Pastor Bell's Words To Live By

Now restitution is the recovery of everything that was stolen or lost to the original owner. Wow, how would you like to receive everything that was every stolen from you back? For many of us this is quite a daunting proposition. The processes that we have gone through, the relationships that have failed, the things that were stolen from us, have left an indelible mark on us. So, even though we are restored the scars are there for all to see.

Although this may be the case in the natural, there is a different outcome in the spiritual. When God instituted the process of total restoration, he did it in such a way to enable us to go through the processes but come out the other end just as if we had never gone through it in the first place. This is the process that theologians call justification. We who were dead in our trespasses and sins, who were following the course of this world, living as disobedient children, have been elevated to a place far above where we once lived. It is from this vantage point that we can now look back and recognise how broken we were. It is from here that we can join with John Newton and sing, ‘amazing grace how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me’ and give thanks to God for finding us. It is from the place where we can effortlessly fall on our faces like the angels and cry Holy, Holy Holy to the Lord God almighty who was and is and is to come’ since the whole earth will be full of his glory.  The process [humbleness of heart, baptism in Holy Spirit, submitting to the will of God, listening to the Holy Spirit, being conscientised, renewal of the mind, forgiveness, repentance, deliverance, healing, restoration and restitution] is complete and I am now a new creation, created in Christ Jesus for the sole purpose of bringing glory to God in all that I do. And so I can now stand tall and say like the apostle Paul “it is not I that live, but Christ that lives in me” and therefore the issues that plagued me when I was lost, and kept me ignorant when I lived as a disobedient child have all been thrown into the sea of forgiveness and remembered no more. From now on, I will stay in that heavenly realm and live to praise and thank my Lord and my God, Jesus! Text to meditate on: Revelation 4:6-11; Isaiah 6:1-3 and Ephesians 2:1-10.