Category: Language of Thought

What is better than achieving or gaining something special? Sharing it with people we love of course.

As a parent I know how glad and proud I was when my first child was born. I could not wait to get asset4 2home to tell my parents about my daughter, I phoned them from a payphone to share the news!

That is how God feels about us.

When Jesus was born, God could not keep the news to Himself. He sent angels to look for someone to share the good tidings with. There, in the quiet of the night, far from the busy city, they found shepherds and they shared the good news with them, telling them where they would find Jesus. Suddenly a multitude of angels started to sing and praise God. I suppose these shepherds had a close relationship with God. (Luke 2)

In Jerusalem lived a man called Simeon, nobody special or important, but he was just and devout. I suppose his most valuable asset was his relationship with God too, because the Holy Spirit told him that one day he would see Jesus Christ. God had to share it with Simeon and on the day Jesus was presented to God in the temple according to the custom of the Jews, He told Simeon, “Go to the temple. You will see My Son today”. And there Simeon found the baby Jesus.

I can imagine how pleased God was as He saw Simeon looking at His Son.

A woman, Anna, just like Simeon, was also told about baby Jesus and on the same day when Simeon saw Him, she also recognised the Saviour because God shared the good news with her too. Anna was a widow who served God day and night.

All these people experienced the joy of God because their most valuable asset was their intimate relationship with Him. They were neither prophets, nor holy temple servants but normal people who earned their living through normal everyday activities.

Because they were available to God and had a relationship with Him, He shared His joy with them.

Do you have that kind of relationship with Jesus that He shares His good news with you too? He wants to, but many of us are unavailable because we choose to focus on other things rather than build a relationship with Jesus.

We are Jesus’ most valuable asset.

Most importantly, we have to realise that the most valuable asset we will ever own in our entire life, is our relationship with Jesus. Once we do that, He will share His heart with us too.

When Gloria wrote her final exam of the semester, she could not wait to finish. For months now, she had been counting the days to go home and finally, the day had arrived! She was tired and looked forward to going home to her parents and spend time with them in the beautiful old farmhouse.

She would be able to sleep late, catch up on her reading and play with the dogs in the shady garden. Her mother would spoil her as usual with food and tea and genuinely serious, but also light-hearted conversations. Her father would accompany her to go horse riding in the afternoon. She longed to go home and see them again.

The farmhouse was an old, but beautiful building. The garden was huge with big trees and flower beds all over. Two dogs usually watched her every move while a cat slept peacefully on the big couch. Gloria always imagined heaven to be like this house on the farm.

Today, nine years later, Gloria is married with two children of her own. The farmhouse is still as beautiful as ever but so much has changed since her college days. Her parents passed away, first her dad and a year later her mother. Her brother took over the farm and he and his wife moved into the old farmhouse.

Although the house is still there and everything almost as it was before, visiting the farm is just not the same any more. The two people that made the difference are not there. Gloria realises that without them, the farmhouse is just another house.

The day will come when each and every one of us would die and have to move to heaven. The same scenario that Gloria faced after her parents had died, is staring us right in the face from a slightly different angle. Would heaven just be a future destination or might there be another reason to look forward to our going there?

People looking at heaven as only a place of eternal retirement might be in for a big surprise. If a person chooses heaven to get rid of all the worries and sorrows, or to live forever, I am not sure whether he would be found in the new heaven and earth. There is a much higher objective.

Heaven is the home of God. The only single reason why we should desire to go to heaven, is to be in God’s physical presence. There we will be able to look at Jesus and talk to Him as we talked to Him on earth but then face to face, the same way Adam did before he sinned.

I wonder, that if we do not want to be close to God, why then would we want to go to heaven?

In fact, the same applies for our desire to be Christians now. It is not to be safe, prosperous and blessed but rather to be close to Jesus while living on earth.

Every human being has to make a choice while he is still alive. Once a person is dead, the deadline for options has passed and the default destination kicks in, which is hell.

However, choosing Jesus is not about choosing a final destiny, it is about deciding to follow Him every day of our lives which extends well beyond our life on earth.

Gloria’s parents looked forward to her visits every time and they dreaded the times when she had to leave again. Jesus feels exactly the same. He loves us very much and desires to spoil us with food and tea and daily chats. He wants to accompany us should we go horse riding or walking with our dogs or working in the office. He hates the moments when we forget that He is present.

God looks forward to our moving over to heaven but He desires a daily relationship with Him now.

We should know Jesus the way Gloria knew her parents and this can only happen if we have a relationship with Him. Only then should we look forward to go to heaven, to be in His physical presence.

