P 2804 Thoughts from a Grannie.

Jesus is speaking to His disciples in John 14:15-17:“If you love Me, you will obey My commandments Then I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Advocate to be with you forever— the Spirit of truth, Whom the world cannot accept,because it does not see Him or know Him. But you know Him, because He resides with you and will be IN you.”

Christians all have a live-in … Counsellor; Comforter; Baptiser; Advocate; Strengthener; Sanctifier; Spirit of Christ; Spirit of Truth; Spirit of Grace; Spirit of Mercy; Spirit of God; Spirit of Holiness; Spirit of Life. And just because we cannot always hear or see Him at work, that does not mean He is not with us! He is FAR bigger than our measuring sticks, but unfortunately, He sometimes falls off our radar because … HE IS NOT LOUD.

This world we live in today likes to loudly feature what we can see, feel, touch, taste, and experience – it quite gladly shows us demons … … but refuses to acknowledge Almighty God! When SomeBody or something does not line up with our instantly focussed, darkly-imagined world, those people fall under suspicion and doubt – they are accused of trying to steal someone else’s fun away. They are restricting someone else’s freedom to express themselves. I think that’s when and why, we end up labelling things … without consulting the Creator’s greater knowledge. 

The reason Christians choose to get to know the Lord every single day, is because the Holy Spirit reveals the truth of the Word of God to us as we read it. He reminds us, over and over again, that Father God loves us dearly – He teaches us, step by step, that we are part of something far greater. At the same time, He is also praying for each and every human being, every second of every minute of our lives. I have learnt that the kingdom He comes from is so much bigger than the world I inhabit – so I have learnt to refuse to be limited by the things I don’t yet understand! I will be prayerfully careful with those things, but I refuse to be limited, because I have a limitless Father!

When I only look at my own limitations, or the limitations of the people around me, and I choose to be guided by them, I cease to grow. That’s when I have put ‘fitting into the status quo’ above ‘growth.’ Loads of people do that. Life kicked them in the teeth when they have tried to stretch, or extend the edges of their thoughts and now they are looking for safety more than adventure. Here’s what I have observed … safety becomes a BOX that limits my God-given possibilities. 

Jesus told us to be like little children, and healthy little children are curious. They start out in this life asking: “Why? Wat dat? How?” But instead of fostering that curiosity, human beings made a great big container and they named it school and instruction – and now we plonk these precious bundles of natural curiosity into it, hoping against hope that “school” will teach them… something – anything .. that means they can make a living some day. We are not trying to make decent human beings – just societally functioning ones.

Unfortunately, school rarely teaches most children how to think, instead they teach them how to learn. That channels most people’s thinking processes into established streams. It takes a very brave inquisitive child to push against these established schools of thought. Many children who refuse, for one reason or another, to be ‘streamed’ are labelled today with man-made diagnoses, that limit their ability even further to become who they are to God. If we want to go higher than the status quo – our aim should to be lift them higher than we’ve already come.

Sadly with these non-conformist kids we say: “something is wrong with that kid, so we will give it a great big name that means this kid is a dud who won’t do what it is told, or is too dumb to learn.” We limit them with our fear and labels. Oh, we do it nicely, because we’ve learnt to practice our PC, so we pat the kid on the head and say: “Poor baby, this one was born broken.” And then we use them as a statistic to prove our ideas are right.

Maybe in our societies today, the dollar has become more important than our kids, So instead of teaching them how to explore our world safely, we stick a lid on them and tell them this is all there is, that only a few people can grow up to be special. You can make great clones that way. However … God made us all individuals for a purpose. We each have a role to play in His plans for this world – and it won’t necessarily just be on the sporting field, stage or TV! 

What we call education, steals away His purpose, under the guise of things we must know to survive. It has stolen away faith from many, and labelled it ‘a minor need in some individuals who are already weak.’ It does not see faith as something that opens doors, it sees it as an enemy. It is our job, as parents, and grandparents, aunties, and uncles etc. to foster our children’s interest in this bigger world of faith. That bigger world is HIS world. And you can give your children a far better start in this life if you teach them how to really SEE – spiritually. Don’t expect our schools to do it, it’s our job to teach them about that bigger world, which is far realer than this one. 

