Friday, 9 March 2018

Bitter water made better

When I was a kid we liked tongue-twisters, one of which is “Betty bought a bit of butter, and the bit of butter was bitter so Betty bought another bit of butter to make the bitter butter better”.

Recently God has been speaking to me about slavery and bondage. Isa 52:11 (NLT) says “Go now, leave your bonds and slavery. Put Babylon behind you, with everything it represents, for it is unclean to you. You are the LORD's holy people. Purify yourselves, you who carry home the vessels of the LORD.” As I read this, I felt God speak and say to me I need to leave my bonds and my slavery behind. I am not a slave in terms of the how the Israelites were in the Old Testament. But I still have things which bind me, we all do such as: fear of rejection, mistrust, fear of loneliness, unforgiveness, shattered dreams, fear of what other think of us, brokenness from our past etc. In Exodus we see that although the Israelites were set free from Egypt, their thinking was towards Egypt and still thinking like a slave.

Romans 8:14-15 “For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by who we cry, "Abba! Father!" Here we see Paul contrasting the slave to the son. The slave reacts out of a place of fear and does things because he has to; while a son is free and responds out of a place of love and wants to do the Father’s will. The slave is worried about lack, and may mistrust the master; a son does not worry about lack and trusts his father’s heart. Do you think like a slave or like a son?

In Exodus 15:23-27 the Israelites found bitter water; God shows Moses a wooden stick to use to make the bitter water sweet. In this passage God is revealed as the Healer. He is also the one that can take our bitterness (difficult upbringing, fear of rejection, our loneliness etc.) and make it sweet through the wood of the cross. So let’s bring Him our hurts, pain and all that causes us to be bitter and allow Him to transform us to make our hearts sweet again. And sometimes we need a person (like Moses) to help us in the process of healing.

“Holy Spirit, speak to us; remind us that we are sons. Transform our thinking, so that we will not be bound in slavery but live freely as sons.” Listen to this song

My prophetic painting:
From chains to sweet freedom

May God bless you in the knowledge that you are a son
May He keep you from bitterness
May He make His face shine upon you in the transformation
And give you peace as He makes your bitter water better




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