God knows when you will be moving over and He loves you so much, He is counting the days.

After church, Debby waited in her car for her daughter, Jeannie, to get back from Sunday school. Debby’s mind was occupied with her financial problems. Debt she was facing had made her reach a point of desperation.

When Jeannie returned, she got into the car and told her mother that she had learned a new song about “a cross-eyed bear named Gladly”. It took Debby a while before she realised that the hymn was really “Gladly The Cross I’d Bear.”

This little incident made Debby almost forget her problems but her mind soon returned to the words of the preacher echoing through her mind. He said that when we sow money as seed, we would receive money back from God.

Really?!

I often tune in to Christian television stations and hear how people’s money problems get solved after they have sown money to churches or organisations. The ‘testimony’ is often followed immediately by a request to sow money into the particular ministry.

I have heard of many people who sowed money and who were indeed blessed after that. I have also heard of many people who sowed and, like Debby above, are still waiting for something to be sown back to them. What should we do then?

The truth is that God is indeed a Giver and He gives to everyone who has the same attitude. It is wrong however, to give with the expectancy to receive something back simply because we gave, almost as if we are handing God an invoice for what we have sown.

I speak of experience. I sacrificed something to God many years ago and expected God to reward me. When it did not happen the way I expected it to, I complained to God for receiving nothing in return.

God answered me in the following way: “Son, when you were born I saw you struggling in your blood to survive. I said, ‘live’, and here you are.” (Serious complications during my birth almost caused me to die). “I have blessed you every day of your life since. I gave My Son Jesus to everyone who accepts Him as Saviour, and that includes you. You are not in debt to Me because of this. I do what I have promised by staying with you and I have never forsaken you for one second. Everything I gave, I did so freely. I never told you that you are in debt to Me and yet, here you are, giving Me an invoice for the money you sowed! I owe you nothing, My child. What you sowed, did produce a harvest in other people’s lives. You would not want to change that by claiming their harvest for yourself, would you?”

I asked God to forgive me and He tore my invoice to pieces and it gave me a freedom that I never had before. The freedom to realise that we live dead centre in the grace of God.

In 1 Corinthians 12 we find an argument raised between the different body parts – “If the ear should say…,” or, “if the foot should say…,”

Imagine the different body parts communicating with one another in the following conversation:

“Most of us are found on the head and because we are on top, we certainly are the most beautiful,” said Hair. “Oh, would someone please comb us…. Thank you very much. Now look at us, see, beautiful!”

From down below a pair of muffled voices answered back in stereo, “Oh great, just because you are found on top you think you are the most important. We have a very important job in walking you to the mirror every day, Hair. Without us you would have no idea how untidy you are. By the way, could someone please take these tackies off? We need some fresh air.”

“Wow,” blinked Eyes. “Who said that? Neck, would you please tilt us a little so that we can see who’s talking? No, not you two smelly characters at the bottom! Feet, let me tell you, if it were not for us, you would have been bumping your toes everywhere. By the way, Hair, how would you know how beautiful you are without us looking into the mirror?”

Eyes continued, “Would someone remove the speck from my left eye and wipe off the tears, please?”

“Aiteechoo,” Nose chipped in. “I need a soft tissue, please.” Then he continued, “Eyes, how would you know about those two shady characters down under without me telling you that?” With a sniff Nose pointed his tip into the air to express his importance.

Indignantly Mouth joined in. “Guys, guys… how do you think you would survive without me, taking in the food and water to feed and strengthen you?”

Suddenly they heard a splatter and voices that sounded like someone gargling in a fish tank. “Take us out, take us out!”

A pair of Hands appeared above the basin. “Phew, spit, ouch! Do you know what this dishwashing liquid is doing to us? You have no idea!”

Hands grabbed a towel and dried off. “We are so tired of listening to you bragging about your importance. Tell me, Hair, who is holding a brush every day to comb you?”

Silence fell over the body as Hands continued. “Feet, yes, you are doing the walking but we put on your shoes and take them off as well. We are the ones who have to wash off the dust when you choose to go outside barefoot. Eyes, we have to wipe off your tears and we are the ones who wipe you as well, Nose! Do you really think we enjoy doing that?”

“Phew!” Bums said. “I can vouch for that. If it were not for you two, Hands, I would have had a pretty miserable existence.”

“Thank you, Bums,” Hands continued. “Although you have a less honourable job, you are very important. In fact, each and every one of us is important. You get tired, Eyes, when it gets late and so do you, Feet and Legs, but we never get tired and we have to work continuously. We are built to do that and we love it. However, all of us are a team and we need one another. Stop this bickering and serve each other with pride.”

