How to Revive Your Passion for God

Have you ever looked back at your Christian life and realised there was a time when you had more excitement and passion for God than you do now? Did you give it up as something to be expected or did you try to get it back? Since I have been through this recently as I wrote the other day, I want to share some tips on how to rekindle your fire and get back to where you once were in your Christian life.

Check your heart

I think before anything else we need to pray, to ask God to show us anything in our lives that doesn’t honour Him, repent of everything that comes to mind, and make sure God is at the centre of our focus.

Remember the good times

It really helps to look back on those times when we were excited for God and think about: what was going on then? What were the circumstances? What was our spiritual life like? I always think of these verses in Revelation:

Nevertheless I have this against you, that you have left your first love. Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent and do the first works

Rev 2:4-5

It says to remember from where we have fallen. What were we doing then that we should be doing now? Or what has come into our life that wasn’t there then? Maybe something good has become an idol and come between us and God?

Be prepared to amputate

Some things that have come between us and God are good things, and we just have to lessen our hold on them. But there are other situations where we may need to be more radical:

Mat 5:29  If your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out and cast it from you; for it is more profitable for you that one of your members perish, than for your whole body to be cast into hell.

There have been times in my life where I realised something was causing me to sin, or even just dulling my love for God and I realised that the best thing for me was to get rid of it completely. I once deleted all my characters that I'd put time into making in an online computer game because I realised it wasn't good for me. I also threw out all my CDs with love songs when I was single as I realised they were making me think too much about boys when I should be focusing on God!

Sometimes it is the best option to get rid of something totally so that it has no hold over us anymore.

Refocus on God

So often we get off track and start to love our ambitions more than God, or our comfort, or money, or entertainment, or even ministry! We need to think about where our focus is right now. We need to get God back at the centre of our minds and lives so that we are loving Him with all our heart, mind, soul and strength.

Get away

I have seen so often in my life and in other people’s, that when we get away for a day, a weekend, or a week and just focus on listening to God, on Bible study, prayer and encouraging fellowship it can be life-changing. I think just like if we are trying to listen to someone talking while we’re watching TV, we can’t really concentrate on what God is trying to say to us very well when we are surrounded by life’s busyness.

When I was at university I would often cycle to a nearby village and sit on a rock by the estuary just to pray. Because I had come all that way, and it was quiet and away from everything it really helped me just to focus on what God wanted. Other times I have been away on a camp or retreat and God showed me things which if I hadn’t been so dumb I could have realised a long time before that!

Recommit and get back to work

Things may be really hard in our lives, but we need to get to the point where we realise what God has called us to do and go ahead and do it, not looking at the circumstances.

It is really helpful to write down what God has spoken to you about what you need to change, and then figure out a specific plan for how to implement it. Otherwise you may never do anything different.

Stay Inspired

Along with making quality time for God daily to read my Bible and pray, something else that has helped me keep on track before I come way off it is to regularly read inspiring books, or listen to inspiring sermons. This keeps me in a place where I am excited for the things of God.

Some great books to read for this are missionary biographies. Some of my favourites are the biographies of Hudson Taylor, Amy Carmichael and Isobel Kuhn but there are  many more of course. Also devotional books by people like A. W. Tozer, Oswald Chambers and some of the old ones like ‘The Imitation of Christ’.
My favourite preacher to be inspired by is Charles Stanley – I nearly always come away from his preaching wanting to know more of God, and all his sermons are free online.

Many of these ideas come from listening to an excellent sermon by Dr. Charles Stanley which you can hear at In Touch audio archives if you have 25 minutes to spare. You just need to enter in the year 2010 and month October, and search, and the sermon should come up. It is called ‘Rekindling the Flame of Ministry’ from Oct 22nd 2010. It is intended for Pastors but has great advice for everyone.

I hope this will encourage you not to give up hope of getting back to where you used to be. It is possible and life is so much better when we are close to God.

