The Awesome Value of Surrendering One’s Life to God!

14 Jul 2024 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Ezekiel 36:26a.       A new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you:

So it’s another Sunday, another Sabbath Day in the long string that permeates our lives! And all for our good too, because it keeps us calm and on our toes, as on each Sunday, we fellowship in God’s sanctuary with other believers, encouraging and exhorting each other in our Christian faith. And for those who don’t thing that gathering together in fellowship is worthwhile, then they’d better think again and read the wise words of Hebrews. 

‘And let us consider one another to provoke (stir up) unto LOVE and to good works: Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.’ (Heb. 10:24-25) Yes friends, it’s rather important that we gather together regularly to encourage, strengthen and stir up each other, by participating in communal worship and fellowship as the body of Christ. 

And as we do every Sunday, let’s open with a song of praise by the Australian performer Olivia Newton-John titled ‘Let Go and Let God,’ which comes from her Grace and Attitude Album. It was composed by Newton-John, American pianist- composer Kim Bullard and Canadian singer-songwriter Amy Sky. 

It’s a song about finding strength through surrender, something Olivia Newton-John did after being diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992. Her cancer returned in 2017 and again in 2020, but she remained resolute, telling the Guardian: “I see it as my life’s journey. It gave me purpose and intention and taught me a lot about compassion.” Unfortunately though she passed away in 2022, at the age of 73. 

And now that we have some idea of the song’s origin and purpose, let’s offer it up in sweet sacrifices of praise, in a soulful, heartfelt attitude of surrender. Singing: ‘When you can’t find your direction, and your heart won’t guide you home – Let go -and let God. When your dreams are broken in the dust, and you’ve lost the will to trust – Let go – and let God. 

(Chorus: Let the signs remind you, we are passengers. Let the signs remind you to surrender, to surrender – Let go- and let God. (Background vocals – In your holding in, in your holding in, in your holding in, in your holding in.)  When your faith is a dying fire, and there’s no spark to feed the flame – Let go – and let God. When your courage fails you, and the well of hope runs dry – Let go – and let God. 

(Chorus: Let the signs remind you, we are passengers. Let the signs remind you to surrender, to surrender – Let go- and let God. (Background vocals – In your holding in, in your holding in, in your holding in, in your holding in.) Let the signs remind you -to surrender, to surrender, to Let go – and let God, let go- and let God’ 

Oh my people, there are no better or wiser five words we can ever use in this life, than ‘Let go -and let God!’ That s for certain sure, because when we do that, when we totally surrender to Almighty God, our Creator and Provider, then there’s no strain or pressure on us, because He takes it all and sees us through whatever problems we might encounter in this evil and ungodly world! 

And yuh better believe that there are numerous occasions for us to just let it all go and let God. Like the song says: When you’re directionless, and your heart can’t guide you home… When your dreams are broken in the dust, and you’ve lost the will to trust…there’s no better advice than to let go, to surrender, and let God do what only He can do: that’s restore our sense of direction and trust, renew a right heart in us, and give us back the dreams we’ve lost along the way. 

Like Bruh David says to the Lord in Psalm 51, where he’s pleading for forgiveness of his sin with Bathsheba: ‘Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me.’ (Ps. 51:10) And that’s exactly what the Lord will do for us when we reach the breaking point and surrender our all to Him. And it’s not like He didn’t promise the nation of Israel to do just that long ago through the prophet Ezekiel. 

Hear these lifesaving words: ‘Then I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also I will give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them.’ (Ezek. 36:25-27) 

Oh friends, that’s exactly what God does when we turn our whole lives over to Him; He makes us right with Him through the sacrificial work of His Son Jesus Christ, cleansing us, giving us a new heart of LOVE, and putting His Holy Spirit to dwell within us, to lead, guide and comfort us. One can’t ask for more than that! And all we have to do is cry out to Him in all sincerity! 

So, ‘When your faith is a dying fire, and there’s no spark to feed the flame… When your courage fails you, and the well of hope runs dry,’ as we all experience from time to time, that’s the moment to let Go and let God! The time to surrender and let Him run the show. For remember, we’re only passengers down here; this is not our home, and there are signs all over reminding us of that salient fact. 