Instead of just teaching them to digest facts and information that can be proved or disproved – let’s teach them about His kingdom. Let’s tell them what that looks like. Help your kids to see that words on a page in His book, can expand into dreams, visions, and a greater reality that will bless everyone, not just themselves. And that’s this Grannie signing off for today! Bye. 👋

P 2800 Cultivate walking with the Holy Spirit.

Matthew 17:1-3: “After six days Jesus took with Him Peter, James and John the brother of James, and led them up a high mountain by themselves. There He was transfigured before them. His face shone like the sun, and His clothes became as white as the light. Just then there appeared before them Moses and Elijah, talking with Jesus.”

I was reading these verses this morning and it occurred to me that these verses about the Lord’s transfiguration show, without a doubt — that absolute purity, honour, truthfulness and glory CAN LIVE in this world and NOT SIN.  I think Christ always looked like that, but His glory was hidden from everyone around Him. Those 3 men saw Him that day, as He really was! Meanwhile all that purity, honour, truthfulness and glory etc. was nailed unjustly to a cross! If Christ hadn’t yielded to them, those Roman soldiers could not have touched Him!  “…He gave His back to the smiters …” Absolute purity became sin on that cross. Ya might like to think on that lot for a while. I did! 

For me this scene reinforces, the importance of us walking with the Holy Spirit!  It also made me think, we could easily be walking around with angels, unaware of who they are … because they’ve left their hat, glowing clothes and halos at home, and now they look just like us! We don’t know what we can’t see! These three disciples were exposed to a huge revelation in those moments, and they didn’t quite know what to do with it!  There is a fascinating reaction to the visual revelation in front of them. One of them, who shall remain nameless, but his name begins with P … starts making dumb remarks. Then they all fall on their faces when Almighty God literally says from heaven: “Just listen to My Son, please!”

I mean, after that event nobody even dares to talk about it  or ask questions – yet they had had holy huddles before speculating on what stuff meant! However, Jesus instructed them not to talk about what they’ve just seen with other people, and they didn’t. Imagine not saying anything about something like that! These men were in ushered into the Presence of God in all His glory! They saw Christ’s purity on this earth, unveiled. WOW!! 

My first question when I read this is, why were the disciples even present? What was the Lord Jesus looking to teach them? What did it mean? Isaiah the prophet once ended up in the throne room and his first response was that he had a revelation of his own sin. Why didn’t these three men react like Isaiah? They only fell on their faces when God Himself spoke from heaven! Ya might want to think on that!! Meanwhile, it is practically a hallmark of their relationship with the Lord, that His disciples asked questions all the time. But instead of talking about how their Master looked, they start talking about Elijah.

At the bottom of that mountain these three men are back doing what they’ve done before, casting out demons etc. — or trying to! And … they failed. Even after what they had just seen — they failed. It seems that Jesus was a bit ticked off with their faith failure. I think that this incredible, spectacular revelation of Who Christ really IS, didn’t actually help their faith. The Living breathing Word of God was standing there right in front of them, but they didn’t understand what they saw!

Does that ring any bells with anyone? Do you ever read His book and not get it?  Moo-ving on … those same disciples thought after the Jesus’ crucifixion, that that was it, game over! Whatever they had seen and experienced, thus far, did not give them enough faith, or power, to continue. Jesus eventually scared the daylights out of these grown men by walking through a wall, but they still didn’t get the magnitude of the story they were in. They had heard what He had said previously, but it was not digested. I think, they did all the things they did, in those 3 years together, in the power of HIS Name. There’s power in HIS Name! But their faith was extremely challenged by those events that happened when He died. 

Jesus knew this would happen and I think that’s why He told them … when He finally left them to go back to His Father … to WAIT for the Comforter, the Helper, the Advocate, the One Who comes alongside. Every single person present in that room needed the Holy Spirit  — and SO DO WE!  Seeing miracles is not enough to grow the kind of faith that changes the world. We all need to learn to walk with the Holy Spirit. We need to encounter Him. Not presumptuously marching ahead of Him, telling Him what to do, but in step and in tune with His Ways – we need to let Him guide us, teach us, correct us, comfort us and lead us into new places in God.

BTW, if any of you out there in blog land have ever wondered why those 3 disciples ended up on that mountain with Jesus, Moses and Elijah …I believe this is why … Jesus told them they would. Matthew.16:28: “Truly I tell you, some who are standing here will not taste death before they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom.”They were privileged to see Jesus the way we will all see Him one day. And on that day …we will be changed by His glory, forever.