‘Our flame will burn the brightest when we are fully surrendered, fully dependent, fully trusting and fully focused.’ Dr. Charles Stanley

Have you any other tips on reviving your passion for God? Have you an experience of getting back to where you once were? Please share in the comments below if you'd like to.

A Link Up to Christian Bloggers

As Anita from Dreaming Beneath The Spires recently said, "If one does not expend the time in blog maintenance in a sense you've wasted your writing time, since no one reads it." I think this is very true, so I try to take advantage of link ups to other Christian blogs when I can, as it hopefully will lead to more people reading this blog, as well as giving current readers a chance to find other blogs, and having a bit of fun!

So I'm linking up to Women Living Well's Ultimate Blog Bash 2011 where Courtney has all the different blogs neatly categorised so you can find what interests you. I like her blog because she is very Biblical, straightforward, practical, challenging and gracious. So I expect the majority of the links there will be helpful blogs as well - you can click below to find them.

The condition of linking up is to write a post about yourself - yikes! My background is on the 'about' page so I will just write a few random things that aren't on there :)

• I collect sheep, mainly because they remind me of the beautiful Welsh mountains where there is just heather, grass and sheep and they always seems to bring me so much closer to God!
• I am shy, so blogging is completely not a natural thing for me to do! But I perservere because I feel it is what God wants me to do, and I enjoy it so it is a good hobby for me.
• I love worship, and really enjoy playing the piano and guitar and singing harmonies. I have lots of favourite songs, but one of the top ones at the moment is 'You Hold Me Now' because it brings me back to focus on our end destination - heaven!
• I am a bookworm even though I struggle to make time for it now that I have children. I tend to just read Christian books and the occasional Jane Austen novel. My favourite Christian books are biographies, devotional and practical books.
• My favourite Bible verse is 'It is God who arms me with strength and makes my way perfect' Psalm 18:32
• My favourite book of the Bible currently is 2 Corinthians, as it is so good for ministry, and encouraging me to find my strength in God.

Here is a picture of our family when we all dressed up in cowboy costumes recently! My husband is from Texas and is over here in the UK as a missionary - we met when I started going to the church that he helped plant in England. Our children are Caleb (5), Hope (4) and Josiah (2).

If you're here for the first time, I usually write what God is teaching me about living for Him everyday. Here are my three most viewed posts if you would like a glimpse:

A different way of looking at trials

How to memorise Bible verses and not forget them

20 key Bible verses for everyday problems

Have You Lost Your Excitement for Jesus?

I have recently returned to a place spiritually that I don’t feel like I’ve been at for a number of years. The sad thing is that the whole time I have been serving God! But what was missing was an excitement for the things of God, a desire to study the Bible, a real passion to know Him better.

It is easy to drift as Christians. Charles Stanley and plenty of others say that if you’re not going forwards, you’re going backwards – there is no standing still. And as in my case, you may be committed to God, serving God, reading your Bible and praying, yet still not have the fire that you once had.

What causes the drift?

Being too busy: In my case I think it was mainly busyness. It is always interesting to me that one of the thorns that choked the plant in the parable of the sower was ‘cares’. Cares are things that we care for, that we worry about, that we spend time on. So the more things we have to care about, the more at risk we are of being choked in our Christian life.

It is not a bad thing to have many things to do –  it is good to be hardworking and diligent. But it is easy to take on more things than God is really wanting us to do, or let them take over our mind and time to such an extent that they dull our passion for God.

I plunged into full-time ministry, then marriage, and then children, and have never been so busy! These things are all good things, and I was called to do them – but I let them take over and get in front of my relationship with God at times.

Worldliness: this is another thing that can make us less excited for God.

‘If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.’
1 John 2:15

The more we love the things of this world, the more our love of God will dwindle. This might mean material things, fleshly lusts, entertainment, love of money and so on. Again that doesn’t mean we don’t try and make money, or don’t ever watch another film, but we need to keep a light hold on the things of this world and be careful that they don’t dull our love for God.

