Let everything that has breath praise the Lord!

I have always wondered what worship sounds like to God from way up there. I also often wondered if this is why God created different time zones, so that He is worshiped constantly in a 24 hour time span.

This mashup by Louis Giglio is probably the best 15 minutes I have spent on youtube ever, well worth the watch!

One morning while reading a newspaper, Jarbas Agnelli saw a photograph of birds on an electric wire. He cut out the photo and was inspired to make a song using the exact location of the birds as musical notes. He was curious to hear what melody the birds created.
He sent the music to the photographer, Paulo Pinto, who told his editor, who told a reporter and the story ended up as an interview in the newspaper. It ended up Winner of the YouTube Play Guggenheim Biennial Festival.
Just have a listen below at how incredible this sounds. I wonder if God sees this as worship:

Go out in a blaze of thunder!

Johannesburg is well known for its awesome and mighty thunderstorms, and they’re beautiful. But lately, it has just been out of control. The wind was so bad the other night that it ripped this street light in two!

 

All this weird weather got me thinking about the fiery personalities in the Bible. In the Garden of Eden God would “walk in the cool of the day” (Genesis 3:8). The Hebrew word for cool is ruwach which means heavenly wind, a breath of air, but also impatience and anger. So God entered the garden on a breath of heavenly wind, but angry and impatient with what had just transpired! Talk about traveling in style!

James and John were known as the sons of thunder. It delights me that two human beings were given a nickname by God Himself! This nickname, Boanerges, referred to their fiery zeal which was much like a thunderstorm. Turbulent. Stormy. As destructive as these guys could be, I like them, because they loved Jesus so much yet were so ‘human’.
Imagine being so full of zeal for God that the Lord Himself gives you a nickname. How incredible! I often wonder that if Jesus had to give me a nickname, what it would be.
James and John are the prime example that shows us that Jesus does not see what we are, but He sees the best we can become. John eventually received the nickname “Apostle of love”.

This leads me to the point of this post. What has God been stirring in your heart to do for Him in the Kingdom? What fire has He lit in you that you can do with so much zeal and impact, that He may secretly have His own nickname for you?
He has stirred something inside of me for three years to implement on a national level and I have finally started it. I feel a rumbling in the heavenlies lately. Big things are coming – and I must be part of it! No greater Orchestrator has the world seen than God Himself! I want to go out with such a fiery zeal in doing the Lord’s work that He can’t help but want to give me a nickname of my own. Breathed on me from His own lips- I am excited! 

I would love to hear, if you can share, what the Lord has been leading you to do. Let’s pray for discernment so that we may know without a doubt what impact we can make from this day on. Suit up and ride a wind called Ruwach- the whole of Heaven is watching!

“I Am Part Of The WordPress Family” Award

I have been nominated for a WordPress Family blog award by the lovely Elizabeth of His eye is on this sparrow blog. Her blog is all about hope and she shares great insight on everyday circumstances by linking it back to God and His work in our lives.

I certainly do feel part of a family among all the Christian blogs I follow and who follow me. It’s almost the technological and modern way of fellowshipping! (laugh)
So, Jesus, this award is for You! My favourite family member of all.

The rules are:

1. Display the award logo on your blog.

2. Link back to the person who nominated you.

3. Nominate 10 others who have positively impacted your WordPress experience.

4. Don’t forget to let your WordPress family members know of your nomination.

5. Please pick 10 people that have accepted you as a friend, and spread the love!

Yikes, how do I only choose 10 blogs? I follow way more than 10 which I really enjoy and all are deserving!  These particular bloggers have visited my blog often, and have been very encouraging for me. I, in turn, have learnt a  lot from them.
In no order of preference, they are:

Hitchhikeamerica
Dreams of Dunamis
Debs Blog
ThinkinaboutJesus
Being Rebekah
Larry Who
Chief of the Least
Did Jesus have a Facebook page
Sloppy and Wet Kisses
Legion Be Gone

A message from Shaun, the creator of this award:
This is an award for everyone who is part of the “WordPress Family” I started this award on the basis that the WordPress family has taken me in, and showed me love and a caring side only WordPress can. The way people take a second to be nice, to answer a question and not make things a competition amazes me here. I know I have been given many awards, but I wanted to leave my own legacy on here by creating my own award, as many have done before. This represents “Family” we never meet, but are there for us as family. It is my honour to start this award.

 

Modeling Christ this Easter

This is the most important time in a Christian’s year. The death and resurrection of God’s beloved Son and our glorious King. 

However, we attend the church services and listen wholeheartedly to the sermons, but when the weekend is over we forget to live the lives from what we just learnt in church. We don’t walk the walk. How can we take the themes of Christ’s sacrifice for us and apply it this weekend, and ultimately extend it to the rest of our lives?

Obviously we have to encompass all of Christ’s goodness, purity and mind into our lives consistently; but I’ve chosen four themes to focus on this weekend, and really apply them diligently, so that by the time Easter is over I can have a stronger grasp of applying them: mercy, grace, forgiveness and love.