These men walked for 3 1/2 years with Jesus and participated in all sorts of miracles, yet they still needed to be filled with the Holy Spirit and POWER after He died, and was resurrected. God knows we can’t do this life on our own, so cultivating our walk with the Holy Spirit needs to be our first priority. This is not about feelings, dreams or visions, or weeping at the altar  … meanwhile we all need to cry our eyes out for our hard-hearts, sins and disobedience.

What will help us grow, and step into our inheritance, is our daily obedience to His Word, enlivened and kissed by His Grace – going IN and OUT like the tide. As we live like this, Holy Spirit will show us the way we should go! Amen. Bye👋

P 2701 ‘You’ve got mail!’

“So, dear friends, don’t let this one thing escape your notice: a single day counts like a thousand years to the Lord Yahweh, and a thousand years counts as one day. This means that, contrary to man’s perspective, the Lord is not late with His promise to return, as some measure lateness. But rather, His “delay” simply reveals His loving patience toward you, because He does not want any to perish but all to come to repentance.”2 Peter 3:8-9 TPT.

Scriptures like this one reveal the Lord’s heart and they explain His timing.These are the kind of things we need to watch out for as we read our fresh mail, every day. At the same time we are always looking for things we can apply into our own lives. I ask myself, all the time, what does this teach me about Him? What am I doing or not doing that needs to change? I’m not simply looking for answers to prayer to make my life easier –  I want HIM – I want to know Him. Reading the above verse immediately shows me that He is patient and compassionate because He is merciful. 

When I go out into this world to speak to the people-who-don’t-know-Him-yet I have verses like these in my thoughts. At the same time, when bad things happen at our house, I have also hidden these things in the inner chamber of my heart. I hide His word in my heart, so He can speak to me. We hide His Word by acting on what it says!  His timing is absolutely perfect – He daily gives me‘apples of gold in settings of silver’all the time! This life is not about our comfort, or human knowledge —  we can miss what He is actually doing at any given moment, when we seek those things. We seek His kingdom FIRST. Our God made this world out of nothing – imagine what He can do with your little life!

I love verses like the ones in 1 Peter, because they clearly say that He doesn’t want anyone to perish! Just let that sink in. Your worst enemy, or mine – the Lord does not want them to perish.… Those people who are persecuting you – He doesn’t want them to perish. He loves them just as much as He loves us. I’ve discovered that our responses to various situations, like the immediate one from our heart, can tell us a lot about how much we trust Him. That’s a good thing! If my boat is leaking it’s going to help to know where the holes are! So, if you are afraid … “What time I am afraid I will trust in Thee.” Psalm 56:3-4. These things aren’t feeling issues – they are choice issues. The bible is a book of instructions and insight – the more it is applied the more we will know Him.

Only God knows why some people act the way they do. Whenever we are hurting we have to stop and go into the inner sanctuary in our heart, and wait there for His insight.  “I would not have been true to Your children if I had spoken this way. It was too hard for me when I tried to understand this, until I went into the holy place of God. Then I understood their end.”  Psalm 73:16-17: We will gain real understanding in the Presence of God. Not by going round and round the issues, desperately looking for an answer. However we all need to go after love “… love builds things up!” Walking in love takes us out of the realm of our thinking and brings us into His realm of influence. 

Our answers and reassurance lie in His realm. Love is not a feeling it’s always a choice. Remember that the next time you have an argument with someone. Our only real choice is to believe in the One that we know, He cannot lie or fail us. We cannot afford to pin our hopes on what we think we know, instead we must go to the Friend Who sticks closer than a brother, and then we firmly attach our hopes to Him and what He says in His book. We’ve always got MAIL! And then we stay there – holding fast to His faithfulness. 

It is essential that we read His Word as Him speaking to us, not superstitiously –  trying to divine this or that situation -, but rather to reinforce our personal knowledge of Him so we have something we can obey!A bigger view of God will boost our faith. Reading His Word is designed to increase our faith in Who He is, as well as what we believe. Those things are the most valuable things we have. The more we understand His Ways from His Word, the more we can hold fast when everything is sliding up and down and it looks like the sky is falling. And we can make adjustments by repenting when we are being faithless.