This is more or less the message 1 Corinthians 12 portrays. We as Christians are supposed to be a team serving Jesus by serving other people without us assigning important positions to ourselves. Jesus served us and our hands and feet should never grow tired.

The devil saw how Jesus walked to different places and how His hands touched and healed many people. He saw those hands lifting the lame to their feet, touch the eyes of the blind to open them, break a few loaves of bread to feed a multitude, and countless miracles more.

The devil thought Jesus had been stopped when His hands and feet were pinned to a wooden cross. He made a huge mistake… Jesus is alive but if we do not put our hands and feet in motion for the service of God, we would be doing what the devil had failed to accomplish – stop the work of Jesus.

The doctor looked at Casper with a sombre expression on his face. “My friend, I have known you for only a few months, but I have some bad news. Your situation has deteriorated. It seems likely that you would meet our King in a few months from now. Are you ready to meet Him?”

Casper said “no” and his doctor friend led him to Christ. After the doctor had prayed, Casper went back home.

Casper is a business executive with three friends. His most beloved friend is his money and possessions and he calls him “Dollar”. His second friend is the people that surround him every day and includes his family and many other close friends and this one Casper calls “Family”. The last friend in Casper’s life is a dodgy character. This friend consists of all his works, and he calls this one “Works.”

Works is a very loudmouthed friend, eager to blast out everything about Casper. According to Casper Works is schizophrenic because he would brag about all the good stuff that Casper does and then suddenly he would try to bring the bad stuff into memory as well.

That evening Casper paced up and down in his mansion, thinking about the words of the doctor. Then he asked Dollar, “If I need to meet the King, would you please come with me to show the King how I have increased my talents a hundredfold?”

Dollar said, “No, Casper, I am sorry, but I am not allowed in there. You cannot take me with.”

Works chipped in, “I told you those crooked deals would catch up with you, particularly when you lied to your brother and you took the biggest part of the inheritance. Oh yeah, and the time you cheated on your wife!”

“SHUT UP!” said Casper. “I do not have the strength to deal with that now.”

Casper called Family and asked them whether they would accompany him to the King, but they said they would have to die to be able to do that and they simply didn’t have the time right then to do that. They were willing to accompany him to the grave but that was it.

Casper thought there was a slight chance that the King would listen to Works – if only he would keep his big mouth about the bad stuff. At last Casper saw the doctor again en he asked whether Casper had confessed all his sins. Casper immediately went home, confessed all his sins to Jesus and He forgave every one.

Casper asked Jesus, “Do You mean I would be allowed to go to heaven and see the King without worrying about the bad stuff?” Jesus told him that God had wiped his sins off the face of the earth.

A short time later Casper was just about to relax when Works gave him a nudge. “You know, Casper, what you did to your brother was a very bad thing. Do you really think God forgave that?” Suddenly Casper was on his feet clasping his chest. “Oh no, Works, do not send me to Him before my time! Do you really think God would not?”

At that stage Jesus stepped in again, “Casper, be calm, sit down! What you did, was bad and it hurt God very much, I cannot deny that. However, when you confessed it, God forgave you, He wiped the slate clean. Now listen carefully, My death on the cross was very painful for God to endure. Every time you would remind God of the sins that I paid for, and that are forgiven because you confessed them, it hurts God. Do not mention them again! By the way, Works will never be able to represent your case before the King. I am the only Friend and Intercessor you have when you meet our Father.”

God deleted those filthy files of our evil deeds the moment we surrendered to Jesus. Even if we still feel bad about them, we should put it out of our minds. Works has been silenced; do not turn the volume up again!

You are free in Jesus with only invisible scars to show for your mishaps and mistakes! Praise Jesus for what He had done! He is the only One who carries the visible scars of our sins and He is our only faithful Friend.

I woke early one morning before sunrise with a song in my heart. Jesus told me that a new day was on its way and went on to reveal something that we know but never think about.

Every new day has never been before. Everyone is free to take the hand of God and live the new day to its fullest. Every new day is an unspoiled, unused one to change into a wonderful experience.

Every day is a brand new day with its own brand new smell, colour and sound. Every day starts for the very first time ever! No day has ever been like this day and no day in future will ever be like today. It depends on us how we will remember it and what God will remember of us being part of His agenda on this particular day.

Every day turns into a remarkable day for Jesus too when we agree to walk with Him.

God does not warrant that the day will be short of challenges, but with Him it will turn out to be even more remarkable.

