The Word Only - Satisfied

Jesus said that we are in this world BUT not of it.
Life too often becomes hurly-burly, all consuming, and we forget this.. these were my thoughts as I read this Daily Light portion.
The word Satisfied came to mind. 
Here they are for your meditation and contemplation.

God's word anchors our thoughts like nothing else.
As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.
*****
He satisfieth the longing soul, and filleth the hungry soul with goodness. Psa. 107:9

Ye have tasted that the Lord is gracious. I Pet. 2:3

O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is; to see thy power and thy glory. Psa. 63:1, 2

My soul longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the LORD: my heart and my flesh crieth out for the living God. Psa. 84:2

Having a desire to depart, and to be with Christ; which is far better. Phil. 1:23

I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with thy likeness. Psa. 17:15

They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. Rev. 7:16, 17

They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures. Psa. 36:8

My people shall be satisfied with my goodness, saith the LORD. Jer. 31:14
*****
How often are we satisfied with God's goodness? 
Sadly I'm often not.
Too often stressing over a seemingly imperfect result in some situation, fretting because its not as I wanted, or longing for some thing not in God's plan for me at moment.
Groaning inwardly over seemingly unanswered prayer or unresolved grief of heart with another. 
This was me recently proabably in ALL those scenarios if truth be known!
*sigh*
How much peace lost? 
Faith lost? 
Spirit quenched?
O Lord, help us to walk as Jesus walked, as Paul lived and taught, too.

" Godliness with contentment is great gain."
Contented = Satisfied 😊

Link to video here if needed.
Thanks for your patience and for visiting my blog, I've been quiet because of that hurly burly of which I was speaking. It's summer hols here (which I love), so had visitors, visiting or just out every day!
Thankful to Lord for much rain fallen but much more needed.

May the Lord bless you dear ones, send spiritual rain on sad, lost, hurting hearts, and physical rain on parched lands. May God bless our nations and leaders EVERYwhere! and keep us in His ways in all things. A special huge thanks if you take the time to comment. It's appreciated.  
Prayer hugs,🙏🤗
Shaz in Oz. X

Never forget - Never Again

27th Jan is 75th Anniversary of Liberation of Auschwitz. 
Everyone on those rings is a Jewish family destroyed  over 1 million in just Auschwitz. Those bales likewise of human hair were how many lives taken? They saved teeth for gold fillings etc. Incredibly heartbreaking. 
****NEVER  FORGET.***

PS . If you haven’t I'd love it you to join as a wonderful encourager of this blog ...  link HERE.  Thank YOU to those who have done so already. It really encourages me to keep on.
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God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear- So Who Has?

{Edit: 29th Feb. this post was written in earlyJan 2020, when another fear wagon was being filled by the media. The current fear wagon of Caronavirus also comes under this, the media needs to have our attention by any means. To get perspective on this virus, the worst ever pandemic was 1919 influenza outbreak, it killed more people than died in all of WW1. 
Being an influenza it was much more deadly, than SARS or Coronavirus. 

Edit: Feb 2021

1918 Influenza FACTS (link here).

It is estimated that about 500 million people or one-third of the world's population became infected with this virus. 

The number of deaths was estimated to be at least 50 million worldwide with about 675,000 occurring in the United States.

Population much smaller in 1918 too!

In Worldameter with Coronavirus  as of Today 1st Feb, 2021, worldwide just over 2 million deaths or 2,239,275 and over 100 million cases (MUCH fewer deaths. 24/7 media would have us believe otherwise.}

 

 *****
(This post includes links so you may have a clearer overview, not the way the media portrays!)
*****
My post title may puzzle some.

”God Has Not Given Us a Spirit of Fear. 

So who has?” (2 Tim 1:7)

 

Or perhaps another title might be 

 A Spirit of Fear Vs Fear of God!
******

So who has given us that spirit of fear?

This thought came to me in prayer for our land of Australia. 
Like many I’ve a deep burden for aching hearts in our country, so much temporal loss. 
But has it caused them, or us, to think of eternal things?

I pray so.

A spirit of fear is whipped up by the unrelenting media. 

Because of these relentless attacks, we need  to refer to  facts on drought and fires in Australian history. 
Plus some wondrous miracles at the end. 😊

Sadly we are often myopic or shortsighted.

 
We (with the media) forget or ignore past history  in midst of events.
(Sorry, it is long, cut as much as could, it's taken days to write.)
*****
UNPRECEDENTED 
is the commonly overused catchcry of the 24/7 media in 21st century.

