I feel so lonely and filled with emptiness.
Please invade my heart with your pure awesomeness.
I don’t even have the strength to shout.
I need your overwhelming presence to destroy my doubt.
I can’t keep on living like this; I am drowning in my sin.
I need the Saviour to live within.
I can never argue anyone:
Into taking responsibility;
Into being reasonable;
Into obeying the Bible;
Into being mature;
Into having an adult conversation;
Into thinking they are the reason for the problem;
Into asking for forgiveness;
Into saying they are wrong;
Into saying sorry;
Into not blaming others for all their problems and sins;
Into not wanting to control everything;
Into thinking I am not fighting with them, but I am actually trying to help them;
Into obeying any of my requests;
Into not criticizing everything I say and do;
Into ever appreciating anything I do;
Into not misunderstanding everything I say and presuming the worst;
Into not having double standards;
Into not ignoring everything I say.
I must shut up and pray and pray and pray and trust God. Then only state my case once. Then I must shut up and pray and pray and pray and trust God. I can’t change them, only the Holy Spirit can.
I must also pray that the Holy Spirit changes me too; maybe I am the one who is wrong.
When we understand that success means being closer to Jesus (loving Jesus more) and being more like Jesus (loving others more, putting their interest above ours), we won’t be like dogs any more, we won’t feel the need to mark our territory when we are confronted by another ‘successful’ sibling, but we will happily know that all territory, the kingdom, belongs to our Father in heaven.
I have been thinking about the ‘tree of life’ a lot. It’s a difficult subject because the Bible just throws the picture out there. In Genesis, just from a casual reading it seems like an actual real physical tree with actual real physical fruit that gave life. In a sense every tree that bears fruit, apples, oranges, bananas and pears, are all trees of life because they give us food that we need to live. We need to eat food to live; if we don’t eat we die. But God gave other trees for Adam to eat the fruit of. So the tree of life was a special tree. The other trees gave the physical body ‘life’, but the tree of life gave the human spirit real life, because after all the real life is spiritual life and the real you is the eternal you. This explains why the tree of knowledge of good and evil did not kill Adam and Eve physically, but spiritually. So in the plain reading of Genesis there once was an actual tree that gave spiritual life.
Was this ‘tree’ Jesus? Jesus said He is the true vine. Jesus said He is the Life and the Resurrection. The ‘tree of life’ was in the centre of the Garden of Eden. Just as Jesus should be the centre of lives and hearts.
So why the mystery around the ‘tree of life’, why does the Bible just throw it out there without much explanation? If God wants to teach us something as important as spiritual life, why is he so vague? “It is the glory of God to conceal things, but the glory of kings is to search things out” (Proverbs 25:2 ESV). Simply put the searching for truth separates the men from the boys as the saying goes, but to use the metaphor of the Bible this separates the kings from the slaves, the rulers from the ruled. So what does God want us to found out? What are the questions we should be asking in order to find the truth, when it comes to the ‘Tree of Life’?
Was it a real (physical) tree in the Garden of Eden? Is it a real tree described by John in the book of Revelation? Is it just a symbol? So what if it is? Does it matter thinking about such things? “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise” (Proverbs 11:30 ESV). Now here is the right question. Are we being the tree of life to others? Is Jesus, the true Tree of Life, living inside us, so that when people look at us, are they captivated by Jesus?
Nothing is as important or as wonderful as experiencing Jesus; apart from Jesus I can do nothing.
John 15:1-8
Philippians 3:7-10
Jude 1:24-25
Jesus Christ, because of Your finished work on the cross, Your death and resurrection, I am in You Jesus, I am justified, I am righteous apart from the works of the law, I am dead to sin and alive to God, it’s no longer I who live, but it is you Jesus who lives me, I desire and do God’s good pleasure, because it’s God who is at work within me, Jesus you are continuously giving me your Holy Spirit superabundantly, the Holy Spirit is continuously changing me to be more and more like You Jesus with ever increasing glory, and God has established me in You Jesus, in You all the promises of God are fulfilled. Jesus, please, save everybody alive and yet to live. Jesus please fix my eyes on you Jesus, every second.
