5 Steps to our Work Being Establish

I've been thinking about the word "establish". So I checked out the meaning of the word and I discovered that there were 5 elements in something being established.

1. The Planning

2. The Preparation for the future event

3. The Presentation of the finished product

4. The Pleasure others enjoy

5. The Personal Satisfaction and SUCCESS!

As an example, you look at those five steps in the preparation of a meal.

We plan ahead, get the recipe and buy the ingedients.
We prepare the meal.
We present the meal to the family.
Hopefully, they will enjoy it.
Then the SATISFACTION of providing a good meal, knowing that all were well fed and the meal was enjoyable..... hence a SUCCESS!!

So, for something to be established, it means that the end result is satisfaction and success!!

As I was thinking about that, I realised, in the past, how often I'd only got as far as step three, and not steps 4 and 5. Maybe because the works were done in my own strength. When we do that, we are prone to not seeing the thing succeed..

'Thus says the LORD:
"Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,^[a]
whose heart turns away from the LORD.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

"Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD,
whose trust is the LORD.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit." (Jeremiah 17:5-8, ESV)

So when we pray that prayer, we are praying for the WHOLE process, down to the satisfaction and SUCCESS!! But that success is not for our own glory, but for God's. That IS the success in it, that God has been glorified.

Here's another verse to support that:

"Roll your works upon the Lord [commit and trust them wholly to Him; He will cause your thoughts to become agreeable to His will, and] so shall your plans be established and succeed." (Proverbs 16:3, Amp)

And Jesus said:

"In the same way, let your good deeds shine out for all to see, so that everyone will praise your heavenly Father." (Matthew 5:16, NLT)

"We must work the works of Him Who sent Me and be busy with His business while it is daylight; night is coming on, when no man can work." (John 9:4, Amp)

To say it all very simply, if we want to succeed in what we do, find out what God wants us to do, and then do it HIS way!! We don't do it FOR HIM, in order to get His approval! Instead, we can do it THROUGH HIM, because we have His approval!!... remembering:

"I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me." (Phil 4:13, NKJ)

God's Beauty seen in His Creative Ones

As I've meditated on this prayer for the past day or so, my thoughts go particularly to God's creative people. I'm reminded that when He created the world, He made everything good and beautiful. There was nothing in the world that was not perfect. As Genesis says, "God saw all He had made and it was very good." (Gen 1:31a, NIV)

However, because of man's sin, we all know it didn't stay that way. The world became a twisted place, and beauty began to vanish. When God made man, He made him in His own image.... and that too has become tainted. Man became ugly, and no longer reflected God's beauty.

Yet God calls His people, those who have been recreated in Christ, to be mirrors of His glory and of His beauty. Through Christ, we have been recreated in His own image.

We all have many different gifts and talents, and in each of them we display something of the Father's image. However, here, I wish to share with those who are blessed with the creative gifts, displaying that side of God, our creator. It is our place to bring back some beauty to this dark, twisted and ugly world.

We are the beautiful ones!!... and we see the beauty around us!! So let us share that beauty with those who do not see what we see.

"Let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven." (Matthew 5:16, NIV)

Peace to you this Christmas!

"I will hear what God the Lord will speak,
For He will speak peace to His people and to His saints;
But let them not turn back to folly.
Surely His salvation is near to those who fear (reverence) Him,
That glory may dwell in our land.

"Mercy and truth have met together;
Righteousness and peace have kissed.
Truth shall spring out of the earth,
And righteousness shall look down from heaven.
Yes, the Lord will give what is good;
And our land will yield its increase.
Righteousness will go before Him,
And shall make His footsteps our pathway."
(Psalm 85:8-13, NKJ)

I read this the other day and it reminded me so much of what happened at Christmas time. The two pairs of words, in verse 10, "mercy and truth" and "righteousness and peace", grabbed my interest. This explains exactly what God did in sending us His Son, Jesus.

MERCY & TRUTH:
The truth was, that we were separated from God, alienated with no hope. Sin had done this, and we deserved death. Without God, we would perish!