However severe and indeed extreme, grievous loss, widespread and long lasting, these events are NOT exactly unprecedented, if viewed in the light of Aust history.
What is Unprecedented is the 24/7  coverage we have of such events, on mobile devices, radio, TV, etc.
It is continuously unyielding and implacable in its influences.

The Worst fire in our history was in Victoria in size or area, in 1851, when 1/4 of state of Victoria  burnt on Black Thursday, over 5 million hectares in this one event. 
NOW the total number of hectares burnt in all fires this fire season in whole of Aust is 12.5 million hectares (as of 5th Jan, 2020)!
(Link here, if check it you'll see it mirrors the  current situation in some ways)

This Total area burnt in Oz of 12.5 mill. hectares is 2 & half times that amount burnt in 1851 fire in one state.
It followed on two years of severe widespread drought in 1850 and 1851.
The Black Thursday bushfires, were caused in part by an intense drought that occurred throughout 1850 when the continent suffered from extreme heat, with fires around for a period before this conflagration. 
Like most fires it was caused by man (80%+ are see link here), a fire left untended by some bullocky (bullocky - men who drives cart with team of bullocks).

It’s recorded in 1851 that a ship, the Henry Edward (info here), sailing up east coast had its sails and rigging catch on fire from the ember attack of the fires.
Image of 1851 fire.

(From this post see link here, describing weather could be today, 117F in Melb ie 47.7C, but these temps not counted by BOM - see below)

Worst fire in number of people  killed was 2009, again Vic, a total of 173 died on Black Saturday, 2009. (link here). 
Intense bushfires are not uncommon in southern Australia. The region is one of the three most fire-prone in the world. Within the last two hundred years, the area has experienced and documented at least twenty-five major fires (see link), beginning with Black Thursday in 1851. We have trees and undergrowth which are naturally highly combustible. Many depend on fire for germination. 

This 2019 -20 fire season, although not as severe as those two, or even many others I could name, may be perhaps longer lasting and wider spread than these events. 

Our local 183,000 hectare fire started in early Sept (or late Aug not sure), but we were smoke affected from 6th Sept till 25th Dec. when the Lord miraculously gave us 2 days of rain and 
put our two fires out, a great Christmas gift. Praise Him!

Another key issue of course is population has increased greatly.
 Many more areas become naturally fire-prone as populated habitats. 

Fire and man go together!
****
Re Unprecented Drought:

Over a century ago in 1896 it was time of one of the most severe droughts in recorded history in Aust. The temperatures reached protracted long periods of over century 110F+ heat, up to 50C day after day in some outback towns . 

However these temperatures are not on records! Why?

The Aust Bureau of Meteorology c. 2010 (could not find exact date for this, tried multiple times and ways) removed all pre 1910 records from Aust. records (link here to BOM) and others here.

This is not commonly known and skews all temperature records totally.
Any current record temps are only in last 100 years.
Why did they do this? 
They said the early method of records are unreliable, with limited or poor use of a Stephenson Screen thermometer, thus inaccurate. 
However there are other facts that prove they were wrong to claim these inaccuracies.
There were 437 deaths just on east coast of Aust due to severe drought of 1896! (link here).

(Also many recorded deaths that decade in droughts in northern hemisphere, including USA.)

If that many people died from heatstroke on only east coast of Aust. THEN the records cannot be that wrong!

 
That heatwave was unprecedented. 

No global warming then, or pollution. 
No UN either, to cloud, confuse the facts..

So when you hear the phrase in our media of “Smashing all previous records..." as I did yesterday,
it should be 
“Smashing all records since 1910..!”

I don't know if other countries have done this but I would not be surprised.
It's so convenient for the global warming argument and 1992 Agenda 21 by the UN, (link here), which is  simply out for control by "sustainable development".

For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; 
but of power, 
and of love, 
and of a sound mind.
Note Order:
Power by the Spirit indwelling,
Love fills us 
  THEN the Sound Mind!
Yay!
Fear of the Lord, THAT is saving and keeping fear.

 
It keeps us from the dread and terror the world and Satan likes to instill. 
Our Saviour gives peace, perfect peace in the midst of storm.
The One Who calmed the storm upon the sea of Galilee will calm the storm of our heart with 
"Peace, be still"! 
Or Ps 46:10 
"Be still, and Know that I am God".
*****
MIRACLES IN THE FIRE!
There have also been many miracles of God’s preservation in midst of fire.