Jesus please grant this prayer for everybody alive and yet to live: please save us, please continuously give us Your Holy Spirit superabundantly, please may the Holy Spirit continuously change us to be more and more like You Jesus with ever increasing glory.
How do I wake up every day on fire for Jesus?
How do we be Christians that are continuously full of life, joy and peace, that make people think, I wish I was that guy?
I had this dream in my mid twenties. I dreamt I was in a sandy desert at night. The sky was dark and starless. I turned left, to look around and saw a man with a staff in his left hand, dressed in white and beige robes, standing next to a small rock face. I then heard a voice from the sky say: “This is what I did for Moses.” Suddenly a wind blew the staff out of the man’s hand straight up into the air about 30 meters. The wind slowly eased its force and the staff slowly fell down. The man easily caught the staff. The voice from the sky then said: “this is what I will do for you.” The wind suddenly blew me straight up into the air, higher and higher, 100 meters, 200 meters, higher and higher. I began to think I was going to heaven and became excited. The wind blew me higher and higher, 300 meters, 400 meters. Higher and higher I went. The higher I went the more I thought I must really be going to heaven. Then I woke up. I knew the wind was the Holy Spirit.
The next day, I was thinking this it! I am going to be a mighty man of God! At the time I was too scared to share the dream with anyone. It was the last really awesome dream I have had. I am hoping that by sharing it now, I will again have cool dreams again. I must admit this dream did fill me with pride. But life continues, and so does sin. If anything I became more of a sinner since that dream. Years went by, and I forgot about the dream, just trying to survive and make enough money, not to live with my parents. One day I was reading the Bible in second Corinthians chapter three.
Are we once again bragging about ourselves? Do we need letters to you or from you to tell others about us? Some people do need letters that tell about them. But you are our letter, and you are in our hearts for everyone to read and understand. You are like a letter written by Christ and delivered by us. But you are not written with pen and ink or on tablets made of stone. You are written in our hearts by the Spirit of the living God. We are sure about all this. Christ makes us sure in the very presence of God. We don’t have the right to claim that we have done anything on our own. God gives us what it takes to do all that we do. He makes us worthy to be the servants of his new agreement that comes from the Holy Spirit and not from a written Law. After all, the Law brings death, but the Spirit brings life. The Law of Moses brought only the promise of death, even though it was carved on stones and given in a wonderful way. Still the Law made Moses’ face shine so brightly that the people of Israel could not look at it, even though it was a fading glory. So won’t the agreement that the Spirit brings to us be even more wonderful? If something that brings the death sentence is glorious, won’t something that makes us acceptable to God be even more glorious? In fact, the new agreement is so wonderful that the Law is no longer glorious at all. The Law was given with a glory that faded away. But the glory of the new agreement is much greater, because it will never fade away. This wonderful hope makes us feel like speaking freely. We are not like Moses. His face was shining, but he covered it to keep the people of Israel from seeing the brightness fade away. The people were stubborn, and something still keeps them from seeing the truth when the Law is read. Only Christ can take away the covering that keeps them from seeing. When the Law of Moses is read, they have their minds covered over with a covering that is removed only for those who turn to the Lord. The Lord and the Spirit are one and the same, and the Lord’s Spirit sets us free. So our faces are not covered. They show the bright glory of the Lord, as the Lord’s Spirit makes us more and more like our glorious Lord.
(2 Corinthians 3:1-18 CEV)
And it hit me that my dream was not about me, but about every Christian.
Still time went on and more and more sin and more and more failure and more and more years, until I can only say “amazing grace that saved a wretch like me”.
So here I am. I desire to live the dream, catch every wave, and be a bonfire for Jesus. Yet most days getting out of bed, is an answer to prayer. The cry: “There must be more than this!” The song: “I still have not found what I am looking for?”
The rebuke: “I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest.” (John 10:10 CEV)
Was it a real (physical) tree in the Garden of Eden? Is it a real tree described by John in the book of Revelation? Is it just a symbol? So what if it is? Does it matter thinking about such things? The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life, and whoever captures souls is wise (Proverbs 11:30 ESV). Now here is the right question. Are we being the tree of life to others? Is Jesus, the true Tree of Life, living inside us, so that when people look at us, are they captivated by Jesus?
Seeking The Path 