Our faith has substance. It can stop our little boat from sinking because we continually look to Him to calm our inner storms of dismay and fear. His book spells out what we are to believe. It gives us pictures from the past of how other people got it right or wrong and the consequences of their actions. We must always remember that Christ changed everything. However, if Christ had not died and gone away, we would not have the Holy Spirit NOW. He is our comforter, counsellor, encourager, helper, teacher, guide to holiness, and the spirit of all truth. He is also our Friend that sticks closer than a brother – He’s everything we will ever need to get us through this life.

Despite the lack of snail mail nowadays — you and I have always got mail – it’s in the book! And the Holy Spirit loves to breathe His life into whatever we read, today. Bye  👋

P 2681 Absolute Surrender

“Since Christ, though innocent, suffered in His flesh for you, now you also must be a prepared soldier, having the same mind-set, for whoever has died in his body is done with sin. So live the rest of your earthly life no longer concerned with human desires but consumed with what brings pleasure to God.”1 Peter 4:1-2 TPT. 

And there you go, a fantastic standard that is impossible to reach outside of the governance of the Holy Spirit! This life is always about choices. Unfortunately, the church today is in a bit of a hole, because we have figured out ways to make that choice sound user-friendly, or – we’ve hidden the choices away somewhere in the fine print. The thing is, we cannot legislate, or even subtly obfuscate reality. Doing that will eventually turn around and bite everyone of us on the backside. It’s His truth that sets us free.

I think that the men and women of God in the New Testament learnt this kind of stuff as they went along. The whole idea that everyone was suddenly rendered instantly whole, spiritually sound, as well as personally fabulous, is error. They had a Saviour just like we do – they had to learn stuff just like we do. If you read the New Testament carefully, you will see that there were troubles, strife and skirmishes even as the church was developing and growing.

People still did the dumbest things, even though they had given their lives to Christ and wanted to live their lives for Him. However, back then they knew they had the Holy Spirit,He taught those people personally, He will do that for us too!We need to learn to value and appreciate His Presence more than life itself. The Holy Spirit is not just about speaking in tongues – HE is our Helper, our Counsellor, our comforter, our personal teacher. Cherish Him.

Meanwhile, the Christian life isn’t just about what we don’t do. It’s about what we must do – ON PURPOSE.  We’ve lived for years with rules that are almost impossible to keep, and at the same time we invited other people to join us. Then we got disappointed when they didn’t want participate. “Come to our church and we will actively teach you to obey a whole lot of rules that we can’t obey either!” 😳

The same method that saved us, CHANGES us. It’s called absolute surrender. We do it in faith and we live it out daily. The problems come because we pretend to be something we are not. We will have to die to be these people, His new creation, and that ain’t pretty. Sadly, we’ve subtly altered His life-giving invitation to live a new life IN Him – because: “come to our church and we’ll teach you how to get dead to yourself” doesn’t’ look good on a billboard! 

Today, many people in the West are living in a secular nanny-state that insists we must be politicly correct. I personally believe that particular premise invites deception. I’ve had a number of conversations with people who are working and living out in this world and they cheerfully parrot off: “Oh, you can’t say that now!” or “That’s inappropriate!”  Human beings are never going to be legislated into being changed  – we are way too inherently disobedient! I truly love putting Jesus in charge of me – mainly because my memory ain’t what it used to be, and if you hand me societal rules I will have forgotten them before I’ve even put them in my bag. 

I actually think this PC stuff is all nonsense. We need GOD Himself, active on our behalf, not lists of rules for things we can say – and things we can’t. You cannot legislate caring, unselfishness, and inclusiveness, because there is no underlying core in normal human beings that can support it. Human beings without God are awful. We killed the Lord of all glory and we had lots of words and theories to prove that was the right thing to do. Think about it – God Himself came here and we killed Him. Praise the Lord Jesus – He did not stay dead! Our hope is in the Saviour Who rose from the grave, not rules. The same Holy Spirit Who raised Him up will change us.

The Holy Spirit has incredible, selfless qualities in super, unmeasurable, abundance. All that plus WISDOM! But human beings don’t. Watch little kids in the playground. They will haul off and clock each other. They will snatch things – and they won’t care two hoots about the other child crying. Adults buy guns and knives because they don’t feel safe. They don’t feel safe because this world is not safe … selfishness and sin were born into all our hearts! What we want in and for ourselves is to be indulged, and proved right. However, the assumption that I know what is best for me is, at best, twaddle! The best way for humanity to be changed and transformed is to submit to Christ’s leadership. 