But God, in His mercy, sent His Son to save us from our desperate position, which is what the name of Jesus means. As the angel had said to Joseph, "You are to give Him the name Jesus, because He will save His people from their sins." He is a merciful God, the God of second chances!!

"For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only Son, that whoever believe in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through Him." (John 3:16-17, NIV)

RIGHTEOUSNESS & PEACE:
Righteousness means being in right relationship with God. This is not a matter how good we may appear, and we do lots of good things. None of it will measure up in God's eyes. None of us can make ourselves right with God by doing good works. As the Bible says, "There is no one righteous, not even one." (Romans 3:10) And again it says, "All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags." (Isaiah 64:6) We just don't measure up!!.. we're never good enough!

But if we believe in Jesus, we are made right with God. Jesus stands in our place before God the Father... He becomes our righteousness. God looks on Jesus and not on us.

As a result of this right relationship, we then have peace with God. The relationship is that of Father and child, where we are loved children in His presence. And this is what the angels announced to the shepherds. "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests." (Luke 2:14, NIV)

And Jesus said before He died, "Peace I leave with you; My peace I give to you. I do not give you as the world gives. Do not let your heart be troubled and do not be afraid." (John 14:27, NIV)

I pray that you are encouraged and that you may know, more and more, the Prince of Peace!

A Ray of Hope in the Darkest Hour!

As I was putting this card together, my thoughts for this Christmas were for those who may not have such a good Christmas... for whom Christmas may be a dark times.

For some, Christmas brings back sad or bad memories! Some may be facing tragedy this Christmas... and others may be suffering loss... loss of a loved one, loss of a job, loss of a marriage, loss of children to drugs and other things! And many in the world live amongst strife and unrest, with no sign of peace.

So, if that is you, my prayers are with you this Christmas. May, even in your darkest hour, Jesus shine His light in your heart and give you a new hope!!

Remember why He came to earth! Without Him, we are separated from God with no hope. But He came to live and suffer and die, and then rise again, to restore us to the Father, and give us that hope! There is a light for our darkness!!

"The people who walked in darkness have seen a great Light; those who dwelt in the land of intense darkness and the shadow of death, upon them has the Light shined." (Isaiah 9:2, Amp)

"In Him (Jesus) was Life, and the Life was the Light of men. And the Light shines on in the darkness, for the darkness has never overpowered it [put it out or absorbed it or appropriated it, and is unreceptive to it.]" (John 1:4-5, Amp)

"And again, Isaiah says:
'There shall be a root of Jesse;
And He who shall rise to reign over the Gentiles,
In Him the Gentiles shall hope.'
"Now may the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit." (Romans 15:12-13, NKJ)

That is my prayer for you this Christmas!!

God's Glory over the WHOLE Earth!!

This is the sunset I saw last night, and it reminded me of God's glory!

And then this morning on Flickr I spotted shots of the sun from over the other side of the world, which reminded me of the hymn:
"Jesus shall reign wherever the sun,
Doth its successive journeys run,
His kingdom stretch from shore to shore,
Til suns shall rise and set no more."

About the sun, the Bible says,
"It's rising is from one end of the heaven, and its circuit to the other end;
And there is nothing hidden from its heat." (Psalm 19:6, NKJ)

It also reminded me of something else:
"This is the message we heard from Jesus and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

"If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts." (1 John 1:5-10, NLT)

Anyhow, there is more I want to write about that, but don't have the time right now, so I'll leave it and write more later!!

SOMEONE'S WATCHING!!

PRINCE FROGGY MISSES A MEAL!!
Possibly because it was not fast food!!! :-)

When I took last night, Froggy was on the front step and it was pretty dark. I was only able to see the frog when I put the flash on him, and it was not until I'd taken the pic that I noticed this brown thing in the viewer and wondered what it was. It was only after I downloaded the photos, that I discovered it was the slug! What a blessing!! Strange to say that a slug could be a blessing! eh??

Today, thinking about how the flash illuminated the darkness and revealed the slug, it reminded me of these verses:

"There is no creature hidden from His sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of Him to whom we must give account." (Hebrews 4:13, NKJ)

"All things were made through Him (Jesus), and without Him nothing was made that was made. In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." (John 1:3-5, NKJ)