I still remember reading Isobel Kuhn’s biography where she explained how as a new Christian she found that she suddenly didn’t feel an acute awareness of God's presence anymore after reading a romantic novel, and the Bible became dry.

She asked God why, and it seemed to her that He answered, 'When a child fills its stomach with ice-cream and soda-water, why does it lose its appetite for meat and potatoes?' So she gave up reading novels, and says that she was richly repaid for it.

Have you left your first love? Or is the love still there, but maybe you’re not as excited about Jesus as you used to be some time ago? You can get it back! And I can testify that it is so much more rewarding to be excited about Jesus than anything else in this world!

Everything else will fail us at some point or other, but God never fails. And the journey only gets more exciting… ‘the path of the just is like the shining sun, shining ever brighter unto the perfect day’.

Do you have any experience of drifting as a Christian? What caused it in your life? In my next post I hope to talk about some ways we can rekindle the fire.

Favourite Links from the Summer

Since we moved house in July I have had very little time for e-mailing and blogging, and even less time for reading blogs. But I have managed to read a few, and here are some of my favourites from the Summer:

How to get the most out of your Pastor's preaching - lots of ideas to help prepare for, make the most of, and apply sermons.

Finding time for God when you have little ones - it can be very hard to keep God as your main priority when you have babies and young children who are so needy and require so much time! Here are some great tips to help.

How to glorify God at work - lots of great principles and practical tips on how to work in a way that honours God.

The truth about marital compatibility - questions to help with finding the right spouse, and helping your marriage get better.

How to have a successful blog - for those of you who blog. There are many articles and whole blogs devoted to helping you have a successful blog, but not many that are from a Christian viewpoint. This brings blogging into a Biblical perspective.

Could you be having an emotional affair? - I think this is a good thought-provoking post for both married and single people to read. Research has shown that adultery usually starts with the mind and emotions, and obviously if you are married you need to watch for this. If you are single you need to watch out that you are not the one that a married person is getting entangled with emotionally.

When school starts - when mothering is hard, we need to fix our eyes on Jesus.

I'd rather be a risk-taker - I love the thoughts in this, to take risks for God.

What I've learned in my 12 years of marriage - great practical tips for wives!

Thoughts on Pleasing God

The most common search engine phrase which leads people to this blog is ‘living to please God’ – not surprisingly since that is the title! But I have never yet written a post on it, and since it has come up a lot in my Bible reading and thinking recently, I thought I would.

For many years now my main goal in life, which everything else stems from, has been to please God. That is why I picked the title of 'Living To Please God', because I feel that describes who I am and where I am going – or at least where I want to go!

Why please God?

There is no point in trying to please God in order to be saved and go to heaven, because we are saved by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not through anything we can do.

We also don’t live to please God to earn His favour… because if we are Christians we already have it. Jesus died for our sins, and God has removed our sin from us ‘as far as the east is from the west’.

The reason I want to please God more than anything else is because He has done so much for me, by sending His only Son to die for me, and by forgiving me, and blessing me with so much. That's why I love the line from 'When I Survey', because it explains in a beautiful nutshell why I live to please God: 'Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all!'

The teachers at school who I respected and liked the most, I wanted to please the most. I would always try to do my best work for those teachers. In a similar but much greater way, I want to please God and obey Him the best I can because I love Him. When I stand before God one day, I so much want to hear Him say, “Well done, good and faithful servant”.

Is is also God’s will for us to live this way, as I have just been reading in my Bible:

‘Finally then, brethren, we urge and exhort in the Lord Jesus that you should abound more and more, just as you received from us how you ought to walk and to please God.’ 1 Thess 4:1

That should be our aim as Christians. Chuck Smith says, “Our chief desire should be to please God”.

How do we find out how to please God?

How to please God is a whole series in itself, which I may try to do at some point when I have more time for Bible study. But I think at the root of this is reading the Bible because it is from God, so as we read through it we will discover more and more of what pleases God. We also need to make the step of applying it to our lives as we read it.

