You gotta share!
Author: newlifenarrabri
POTD
Today’s Sermon
POTD
Reflection on Exodus 12:31-51
Scripture
On that very day the Lord brought the people of Israel out of the land of Egypt like an army.
Observation
Following the death of the firstborn sons, Pharaoh sends for Moses and Aaron, and now he orders them and the entire Israelite people to leave Egypt.
The Israelites gather their possessions and herds. They ask the Egyptians for clothing and articles of silver and gold which they give to them.
The people are like a great army of 600,000 men plus women and children. The Lord instructs them about celebrating Passover.
The Lord has brought Israel out of Egypt like a great army, as He promised.
Application
The Lord set the Israelites free from Egypt after exactly 430 years there, some of it in slavery. Nobody could have foreseen how or when this would happen. Yet the Lord did it in His time.
The Israelites did not leave as slaves but as wealthy people as the Egyptians willingly handed over to them all of their wealth.
When God makes a promise, we can be certain that it will come to pass. We may become impatient because God’s time scales are always different to ours.
God fulfils His promises in ways we can not anticipate. A nation of slaves does not just get up walk out into freedom. But in God’s plans, this is exactly what happened.
The message at the heart of this passage is that we should not give up on God. If He promised it, it will happen.
Keep praying! Be patient! Be expectant!
Prayer
Thank you Father that you do keep your promises. Please help me to be patient and to keep on trusting. Amen.
Foreign bloke crowned “Miss New Zealand”
James McPherson writes:
A TRANSGENDER ‘woman’ has been crowned ‘Miss’ New Zealand. But it’s 2020, so you just know there will be a twist to this story.
And, of course, there is. The beauty pageant winner is Filipino.
All of which means that this year’s ‘Miss’ New Zealand is a foreign-born, biological male.
Could there be a more fitting result in a post-Truth world where nothing is ever as it seems?
The mandated response, as we all know, is to applaud and to tell each other how lucky we are to live in a world where people are so open-minded and accepting that literally anyone can be the most beautiful woman in the room — even a man.
But how are we to live with such absurdity?
We have resolved the contradiction by agreeing that if we all say in unison that a biological man who believes himself to be a woman is in fact a woman, then he is. Or rather: ‘she’ is.
As you can see, it takes practice. But with the help of woke media and LGBTIQAX+ activists who threaten to punish those who stray from the narrative, you can get the hang of it quickly enough.
And hey presto! Faster than a beauty queen can say “world peace”, the contradictions dissolve.
‘Women’ can have a penis. ‘Men’ can be pregnant. And 26-year-old transgendered ‘woman’ going by Arielle Keil can be named ‘Miss’ New Zealand, less than 12 months after reportedly paying surgeons $15,000 to create his breasts and vagina.
Read the rest of the article here
Reflection on Exodus 12:1-30
Scripture
That night at midnight, the Lord struck down all the firstborn sons in the land of Egypt, from the firstborn son of Pharaoh, who sat on his throne, to the firstborn son of the prisoner in the dungeon. Even the firstborn of their livestock were killed.
Observation
The Lord instructs Moses that the current month is to be the first month in their calendar. On the fourteenth of the month, they are to take a lamb, slaughter it, and smear its blood on the doorposts of their houses.
The people are to be fully dressed and ready to leave. The Lord will strike down the firstborn son of every Egyptian, but the Israelites He will spare. This is judgement on the gods of Egypt.
So in the middle of the night, the Lord strikes down the firstborn son of every Egyptian from the Pharaoh down.
Application
The last and most devastating plague resulted in the death of every firstborn son in Egypt. The Israelites were spared by the Lord, but every Egyptian family, including Pharaoh himself, was stricken.
As the Lord stated in v. 12, this was not a judgement on the people of Egypt but on their gods. None of these gods was able to protect Egypt from the wrath of the Lord. Even Pharaoh, who claimed to be divine was not immune from this judgement.
The Lord is the only Lord, the only God. All people, all ideologies, all gods, all social and economic systems; they are all subject to the Lord. He reigns over all things, and nothing can stand in His way.
Prayer
Lord God, you are greater than all we can imagine. Yet you love your people and rescue those who seek you. Glory, praise and honour to you, Most High God. Amen.
Journalling- Against Deception
Against Deception
This is the third article in my series on Listening to God.
The first two articles are available at http://www.new-life.org.au
Journalling and the Holy Spirit https://tinyurl.com/y34fjbu6
Journalling- Testing Your Thoughts https://tinyurl.com/y2fxnpwn
One of the biggest fears that people have with journalling is that they might be deceived into believing something that is not from God, or worse still, led into some great sin through being deceived. This was addressed in the article mentioned above, “Journalling- Testing Your Thoughts.”
I was asking the Lord about this recently, and I want to share the answer I received.
I asked: How would you know if you are being directed by satan?”
The answer:
The problem with all meditation techniques is that they open you up to the spirit you are following. If it is me, the Holy Spirit, that is great, the way it should be! But if you are being led by satan, if there are demons in your spirit, then you will be open to hearing the voices of satan.
If you are deceived, but wanting to follow me, I will send you alarm bells, called cognitive dissonance. Cognitive dissonance happens when you realise that what you believe does not line up with reality.
That is why it is always essential to check your journal revelations with the Scriptures. It is also why knowledge of Scripture will never be supplanted by meditation and listening. If my words says one thing and your spirit hears another thing, you are being deceived.
Do not abandon journalling when this happens. Do not despise the gifts of my Spirit because of the possibility of being deceived.
I will always be speaking words of love to you. I will always lead you in the ways you should go.
Be still and know that I am God.
More on Cognitive Dissonance
We all have a complex set of beliefs that together can be called a world view, a lens through which we view the world and our place in it. When our world view conflicts with observed reality we have to adapt to that situation by either modifying our world view or ignoring the conflict.
When we come to know Jesus, the Holy Spirit starts dismantling our world view and our resultant behaviours to ensure that our lives glorify God and reflect the person of Jesus Christ. This is a life long process, sometimes called “sanctification” (becoming holy).
If we have a sin that we are comfortable with, the Holy Spirit might start convicting us of this. To use a trivial example, suppose it is swearing. Then we will suddenly find we are finding verses in the Bible about the words we speak and so on. Perhaps friends will say things, or we will feel bad when we say certain words. Eventually we find that our behaviour is changing to reflect God’s holiness.
In journalling, it is possible that we might receive a “word” that is not from God. In that case, God sends alarm bells of cognitive dissonance to warn us that this is not from Him. We find that Scriptures contradict that thing, people say things in passing, or things happen that contradict what we thought we heard from God.
When that happens, the best thing is to lay it all before the Lord, and ask Him to show you where you may have gone wrong.
He loves you and will correct you when you inadvertently go astray.
