From the Heart by B.Demaere

  Meditation A lot of books are sold on meditation of all kinds these days.  People in general are interested in the deeper meaning of life.  I, for one want to grow closer to God, meaning I know he is always with me and in me, but I just want to know him more.  I must focus more on him and all the other things like time spend on social media will fall by the wayside. The Lord seemed to be leading me to read and meditate on Him through the 23 rd Psalm that speaks about the Great Shepherd.   The Lord is my Shepherd, it starts…What a great focus point for us.   This psalm has been a great inspiration to me in the past and still is.   It is full of pictures.   A shepherd with the sheep throughout.   He is always with them in their lowest time and their best time.   In time of hunger and time of thirst.   To start with proper meditation is to focus on Christ or the Bible other than self oriented.   Teaching on m editation, I agree has been feared among people because maybe of perplexi

Throughout the Bible, we are not only encouraged to not do evil, but also to not associate with it. Look at King of Judah, Jehoshaphat for example.   One great king who was after God, he had of course just a few flaws.   He had some friendship with the world. For starter, his son Jehoram married Athaliah, the daughter of king Ahab who was an evil king. We see him here where he helped king Ahab in chapter 18 and escaped fortunately from getting killed himself.   King Ahab was killed in the battle.   Since Jehoshaphat was a good king God protected him that day.   In 2 Chronicles 19:2 a prophet comes to him and corrects him on having helped king Ahab and associated with evil. The prophet tells him that he has helped one who hated the Lord. Furthermore, the prophet also tells him that because of what he did, God’s anger is against him. Sure enough, in the next chapter 20 we see him associating with the king of Israel Ahaziah an evil king as well.   While Jesus put his relations

  Love surpasses Religion (Luke 7:36-50) Simon, the Pharisees had welcomed Jesus in his house.  After all, it made him look great in the eyes of his peers and his disciples.  A woman of poor reputation, probably an adulteress or prostitute came in the house.  (God often uses ‘sinners’ to test religion’s authenticity and this situation is no exception).  This woman opened her heart to Jesus and poured all the love she had for him.  It was worship at its highest degree.  She knew who Jesus was and she didn’t care about her own reputation anymore.  She had none left.  She had probably spent all her love on men to no avail.  Now she fell empty of self at Jesus’s feet with the most expensive perfume she could find.  She had made lots of her money through prostitution and now she was not willing to use it on herself but on Jesus the only one who could save her soul.  What are you using your money on?  What was this Pharisee using his money for?  But she was using her money to exalt Jesus. 

  God First Questioning God: Why?        We can, of course question God to learn from Him.   Even if we ask him “Why…” he is never short of answers.  The answers are right there in his word where he also says in Hosea 4:6 “My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge. Because you have rejected knowledge.”        We, indeed, have rejected knowledge by not paying attention to it and by being indifferent to it or to Him. In times of revival, we must listen attentively to what God is saying to us.   What is a revival? It is a time of outpouring of the Holy Spirit of God calling back everyone from every country to come to know God more and more.   During that time the knowledge of God is revealed more deeply and the whole world is called to attention.         Do you want to be part of this? God has all the answers. To all our problems and more “Why should the living complain when punished for their sins”. (Lamentation 3:39 (NIV)  The answer is: We bring it on ourselves, but