 In some cases, I've heard towns saved miraculously as fire danger was "somehow" averted, or in Vic many individuals thought lost are perfectly safe!
I’ve been praying for these miracles and I’m sure you have too. 
In Cobargo, NSW a pastor and his wife fled their slight timber structure building, going to help friends defend their more defensible house. 
They called others to pray for mercy. 
For two days they believed their home gone, till finally able to return, they miraculously found it all intact. 
(Link here, listened on iPad, couldn’t on phone though.)

The image shows the fire lapped the front right edge and stayed by God’s hand and all around the whole perimeter. 
In front of shed is the large crude cross which is used in Good Friday parade each year and stored there.
Fire stopped just before the foot of cross. Words roughly painted on cross are “life transforming power".

This is a dear friend of a friend's home, all around home burnt, but same lapping of edges, but even bikes not burnt or her rose garden!
Had to leave in hurry & couldn’t damp down anything, but with others prayed!

Another believer in Mt Torrens, S.A, property where the fence line was licked with flame but stopped!
(More of stories here) 
It reminded me of story of Elisha and the servant surrounded by the Syrian army, and the servant was terrified. (2 Kings 6:16->).
 .. he (Elisha) answered, Fear not: for they that be with us are more than they that be with them. 
17And Elisha prayed, and said, LORD, I pray thee, open his eyes, that he may see. And the LORD opened the eyes of the young man; and he saw: and, behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha."
¤¤¤¤¤¤
"And the angel of the Lord encampeth round about them that fear Him, and delivereth them. Ps 34:7

Thank you for your patience if you've read this far.

I'd just like to close with a meditation on the real reason for today's ever present disasters. 
Yes, we live with constant assault by media, but we need to measure it in light of God's word, not man's  word.

"For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. 
And not only they, but ourselves ... even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body." Rom 8:22, 23
The fall of sin affects creation.
One day it will, praise God, all pass away (verse here).
¤¤¤¤¤
Till then we must pray on!
Especially for our Christian PM Scott Morrison, and all leaders everywhere, in US, UK, Europe, Israel, Middle East, Asia, etc. 
Our PM is accused falsely of much by media beat up of flawed facts.
If PM does things on national level, he's condemned. If he leaves it to rightly State to handle it, he's rediculed as inept, same result in both cases.

This post applies I am sure to other countries too as Satan, as the Prince and Power of the air (see verse) and the Father of lies (verse), is the author of confusion. His spirit and cohorts, our adversaries are busy at work in those who will not walk in God's light, especially the ungodly media.

Oh dear Heavenly Father, please please have mercy upon us, we never deserve any of Your gifts especially salvation in Jesus, but oh Lord have mercy upon poor sinfilled Oz.
For we have no might, neither know we what to do but our eyes are upon Thee. 
With God all things are possible, especially rain to end the drought and put fires out, please. 
Please also comfort, help, strengthen all hurting hearts everywhere. Keep us faithful in prayer, please.
May blind eyes see, unbelieving hearts believe and seek the only hope in the saving power of our Lord Jesus Christ. 
In His sweet Name,  Amen.

May the Lord bless our nations and leaders EVERYwhere! and in great grace & mercy and save us from ouselves.
Prayer hugs,🙏🤗
Shaz in Oz. X

PS . If you haven’t I'd love it you to join as a wonderful encourager of this blog ...  link HERE.  Thank YOU to those who have done so already. It really encourages me to keep on.
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FOLLOWING on in 2020! Looking unto Jesus!

As we face a new year, 2020, to me it seems quite incomprehensible that we are at such a date!

These verses  (Daily Light 31st Dec. Evening) really resonated with me in the midst of this sense of wondering what lies ahead...

There remaineth yet very much land to be possessed. Josh. 13:1

Not as though I had already attained, either were already perfect: but I follow after, if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus. Phil. 3:12

Be ye therefore perfect Matt. 5:48

Giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; and to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. II Pet. 1:5-7

I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Phil. 1:9

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. I Cor. 2:9, 10

There remaineth ... a rest for the people of God. Heb. 4:9

Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. Isa. 33:17

It certainly grabbed one... much land yet to be possessed.. a certain slackness!

Indeed for NOT.. already attained!

BUT I FOLLOW AFTER!

It's not What but Who we follow after that matters!

Apprehended of Christ, .. ie taken hold of by Christ?!!

“I have chosen you” (John 15:16). 
Keep that note of greatness in your creed.
 It is not that you have got God, but that He has got you." 
My Utmost for His Highest, October 25, 837 R by Oswald Chambers
Or 
"Ask not if you have hold of God, 
but has He hold of you?"

It all made me wonder.. When saved Jan 4, 1966.. how much of me did I give? 

