Month: November 2017

When you know your name, you will never find yourself responding to someone else’s name. And the name that you respond to, is the name that you take on.If they call you stupid and you respond to the name, you will find yourself doing stupid things. If they call you clever and you respond to the name, you will find yourself doing clever things – creating and innovating.

When you know who are you are, you will not take in or let what others call you shape your destiny. If they call you by a name unknown to you, do not answer. That is why Jesus said “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they shall never perish; no one will snatch them out of my hand…” (John 10:27-28). When you know who you are and what your destiny is, you will not respond to the enemy’s call and lies. When you know what your purpose is, you will not conform to the majority nor do things merely to please the crowd. They were gathered to stone Jesus because of who He claimed to be and tried to intimidate Him into accepting a name that was not His. They said to Him, “We are not stoning you for any good work,” they replied, “but for blasphemy, because of you, a mere man, claim to be God” (John 10:33).

They wanted Him to accept that He was a mere man, and if He had accepted because of His circumstance, He would have acted as a mere man, thereby becoming what they wanted Him to be. He confused them because He was not like them yet looked like them. He spoke like them yet did not sound like them. He did not fit into their mould and they could see that He was different, so they tried to make Him believe that He was not different. Jesus knew this and replied, “…why then do you accuse me of blasphemy because I said, ‘I am God’s Son’? Do not believe me unless I do the works of my Father. But if I do them, even though you do not believe me, believe the works, which you may know and understand that the Father is in me, and I in the Father” (John 10:37-39).

If you answer to a name that is not yours, the enemy wins.  If you answer to the lies, they gain a hold of you. If you conform to their ways to fit in, you miss out or delay your destiny. They call you by a name not yours knowing the power within you, and the name they call you by is their only weapon to try to subdue you to live a less than life. You are more powerful than you know, and your destiny will leave a mark that you once walked this earth. And so it was for Jesus when He stood strong, “…They said, “Though John never performed a sign, all that John said about this man was true.” And in that place, many believed in Jesus.” (John 10:41-42).

Even with Samson, when he was chained to a pillar with a crowd gathered to be entertained and they chanted, “Bring out Samson to entertain us” (Judges 16:25), he knew that though he was in chains, he was not weak and he was not defeated. Samson did not answer for a moment, but answered to his destiny! And so he had the last laugh over his enemies. Do not answer to “Mara” because of the season you’re in. Naomi in Ruth 1:20 said “”Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very bitter”, but when she asked to be called Mara, she did not know that only three chapters later, she would be living in a palace and her name would be remembered forever. Do not answer to a name, not yours. Do not answer to a destiny not assigned to you. Do not answer to a temporary name given to you, reflecting only you temporarily season.

Though you have fallen, yet will you rise. Though you sit in darkness, yet will the Lord light a lamp unto your feet to guide your footsteps until you reach your destiny.

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.

We’re all looking for love, but most often looking for it in all the wrong places and attributing it to a feeling. The problem with love being a feeling is that a feeling is an affection, an affection which is a feeling of fondness or liking, and if you like someone, you can unlike the person. “I feel in love with you today, but tomorrow when I see your flaws, I will feel out of love with you.” So perhaps the way to look at love, at least real love that will stand the test of time, is to attribute love to a ‘being’. A ‘being’, being the one who made love, and is love, and is the only one that can teach us to love as love ought to love: #unconditional.

The ‘being’, being God. For God is love; so when we walk with God, we take on His love and learn to love as He loves, and only then will we find ourselves truly loving. 1 John 4:15-18, “…God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.” If love truly lives within us, then we will love as God loves and become love; and when we become love, we will love as ‘love’ [God] loves us: #unconditional. And when we come to this realisation of love; though we see their flaws, their flaws we will no longer see, for we will see their flaws in reverse… already knowing how they will be when the Potter is finished with them. When we come to this awakening of unconditional love, we will find that the flaws point to our vulnerability, which in turn points to the reason why we are all in need of a Saviour – that without Christ we are but the dirt that we came from and will return to; that without Christ, we remain imperfect humans, governed and tainted by our flaws. Because we are flawed, we unwittingly reject other people’s flaws, even those we claim to love.

But if ‘love’ lives in us, we will see their flaws through God’s eyes and know that we are the clay and God is the Potter; and all of us are the work of His Hands (Isaiah 64:8), and therefore, if the flaws are still visible, that’s because the Potter is not yet finished crafting the masterpiece, for “He who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus” (Philippians 1:6). When love lives in us, their flaws we will see through the blood of Jesus, just as God sees us through the blood of Jesus, therefore rendering us perfect in His eyes, despite all our shortcomings.

When love lives in us, we will know truly what love is, for this is how we know what love is, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hope, always perseveres” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8).

Without ‘love’, we can know what love is supposed to look like, but when the flaws appear, our heart is failed by our brain, and we are left short of practising the love of 1 Corinthians 13:4-8.  But in the quest for love, this remains true; love cannot be a feeling, for you cannot like a person to the point of dying for them. And this remains true, ‘love’, being true love, two thousand years ago, died not for one that loved Him, but for a world that despised, rejected and nailed Him to a cross.

And yet on the cross, He did not hesitate to spread His arms to demonstrate once and for all what true love really looks like … love that hung on a cross, naked and displayed for all to see, hanging  to take our place for our shame and sins. Truly, “Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends” (John 15:13). When you finally see what ‘love’ did on the cross, you will love beyond the flaws and become the love that covers a multitude of flaws – 1 Peter 4:8-9 “Above all, love each other deeply because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling.”

True love is not a player; it does not cheat; it does not adulterate; it does not lie nor intentionally hurt others … for true love, loves others as it loves itself – “Love your neighbour as yourself. There is no commandment greater than these” (Mark 12:331); Ephesians 5:22-31 “… Husbands, love your wives, just as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her … He who loves his wife loves himself. After all, no one ever hated their own body, but they feed and care for their body, just as Christ does the church— for we are members of his body.”

©Katie Mliswa and MomentsbyKatie.M, 2017.