“Therefore be merciful, just as your Father also is merciful” Luke 6:36
“Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy” Matt 5:7
God has granted us overflowing mercy by providing us with redemption, but being merciful can be a tough one for anyone to master. Our flesh detests mercy and prefers to inflict physical and psychological harm!
How can we be merciful? A person who is merciful is basically compassionate. It is realising that we are all sinners and no one is perfect.
Mercy relates to grace. Mercy is not getting what you do deserve, while grace is getting what you don’t deserve. So forget the offence and hurt done against you. Do kind things without wanting to be thanked for them in return. Doing this glorifies God because we are obeying His commandments and are a reflection of His wonderful mercy.

Luke 6:37 “…Forgive, and you will be forgiven.”
Matt 6:14-15 “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”
As humans, sometimes it feels like that if we don’t respond to an offense with bitterness, anger and even revenge, we have let the offender “get away with what they have done to us.”
But God let us get away with our sinful natures, through Jesus!  It is an alarming thought to me that if I don’t forgive someone God won’t forgive me! And I need a lot of forgiveness! That verse is so important to me that often I ask God to bring to my mind anyone I have not forgiven in my past or present, because sometimes we don’t even realise we are harbouring unforgiveness for someone.
Do you know what a simple test is? This is how I test myself: If you think you have truly forgiven someone, assess your reaction to them when you are in their presence (or even if you think about them) – how do you feel? What thoughts are going through your mind? If any thought or feeling is ungodly or works against the knowledge of God (2 Corinthians 10:5), you need to ask God to help you to truly forgive that person. “Blessed are you when they revile and persecute you, and say all kinds of evil against you falsely for My sake. Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in heaven.”
Forgetting is not forgiving! It will creep up on you. But forgiving will help you forget it.

“For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life” John 3:16
God loves us through all our faults and weaknesses. His Son had to die for a wretched species. Yet He loves us still.
How can you honour God by showing love this weekend?
Love is patient and kind (1 Corinthians 13:4). When your spouse or child, for example, does something to start welling up feelings of irritation in you, remember how God was patient with you 5 minutes ago when you sinned! My husband is such a wonderful model of kindness and patience for me. When I’m having a bad day and so desperately want to throw a tantrum, he always turns the other cheek, or gives me a hug and responds to me with gentleness. You will find that if you respond to the other person in an attitude of love and kindness, it very quickly diffuses the entire situation.

Dear Readers, I encourage you this weekend to model these themes with me of Christ’s sacrifice for us. Let us be a light to those around us so that the world can see what true Christianity is really all about – mercy and love to a lost world. Let our Father be glorified! 

Dedicating bits of myself to God – a Lamb cake

With Easter upon us, I was reminded of the cake I made going through old photos of my church’s 1st birthday in 2011. It was a lovely celebration and I was so happy to have found a church I was in love with. One of our elders received a vision of our church of a beautiful waterfall flowing with jewels. I do feel my church is very special. We did not have to bring anything but I asked my Pastor if I could bake a cake . I wanted to honour the Lord for a wonderful church, and also for bringing me to it.

I had decided on a little Lamb made of carrot cake and cream cheese frosting, with white chocolate curls to make up his fur. “Worthy is the Lamb” was decorated in fondant below him.
I’m no baking pro, but it was one of those little things I wanted to do for the Lord 🙂

What sort of little things do you like to do for the Lord, dear Readers?

Dedicating bits of myself to God – my garden

With our hectically busy lives we sometimes struggle with finding time to spend with our Saviour. I also try to find moments where I can dedicate things to my Lord, in honour of Him.

I once read a book called “My Time in Heaven ” by Richard Siegmund about his experience in Heaven. It is a beautiful book and I highly recommend it. The one part of the book that stuck out for me was that he mentioned that Jesus has his own rose garden in Heaven as He loves roses. That inspired me to completely drown my garden in roses so that when I spend time with Him, on warm South African nights, I can do it in my garden among the roses!

I definitely do not have green fingers so I do need help from His side! But I hope to eventually get my garden bright and beautiful, for the display of His splendour!

Thanks to my husband’s crafty hedge clipping skills, my heart-shaped Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow tree, to symbolise God’s unending love for His children and that He remains the same yesterday, today and forever

    

Spread the Love:

Teachers have an exceptional responsibility towards their students and Jesus warned that they will be judged with a greater strictness than others (James 3:1-2). Jordan attends a strictly Christian crèche where the Word of God thrives.
I decided to honour her teacher this Valentines, as she serves her students and leads by example. She handles the truth correctly and instructs her kiddies respectfully.
Teacher Zee got treated to a mini marshmallow bouquet today – all individually dipped by Jordan herself!

Thank you Christian teachers, for all you do to make God’s Word alive in our children!

 “Whoever therefore breaks one of the least of these commandments, and teaches men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever does and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven” Matthew 5:19

“As each one has received a gift, minister it to one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God” 1 Peter 4:10

“ in all things showing yourself to be a pattern of good works; in doctrine showing integrity, reverence, incorruptibility” Titus 2:7