Dear Friends

I greet you in the precious name of Jesus as the Christmas season is now very much upon us.  I can sense in my spirit that people are very tired and weary as they start to wind down after a very hectic and busy year in many cases.

I have a message burning on my heart that I need to share  with you.  While having my quiet time this morning I really believe that I have been visited very specially by the Holy Spirit in my heart.  It emanates from a precious reading out of a devotional I had just read.  In a nutshell what I believe God is saying to us is, just as the faithful servant looks to his master for direction and instruction, so you and I need to do that.  The writer speaks about the fact that once we take our eyes off our Master, then we start first of all to lose hope, secondly we start to lose vision and thirdly we start to lose courage to fulfil the call that God has put on each one of our lives, in whatever capacity that might be.  He speaks about a spiritual leakage which takes place when we take our eyes off the Lord and His specific mandate towards us.  

Then of course we start to get those 'Job's comforters', who come alongside us and suggest that maybe we were aiming too high after all and maybe our vision was a bit too big for us.  As the days turn into weeks, months and maybe even years, we start to lose hope in the vision God has given us, our faith is replaced by fear and we start to think that maybe we were aiming a bit too high anyway.  We then start to pull back which is fatal and the devil takes over.  His sole objective, my dear friend, is to immobilise us by fear, just as the snake mesmerises the mouse into a state of paralysis and then promptly devours it.  

This is not for us, we will not be of those who will turn back at the eleventh hour!  Like never before I really believe that we are poised on the brink of great revival, but it needs to start in our own hearts.  2 Tim.1:7 is very clear, 'God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind'.  We need to hang on to that.

Early this morning in the word of God I was reminded again of Ephesians 3:20, 'Now to Him who is able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we ask or think, according to the power that works in us ....'   Let you and I this Christmas season contemplate on what God is able to do through us, if we are willing to allow Him to.

Remember what we say at Shalom, 'If your vision doesn't scare you, it is not big enough!'  Another thing we say is that we must 'attempt something that is so big that if it is not of God it is doomed to fail'.  Why?  Because when it works people will not think that it is because of us, they will know that it is God and He will get all the glory that He so richly deserves.

May God bless you as you continue to walk a life of faith, remembering that 'faith is the substance of things hoped for and the evidence of things not yet seen', Heb.11:1.

Yours in Christ
Angus & Jill Buchan

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