Yesterday I started my study in Proverbs, and was delighted to read this:

‘The Bible was also written to show the transformed sinner how to live a life pleasing to God now that he is saved. This instruction is to be found throughout Scripture, but it is the main theme of particular Bible books. Proverbs is one of these.’ Irving Jensen

So if you want to find out how to please God, Proverbs is a great place to start!

I also hope that this blog will be a way of showing how to live a life that is pleasing to God, as I am trying to share what God is teaching me about living for Him.

I hope that you will join me in wanting to live a life that pleases God. And the desire is the most important thing - we may fail in carrying it out, but we can just go to the cross, repent and get straight back up again because God is gracious and understands our failings.

What motivates you to please God? Do you have any thoughts on how we can get a greater desire to please God?

Linking up with:

and The Koinonia Community

Great Books on How to Study the Bible

Have you ever wanted more of a desire for God and His Word like we read in some of the Psalms?

‘With my whole heart I have sought You; Oh, let me not wander from Your commandments!’ Psalm 119:10

‘Oh how I love your law! It is my meditation all the day.’ Psalm 119:97

We were discussing in women’s ministry the other day how we can cultivate more of a desire and longing for God and His Word. The times I have longed for God the most have been when I’ve been outside admiring His beautiful creation, or singing worship songs to Him, or when I have read books that inspire me to love Him more.

Desiring God's Word

Desiring His Word doesn’t come to me as easily. I think when I’ve been reminded of how much we need to read it and how it helps us then that gives me more of a desire for it. For example this verse shows how useful it is to know scripture:

‘All scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.’ 2 Timothy 3:16,17

But more than anything what has made me desire God's Word has been when I’ve taken time to really study and search the Bible. The more I get into it, the more I want to study! If you have only ever read the Bible and never studied it in more depth, you’re missing out on great treasures!

‘The Bible contains gold, and almost anyone is willing to dig for gold, especially if it is certain that he will find it. It is certain that one will find gold in the Bible, if he digs.’ Torrey

I still remember how 10 years ago I was studying a verse in 2 Timothy and had taken it to pieces and looked at its progression and meaning, and an amazing wonder and joy filled me as it came to life.

Self-Study Books

Two series of books which I highly recommend for Bible study, are by Kay Arthur and Irving Jensen. My serious Bible study started when I found a copy of Irving Jensen’s self-study guide on Haggai, Zechariah and Malachi in a second hand bookshop.

He takes you through the book carefully; giving you background and insight, but making you do most of the work yourself. And it was so exciting to discover hidden depths and understand God’s word more!

Kay Arthur has also written lots of books to help you study books and topics of the Bible, but again with the emphasis on you studying yourself, with help and guidance.

How-To Books

There are numerous books written to help you study the Bible for yourself, and they usually highlight the different ways you can approach it such as studying a book, a chapter, a verse, a topic, a character, or a word.

Here are some great books on how to study the Bible for yourself:

• Enjoy Your Bible by Irving L. Jensen – my favourite!
• How To Study Your Bible by Kay Arthur – similar to the above, just with a slightly different approach.
• How to Study the Bible for Yourself by Tim la Haye – this has a really good first section on how to improve your reading of the Bible by keeping a journal, then goes on to more in depth Bible study.
• Living by the Book by Howard Hendricks – more simple if you want an easier read!
• What To Do on Thursday by Jay Adams – the emphasis in this one is on using Bible study to solve everyday problems and decisions, written by a Biblical counsellor.

D.L. Moody has written a book called ‘Pleasure and Profit in Bible Study’ and Torrey has one called ‘How To Study the Bible for greatest Profit.’  I have second-hand copies of these and they are both excellent, just a bit older.

I’ve just looked online and noticed that John Macarthur has written a book on how to study the Bible as well, so maybe that will be my next buy :) He is a very thorough teacher of the Bible so I am sure his book is also excellent.

