Grace

Burg Finstregruen

Walking around a golf course, now full of golfers catching up after the snow, I’m now listening to a teaching on God’s Grace.

Here’s the latest revelation which took a couple of days to sink in. When we come to believe in God, he takes us as we are. Warts and all. Unperfect. Then as we receive Jesus our spirits are made perfect, it’s only the soul, our thinking part that stays in the carnal and needs to be renewed by the word of God.

So we will sin again, we live in a fallen world. So why is it religion then puts all these laws on us? In church you must tithe, read the Bible, do this, do that to do what God wants us to be, so we’re still in his good books.

NOOOOO. We have the Grace of Jesus within us, and all is forgiven. But we are human, God never found a perfect person here, we’re all damaged, but he’s forgiven all, past present and future. Mr Wommack says the only way we can stay perfect on earth is for him to shoot us as we come out of the waters of baptism before we can even say a word. God uses us wonky folks.

So churches, stop binding us by rules that will make us get back in God’s grace again, it never left.

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Thinking it through

So, I was thinking in the early morning of going for deacon-ship and the secretary, and then came this long list of practical things I’d have to ask the out going lady about. How much time would it take in my week -not as if I’m hugely busy. I’ve never taken minutes for a meeting being one of the first concerns! Or maybe I should be treasurer, that might be less time consuming.

Would it take all my energies, so my mind would leave the main goal, which is bringing people to Jesus? Our pastor isn’t fully affiliated, what if I committed and he left? I’m really keen in hi sort of ministry, I feel God brought us all here at this time for the community. What a team we could be!

I need to sit and talk with them first, before I go another step forward.

Sunday’s church meeting

January 29thFirstly, our Pastor, Paul preached a hum dinger of a sermon about what is our burden for God, is it to do his work in a world that so needs salvation. It really was full on, directed at the church who is full of people who have spent their lives in the church and are tired.So there I sat, all excited at the meeting, then there was a load of housekeeping that was really boring, and I wondered why the whole church needed to be in on it. To my surprise, THREE of the deacons had handed in their notice, including the secretary and treasurer. I’d often said to myself that I quite fancied being secretary.I went home still excited, people have to put themselves forward for voting in the next few weeks. I found myself thinking NOW I’LL HAVE POWER! That eventually got to me, that’s wrong. I’m so aware these days that I don’t wan’t to be in charge, happy to follow orders. If it’s a me in control thing, this is ALL wrong. But if it means I have the power to be instrumental in waking this sleeping, dying church up, and instrument of God’s change then maybe it is ok.Am I finally usable? I’ve felt God’s presence strongly these past couple of weeks. Even a dull day to me is full of him and now the birds are singing, wow

Am I getting ahead of myself?

On Friday night at the church kids’ club, I asked the pastor’s wife how the deacons meeting had gone that week and she smiled mischievously and said when I went to the main meeting on Sunday, I was to smile and nod and see what I thought, it was something we had discussed. She wouldn’t be drawn, so my mind went into full gallop.

We had talked a bit about me being a Deacon, and how that would help us get things moving in the church. I’d even wondered when I would be asked. How alluring, after fourteen years of frustration the Lungau, was I finally, nearly usable to God? To do his work was my ambition here, having done all I want, even to thinking quite a lot that the last book I’m writing at present may be my last for the moment, and not worrying. I’ve hardly bought a book fro weeks, the passion for that dying, but that might be that few horsey books are for sale here!

Does it mean at last I can be a full blooded full time Christian, doing stuff for Mountain Ash, using all I’ve learnt over the years, might actually lead someone to the Lord? Not that this has anything to do with my relationship with God, it’s that what is important, not what I do. My mind went nuts, even seeing me preaching, having a ministry.

So on Sunday, Dave and I trotted off to church me wondering if I could pull it off if asked if I wanted to be a Deacon. I’d completely forgotten the procedure from when we’d been in a Baptist church before! You’ll have to read the next post!

Blindingly obvious

I’m listening to another set of podcasts by Mr Wommack and this time, it’s all about Holy Spirit. He began by saying, what you prefer, Jesus to be here tonight or with you always? He guessed most would want the immediate presence. He then pointed out with the baptism of Holy Spirit, Jesus is with you always.

I’ve been a spirit baptised, tongue speaking, God meditating Christian since 1991. So why did it hit me like a thud when Mr W said, but Holy Spirit is Jesus. And of course, as I believe in the trinity , blindingly obvious.

So I walked the rest of the way round the golf course musing on, Spirit is Jesus, Spirit is God, God is Spirit, Spirit is God, Jesus is God, God is Jesus. Kept me happy for ages…

Looking back

I’ve reflected quite a lot on our life in Austria, and Mr Wommack said the other day that even if you make mistakes, but are doing it with a good heart, he can work with you, he’s a God of second chances.

Or, maybe it was like Moses, we had made a wrong decision, and something had us in the wilderness for fourteen years. It certainly was a time of spiritual growth for us, and we learnt a lot, through our own study and reflections and teaching on the TV. During Corona, we even had services live from England.

Did we look back too much? How I struggled when the kids visited and went back, or when we visited. I had a huge bout of depression the first time we drove back to the UK for Christmas and Dave has more than once said, he wishes we had gone back then. And with a grin it would mean we didint have a certain black dog, who was my therapy. If we had totally gone into German, not watched UK TV, missed the kids, would it have been any different?

So many times, I battled with wanting to return, but buckled down, prayed and got over it. Even found joy in my life. Then when in January 2019, Dave said maybe it was time to go home, I leapt with joy, never having expected to hear him say that. The following eighteen months, I so wanted to get home, my heart was no longer for Austria. That does sound like it was his change of heart working in me.

Now I feel so at the end of myself and I did feel often in Austria that I had done all I wanted to do, is it time for God to finally find me usable? Does he have a ministry for me? It took Mr Wommack many years!