Absolute surrender is the only way to go. Otherwise we will begin to reject any rules, and grow resentment, and that stuff leaks out in particularly vicious ways when nobody expects it. It’s called anarchy. Soldiers do not enlist to have a desk job, they enlist to fight. And if need be – they will die for what they believe. We too, were born again to fight … but not each other. We are to daily fight the selfishness that surrounds us – releasing His love everywhere we go, and if need be, we will die for the people who hate us. At the same time we must stop fighting the Holy Spirit for the right to run our lives the way we want them to be, and simply SURRENDER to His Ways. That’s the way forward, totally surrendered and absolutely sold out for Jesus. 👋

P 2540 Our new life is OURS – right now!

Learning to walk in the Spirit is not like learning French! There will never be a better time to begin than … right here right now. We cannot achieve unity with Christ Himself in our own flesh, which is why we must choose to die daily. This means that we need to get used to saying NO to our flesh and YES to His ways, and those choices are often minute by minute. His new life in us = the Holy Spirit + our choices + follow through.

That new life will be activated inside our own personal relationship with Him – the daily, moment by moment fellowship we share together … Every day we need to break bread with Christ. That means we take His Word, pray over it, ask for help to understand it personally, and then we deliberately go and obey Him.

Other people can’t give us this, it is something that we must choose to prioritise for ourselves, with the Lord’s help. Today our world concentrates on getting what it wants by its own means. Remember, mankind was organised and clever enough to build the tower of Babel. I urge you not to give into being hurried, or pushed when it comes to reading His book. The church itself has wanted to push God’s people into a pure devotion to God that can only be gained by personal spiritual investment.

Father God reveals Himself through His word, intimately and personally. This is because our new life in Christ is about faith… and our relationship with Him, our obedience, is the stepping out in faith place! The only person who can walk that way IS ME. The way it works can be explained to us, but if we do not personally start taking faith steps, as He leads us, then we will end up back in the flesh. And sadly, the flesh will not profit us. Our flesh’s end-game is the glorifying of MAN. We will stop enjoying God and start ticking boxes.

The Lord gives us revelations because these interactions are part of intimacy – that’s why your revelation may not benefit me at some particular moment in my life. Because … He’s speaking to you! Whenever God shares His secrets with us, He is sharing Himself! Not every prophecy spoken in church is for the whole church – first and foremost it is for the speaker to digest and gain fresh insight and understanding for themselves. Otherwise it can be just another fresh load of instructions loaded onto backs that are already breaking!

Father God has always meant for us to discover Him afresh, every single morning, it is like the manna the Israelites gathered every day. In that time when we shut out the world, and listen to the things He speaks to us through His Word as if He were speaking them to us personally. Otherwise we simply end up following rules and hoping that will do. The flesh cannot give birth to the things of the Spirit. We need to seek Him, and go after the things He is revealing to us. It is meant to be a happy engagement between us and Him as He patiently teaches us His Ways.  

At the same time, we cannot tack Him onto, or into, our already established lives – He is now our life. ‘For me to live IS Christ to die is gain.’ Just as the Lord chose us, and called us to be His people, in the same manner we need to choose, prefer, and defer to Him. This means we will deliberately eliminate the things He points out to us – with the Holy Spirit’s help. Our flesh will lie to us. It will tell us we can’t do thus or thus because … we are too weak, too sick, too busy, too preoccupied with the business/busyness of this world. Sadly, if we are not aware, we can get so busy maintaining our little lives, and our own agendas, that we leave the Lord out and relegate Him as an add-on.

However, whatever our attitudes or thoughts, the truth is — we are now dead. So we have no other agenda but His. This is why we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Him. That personal cross is illustrated by the things in this life that will pull at us and demand our attention to the point where Christ becomes secondary – instead of primary. It can be people, or occupations, or leisure past-times. To walk by faith we will have to fight fear, guilt or blame to prioritise Christ. “But the]Helper (Comforter, Advocate, Intercessor—Counsellor, Strengthener, Standby), the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in My name [in My place, to represent Me and act on My behalf], He will teach you all things. And He will help you remember everything that I have told you.” John 14:26. He is always on STANDBY!