I am planning to start going through Irving Jensen’s self-study guide on Proverbs soon to help me with my memorising, if I can get my act together! So I may post some of what I learn on here as and when I do it.

I would really encourage you to get one of these books and make some time for studying. Tim la Haye recommends setting apart 15 mins a day for in depth Bible study. It's not that much time if you think about it, and the rewards you will reap will be well worth it. If you lack motivation... get one of the 'How To' books and start reading it, and it will probably motivate you :)

If you're struggling just to have a basic time of reading your Bible and praying then you should probably get that established first! You might like to read my 10 Tips for Devotional Times for some help.

What Has Come Before God in Our Lives?

I think one of the most subtle ways of getting us away from living for God is idolatry. In the Old Testament it was everywhere, even Jacob had family idols. In the West we don’t tend to have many of those kind of idols, but they take the form of other things that can come before God in our lives.

It has been scary to me how things have come into my life that seem fine, or even are good things, but they can gradually become more important to me than God - which means they are idols. Even our belly can become our god!

 "I am the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage. "You shall have no other gods before Me. "You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. Ex 20:2-5

Most of the time these things have crept up on me very gradually to the point that I am shocked when I realise that something in my life is an idol. So I thought it would be helpful to write out a checklist of things to help us see if we are putting something before God.

If you have an answer to these questions – it doesn’t necessarily mean it is an idol, but it may be. I have written this more as a way of checking our hearts, so that if something comes up a lot we can pray and think about it more.

• What/who do you think about a lot?
• Where do your thoughts stray when you are reading the Bible or in church?
• Where do you go when you need comfort?
• What do you make sacrifices for?
• What would you find it difficult to go without?
• What stops you from obeying God wholeheartedly?
• What is your heart set on?
• What is really important to you?
• What do you like to talk about?
• What do you do when you have spare time?
• What or who are you trying to please or satisfy?
• What do your top God-given priorities (like time with God, spouse and children) often give way to?
• What are your strongest desires?
• What are you trying to promote?
• What do you boast about?
• What makes you upset and frustrated when it doesn’t go as you want?
• Where do you get your satisfaction and joy from?
• What do you spend your money on (after the necessities)?

 As I said, the answer to these things is not necessarily something that’s an idol, but if there is something that comes up a lot it might be, so it is worth taking some time to think and pray about.

Here are some examples of things that can become idols:

• Entertainment
• Sleep
• Food
• Comfort
• Reputation
• Approval of others
• Husband or wife
• Children
• Career
• Hobbies

 Many of these are perfectly good in themselves, but when we set our heart and focus on them, to the point that we lose our joy if they don’t go our way, or where they displace God from where He should be in our lives and affections, then they may have become idolatrous.
 

What is the answer? We can to go to the cross, since there is no condemnation in Christ Jesus. We just need to repent and return to our first love, to set our hearts on Christ, to seek Him and get our joy and satisfaction from Him.

Once we have realised that we are putting something before God we need to take steps in our mind and practically, with God's help, to put God back at the centre of our focus. And then... here is a great quote from Kay Smith – ‘Hold things on earth with a light touch.’ I am still learning every day to do this!!

Have you any experience of these things or others becoming an idol in your life? Can you share how you dealt with it?

Linking up with:

 and Thought Provoking Thursday

Dwelling in the Secret Place

I had a bit of a revelation today as I was reading and thinking about Psalm 91.

This is what it says:

‘He who dwells in the secret place of the Most High Shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, "He is my refuge and my fortress; My God, in Him I will trust." Ps 91:1,2

I want God to be my refuge and fortress

We were just talking this week about idols in our women’s ministry, and how we need to go to God for comfort, and find our joy and satisfaction in Him rather than in other things. So the word ‘refuge’ really stuck out to me as I read these verses.

I want God to be my refuge, so that when I am troubled I don’t go to food (my usual first stop!) or anything else, but go to Him instead. I want to feel like I’m under His shadow and resting safe with Him no matter what goes on during the day.

