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Author: Hope

Acquainted with Him

Acquainted with Him

Hosea 6:3 AMP So let us know and become personally acquainted with Him; let us press on to know and understand fully the [greatness of the] LORD [to honor, heed, and deeply cherish Him]. His appearing is prepared and is as certain as the dawn, And He will come to us [in salvation] like the [heavy] rain, Like the spring rain watering the earth.”

Philippians 3:10 Amp[For my determined purpose is] that I may know Him [that I may progressively become more deeply and intimately acquainted with Him, perceiving and recognizing and understanding the wonders of His Person more strongly and more clearly], and that I may in that same way come to know the power outflowing from His resurrection [[a]which it exerts over believers], and that I may so share His sufferings as to be continually transformed [in spirit into His likeness even] to His death, [in the hope]

My heart for you with this post is that you will daily become more acquianted with Abba Father, Jesus Christ His Son and Holy Spirit.

21 Years ago when my first child was born I realised that I needed more in my relationship with God. I have been a child of God since very early in my life and I have always loved Him; but I did not know how to pray effectively and I didn’t know where to begin to get to know Him better. I felt like, “there must be more than this”. In that time God allowed us to stay in a place where we were far away from friends and family because He had to teach me how to seek and find Him. It wasn’t easy, but He taught me to really rely on Him and seek Him for answers. The more I spent time in His word getting to know Him, the easier it became and soon enough I could distinguish between when He was speaking and when the enemy was speaking. The word says in John 10:27 “The sheep that are My own hear My voice and listen to Me; I know them, and they follow Me.”

I would like to share with you how I approached this issue of becoming more acquianted with Him. It is very basic, but a good building block to start with. As you grow spiritually it will start to look different. There are many facets to God that we could learn about. Maybe this can help you a bit.

I started out with who Jesus is; what is His character like? I asked myself, how do we get to know someone? When I met my husband and we were dating, we would spend hours just talking and asking each other questions about what we like and what we dislike. Now our relationship is much deeper and there are other facets of him that I come to know as we grow deeper in our relationship. At first it was only the two of us. Then I had to get to know him in what he was like as a dad when our children were born. As we grow older and our grandchildren arrive I will then see another facet of him. I will only be able to see it when our grandchildren are here, no sooner. It is the same in our relationship with Christ. When I face trials – who is He, what is He like? When I need comfort – who is He and how will He take me through? When I need protection – who is He and how will He protect me? The list goes on and on. There are so many facets of Him. Provider, healer, redeemer, shepherd, protector etc.

This was my approach: I started out with that which was in my face. I had my first child and I knew I had to start praying for this little one’s life. Especially for protection because I knew God would be much better at protecting her than me. I had to get to know everything about Jesus. I didn’t start with only one aspect of Christ and then moved on to the next, I wanted everything, all at once. I started out in the New Testament – there is a lot of information on how Jesus behaved; how He interacted with people; how He showed love and many more. I would maybe read a chapter or 2 at a time, sometimes I had to stop at 2 verses to really chew on what I had read. There were many places where my belief system was challenged, where I was so deceived because I either didn’t know or I believed the opposite of what I read. As I grew spiritually and came to know a bit more about Jesus’s character, my faith started changing. Most of the time I could stand against things that were in contradiction to what I read about Him. I could mostly stand against the enemies lies because I chose to believe what His word was saying. Every thought that was coming against me, that were tormenting me – I could refute with His word. Many times I had to push against myself because things did not look good. It was so easy to respond to what was infront of me instead of what God says in His word. Most of the time I was my own worst enemy. I had to really slap myself with the word and choose to believe what God says. I remember one time, our daughter was about one and a half: we didn’t have medical aid and financially we barely got through in a month. She caught the flue and had a fever and she looked bad. I felt very sorry for her, but then I got mad at the devil making her sick. I said, “I do not look at what I see because it is a lie. I look at how it looks in heaven – and in heaven there is no sickness. So, in the name of Jesus Christ who is the healer, you are healed!” I had to do it a few times because I had to push against myself and not look at how bad it looked; and really trusted God to come in. He did! There was a season where many things happened to my babies where there were no medical aid or finances. I was pushed to rise up in who I believed Christ is and my faith grew like a wild fire. I honor Abba Father for His love and for teaching me so well. I must say, if you really want Him and really go after him with everything in you, you will find Him. The question is: do you really want Him? Do you want to know everything about Him?

Then there is another way to approach this: When I have questions on a certain topic and what is written in the word about this topic I would go search on the internet, for example: Type in “Jesus the way scriptures”. It will throw out a bunch of scriptures that you can start studying and ponder on. I would also take the verse that I want to study and type in, “John14:6 commentaries”. Commentaries are the work of biblical scholars who have dedicated their lives to understanding the word. In the commentaries it gives you a wider idea of what the scripture is actually saying. Sometimes it gives you some history or context. There are many different bible commentaries, so I read through as many as you can to see how they compare – do they say the same thing? This is where you will learn how to interpret the scriptures right and not draw your own conclusion. Remember that the bible is our only source of truth and not the internet – the internet is just a tool and there is a lot of deception out there.

It is imperative for us as Christians to become more acquainted with God. We need to know who He is, so that when the day of temptation and pressure comes, we will be able to stand because we know who He is and we know He has got our backs.

