Jesus loves me this I know .........................................

I had an edited version of this published in our congregation's weekly magazine so thought I would share the whole of it with a wider audience -

I was doing a lot of thinking after Stephen Wood spoke on Sunday 5^th Oct. And really believing unless we totally get our heads round that whole thing that God is good all the time and that He loves us all the time then we have very little to offer the world.

It was interesting that it was the tree of knowledge that Satan tempted Adam and Eve and we are still being tempted with the whole desire for knowledge ever since. We cannot believe it unless we know! (Read Rick Joyner’s book Two Trees in the Garden for more on the why of this and where it has led us.)

Once we can truly say that God is good all the time and that He loves us all the time then the rest of the things will flow from that place.

I remember when I first became a Christian, maybe I was a wee bit naive, but when someone told me that as a Christian I needed to read the Bible every day I did. I read it so much, as I hadn’t got caught up with the whole thing about specific quiet times that I read it through at least four times in the first 2 years I was a Christian, and also devoured multitudes of other Christian books. Couldn’t get enough of it! And I believed what it said.

Read the Psalms, many of the Psalmists are having a really hard time of life and are being really open in what they think and feel. They have a very open relationship with God, but never do they say “If you loved me you would take this away”. No, they do often say “I don’t know how I can cope with this but even in all this I will praise you”.

Some great books on this are from Mervyn Caruthers, for example “Prison to Praise”. We need to know our Bibles more and then we will know that God is in total control. He is in charge and He does what He does because He is God.

Here is a quote from Pelagius, a Celtic saint: “There is no follower of Christ who is not at times perplexed by the suffering of good men and women. When we see a bad person suffer, we can interpret it as punishment for sin. So if an evil person contracts a painful and fatal illness whilst still young, if their house burns to the ground, if they lose their wealth in some dishonest transaction, we feel that justice is being done. But if a good person falls fatally ill in their youth, if an honest hardworking person becomes destitute, we are indignant. We cannot understand how God can permit such injustice.

Our indignation arises from superficial knowledge. We look at pain and pleasure, sorrow and joy, in shallow material terms. Yet a good person, even if undergoing great physical distress, still senses the serene peace of God deep within their soul. The loyal disciple of Christ who is compelled to live in poverty knows that they are sharing the poverty of Christ. And the Scripture assures us that in poverty and in agony of the soul Christ knew the heavenly joy of God”

And I think some of it is we want to share in the good things of Jesus but not in His suffering. We forget that Jesus was abused and misunderstood by most people for most of His life, from conception to crucifixion. But then if we knew and read our Bible then we would know that.

We do also need to know some of the deeper stuff because that is the meat which will also change our lives. If we know why God put the things in the tabernacle and why then we would understand so much more. We do need to get into the whole thing of why certain things are in the Bible and why certain things aren’t. But we need to do all this in the light of God is good all the time and He loves me all the time.

It has been prophesied many years ago that true revival will come when the Spirit and the Word are in unison, so let us start reading our Bibles more and hearing from God through them more and more and not keep waiting for the guy at the front to spoon feed us milk.

Hey let’s go for a revolution and break out of being fed and really get on with what Jesus commissioned us all to do – Go and make disciples of all nations!! – which we can only do when we know totally in our hearts that God is good all the time and God is love all the time, and also some of the deeper things, the meat that is in there. It says there will come a time when you will not need a teacher, but the Holy Spirit will teach you all you need to know. Well I am afraid that will only come about when we start reading the word as well as resting in the Sprit!