But it looks like what leads to this point is to ‘dwell in the secret place of the Most High.' So I set myself to thinking, ‘How can I do that?’

How to dwell in the secret place

Dwelling means to live, so it’s talking about living with God in the secret place. What is the secret place? Well what can be more secret than our thoughts? When we pray to Him? If we live with someone we talk to them a lot naturally, as we see them throughout the day. And if we live with God in the secret place then we will talk to Him secretly, through prayer.

So what I realised is that to dwell in the secret place of the Most High I need to be talking to Him throughout the day.

I have been aware of the command to pray without ceasing for a long time, but I think back then I thought of prayer as more formal. Now I realise that God would just like us to talk to Him, to ask Him for help in everything we do, to bring all our cares to Him. And I think this might be a secret for finding our refuge in God.

So even though I always mean to pray more during the day – now I have more motivation because I want God to be my refuge more than any other thing. So I am determined to try and talk to God as much as I can about everything, and I am hoping that the more I do it the more natural it will get!

This is what Matthew Henry says about it:

'It is the character of a true believer that he dwells in the secret place of the Most High; he is at home in God, returns to God, and reposes in him as his rest; he acquaints himself with inward religion, and makes heart-work of the service of God, worships within the veil, and loves to be alone with God, to converse with him in solitude.

It is the privilege and comfort of those that do so that they abide under the shadow of the Almighty; he shelters them, and comes between them and every thing that would annoy them, whether storm or sunshine. They shall not only have an admittance, but a residence, under God's protection; he will be their rest and refuge for ever.'

How Moving House has Affected my Memorising!

I thought it was about time I wrote an update on how my memorising is going. I started memorising Proverbs back in May, with the aim of completing it in a year (gulp!).

Well it WAS going well... till we moved house in July. I in my high idealistic thinking had imagined that it would just mean stopping for a few weeks, which I did. But it was way worse than that - I tried to resume it and limped along very slowly and haltingly.


I called this the 'junk room' - it has only just become our bedroom, finally :)

I am supposed to be memorising three new verses and reviewing three of the most recent chapters I've learnt each day. However some days I would manage to memorise only one of my three verses for the day without review, and other days I would manage to review a chapter or so but not memorise anything new.

Being that it is pointless to memorise more verses if I can't remember the ones I have learned already, review is vital! But there has been so much going on after moving, with trying to get everything straight, and get the house the way we need it, unpack, keep children happy and so on. So it has been really hard to have any time where my brain was free to actually memorise. And when I did have time, I didn't have the mental energy!

The result is that I am very behind, not really surprisingly :) I am supposed to be up to about chapter 13, and instead I am just starting chapter 9. So I had a good talk to myself and decided I had to figure out a different plan.

It am only answerable to myself, so I think I will give myself an extension of three or so months if I need it! And I have also decided that I will do the review of the majority of the chapters I have learned so far on Sundays, and if I don't get to it, then Monday etc. On those days then I won't memorise anything new. This will mean I won't have as much to review on the days that I memorise new verses - which will help a lot!

The remaining days I will just go over the last few verses I learned, plus three or four new ones, and then work backwards, reviewing as many chapters as I have time for over the day which will make sure the newest ones get covered at least. I think I may also take a couple of days each time I finish a chapter, just to go over it and make sure I know it well.

I think if I was to do it all over again I would schedule a three month break from memorising for settling into the new house, and just go over the old stuff! But even though it has been slow, it has still been a blessing, and God has spoken to me through some of the verses I have memorised.

My favourite verse from the last few months is this one:

'When He assigned to the sea its limit, So that the waters would not transgress His command, When He marked out the foundations of the earth' Pro 8:29

To me it shows how everything in Creation is not just an inanimate object, but actually listens to and obeys God, which is amazing thought! It makes me more in awe of God and of what he has created.

Have you been  memorising anything? Has anything helped or encouraged you? Or do you need any ideas or help? Do feel free to share in the comments.

Linking up with Do Not Depart: