Restoration and Prophecy

HydrangeasProphet Kris Valloton prophesied the restoration of marriages over those who had a broken heart. He followed with a message about what happens when God has given you a prophetic word and the brook dries up!

1 Kings 17: 1 – 7

You may be doing exactly what God has called you to do, but for some reason time has passed and what you expected to happen just doesn’t and you feel like God has left you hanging with regards to His prophecy. Kris explained that some prophecies have an expiration date. It can be our own fault they ran out. You may have been disobedient to God’s intention! You might say you’ll keep standing on your prophetic claim until hell freezes over. Well, Hell has frozen over, so you might as well do something about it.

In Exodus 32 Moses hears from God that He is so angry with his people that He is ready to destroy them. Moses reminds God of the promise He had made to Israel and God relents. He tells us that sometimes we receive words from God like an obedient slave rather than a close friend. Often times He is testing our heart rather than determining our destiny. A friend of God is someone who interacts with Him, not just one who obeys. Moses tells God that unless He goes with them into the promised land, they did not want to go. They felt compelled to be in relationship with Him which also showed their influence with Him. What is the purpose of all this, God?

In 1 Kings 17: 8, God tells Elijah to go down to Zarephath in Sidon, to a widow who was to provide for him. When Elijah arrives, the widow is about to eat her last meal with her son and prepare to die, because they have so little. Elijah says to her in faith, just bake me a loaf of bread first. He told her God promises that her jar will not run out, and it doesn’t. Kris reminds us that when all around looks hopeless, and yet you have had multiple confirmations for what you are doing, stop feeling sorry for yourself and start prophesying into your own situation.

Kris also warns however, that there is a spirit of entitlement brooding over the body of Christ. We are sons and daughters of the king – the Bible tells us so! He makes it clear that we don’t become a king until we have been a good slave. He put it this way – some people are so busy working all their way down from the top! Sometimes our head gets too big to wear the crown designed for us.

In 2 Kings 4: 1 – 7, when there was a famine in the land, Elisha helped a poor widow. She thought all she had was a small jar of oil, but Elisha used this and her faith to multiply what she had and she was able to earn enough to repay her husband’s creditors.* So many times we compare what we have or don’t have to meet our needs with the size of the need. This shouldn’t be the case in God’s kingdom. With Him, all things are possible. Jesus fed 5000 with just a small lunchbox.

In 2 Corinthians 12: 9 we are reminded that God’s grace is all we need, and that our weakness can combine with God’s strength to accomplish all. We are not just our strengths – we are also our weaknesses. But, God has divinely designed us to be flawed in areas so we have to depend on Him or others around us to function properly. If we have weaknesses, when we divinely accomplish something, we certainly know God has had to be there for it to happen. We are to give to others, and our standard of measure will return to us in the same standard. Give abundantly and reap abundantly. The measure itself is not of amount, but of sacrifice. God expects equal sacrifice, not equal giving.

Hebrews 11 reminds us that it is faith that pleases God. Faith is the assurance of things hoped for. If we stop hoping, our heart can get sick. In verse 13, the heroes of faith all died before their promises had been received. Hope feels; Faith sees; Lover never fails. There is no such thing as blind faith! To do the impossible you have to see the invisible.

 

He made beauty from ashes

I am living in a cold house this winter. Noticeably colder than where I have lived before, even discounting my recent tropical escapade to Samoa. One thing I have come to enjoy is the fire at nights. And, more than the warmth as I stoke it up before I go to bed, I love to see the glow of hot embers still there in the morning. It is so much easier to fan it again into flames if there are still hot embers.

Since my weekend with Helen Calder I have had the words of a song stuck in my mind. Oh-h-h the frustration when this happens with a song you don’t particularly like! But in my case, the words of this song are incredible.

He made beauty from ashes, turned sorrow into dancing,

Only You, Jesus son of God.

When I get up on a cold morning and see cold, dead, grey ashes in the fireplace, I know there will be a much greater effort needed to get the fire started, than when there is even just a small glowing ember. Those ashes don’t look very beautiful to me … from a visual perspective or a functional perspective.

But God can make beauty from ashes! Miraculously. He can make lives that are full of pain and remorse wiped clean and we can be forgiven in an instant. We only need to declare that we believe in Him and want to walk with Him. He says it in the Bible, and I believe it as He has outworked it in my life.