As a young child, I gave simply... simply thankful that One loved me enough to die for MY sins! 
That angels in heaven  rejoiced over one sinner who repented! It was a day of such deep joy to my young limited-knowledge heart, my happiness was real. 
Simply God took hold and He has never let go.

I know, understand  much more now, so there is much more to give, but I wonder if in my young innocence I gave more then?
Remember the widow's two mites (verses here)? She gave out of her want or lack! The Pharisee out of his much, yet the mites were the greater gift!
How much have I pulled back from Christ, understanding more, yet not wanting to surrender that bit?

It's a daily battle. 
We win sometimes,
but must be watchful always for Satan is a roaring lion (click for  verse)..

May "..I follow after, 
if that I may apprehend that for which also I am apprehended of Christ Jesus."

... for then we will be perfect.. 
Perfected! 
Oh, JOY indeed..
 For one day it shall be all made plain.

Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit. I Cor. 2:9, 10

For we've never seen or even imagined what God has for us ahead.. so really why try? 
...
Why worry what 2020 will bring! 
And oh, what things we do have to look forward to! 
A rest... 
Yess! blessed rest!
(as I write this sleepless at 3am, that seems truly wonderful)...

There remaineth ... a rest for the people of God. Heb. 4:9

Thine eyes shall see the King in his beauty: they shall behold the land that is very far off. Isa. 33:17

This prayer of Paul's below from the reading seemed a good one to end with, dear ones! How blessed we are in Jesus!
No matter where we are in our Christian walk, once Christ's, we are always His.
We are seated in the heavenly places .. wow!
JOY!
Video link here

What a great gift this is! Sometimes, too often sadly, its easy to lose sight of it. 
Let's face 2020 afresh with JOY in our hearts!
For my beloved is mine and I am His!
.....

I pray, that your love may abound yet more and more in knowledge and in all judgment. Phil. 1:9 

In Jesus' precious Name above all Names,
AMEN 

Prayer hugs, Shaz in Oz.x 🙏🤗
Fire rain update: Praise God two days rain over Christmas,  a great gift, put out two fires near us, one 183,000 hectares (300,000+ acres). However two small ones started, and so many, many more fires, lives homes, farms, animals, have sadly been lost.
Oh, dear ones, we need rain in so many places another fireman gone, 3 now, and more folk lost defending their homes.
Oh Lord, PLEASE have a great outpouring of Thy amazing grace and mercy on poor, poor, sinfilled Oz.
Truly as Ezra prayed, our sin has reached up to the heavens (Ez.9:6)!
Forgive us Father, heal us please, send rain soon please! Such wonderfully gracious drought-breaking rain all across Oz.
We have no might, neither know we what to do, but our eyes are upon Thee.
In Jesus' Name, Amen.

PS . If you haven’t I'd love it you to join as a wonderful encourager of this blog ...  link HERE.  Thank YOU to those who have done so already. It really encourages me to keep on.
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The Why of Christmas?

Christmas is a celebration of Christ’s birth, yet He is often banished these days, out of hearts and homes, stores and public locations.
Yes .... back into the humble stable as at His birth. 
However Christmas is more than an excuse for a holiday and getting together for a celebration!

Have you noticed how often Christians reflect in their Christmas a replica of the world’s view?
These dear folk are reading and believing the world's words and thoughts on the season, more than God’s Word and truth.

"As he thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Prov. 23:7a (Link here)

*****
As Christians we are according to 1 Pet. 2:9 “peculiar people”. 
So if a believer in the Lord Jesus Christ stands out from the run of the mill, there is a reason. Jesus did, Peter, Paul, James, John all did.
We are meant to be different, we are to be Salt and Light, as Jesus was. A strong*personal* dislike of mine at Christmas is the proliferation of Santa, supplanting Jesus.
I saw this image below on FB and thought it particularly apt! Few werec ready at Jesus' first advent, so at His second!

This image refers to
 the claim that Santa has the Divine attributes of omniscience, omnipotence and omnipresence of Santa (from song - link here - Santa Claus is coming to Town. 1934).
I won’t put up a Santa card if they happen to come. St Nicholas never claimed to be as God, seeing all, able to be everywhere,  do anything..
It's not the original St Nicholas that is the problem, it's the remake - the modern Santa, with the Divine claims, and much more, in its myth of today (or perhaps as Peter said the “cunningly devised fables.. 2Pet 1:16).
Rearrange the letters perhsp, to see who is behind this false replica.. Satan (of course it's so in English, perhaps not other languages, Santa is actually Spanish for female saint). 
The character man has created created is not simply a nice cutesie image! 
I believe it’s an evil device to distract from God's truth in Christ Jesus, our Saviour and Lord. 
I see the main purpose of celebrating the Christ of Christmas as a time of outreach to those who don't know the Lord Jesus yet.