Jesus is in us anyway and will be with us throughout the day, but by assigning our heart to Him, we welcome Him into our heart and life, telling Him that we appreciate His presence constantly and that He is free to do with us whatever He desires to do. Asking Jesus to be with us today, does not mean that He would automatically be with us tomorrow. Tomorrow is another new day and Jesus has to be invited to walk with us again.

Why should we be satisfied with a short moment of worship or word of wisdom when we could be swimming in the baptism and love of Jesus every day?

While looking out over the sea I was stunned by the scene that met my eyes. Although it was late autumn, it was a hot day without a breeze in the air. The water had the appearance of liquid glass moving smoothly up and down without any ripples on the surface. It was as if God was holding His breath to see what we would be doing on this beautiful day.

It could also be that God wanted to see if we would recognise His hand in this awesome creation, appreciate what we have received and live as if it was the last day of our life.

Are we alive?

Some time ago I heard a story about two neighbouring farmers. Gert was a very big, strong and lively character. He got up early every morning before sunrise to walk outside on his farm to plan the day ahead. Gert always had a lot to do because he was constantly building new implements, or experiment with alternative crops. He never had a dull moment in his life. If the community would organise a social meeting you could count on Gert to be present, always smiling, having fun and chatting with everyone. He lived his life to the full and he enjoyed every second of it.

His neighbour was quite the opposite. Stevie was tall, but contrary to Gert, a slender person. To get up early was a real challenge to him, not to mention going outside before sunrise. When people visited him, his vocabulary seemed to be rather limited, not because he was uneducated but because he did not like talking. He adored his daughter and the only times people saw him laugh, were when he was with her. Stevie was a very quiet and proper person, neatly dressed every day. If you ask me, I am sure he put on a tie before he had breakfast.

One day Gert and his wife were enjoying lunch when someone knocked on the door. Gert’s wife left the table to answer the door and in a short while returned with a shocked expression on her face.

“Gert, Stevie has passed away a little while ago. A farm worker has just brought the news. Stevie is dead.”

Gert stopped eating and looked at his wife with a puzzled expression on his face. “Stevie dead? Are you kidding me? Was he alive all these years?”

We should ask ourselves the same question. Are we alive or just plodding on until our time runs out?

God created everything in perfect harmony. He gave us everything – food, oxygen, water, plus innumerable other resources to use and – note… to enjoy!

We have to work in order to be blessed by the fruit of our labour, to do what with? (Deut 12:7) To rejoice! All we have to do is to live and enjoy doing it!

God is holding His breath every day to see if we enjoy what He has given us. He is anxiously waiting to see us moving outside and doing new and different things to improve His creation and at the same time rejoice.

Some people have never started living. Some put their lives on hold after failures or mistakes they made, but failures and mistakes belong to the past and should not be a reason for putting our joy on hold now. We should move ahead but no person can move forward with his eyes fixed in the rear view mirror.

Jesus forgave us everything we failed to achieve and He repaired all the potholes that we created, just in case someone follows in our footsteps. The road is getting shorter every day and time is running out.

Perhaps Stevie lived his own special life, we would never know but if he was waiting for something else before he would start to live, I am afraid Gert was right, he has missed it.

When a person lives intimately close to someone, a relationship is formed between them.

The most important feature of a relationship is communication through speech using images, sounds, colours, etc. We are all familiar with this. We apply our senses to look at people, touch them and speak to them while listening to what they are telling us.

We want to experience God’s presence and communicate with Him too, and suddenly we have a problem: our natural senses fail to do that because God is Spirit and our senses are unable to perceive spirits. However, it is possible for us to make it real and experience the presence of God in our lives because we are body, soul and yes, we are spirit too.

God talked to people in the Bible and in our days many people have heard God speaking to them in an audible voice. However, most of the time God speaks to us in a voice not heard by our physical ears but by our spiritual ears.

God indwells us but sometimes it erroneously seems God is only speaking to certain Christians. If a Christian does not experience God in his life, it is his own fault, not God’s.

Because we have not trained ourselves to hear God, we visit spiritual leaders or churches to find out what God is telling them, which is not wrong, but hello… Every Christian can hear God.

Imagine I want to talk to my wife who is present with me, but I ignore her completely. I rather go to her best friend, asking her to ask my wife some questions, while my wife is present too. Therefore, the friend becomes the agent to exchange questions and answers between my wife and me.

That would be silly, wouldn’t it? I can imagine my wife moving her arms around, shouting to get my attention, “Hi, honey – I am here!” How ridiculous this may sound, this is how we sometimes treat God.

The extremely sad part about this situation, is that it would not only be silly to treat God in this way, but it would also hurt Him very much. To ignore someone who is present, is one of the most unkind and cruel things to do.

