Grace and Faith

Julian Adams said at the conference this weekend that there is a link between a growing understanding of grace and the faith that we have to see God move today. It's the first time I've ever thought about it, but I think that is so true. It was at a conference called Rendezvous in France last summer that I felt like I really got my hands around grace, and what it means for me, and that it is by nothing that I have done but all by what Jesus achieved on the cross... (aside, I love how we always have more to learn about God! We think we've got it and then BAM a whole new revelation)... it really transformed my whole thinking since last summer.

Oddly coincidental, that same conference was where for the first time I thought I'd go for healing prayer for my lower back pain, which had been crippling on occasions for the previous 2 years. I think it was postural, I'm not sure, but by the end of a day sitting down I had to lie on the floor just to straighten it out. I had gone to the physiotherapist and they had given me exercises but these didn't seem effective in the long term...

So when Terry Virgo offered to pray for lower back pain for anyone present I decided, having seen several friends healed of this problem, that this would be my turn. After waiting a while and seeing many french people healed, Julian came to pray with me and held my legs out. My right one was shorter than my left. We started praying, and I felt a change on the left side of my lower back like muscles were adjusting, and felt the legs align together to be the same length. Praise God I was healed. Since this time I have never suffered from regular back pain...

So this weekend, when hearing about the link between understanding grace and raising faith I decided this has proved true so far in my life. I want to keep reminding myself afresh of the grace of God and what it has achieved in my life, and know that the same power that raised Christ from the grave is available for us today when we seek Him for healing. This was demonstrated by some fantastic healings at the conference this weekend, but I intend to get some more recent stories for this blog as the weeks go by... watch this space!!

Good times

It's been a great month. I went to spain with my girls that was pretty amazing. I've worked an awful lot, and then I went to a caravan with people from my small group. Monday morning I was in a horrenous mood, I felt a little like giving up, not because life isn't amazing but because sometimes I wish I could be in heaven where health is certain, happiness normal, relationship tension impossible, and God abundant. Maybe it's only me, but I get really fed up with how this all isn't the case on earth!

Anyhoodle, as ever, prayer answers all so a good sesh with a friend and then a good sesh on my own seemed to adjust perspectives so that I am reminded of my purposes in this place at this time, even if simply to become more intimate with Him. It's not good just to let seasons pass us by as we wish on the new ones, yet we so often do it.

And now I'm attending the Heaven Touches Earth conference and am reminded of God's promise in Philippians 1v6 'And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.' I have so many dreams of ways that God would use me, to see more people healed, to bring joy where there is brokeness, hope where it was lost... and sometimes, ironically, I lose hope that any of this will ever come to pass. BUT GOD has promised to keep on working on my imperfect self until the day of Jesus Christ. Praise God!

I have also seem tremendous freedom where there was previously unbelief. Did you know that God longs for us to have JOY in His presence. Well, you probably did, but I fail to live it, or I used to.

A man with a nose bone problem that meant he couldn't breathe through it since birth got healed today, and a breast lump disappeared, amongst many other things that my silly mind has forgotten. What a good God.

This certainly isn't a boring lifestyle that I have chosen! There is so so soooo much more to come! MORE LORD!!!

New thought

So I haven't written anything since my first post, mainly cos I didn't know how to follow that one, also cos I've had no time. But tonight I was struck by something... timeless fact, new revelation...

God is reallllly good. Like I'm not sure I can describe quite how good He is. I didn't really understand when I was young why God could ask us all to worship Him, why it wasn't a bad thing for Him to want 'glory' or 'praise' for Himself. If we aren't supposed to be selfish surely He shouldn't be either?! But one day it just clicked. I think I was watching a sunrise, or something, and I was so struck by how beautiful it was. And then I started to have friends who I really cared for, more than just because they helped me pass time, but because I think I was learning what the friendship kind of love really is... to care about someone, and want to see them happy, and looking forward to seeing them, and seeing something and wishing they could have seen it because you know they would have appreciated it...

what I mean to say is, as one of my friends would say, I started to enjoy the finer things in life. I saw things that were really good. I really enjoy a delicious meal. I appreciate the beauty of nature (when I remember to look). And it dawned on me, that I believe there is a Creator, and therefore He made all of these beautiful lovely good things. And if He made them, they came from Him, and are a reflection of how beautiful and lovely and good He in fact is. So when He asks us to worship Him, it is not Him being some selfish do-badder trying to big himself up in pride, it is a perfect God wanting us to enjoy His perfection by enjoying it, ie enjoying Him! Appreciating good things is worshipping God. His Kingdom coming on this earth is good things happening on this earth. It is sickness being healed, it is broken relationships being fixed, it is hurting people turning into joyful people...

When people see my faith and think that it is a list of rules that I sometimes stick to but feel bad if I don't, they're wrong. My faith is that I have been given permission to spend time with a God who is perfect and good and lovely and beautiful and delicious and sunny and made everything that I love.... and some of that means that He sets standards, for example not to gossip, not because He wants me not to have fun, but that gossip spreads hurt and not healing, and God is a God of healing not hurt. Or flirting with all the boys, and flirting endlessly without committing does not reflect God, as He is a God of faithfulness and longs for us to understand this through our relationships with others.

I suppose this post brings questions of why there are bad things as well as the good things... that will have to wait for a future post. I'm just excited about seeing more of God's good Kingdom come on this earth.

So this is my new blog...

I sometimes read other peoples blogs (although not really that often, who really has time to read other peoples thoughts?! quite a lot of people apparently)... and am always inspired. I've never wanted to have my own, because I've always been afraid of nailing my colours to the mast, so to speak (if that's the right phrase). I like brackets.

Tonight I do exactly that. I'm tired of chasing other peoples dreams. I believe, whether you care or not, that I was created for a purpose. I am a tremendous wreck and proud and arrogant and often think I know things that really I don't, while I shy away from sharing a God with you who has restored my life - in some ways fully, in others I remain completely ruined. My God actually does have an answer and actually can help.

I am 100% certain that there is a God and that He created this universe one way or the other, and that He created man in His perfect image, and that I am one of those said men (women, ha). I am convinced that by giving us choice we chose to be selfish, and at the same time I am sure that the God of the universe MUST be good and perfect.

I so often do something out of spite, or maybe jealousy, I hope to have people think well of me by pushing others into the back of the queue, I thought I was 'good' but....no. This is so so so bad and wrong, and therefore God could not allow me anywhere near Him. BUT I was His creation, and he loooonged that we not be separated forever, but here was all this nastyness all over me through and through, how could that nastyness come together with His perfection?

So He sent His Son, Jesus Christ, to live a perfect life, who had many opportunities to push Himself to the front of the queue BUT chose not to push others behind, He chose to serve rather than be served, and was obedient to the point of dying on a cross, humiliated. And God withdrew His presence from His Son, leaving Him in absolute inperfection.

BUT GOD then raised this Jesus Christ from death. When Jesus died my nastiness died, and because I have asked God, He now looks at me and sees all the good things Jesus did rather than all my bad things. I still have much badness inside, but God sees good, and will help me to learn to be more and more good, through the failures, by His Holy Spirit which lives in me.

I would quote the Bible but I don't even know where to start. Romans somewhere. I think I've said enough for tonight, thank you for giving me time of day, I'm sorry for all the time's I've failed you. And for all the times I will fail you.