Sometimes I think, we have what we believe backwards. We fight for healing, or freedom in order to better serve Christ, but if the Lord is not building that house, then we are labouring in vain. It is not that God wants us to be sick, or infirm or in prison! It is that He does not want sickness etc to occupy all our thoughts. We can end up wasting our allotted time chasing answers to human problems when Jesus Christ Himself proved that HIS PRESENCE IS THE ANSWER. Wherever He went sickness, demons, infirmity left. EVERY SINGLE TIME. His new life is now ours, right here, right now.🙌

P 2515 Exhortation and encouragement.

Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.”

In the above scripture Paul is talking about meeting together for the purpose of helping each other to move on, and grow, and expand our faith. And in 1 Corinthians 15:58: he is encouraging believers not to waiver in what they believe. In 1 Thessalonians 5:14: he exhorts the family of God to be active in helping others with weaker faith. In Ephesians 4:29: Paul also talks about being careful how we speak to one another to benefit each other. These are just a few of many ways that all the writers of the Epistles exhort the reader. And they are also an example of how to exhort others to continue on in faith toward our ultimate goal – to wholeheartedly love Jesus … and keep pressing on … 

The gift of encouragement is supernatural, it instills courage into someone else’s life. That encouragement can include things that need to be put aside because they are a hindrance — as well as telling others what they do that blesses people. This gift can give our leaders courage. Leaders face a great deal of discouragement – very few will talk about the ‘stuff’ that comes at them – sometimes almost hour by hour, daily. We can be a blessing to everyone we know in many ways – such as giving, helping, as well as using words. Prophecy is for the wider church, but encouragement is for individuals. One of the disciples had his name changed because he encouraged others so much. His name was Joseph but it was changed to Barnabas. That name Barnabas means ‘son of encouragement.’ 

Encouragement is a spiritual gift, just like mercy, helps or healing…this gift gets behind others when their spirits are flagging, and it lifts up their arms so they can praise Jesus freely again. It comes directly from the Holy Spirit andit is part of His Character! Two of the Holy Spirit’s 10 Names, are ‘comforter and strengthener.” When we operate in the gift of exhortation and encouragement, we are choosing to flow with Him, moving in His Grace and goodness to build up someone else’s hope and faith. This gift is about things that touch someone’s spirit and go right around their mind into their hearts. The person immediately becomes aware of the Holy Spirit working. He is SomeOne Who is outside our own understanding – BUT whatever HE SAYS rings true. It feels like home! Spirit-given words have eternal consequences as well as earthly ones. They can encourage others to take risks, and grow their faith.

I think the Body of Christ lacks a lot of encouragement and my advice is this — don’t just wait for the Holy Spirit to speak to you, regularly and faithfully go to Him and ask Him to give you words etc. and make you an encourager of others. This world is very negative toward anything that has absolutes, and Christianity is all about absolutes! I exhort us all to practise listening to the Lord, and then share whatever He gives us with others – gently, and with great humility. Let Him do the work. We don’t have to push or strain – He’s Almighty God. He knows which words will touch the downtrodden, needy, or even a flagging spirit in that other person.

“I am sending him to you for the express purpose that you may know about our circumstances and that he may encourage your hearts.” Colossians 4:8. The ‘him’ in this scripture is a man Paul trusted. This unknown man, Tychicus, was someone Paul commissioned to carry his letter to encourage a church. If you look at Paul’s Epistles as letters, you will find they are full of encouragement and exhortation – as well as information about what is happening in his life. Including the things Paul is and has already learnt, about his own faith. We need to remember, we are reading this Apostle’s personal mail – Paul had no idea they would end up in the book we read every single day!  

I urge anyone reading this blog to read Romans 12. Clear precursors to beginning to operating in any of the gifts of the Spirit, lie in that Chapter. Meanwhile I present my body to Him as a living sacrifice every single day, because the bible says in verse 1 “this is your true and proper worship!” One of the best ways to grow, is to step out in faith and use our spiritual gift/s. If we are wrong, then …oh well … not perfected yet!! That’s the humility bit. If it blesses others then … Glory to God!! It is such a privilege to have the Holy Spirit flow through us. His life in us is like a pure river of gold flowing through our kitchen taps! Some of that gold always clings to the pipes and then we are blessed too, because His goodness clings to us.

The more we yield to Him, the more the desire to exhort and encourage others will grow! Whether they are Christians yet, or not! Bless you. 👋