Oh my fellow believers, what will it take for us to truly give our all to Christ eh? He’s more than willing and able to take all that we have and make our way straight. Remember His Great Invitation: ‘Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.’ (Matt. 11:28) 

Now, there could not be a better invitation that that, especially in this evil and ungodly world in which we’re currently living, where so many of us are indeed labouring and carrying heavy burdens. So today, let’s stop trying to do it in our own strength nuh, because we simply cannot, but God can. Therefore, let’s be wise and… Let go – and let God! Much LOVE!

…life is filled with many ups and down…and the ONLY One who can truly pull us up…is Almighty God…

Hear our podcast at https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/randy-obrien

Today’s Scrip-Bit   17 April 2023 John 14:16.

17 Apr 2023 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

John 14:16. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (Helper), that he may abide with you for ever;

And Monday has come around quite unexpectedly! (smile) It’s also the start of the first full five day workweek for some of us, since we had Good Friday and Easter Monday off. Hope we still remember how to handle it. And if we don’t, then the Holy Spirit will be only too glad to give us a refresher course. You can always count on the Holy Spirit when you find yourself in a jam. Why? Because that’s His job: to lead and guide us in all our endeavours, keeping us in line with God’s will. And I guess that just naturally leads us in to a short refresher course on the Holy Spirt; who He is and how He operates. (smile) 

Now the first thing we need to know about Holy Spirit is that He is a person, one of the persons that make up our Christian Triumvirate Godhead, or as we call it, the Holy Trinity. And that’s one of the basic, or foundation stones of our Christian Faith, which you certainly need to understand and accept if you want to function successfully as a true believer. And our Godhead consists of three induvial beings, each having different jobs and responsibilities, but it’s still ONLY ONE GOD! 

We don’t have the pantheon of Gods that others have. We have God the Father, who, for argument sake, sets the agenda, then there’s Jesus, the Son, who overseers the agenda, and then there’s Holy Spirit, who I think of as the One that does all the hard work, getting down and dirty in the trenches. (smile) And we see a good example of this right at the beginning of recorded time, the Creation, when the Good Book tells us: ‘In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’ (Gen. 1:1-2) 

That tells us that the Holy Spirit had a hand in the Creation, just like Jesus did. And how do we know that? John in his gospel spells it out very clearly. ‘In the beginning was the Word (Jesus), and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God, and without him was not anything made that was made.(John 1:1-3) Yes friends, John’s telling us that the Father decreed the idea, and Jesus created whatever needed created for Him. That simply shows that all three persons of our Godhead were around at the Creation. 

Then Jesus came to earth to do His thing, to save man from His iniquity, pay for man’s sins, through His death and resurrection, as the Father desired and required for justice and righteousness to be done. Now, we’re at the season of Christ’s resurrection that we call Easter, and Christ is preparing to go back to heaven to the Father. And what is His masterful and amazing promise to the small band of followers He’s accumulated over the three years of His earthly ministry? 

‘If ye LOVE me, keep my commandments. And I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter (Helper), that he may abide with you forever; Even the Spirit of truth; whom the world cannot receive, because it seeth him not, neither knoweth him: but ye know him; for he dwelleth with you, and shall be in you. I will not leave you comfortless (as orphans): I will come to you.’ (John 14:15-18) That’s how kind and considerate our Jesus is! He knew he was going away so He promised to make provision for His followers to keep in touch with Him. 

And later on He reassures them. ‘These things I have spoken unto you, being present with you. But the Comforter (Helper), which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said to you.’ (John 14:25-26) Oh friends, how can you ever beat our Jesus for thoughtfulness and compassion eh? You simply can’t! 

The basic problem there was that while Jesus was on earth, He could only physically be in one place at one time, but when He returned to heaven, He could send the Holy Spirit to earth to dwell with and in men to remind them of all that He’s said, and also lead and guide them in all righteousness as prophesied by the prophets Jeremiah under a New Covenant (Jer. 31:31-34) and Ezekiel, under a New Heart and Spirit. 

