Surrender.

“We do not give up, yet we surrender.”

It’s the paradox of God. All our attempts at pressing on are marked with moments where having done all to stand, we just stand. We have prayed and we have praised. We have sown and we have believed. We have gone the distance, and the distance still left shall be filled in with a defiant hope. For we are not a people that give up, but wholly surrender.

We surrender to a power in Christ we have not known before. We surrender with a humility that acknowledges where our ability stops and His continues. We surrender to the truth that what we cannot accomplish in our own strength, He is well able to by His Spirit. We surrender with a decision to live not on the basis of what we see we can’t do, but on what God said He would do.

“God is not a man that He should lie, nor a son of man that He should change His mind.

Does He speak and then not act?

Does He promise and not fulfil?” (Numbers 23:19)

Reason enough to not give up, yet reason enough to surrender.

And everyone said, a brave Amen👑

Moments.

“God moves in times and seasons, but He works in moments.”

When God moves, things shift. They realign and start to take shape. It seldom looks like what we had in mind, but simply because the gift comes wrapped in a different package doesn’t mean He isn’t delivering. We need eyes to see and ears to hear. We need sensitivity to how He is moving, so that as the seasons change, we don’t miss the turning of the leaves. We don’t miss those fleeting moments that though may seem insignificant, are actually precious in the eyes of Our Saviour. He is the divine orchestrator of all things. As such, my hope and prayer this season is that as He is moving behind the scenes, we remain sensitive to those moments that He orchestrates by His Spirit which give us a splendid opportunity to be Christlike to those He has called us to love. Whether it is giving a glass of water to our thirsty neighbour, or whether it is imparting a word of encouragement to a friend in need, let us not hold back but be present.

Blessings this holiday season ❄️🎄

Trust.

“When we cannot understand the mind of The Lord, we simply must trust the heart of The Lord.”

There are times when we go through situations which are simply beyond our human comprehension. We receive promises with joy, but the process when totally surrendered will certainly test us in terms of our willingness to trust and obey God even when everything in the natural seems to be contrary to what He has spoken.

What I’m learning is this. It’s supposed to be that way. Promises are supposed to challenge our situations and circumstances. If Heaven has to manifest on Earth, then Earth must realign with Heaven. Inevitably, there will be more reasons to doubt than trust. But that’s when we need to remind ourselves that we aren’t called to do life by logic or reason, but by faith and trust.

So when we feel tried by what is ensuing in the natural, and we find it hard to understand the mind of The Lord?

We can simply choose to trust the heart of The Lord, for His Heart is full towards us, regardless of circumstances. He delights in us, who we are and who we are becoming in and through a relationship with Him, which needs to be our prime focus while navigating the challenges that come our way.

It is His Heart of love, tenderness, compassion and love towards us that sustains us, prospers us, develops us and releases us.

I hope and pray that this holiday season, we will seek to be so anchored in the depths of His affection towards us that anything that seems to suggest otherwise will only serve as a tool to grow closer still and go deeper still.

Happy Advent ❤️🎄

a tinge of Christmas!

So on the second day of the Christmas Month, here I am posting a moment in time. Walking through our garden, taking in the winter sun, pausing to look at vegetation and noticing the red tinge in my socks resting on the lush green grass beneath. Pretty ordinary, yet potently drawing my attention to the hues that mark Christmas 🎄
As Advent rolls on, I hope you too shall take some time to pause at the tiny yet wondrous moments that Our King brings our way!
Wishing you a blessed season ahead!
☀️

Cross Over!

On the last day of the eleventh month of the year, I’m excited for those of us in transition between prophecy spoken and prophecy fulfilled, between promises released and promises realised; for this is a song that declares we are ready to cross over.

Cross over from our wilderness into our vineyards of fruitfulness, spiritually and naturally.

As the last month of 2019 dawns upon us, let us declare that though we may have walked through fire and flood, the times and the tides are both changing.

For our good and His Great Glory!

Amen👑

Reciprocity.

“God’s Perfect Love, and therefore being perfected in God’s love.”

Our God is a God of Encouragement. To me, the term, “encouragement” means to infuse with courage. It takes love to pour courage into someone, and paradoxically, it takes courage to truly love. This has been my story and journey with Jesus thus far.

So above all else, I thank God for His Perfect Love each day. There is nothing I can do that can make Him love me more, and there is nothing I can do that can make Him love me less. Simply because that is who He is – Love. In His Love, He has poured encouragement upon encouragement in my life. It is a revelation of such Agape Love that has given me the courage to love Him back. This cycle of reciprocity has cultivated a depth of intimacy with Him that enables me to obey Him when He asks of me to love first, myself; and then, others in the way that He does. This isn’t something I can do in my own strength, but only in the strength of His Spirit.