Jesus said we must believe like little children.

Should we have a desire to talk to Jesus, He is already listening and waiting for our words.

If we desire to love Him, we are actually only loving Him back.

If we develop a desire to work for Him, we will discover that He has had daily tasks ready for us since our birth.

The most important fact for us to comprehend, is that we are able to perceive God by seeing or hearing Him in our spirit.

One of my late uncles was a cardiologist. One day as he attended a school rugby match, in which his son was playing, one of the scholars was injured. My uncle immediately went to the injured boy to examine him. While he was busy, a nurse, who was operating as medical officer, arrived on the scene and immediately pushed my uncle aside telling him to stay out of the way.

As he stepped aside, he calmly answered her, “If you reach the part where you want to call the doctor, here I am”.

When in trouble we often start to fret and panic, and I can actually imagine God trying to tell us, “If you reach the stage where you want to call Me, here I am”. He is always present yet we treat Him as absent. The funny part is that we treat God as if He is absent but when we experience a disaster, He gets the blame for it.

When we accept Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour, the following takes place as well:

The Holy Spirit comes into our heart and remains there. Wherever we go, the Holy Spirit goes with. Whatever we ask or tell God, He hears. Whatever we do, God sees. Whatever we think or imagine, God knows.

Redemption leads us to a brand new relationship with God. It has to be received and it has to be lived.

God created us for one purpose and that is to have a close relationship with us and to lead us into developing a beautiful earth. It would have been easy for God to create the world we know in its present state of modern development by saying the word, but I suppose He wanted us to take part in His plans and therefore He made us partners in His business, partners for life. In order to achieve that, God, who is Spirit, desires interaction and fellowship with us on a close and constant basis.

I have grandchildren whom I love very much. I always want to be close to them and hug them but a child has a mind of his own. They will only allow someone close to them if they want to be close to that person too.

The most amazing fact is that the only way God can be close to us, is if we allow Him to come close to us!

God is gentle; He will not force anyone to be close to Him. We have to choose to be with Him, to talk to Him and to love Him, to trust Him and if we choose not to, God will not force us to spend eternity with Him.

However, if we want to be close to God in heaven, we should start practicing now because life in heaven starts here.

My grandson received his first colouring book with pride. He was more interested in the crayons than the book at first. He drew lines randomly all over the page but eventually got the hang of it. One day he discovered that walls and furniture can fulfil the same purpose as a book.

His mom cleaned the walls and dusted him. He discovered that there is a right and a wrong way of doing things.

At my age it feels as if I am using a colouring book as well. Every day starts with the same pictures, lines and figures, just like every other day before. All I have to do is to fill it with colours.

Every day is very special and we have been given these days to decorate them with special colours. Sometimes we apply the wrong colours or go outside the borders of the picture and yes, even mess up the walls and furniture too.

Many years ago a woman by no name other than sinner, did something different. She learnt that Jesus was in town. It was not mentioned what she had done but we can imagine she had messed up many walls and furniture. She probably felt like an old used and misused colouring book herself.

When she noticed Jesus, she knew in an instant that He will change her life. She took an albaster flask with fragrant oil and went to the house where Jesus stayed; she entered and knelt down at His feet.

Suddenly tears came pouring down. She washed His feet with her tears and wiped it off with her beautiful long hair. Then she kissed His feet tenderly again and again and anointed them with the valuable fragrant oil. She was indeed well aware of the mess she has made of her life and somehow had faith that Jesus can change everything.

Jesus forgave her sins and told her that her faith in Him has saved her.

Any person who has regret and sorrow for writing on walls or furniture knows how precious Jesus is. The older a person gets, wasted pages of messed up colouring books pile up in our lives and somehow writes a Curriculum Vitae that makes us cringe when we look at it. It is only then that we realise why this nameless woman in Luke 8, gave Jesus all she had left.

Jesus cleans every page and wall and then He gives us a new chance to draw new pictures in a brand new book with blank pages. Then Jesus shows us that we are the pencil and crayons in His hand, if only we would allow Him to use us.

Then the first picture we touch might be one of a lonely neighbour or poor beggar. We would not only alter the picture but colour their lives with a new friend and some clothes and food and smiles. A stray dog would be touched and cleaned and fed using different colours. The old nagging landlord would be given a brand new smile.

At the end of the day, it would be indeed one in a million. Soon we will learn that God already supplied us with all the abundant colours. All we have to do is follow the footprints of Jesus. Everyone who crosses our path would receive a touch of colour… if we have faith in Jesus, just like the nameless woman did.