Listen to Ezekiel speaking on God’s behalf. ‘Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean; from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you. and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh. And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgements, and do them.’ (Ezek. 36:25-27) 

And as always, the Lord is faithful to keep His promises. That’s when we see Jesus promising to send this new spirit, this new Comforter, a Helper to walk alongside and in them, to lead and guide them in what He desires them to do. Now, that’s only and introduction to Holy Spirit 101, (smile) for time and space are against us. So, we will continue this refresher course tomorrow, God spare life obviously. Let’s go now to our heavenly Father in sincere prayer, through our Monday Morning Battle Hymn, petitioning His divine assistance for the days ahead. 

Altogether: ‘Our Father, who art in heaven, we, Your humble servants, praise Your Holy Name and thank You this Monday morning for life and strong faith in Christ, despite the mass confusion in our world. We desperately need Your divine help, for You are the ONLY ONE with the power and wisdom to solve our many problems. 

Heavenly Father, we admit that we have all sinned and seriously disobeyed Your Word, but we know that You are a merciful, forgiving and gracious God, who has faithfully promised to hear and answer our prayers when we humble ourselves, pray, and sincerely seek Your face. That’s why we come to You now, with sincere repentance in our hearts, pleading with You to give us wise guidance and direction to alleviate our problems. 

And Father, we pray that you will ease the pain of the many who are suffering from negative situations. Please show them Your awesome grace and mercy, and keep Your promise that You’ll hear our prayer, forgive us, and heal our land if we turn from our evil ways. Show this evil world that You are indeed Jehovah Rapha; the God who heals! We pray this in the holy and blessed name of Your Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ! Amen! And again, we say: Amen!’ 

Now, let’s do as we know we ought to nuh, that’s turn from our evil ways and be faithful believers, so that the Lord can bless us and our land. Much LOVE!  

P.S. Please forgive the lateness of the Bit, but as happens with all of us at some time or other, life happened with me today. (smile) Much LOVE!

…if you’re not following the Holy Spirit’s leading…then you’re not following Jesus…  

 Hear our podcast at https://open.spotify.com/show/3aVfqIC1CqwGybISs9dZ   

Today’s Scrip-Bit 25 November 2020 Psalm 51:10.

25 Nov 2020 Leave a comment

by randyobrien50 in Christian Thoughts and Inspiration., Daily Devotion, Daily Inspiration, Inspirational Living, Spiritual Living Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Psalm 51:10.     Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me. 

Winter, winter, winter! Yes, the snow, the ice and the cold, dreary days seem to be settling in for the long haul. But, as with ALL things in this world, we can handle the winter with kid’s gloves because of the presence of Christ Jesus in our lives! Wow! Jesus; the ONE and ONLY Superstar there is, who imbues His followers with divine strength to do ALL that they need to do in this mish-mash world! How wonderful He is when you come to really know Him my brethren!  

But on a serious note, yuh know, this could be one of the roughest winters ever yes; what with the Covid-19 pandemic in full swing, and the flu season also upon us, then because of the cold dreary weather we also have our seasonal friend SAD (Seasonal Affective Disorder) dropping in for a friendly visit too. That’s the type of depression related to the change in seasons, mostly starting in the fall and running through the winter months, just sapping your energy and making you even less effective than normal.  

So instead of one kind of depression, that aligned with the virus, we now have two kinds to deal with in the upcoming months. Brother! And who says that 2020 was going to get easier eh? And the sad part is that with all the depression and mental health problems we currently have in our world, we’re still not taking them seriously enough and doing enough to correct them. If possible, the stigma, the fear, and negative emotions about mental problems and depression are becoming stronger.  

What a bam bam eh! We’ve supposedly come so far in our evolution, our enlightenment, but yet still we don’t pay serious attention to the things that really matter and can cause widespread problems in no time at all. It’s all about technology in this modern world, but we don’t notice that that same technology is causing most of our problems, especially the mental ones. Through our technology we’re spewing out reams of hatred, lies, resentment, body shaming, mental abuse and what have you!  

Unfortunately, instead of using the technology for good and useful purposes, it’s been used for way too many negative things. So what’s the answer eh? I really don’t know nuh, but an interesting passage of scripture in the Good Book just caught my eye. It’s the Lord talking through the prophet Ezekiel to His people Israel of new things in their future after all their idol worship and turning away from the Lord, the God of their forefathers.  

