where would I rather be than in Him. Luke paints this picture so beautifully, “For in Him we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28).

Where can anyone find love that is unmeasurable, love we can taste and see, where we truly KNOW the Lover of our souls is good, love that can only be experienced in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

Liking-up with

 

Rejoice in The Lord

God’s Thoughts to Me

Israel’s watchmen are blind, they all lack knowledge; they are all mute dogs, they cannot bark; they lie around and dream, they love to sleep. They are dogs with mighty appetites; they never have enough (Isaiah 56:10-11a, NIV).

I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish, that I may gain Christ and be found in Him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that is through faith in Christ (Philippians 3:8, NIV).

Striving in The Flesh

The first lie ever whispered to the human race sounded deliciously good and appetizing: man had the ability to live independently from his Creator … the ability to live according to his skewed perception of good and evil.

This belief, ushered all the children of Adam into a world lost in chaos and darkness, and caused the birth of the nearly 40 000 Christian denominations worldwide, too many trying to earn their way back into Pappa’s favor and Presence.

I was no exception … until … the Truth started to pursue me relentlessly. I was lost and alone, stripped of my abilities to rely on myself to earn anyone’s love, let alone our Pappa God’s.

I had to experience my total inability to love myself, our Pappa God and others before I was able to let go of all my feeble efforts to prove that I had it all together. But, I did not …  not even remotely!

For a long time I suffered from the Paul syndrome described in the Epistile to the Philippians: all the religious works of the flesh.

Paul listed his repertoire of accomplishments and looking through the eyes of the world, it was truly impressive.

He was circumcised when he was eight days old and was a pure-blooded citizen of Israel, a member of the tribe of Benjamin – a real Hebrew.

He was a Pharisee of the highest order who DEMANDED the strictest obedience to the Jewish law, which, by the way, he succeeded to obey without fault, according to himself!

He was the church’s greatest enemy and harshy persecuted her until our Lord Jesus stopped him in his tracks.

And from then on, he left all those noble accomplisments behind, calling it dog excrement! He used a much more descriptive word, according to the original Hebrew and he knew he used to be one of those dogs described by Isaiah so many centuries ago.

He was the leader of the pack, barking and biting the poor, ignorant folk, urging human works in opposition to simple faith in our Lord Jesus.

But after his encounter with the living, resurrected Lord, he knew the folly and deceptiveness of religion.

He called the preachers of Jesus plus works, evil workers .. the Party of The Circumcision ,for they were renting the church, tearing her apart.

Just like Paul on the Damascus encounter, our Pappa stopped me in my religious tracks by allowing a debilitating illness into my life.

He planted beautiful seeds of longing in my heart to know our Lord Jesus. It caused an unexplainable yearning that devoured my soul in its intensity … a glorious yearning to know the One whom my heart now desires above all else.

But, just like Paul, I HAD to leave all my noble, impressive religious ways behind. I had to suffer not just physically, which I do every day, but more importantly, I had to suffer spiritually like Paul and our sweet Lord Jesus.

Our Lord was the only man who ever lived who was able to uphold the whole law in His own strength, but He did not.

He chose to trust our Pappa from the one moment to the next to do His works in and through Him, all to Pappa’s honor and glory.

Just like Jacob, I had to cross my Jordan River, where I wrestled with God through the darkest night of my soul to be blessed abundantly with the privilege of living my life in Him.

A life where I daily have to deny myself and my feeble efforts … a life where I carry my cross like our Lord, not trusting in my own strength, but trusting the only Man who ever lived a life of complete dependence on Pappa, our Lord Jesus, to live His life in and through me.

For I know that apart from Him, I can do nothing.

Just like Paul, I needed my own Damascus encounter where I was rescued from the world and its ways … rescued from the lie that I can earn my salvation with a lot of blood, sweat and tears.

And just like Paul, I know I have not arrived there yet, but the one thing I have learned, was to consider the futility of all my religious ways.

Just like Paul, I am leaving it all behind, pressing forward against all odds, for I want to know my gentle, kind, humble Lord Jesus. I want to share in His death to experience the power of His resurrection.

I want to leave everything behind that hinders me to live in Him … to rejoice always in His Loving Embrace.

Much love xx

Mia

Linking-up with the Monday Morning Meditation Community.

Uniting with Jen.

Also with Emily.

And a play- date with Laura.