You see, Christmas is a special time of year, I love to celebrate the birth of Christ! 
With perhaps a *tree (*am aware of its relationship to pagan Yule log, but it does not claim the attributes of God!), Nativity scene, even some presents under the tree.
I love most of all the joyous singing of Bible-based Carols with real worship of Christ our Lord. 
But how far removed is much of today's celebration from the humble beginnings of the King of Glory?
He came from Glory, not in middle of winter (shepherds don’t watch their sheep in the field in a Middle East winter) but in warmer season, to a humble stable, & was laid in a hay filled manger. 
It was the time of a Roman census, so know roughly the year but not date, for a reason - I think the Lord God put the date under Deut 29:29 (see link).

Mary at this time saw only in part: not as we do looking back - Christmas to Easter, through birth into death, then new life again, the defeat of death, at Christ’s resurrection. 
Seeing it from Mary’s point of view is quite different.
The greater the trial and sorrow, the greater the blessing given from our Father God, for He sees what we cannot.

(Joy to World - Link here if link above doesn't work.)
Christ came in human form, in complete submission to His Father's will.
He yielded to the frailties of human flesh all the way to the cross. 
Mary was told that her soul would be pierced through with the suffering to come.
Luke 2:34-35
And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed.
 This prophecy at Jesus' birth for Israel is still being fulfilled today, and also around the world. This virgin birth  of God's own Son is indeed "a sign which shall be spoken against"!

So in this celebration **may we differ from the world!
**May we shine the clear, pure light of Christ's birth, coming as Redeemer of mankind, as Emmanuel. "God With us".
**May only the Lord Jesus Christ be lifted up and no other replica to replace Him, or even be along side Him!

What would Jesus do with the God-dishonouring trappings we tolerate?
I think of the cleansing of the temple of merchandise, trading, money exchangers. 
There  Jesus cast out something not instituted of God.
Oh, may we each likewise do so in our hearts.. maybe the Santa, or is something we suddenly realise we have been  putting ahead ... or simply along side our love for our Saviour. 

"O LORD, thank You so much for the wonderful gift of Thy dear Son. 
May our hearts prepare Thee room, LORD, as the carol says! 
May You alone be our  focus this Christmas season, not simply preparing room for the décor of the world. 
May we be Thy servants alone, and shine as true, pure lights before all, and may souls be won for Thee, O LORD, by Thy blessing at this time upon so many outreaches.
In Jesus' precious Name we thank Thee, LORD, Amen."

Christmas celebrates the birth of Christ, our Lord and our Saviour.
Christmas is remembering this, as able, with God's family, as well as our own family and friends Whom God has given us.
How blessed are we!

O may we walk this Christmas time, and every moment of every day God gives in the presence of Emmanuel "God with us" (Mat. 1:23).
For when God is truly with us, we will live for Him and love Him only.

May the Lord bless your day, I pray this  has blessed you, if so, and you've time please let me know.

Prayer hugs, 🙏🤗🙏🤗

Shaz in Oz.x

PS. Sorry this long.. however, I'd love to pray with you today for your country,  as its needy too, but would you also pray with me for Aust, especially our state NSW - a few hours ago as I write this, two volunteer firefighters died near midnight! 

  Story here - burnt tree fell caused truck to roll

A number of others were badly injured when their truck engulfed by the fire. Also many homes destroyed yesterday in fires (over 800 homes destroyed since fires began in Sept.) There are over 100 fires burning in NSW, some 4 months old. One fire alone has burnt 430,000 hectares (or over one million acres, yes, just one fire) AND it's still out of control. 

We need prayers for **repentance **revival and **rain, rain rain in Oz. 

O may the God of all mercies have mercy, may our Father God comfort those who've lost dear ones, or brave firies injured or homes lost,  and may our gracious Father save their souls. 

Truly it's God alone we need! 

*****
PS . If you haven’t I'd love it you to join as a wonderful encourager of this blog ...  link HERE.  Thank YOU to those who have done so already. It really encourages me to keep on.
If you'd like these posts in your inbox, you can add your email to email link option on side bar. If you're on a mobile device on which there is no sidebar, then scroll down and select "View Web Version" at very bottom of post. This will bring up sidebar and "follow by email" link. Thank YOU.