‘For I will take you from among the heathen (nations), and gather you out of all the countries, and will bring you into your own land. Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you. A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you a heart of flesh.’ (Ezek. 36:24-26)  

Oh my people, do we ever need such cleansing very badly in these idolatrous and wicked times! Times when we have turned away from God in droves, even to the point of trying to drive Him completely out of our society. But we’re such a foolish people, with all of our supposed learning, we still don’t realize that God will not allow Himself to be driven from the universe and the people He created with such LOVE and wonder! He will allow us the free will to play around with idols and other supposed gods, but His glory, majesty and superiority, He will NEVER give up, no matter how hard we try.  

Why can’t we learn from the fall of Satan eh? The archangel Lucifer who was more powerful than any of us mortals tried to overthrow God, and where did that foolish pride and desire leave him eh? Unsavourily kicked out of heaven, to be forever seething in hell, suffering in the hot bowels of the earth! That’s what our tomfoolery will also get us my brethren!  

And I must be a real simpleton yes, for when I see the number of times Israel turned away from God, suffered for her disobedience, then ran back to Him, I can’t fathom why we won’t do the same thing. It’s obvious that our way isn’t working, and He’s promised to take us back anytime we repent and seek Him sincerely. So what’s the holdup eh, what’s stopping us from a revival in God’s goodness and grace eh? Foolish pride, I guess. And the desire to do it our way, even though it’s just drowning us in the mire of sin and evil.  

But friends, the whole thing is not rocket science nuh. And we have the perfect example of it in Bruh David finally coming to heel. Remember after his dalliance with Bathsheba and the murder of her husband Uriah, he thought he was on easy street, but a year or so later the prophet Nathan draped him up over his obnoxious and abominable iniquities? What did Bruh David do eh? Without hesitation, He admitted his sin, repented, and threw himself upon the mercy of God.  

Hear his plea: ‘Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy LOVING-kindness: according unto the multitude of thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions. Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. For I acknowledge my transgressions: and my sin is ever before me. Against thee, thee only have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight: that thou mightiest be justified (be found just) when thou speakest, and be clear (blameless) when thou judgest.’ (Ps. 51:1-4)  

Oh friends, it might not be easy, but it’s simple! We have all sinned and come very short of God’s glory, and we all know it full well, so where is the wisdom and the backbone it takes to come before a forgiving God and say I’m sorry eh? That’s why the Lord called Bruh David His friend and a man after His own heart! Bruh David never turned away from Him, even when the going got real rough, and was always quick to repent when his evil doings were found out.  

Now listen to his sincere plea, what he desired most of the Lord, as he says in the middle of Psalm 51. ‘Purge me with hyssop, and I shall be clean: wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow. Make me to hear joy and gladness; that the bones which thou hast broken may rejoice. Hide thy face from my sins, and blot out all mine iniquities. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right (steadfast) spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy Holy Spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free (generous) spirit. Then I will teach transgressors thy ways; and sinners shall be converted unto thee.’ (Ps. 51:7-13)  

Oh yes, I know Bruh David was good with words, but even the most uneducated could ask God to wash him and cleanse him and forgive him. And friends, until we, in this current generation come to our senses and return to God, in the same droves in which we turned away from Him, our world will be forever awash in disaster, calamity, sin, evil, terrible inhumanity and ungodliness.  

So for the comparative few of us who know the truth, and it has set us free, let us now go home telling all and sundry of our wonderful positing in Christ Jesus, through our Wednesday Wail.  Altogether now: ‘Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday: I’m so glad to be alive on this Wednesday! Wednesday, Wednesday, Wednesday: Thank God the breath of life is still flowing through me on this Wednesday! 

I am halfway home. My hands are fixed securely on the plough, and I’m not turning back. I’m not looking back at the past, not focusing on what has gone before. But my eyes are fixed straight ahead; straight ahead to a glorious future with Jesus. Glory Hallelujah!’  

And we know that if we endure to the end, that future will be even more glorious than we can ask or imagine!  Much LOVE! 

…only a real revival in godliness…can save our world…