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Showing posts from August, 2012

History with God

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Faithfulness is your history with God. It works both ways – his faithfulness to you and your faithfulness to Him. Without God initiating and proving his faithfulness towards us, we would have no obligation to be faithful but because he is faithful, we can be faithful. This summer I’ve done a lot of tent ministry. I’ve interacted with many people from strong believers to nominal Christians to practicing wiccans (professing atheists tend to avoid the tent which advertises “Free Spiritual Readings”). Time and again, I’m impressed by the pursuit and faithfulness of God towards these precious people. During one conversation last weekend, a fellow was amazed when I told him he didn’t have to prove himself to God. The onus is on God to show us his faithfulness, not the other way around. So many understand the Lord to be distant, unimpressed and hard to please; it must break his heart, because it breaks mine when I hear the stories of people carrying around burdens that are impossib

Cultivating Goodness

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There is no one who is good, except by the Spirit. Goodness (Greek = agathosyne ), as described in Galatians 5:22, is something you become by continually acting with goodness towards to another. You cannot be good in a vacuum. To be good, we must have an opportunity to practice goodness with others. It’s much harder this way, isn’t it? When no one is around to irritate me or get in my way, I find it easy to exhibit goodness. It’s when my Man other people are around, the deficit I have in goodness is apparent. The beautiful truth is we are not expected to have goodness apart from the Spirit. The degree to which I am good is the degree to which the Holy Spirit is at work in my life to change my heart. Change the heart, and the behaviour changes. Goodness, as well as any other aspect of the fruit of the Spirit, isn’t produced by striving. Have you ever noticed a fruit tree strive to make fruit? Jesus said if we stay connected to the trunk of the tree (vine), we will bear f

Where's Waldo?

My apologies for my inconsistency for new posts over the summer. I'm away again but this is my last trip, at least for a while. Regular posts will continue next week. Until then, be blessed in the Lord, Andrea York

Practice Acts of Kindness

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Random acts of kindness is not dead. A few weeks ago, I was in a shop but was $2 short to pay for my purchases. I told the clerk, I would come back later for that item but the gentleman behind me offered to pay the difference. The man was insistent and I gratefully accepted, and as I walked out of the store, I thanked the Lord for there are still people willing to show kindness to others. Looking around our culture, and the worries and anxieties we carry about health and wealth which cause us to be self centred and thinking only about what’s in it for me, it’s easy to become disillusioned the world is a terrible place. My Man and I work for a company who is at odds with a former company member. We’re caught in the middle; each side wants us to be on board with their cause. In a discussion with a company representative in regards to the former member, I was called naive for showing kindness to the other. They said, the person in question had not reciprocated kindness to