May you dig deeper into knowing Him and come to a place of deeply cherishing Him. May God in all His facets be revealed to you. It is neccesary for you to go after Him. If you don’t make the effort you won’t get to know Him. Oh, He is so worth knowing!!!

Lets pray: Abba father, I want to know You more because to know You is to know truth. Please forgive me for running away from You because it seems like too much effort. I undertsand that to build a relationship takes time and effort. Forgive me for not using my time to seek You, but to satisfy my flesh. Holy Spirit you are my helper; I give you permission to guide my steps and truly break open to me that which I need to learn and see in every season of my life. Set me free from the bondages over my mind: the things I believe as truth that are lies. Please help me to find You Lord. Help me to get to know everything about You. I open my heart to You so that You can teach me who You really are. I ask this in Jesus name. Amen.

Realign and Readjust

Realign and Readjust

Jeremiah 29:11 Amp, For I know the thoughts {and} plans that I have for you, says the Lord, thoughts {and} plans for welfare {and} peace and not for evil, to give you hope in your final outcome.

Beloved, in this time of lockdown many of us feel like we have been thrown ino a tumbeldryer. We have never experieced things like we are experiencing now. It is an unknown, unsure and even a confusing space.

I would like to encourage you today, I want to cheer you on and ask you to really dig deep and do some introspection. Introspection by asking yourself if that which you have been doing or where you were at before lockdown is truly God’s plan for you or not? The Lord has been showing me that He is using this time to tugg on many hearts to fall back on that which He has spoken to us, the promises He has given us and the original blueprint of heaven for where we should be in our lives. Did we deviate from the path, or did we stay the course, especially when the pressure came? Many of us have been bent by the pressures of life and we’ve tried to keep things together by ourselves. We have made our own decisions without taking it to God and we have stepped into positions where we don’t belong. Abba is using this time to call us back and He is giving us all a chance to recalibrate and readjust ourselves. He is such a loving father and this is a window of opportunity for us to use and to get ourselves back on track.

Let us use this time wisely. When this season is over and we step into the next, time is up. Beloved, make sure you grab hold of God’s heart for your life, what you are imparted with in this time is going to have major impact on your future.

Isaiah 30:21, Your ears will hear a word behind you, “This is the way, walk in it,” whenever you turn to the right or to the left.

Let’s pray– Abba father I come to you in the name of Jesus Christ your Son. I am confused, I do not know where to go and what to do, but You know. I repent from deviating from Your original instruction to me. I repent that I have fallen under the pressures of life, that I trusted and leaned on my own understanding. I repent that I have done my own thing and I did not include you in my decisions. I ask forgiveness, please cleanse me with Your blood. Father, now I give you permission to readjust and realign me. My life is Yours and I know that when I walk in that which you have purposed for me I will experience life in abundance! Please remove the confusion from my mind and help me to find clarity on where it is that you are leading me. I open my ears to hear what You are saying so that I can walk in the way You have purposed for me. Jesus, please take charge over my life again. I pray this in Jesus name. Amen.

Feeding Vulnerabilities

Feeding Vulnerabilities

Lets talk …

So, here’s the thing – We so often, maybe constantly even, struggle with fear; fear of the future; fear of loss; fear for my life; fear of failing; fear of loneliness and it goes on and on. It’s an endless torment, an endless fighting off the thoughts in our minds. An endless crying out for peace.

My question is, so why do we feed our fears? Why do we go into social media or get involved in conversations that engrain this fear more and more into our souls? Being fed with absolutely that which we are trying to avoid and trying to get free from.

Lets use an example; someone has a fear of being attacked, so now this person will watch movies, listen to news, go on social media and follow stories of people being attacked. She is feeding herself with evil. Isn’t this person busy tormenting herself and coming in agreement with the enemy ? What is she entertaining? What is she filling herself with? What you fill yourself with will consume you and it will control you. What you hook your eyes into, you worship.

It is written in Philippians 4:8-9 ,”Finally, believers, whatever is true, whatever is honorable and worthy of respect, whatever is right and confirmed by God’s word, whatever is pure and wholesome, whatever is lovely and brings peace, whatever is admirable and of good repute; if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think continually on these things [center your mind on them, and implant them in your heart]. 9 The things which you have learned and received and heard and seen in me, practice these things [in daily life], and the God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you.

Is this this person entertaining things that are “right and confirmed by God’s word”? We should think continually on that which is right (entertaining it in our minds). Then it says, “practice these things in daily life” (what do we practice daily?) and God [who is the source] of peace and well-being will be with you. Isn’t it when we rid ourselves from feeding off of that which is poisonous to us and rather feed on that which is right – THEN we will experience peace and well-being that we so much desire?

For some of us it’s going to need a bit of effort to get ourselves out of the programming of feeding our vulnaribilities. We will need to become mindful of that which is our enemy and seek God’s face to rid us from that bondage. The most important thing is that we should reprogramme ourselves and change our behaviour of wanting to go on social media or entertaining things that will add to that fear.

May God show us what our enemy is and may we overcome by the blood of the lamb, in Jesus name.

We need to pray– Abba father, oh how we need you. We are so stuck in our ways. We do things where we don’t even realise it is harming us and we allow it. We are being tormented and we are broken. Forgive us for running to and fro trying to find peace and well-being, but we are looking in the wrong places. Forgive us for not running to your word, for not clinging to you, for not relying on you, the one and only God; who is the source of peace and well-being. Deliver us from this and bring us back to your paths of righteousness in Jesus name I pray. Amen.