What's up recently...

I've been asking the Lord for more of a revelation of Who He is... I was listening to a man teaching on grace and the righteousness of God the other day - and saw it all over again, that all my sins have been forgiven, those in the past, present and future, not because of anything I've done, but simply because of the death of Yeshua for me. Everything is forgiven. This is what it means when it says in Luke 24.47 that forgiveness of sins should be preached in His name to all the nations. God has given us His Zedek -Righteousness; His Son; the righteousness of His Son, the obedience of Yeshua; the Life of His Son, in place of our our sin, in place of all our deeds done on the basis of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, good or bad...
So we have been given everything in Messiah. Nothing is lacking; the Lord's My Shepherd - I lack NOTHING.
This has given me a huge boost. I am so thrilled with Who He is and what He's done. It's not about me or what I can or can't do. It's all about how AMAZING Yeshua is.

We watched a video called 'The Finger of God' the other day, which really encouraged us. People getting healed on the streets, a man who'd broken his leg in a car accident, various others healed of deafness and other ailments... I really want to see the Lord doing the same things. Anyway, I had a sore throat that evening and I really didn't want to get a cold. We'd had a few late nights, or little sleep because of F's work, and my system was a little run down and I asked F. to pray for me. (I prayed for him too, because he had a problem with his foot - nasty crop of verrucas - painful.) Normally when I get a sore throat that's that far gone, I end up with tonsilitis, which eventually becomes bronchitis. By the morning the sore throat had vanished. (Waiting to hear about the verrucas...)

This morning, we wanted to go out and use a voucher which we had been given after we had provided the music for the wedding of good friends of ours back in March. They had given us a breakfast voucher for a café not far away. We discovered that we ought to have reserved a table - it being a Sunday - the place was packed. So we left, thinking that we'd try in a couple of weeks' time. On the way home I got out a CD of the same chap teaching, hoping that it would encourage F. For some reason, the CD player rejected the CD and after that the player wouldn't play any other CDs, no matter how many we tried. F. is very tired and worn down with work at the moment and hasn't any spiritual reserves to cope with situations like this. It was really bad. I won't go into detail.

We stopped at a petrol station to tank up and F. said that I'd better pray for the CD player to get sorted out, because otherwise he would have to take two hours out of his schedule on Monday; two hours which he didn't have, to buy a new car radio/CD player. He's not good at technical stuff - it makes him panic and feel totally insecure. He's so brilliant at other things, but practical things like that just throw him completely. Bless him. He said that the car CD player was the only thing which kept him awake in the mornings on the way to work, after he'd been working through half the night, often until 4 or 5 in the morning. He's often gone to work over this last year and a quarter with just 1-2 hours sleep a night, often twice or three times a week. It has been very tough.

So he went in to pay and I prayed. Thanked the Lord that His mercies are new every morning, thanked Him that He knows about all our problems and that He's not phased by any of them, thanked Him that He is always faithful, that He has given us His righteousness and every blessing in Christ, and then I stuck my hand on the radio/CD player and prayed for it to come into order again. Then I resisted the devil - (James 4:7-8) and told him to get lost.

We decided to go to a baker's shop/café for breakfast so that it wouldn't be a completely wasted journey.
On the way home Frank tried the CD player one last time.
It worked.

Praise the Lord. He cares about us so much, that even a little trivial thing like a car radio player isn't too much for His attention. It has really encouraged me, and F was visibly relieved as well.
God is so GOOD!!!

Have been going along a couple more times to meet the folks in town on a Wednesday evening. Great talks. Last time I asked one of them to tell me her story. Incredible pain and suffering. She was crying toward the end. Just gave a her a big hug.

We have stopped trying to make something happen as far as church is concerned. After thinking on two occasions that maybe something was coming together, we have found that it just wasn't what the Lord was doing - we had this preconceived notion about the way He was going to do it, based on our experience, or on what we'd read or heard others doing. We are finding that it's just not what He wants with us at the moment. If He did, then it would come together without our trying to make it happen. So instead, we are just 'being' - taking each day as it comes, walking with Yeshua, watching and listening to Him, going through the open doors He opens for us, etc. We have had such rich fellowship with people over the last two months.

I feel as if I'm right back at the beginning again - the Lord has been stripping away everything I ever thought church was about - the Christian life was about, everything I ever learned from man, and is gradually replacing all that with Himself. I asked Him about a year and a half ago to reinvent me - make me as He wanted me to be - without all the claptrap of religion. I know that He's doing it.
Christ in you - the hope of glory.