Even when I had only the faintest glimmer of hope that life could get better; even when I could only just distinguish a small glow in the furthest ember, God has helped me fan that hope into faith and showered me with blessings as a result. It doesn’t mean my life is now immune from hardship. But, then I don’t expect it to be. But, what it does mean is I have restored the reason for my hope and an assurance that I am loved and cared for at all times, no matter what my circumstances.

Helen Calder helped me to see the tower walls that needed to be broken down, and this little Rapunzel is ready to fire again! So watch this space … I don’t know where my now ‘uncovered’ enthusiasm will take me, but I know where it won’t take me. And that is probably the best thing of all!

Forgive them and move on

In life we can come up against people who hurt us. Maybe unintentionally, by not realising the depth to which they drag us down with them to places we don’t want to go. When life throws you a curved ball you may have to pick yourself up and move on. One thing to make sure of is to not hold bitterness in your heart about the situation. It will only cause you grief.

Be on the lookout for good things that come your way. Be expectant. Don’t pine for what you once had but allow your spirit to be refreshed and made beautiful again. At the point just before forgiveness you are at a crossroads. Don’t let your anger stop you from taking the road to freedom. Remember what road you were once headed on and again head towards your destination.

You might feel like you are just picking up the leftovers for a while but you will be positioning yourself for a blessing. Just put one step in front of the other and keep moving.

These words of wisdom were shared at a women’s conference tonight at Harbourside Church. Thank you for relating the story of Ruth to us so eloquently Helen Calder. When Ruth chose obedience, not because it appealed to her, but because God wanted her to, she was blessed. God said to her, “Rise up daughter. Receive the fresh anointing for the new day.” What an encouragement for me, especially as I had decided some time back this was the best choice for me to move forward.

Mother’s Day 2013

Yes – we love our Mothers here in New Zealand. Out come the chocolates…the brunches…the special dinners…the flowers! Well, for some of us, anyway. I have to say I was very blessed with my family taking me to lunch – even if I did have to pay for my son, who yet again, had lost his EftPos card!

Yeah … Right!!! So the Tui commercial says!

Mothers have had the grace given to them to birth and nurture and bring forth into the world. What an awesome privilege. And it is not only our biological mothers I am referring to here. There are many wonderful women who have not had the pleasure of giving birth to their own children, but who, in many other ways, have helped in the raising of young people. Do we really, I mean, Really! appreciate our mothers? Continue reading “Mother’s Day 2013”

Global Scaremongering

We have had a wonderfully hot summer in New Zealand, since Christmas. Yes, I realise it has hurt many who depend on the rainfall to keep drought conditions at bay, but it could have been worse if we didn’t have the last two wet months of 2012; I think a lot have forgotten that.

The media have had a field day with our long, hot summer, again offering doom and gloom and prophecies of the negative effects of the planet warming. The earliest mention of global warming I have come across is from a newspaper published the year I was born, 1959, which was found in the wall cavity of an old bungalow I was renovating with my husband in 2004. It talked then of the dire consequences we were to experience then, that are yet to take place to the full extent they predicted half a century ago. Continue reading “Global Scaremongering”

If God is for us who can be against us?

A thought-provoking verse for the start of 2013…

What then shall we say to these things?

If God is for us, who can be against us?

Romans 8:31

It’s a question many people have thought about, indirectly, as they ponder the tragedies that have struck them over the previous year. Illness and death of loved ones; marriage breakups and other family problems; natural and man-made disasters wreaking havoc in communities – never to be the same again! Continue reading “If God is for us who can be against us?”

Enter the Throneroom

Samoa Toilet
Out with the old … in with the new!

At last – this week we ‘flushed’ the loo for the first time in the three months we have been here!!! For those who think it must … well … smell – our toilet is finally installed with running water and flushing out to the septic tank at the push of the button! Some think – so what! For us, it is “Progress” that has been well-earned. You can take too much for granted, you know!

We have been tied to the computers over the last week, getting eveything ready for the launch of the new initiative to boost Samoa’s tourism numbers, that we plan to launch in New Zealand for 2012. Continue reading “Enter the Throneroom”

Hope for the Future

Momentum certainly started to increase in the attempts to meet the educational needs of gifted students since the changes in the New Zealand National Administration Guideliness in February, 2005. There has been a slowing to some extent, in keeping with the global recession, but things are still improving.

Please don’t expect this to be a miraculous overnight panacea. Some parents of gifted children will tell you that change has been slow-moving in their schools. Others can report brilliant changes to the management and implementation of gifted education in their schools. Continue reading “Hope for the Future”