Thursday, 23 July 2009

God loves YOU

GOD LOVES YOU.

You.

Yes...

You!

Jesus not only healed people of their physical diseases, but from the feeling of being outcasts, unloved, miserable sinners with no hope and no cure.

Below you'll read how Jesus healed a man with leprosy. A feared disease. And before He healed him he reached over in compassion and TOUCHED the man. Unheard of! And then there was the company Jesus kept... not exactly stellar upstanding members of society.

Mark 1:40-42
A man with leprosy came and knelt in front of Jesus, begging to be healed. “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean,” he said. Moved with compassion, Jesus reached out and touched him. “I am willing,” he said. “Be healed!” Instantly the leprosy disappeared, and the man was healed.

Mark 2:15
Later, Levi invited Jesus and his disciples to his home as dinner guests, along with many tax collectors and other disreputable sinners. (There were many people of this kind among Jesus’ followers.)


Lyrics by the band Leeland - Song: Carried to the Table

Wounded and forsaken
I was shattered by the fall
Broken and forgotten
Feeling lost and all alone
Summoned by the King
Into the Master’s courts
Lifted by the Savior
And cradled in His arms

I was carried to the table
Seated where I don’t belong
Carried to the table
Swept away by His love
And I don’t see my brokenness anymore
When I’m seated at the table of the Lord

I’m carried to the table
The table of the Lord


Fighting thoughts of fear
And wondering why He called my name
Am I good enough to share this cup
This world has left me lame
Even in my weakness
The Savior called my name
In His Holy presence
I’m healed and unashamed


You carried me, my God
You carried me


Live loved,
Karin
"For in him we live and move and exist."
-Acts 17:28 nlt

Wednesday, 15 July 2009

Our spiritual nature

Genesis 1:26-27 (NLT)
Then God said, “Let us make human beings[man] in our image, to be like us. They will reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, the livestock, all the wild animals on the earth, and the small animals that scurry along the ground.” So God created human beings[man] in his own image. In the image of God he created them; male and female he created them.

Jeremiah 1:5 (NLT)
I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb.
Before you were born I set you apart

Psalm 139:13-16 (NLT)
You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body
and knit me together in my mother’s womb.
Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex!
Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it.
You watched me as I was being formed in utter seclusion,
as I was woven together in the dark of the womb.
You saw me before I was born.

1 Corinthians 15: 44 (NLT)
They are buried as natural human bodies, but they will be raised as spiritual bodies. For just as there are natural bodies, there are also spiritual bodies.

2 Corinthians 5:1 (NLT)
For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands.

Romans 8:11 (NLT)
The Spirit of God, who raised Jesus from the dead, lives in you. And just as God raised Christ Jesus from the dead, he will give life to your mortal bodies by this same Spirit living within you.

1 John 3:9 (NIV)
No one who is born of God will continue to sin, because God's seed remains in him; he cannot go on sinning, because he has been born of God.
(NLT)
Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, becauseGod’s life[seed] is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God

2 Corinthians 6:18 (NLT)
And I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters,
says the Lord Almighty.

Galatians 3:26 (NLT)
For you are all children[sons] of God through faith in Christ Jesus.

2 Corinthians 5:16-17 (NLT)
So we have stopped evaluating others from a human point of view. At one time we thought of Christ merely from a human point of view. How differently we know him now! This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!

John 4:23-24 (NLT)
But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. ForGod is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth

Saturday, 11 July 2009

I've fallen for God

Today, can you say that you love the Lord "just because" you love Him? Do you love Him without an agenda, without fear, not because you're trying to get His approval, or trying to stay in His good books, and not because you have to or it's the "right" thing to do?

Do you love the Lord just like that? Unconditionally? That's the way He loves us! I know my Lord He loves me just like that [CeCe Winans | "Just Like That"]

Well I have a theory that many of us have to go through our doubts, have to desert the Lord (for a season), have to leave the Lord behind and try living life without Him, before we can really SEE Him for who He is. And therefore just simply love Him. Just because and for no other reason.

Have you really "fallen" for the Lord yet?
Have you just slipped into pure adoration for Him?
Or does your love still have "reasons"?

One of the beautiful images I have lately is of God as a pure warm pool of water that's always there. We just have to choose to become a part of it, to slip into this water (His love & His presence) like you slip into a heated swimming pool. To just melt into His embrace.

Read how beautifully the band Leeland sings it...
A childlike love I had when we first began...We ran and I fell behind...
I’ve been stuck here all this time. You waited like a lover who couldn’t let go of his bride.
I turned my back away from You, didn't shed a tear or cry.

And I’m falling for You now. I’m coming back to the place where we parted
It’s for real this time. So I’ll be here waiting where we started.
My feet were bruised. I tried but I couldn’t fill Your shoes.
I went my way. I bought the lie that I was all grown up.
Didn’t need You in my life.
The winter left me cold and frozen. Looking for the truth, but searching for the sun.
I found the place where I met You

It feels so good to be in Your arms
You never left me, I just chose to stay behind
I want to thank You for Your love that gives me freedom,
to run back, to come back

And I’m falling for You now. I’m coming back to the place where we parted
It’s for real this time. So I’ll be here waiting where we started.

[Artist: Leeland | Song: Falling For You]

Thursday, 02 July 2009

Living IN God

We know that when we believe in Jesus, God lives in us.
Have you ever wondered though what it means for
us to live in God?

Wow!

Just read these scriptures..

All who confess that Jesus is the Son of God have God living in them, and they live in God.
We know how much God loves us, and we have put our trust in his love.
God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.
1 John 4:15-16

“Yes, I am the vine; you are the branches. Those who remain in me, and I in them, will produce much fruit
John 15:5

“I have given them the glory you gave me, so they may be one as we are one. I am in them and you are in me. May they experience such perfect unity that the world will know that you sent me and that you love them as much as you love me.
John 17:22-23

Wednesday, 01 July 2009

Your spirit knows your thoughts

I watched part of sermon by Leslie Ramiah yesterday evening on Spirit Word channel.

He said something about a passage of scripture we have read so many times but I don't think we realise what we read! Well, I didn't!
No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit,
and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
(1 Corinthians 2:11)
Your spirit knows your thoughts.

Everybody feels inclined to say, "Duh, of course!"

But stop and really think about it. We are spiritual beings who have a body, not a body who happens to have a spirit. That part of you that will spend eternity with Jesus, the bit that's "you" when your body falls away, is the "being" that knows you, that knows your thoughts.

A lot of "new agers" talk about their inner Self or their inner Being and we go "froooooot cakes!".

But like the devil usually does, he takes something with truth to it and twists it.

And God's Spirit communicates with our spirit, who then communicates God's message to us.
1 Corinthians 2:10-16 (New Living Translation)
10 But it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets.
11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit.
12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths. [b]
14 But people who aren’t spiritual [c] can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means.
15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others.
16 For, “Who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
Who knows enough to teach him?” [d] But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.
Footnotes:
b 1 Corinthians 2:13 Or explaining spiritual truths in spiritual language, or explaining spiritual truths to spiritual people.
c 1 Corinthians 2:14 Or who don’t have the Spirit; or who have only physical life.
d 1 Corinthians 2:16 Isa 40:13 (Greek version).