Test yourself!

2Co 13:5 Keep examining yourselves to see whether you are continuing in the faith. Test yourselves! You know, do not you, that Jesus Christ lives in you? Could it be that you are failing the test?

This is a great piece of advice. Keep examining yourselves!

It is so easy for us to live and slowly drift away from living in faith. To begin to just do the things we need to do, to survive every day, no longer hearing from God and regularly stretching ourselves to do much that shows faith.

So let me ask myself that question:

When last did I do something that shows that I am truly living by faith?

I think if I cannot remember recently having received some instruction from God, or learning some new principle that I’ve applied in my life, which took some faith to go through with, then I must ask myself that last question in the scripture: “Could it be that I am failing the test?”

Positive Thinking, Faith and Vision

The changes in this year (Written 2 Jan 2009)

This is my first Sabbath for this year, and I went to go and have a look at what happened, this day, a year ago. See what I recorded:

Recorded Yesterday as the day of changing my approach

I recorded in my life time map, yesterday as the day I’ve decided to give this whole positive thinking thing a full go, for a year. I have set certain goals and I will continue to chase after those goals, replacing them with further goals as I get close to achieving those. I am mounting a new attack, at a totally different level, against depression, unhappiness and failure, and in a years’ time I will be able to see what the results of this were.

- Wed 2 Jan 2008

It was during this same time, that I started the 10 day mental diet.

If I look over this year, then I realize that it is the year in which I’d made more progress in my life than probably all the other years put together. I had made radical and major changes in my life before, but this is the first time that I have such a strong experience of the change that I’d made, having moved my life into a place where I am positioned for the future that God has for me, and where I have a structured plan for living out that future.

If ever I was in a place where I was making my “calling and election sure,” then now is the place.

So, Father God, I want to start off this Sabbath with a prayer of gratitude. What You had done in my life over this year, is indeed significant. I thank you for the literature that You had sent across my path, for the way You orchestrated the sale of our house and our shares at just the right time, the job coming together just in time, the apartment with the view, my garden, my little office here and my amazing office at the university. You have blessed us, You have provided for us, and You have done amazing things to bring us to where we are today. I praise You!

Faith and vision: The power of words

Act 20:1 After the uproar died down, Paul called together the believers and with words of encouragement said good-bye to them. Then he left and went on to Macedonia.

Act 20:2 He went through those regions and encouraged the people with many messages. Then he came to Achaia,

Paul’s work was mainly about words. He changed people’s lives with words. The gospel is shared with words. Words are what direct my thoughts in a certain direction. One thought inevitably leads to the next. This chain reaction can hugely impact my life and environment.

At one stage I was getting annoyed at Christians always going around, asking others who are known to hear from God: “Do you have a Word for me?”

Now I realize that, as immature as this may seem, they had grasped on to this truth. They had probably experienced how a word from God can link their future and their present, suddenly lighting up for them a way to go, paved with the motivation that comes from the expectation of success.