Of late, He has laid the following passage on my heart. Though we are all quite familiar with it, I believe it is something that we will be walking out in increasing measures as we continue to walk out the wonderful process of our “becoming.”

“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.  It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8, NIV)

These Christlike virtues make for a quick read, but take a lifetime to truly walk out. Therefore, it becomes vital for us to first come to God each day and simply receive. Receive His Love like a much loved Child of God. Receive His Mercy like a much loved Child of God. Receive His Forgiveness like a much loved Child of God. Receive His Compassion like a much loved Child of God. Receive His Grace like a much loved Child of God. Receive His Strength like a much loved Child of God.

For we cannot give what we do not have, and what we do have, no one can take away.

We can extend the Love and Light of Christ to those that God has called us to love only to the extent that we have first allowed God to pour into us. He asks us to be loving, gentle, kind, gracious, forgiving, generous and compassionate. However, as I write, something I recently heard comes to mind,

“Jesus first became like us before He asked us to become like Him.”

Stunning, isn’t it?

This tells me that God would never ask us to be something that He first doesn’t demonstrate firsthand in our own unique personal walk with The Lord. If He asks us to become an extension of His Love, then we can expect Him to first reveal Himself as Love that comes with no strings attached – the kind of Love that can never be earned for in Christ, it has been freely given. Therefore, the exhortation,

“Freely you have received, freely give.” (Matthew 10:8, NIV)

Which brings me back to what I wrote earlier on in the post,

“For we cannot give what we do not have, and what we do have, no one can take away.”

We can freely give with the confident assurance that what we do have, The Living Christ within us, an inexhaustible source of Love that heals, redeems and restores us every single day, is a gift from God that no one can take away. What we give of ourselves, He is Faithful to replenish. What we cannot give, He is Faithful to help us with.

If in essence, God is Love, it naturally follows that our journey would mean that we have been embarked upon a process of becoming love. Good fruit grows only in bad soil, and we are encouraged to love the unloved. This is something that needs us to be bold, courageous and supremely confident in the Perfect Love of God which casts out all fear, till all that is left is our willingness to go the extra mile and have our hearts echo with the resonance of a resounding, “Yes!” because we have tapped into our Identity as much loved Children of God who know that the way to live is to die, and because the very source of Eternal Life is within us, we are now free to die.

So, if Perfect Love casts out all fear, Perfect Love brings about courage. The courage to love and the courage to being willing to be perfected in love, slowly but surely with the radical confidence that even when we fail, His Grace shall cover us and His Mercy shall prepare our hearts again. We cannot fail, because Love never does.

Selah.

Love ran Red ❤️

Past the midnight hour, ushering in the dawn of a new day. We call it “thanksgiving,” for as surely as one chapter of our lives is coming to a close, taking a moment to lift our heartfelt thanks to The One and Only whose Love and Faithfulness have not, will not and shall not ever fail us, gives us a magnificent opportunity to not just revel in His Presence but even hand over the keys for what is yet to come; a new chapter endowed with new beginnings and new blessings:)

Suffice to say,

“HAPPY THANKSGIVING!”

🍁🍂

Peace, Love and Joy!

“There is a peace in believing, but there is a joy in knowing.”
Believing in the promises of God bring about a peace, rest and trust in our souls, because irrespective of what may be going around us in the natural, we trust in the nature and the character of God: He is who He says He is and He will do what He says He will do.
However, there comes a point in our journey where our faith and trust transcend all and transition to a place of “knowing.” This is where we have allowed God to establish a space in our souls where we know beyond a shadow of doubt that when the time is ripe for harvest, He will come. This is the place where at the crossroads of faith and trust, the centrepiece that glues it all together is our “knowing.” We simply know with the joy of a radiant and deeply loved Child of God, that there is no way He won’t come through.
At a juncture such as this, our peace in believing collides with our joy of knowing – a beautiful soul space which brings a lightness and freedom to our journey, puts a smile on our face and a spring in our step.
Friends, a revelation of this is nothing but a pure gift from The Father in whom there is no shadow of turning.
So, as we prepare our hearts towards thanksgiving, I hope and pray that no matter what may be going on around you whether it’s the sheer busyness of life or the clouds of confusion that come when the path is unclear, we will still seek God in order that in the midst of it all, it is His Peace that guards us, His Love that shields us and His Joy that strengthens us.
All my love and blessings❤️