From the protection of a shark-cage to
the ‘unprotected’ shores of real life... 2009 here we come!

 The Saturday before Christmas I shared in the adventure of a couple who decided to get married in, no, not a quaint little chapel in the woods, but a cold steel shark cage in the Atlantic ocean!

We signed our indemnities and boarded the vessel.

A few weeks ago I responded to a request on Facebook.

Charmaine Beukes from White Shark Projects were looking for a brave pastor to marry a couple on a Shark Safari, I volunteered.

Armed with my wife’s pink Bible, the plastic cover was the closest I could get to a waterproof Bible, it was my privilege to share with the couple some inspired thoughts in an unusual setting...

We did not pre-visit the engineering works where the cage was designed and welded together to inspect the workmanship, but simply took the operator’s word that the cage was indeed shark proof, and felt pretty safe throughout the ceremony. Breathing through the regulators, we realised that one can be in shark invested waters and instead of dreading the threat of the Great White experience the thrill of the adventure.

But how do one secure oneself against the many ‘sharks’ out there on the shore?

Statistics reveal that in many societies today, most marriages end up in divorce. Marriages are targeted and in trouble.

When crime increases, security firms flourish. At great expense we would insure the protection of perishable property against any possible threat, and freak out if our brand new shining car gets even a little scratch, yet our most precious assets, our intimate friendship, our children’s cradle, is often left totally unguarded. How do we best secure friendship?

While every effort is spent in the research of possible solutions to the horror threat of diseases such as AIDS and TB, the greatest quest to meaningful life, friendship with substance, of spontaneity and continuity, is either neglected or ignored. Often the very cancer of promiscuity and immorality that destroys relationship is not only tolerated but accepted or even promoted in a corrupt society.

The Good News is the unveiling of a friendship of the highest expression of integrity and quality, within everyone’s reach!

I believe that the very oxygen of relationship is appreciation; humans are designed to be and feel appreciated; feeling taken for granted corrodes any relationship.

On the 12^th of January Lydia and I will be celebrating our 30^th anniversary; and I’m not writing this to show-off, but to underline this valuable point.

We have made it a habit to appreciate one another beyond performance or disappointment. When true value is realised it is so easy to admire.

If relationships can be rescued, wars will cease.

We have underestimated the Gospel of Jesus Christ for centuries, because we have adopted an interpretation that robbed us of the true impact of salvation in its relation to life in the here and now on planet earth. We have felt more comfortable with a faith that refers us to a place in heaven one day rather than to see faith as the now and relevant substance of things we always longed for and the evidence of unseen realities around us and within our grasp.

A meaningful relationship with the Creator and our fellow humans, of tangible content and feedback was substituted for an airy-fairy philosophy of religious ritual, sentiment and dreams. Trapped in a spiritual vacuum of ignorance, we’ve latched on to worn-out and fading traditions of the past and vague and fragile future hopes.

The Gospel holds the ingredient of the most powerful influence that the consciousness of man could ever encounter. Nothing known to man presents a greater wealth of wisdom than the love of God realised. This great revelation is not only His love for us but also His love in us for others!

The most tragic consequence of the fall of man was the loss of man’s conviction of his true identity.  A new dominance was introduced, and man became subject to the judgement of the sense realm. An environment ruled by chance, change and temporal values became man’s reference.

The greatest distraction and contradiction to our true identity and destiny is to live a life subject to an inferior opinion of ourselves and others. We have inherited and adopted a set of values and prejudices that crippled relationships on every level of our society.

Somehow in our efforts to reconcile or rehabilitate, all the energy is spent on targeting the cobwebs instead of killing the spider. Crime, juvenile delinquency, drug addiction, and alcohol-abuse, the abuse of women and children, the divorce-rate, the breakup of the family, corruption and war make a mockery of our social, religious and political structures.

In Ephesians 6:12 Paul declares that we wrestle not against flesh and blood, which takes man out of the equation. No human can qualify to be an enemy again. “People are not the enemy, (whether they be husbands, wives, children, or parents, slaves or bosses. They might host the enemy in their attitudes and actions through their unbelief or ignorance but) to target one another is to engage in the wrong combat.” His focus of ministry is, “to make all men see what is the plan of the mystery hidden for ages in God who created all things, that through the church (The Greek word translated church, is the word ekklesia, from ek, a preposition denoting origin, and kaleo, to surname or identify by name, thus the revelation of man’s original identity) the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the principalities and powers in the heavenly realm. This was according to the eternal purpose, which He realised in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Eph.3:9-11.

Law-inspired behaviour reduces the impact of your life to the natural realm, while faith realities realised has an immediate impact in the spiritual realm.

Nowhere has life become more worthless than in the context of war. Violence as a voice, whether it is a minority such as al-Qaeda or the Boeremag or a majority such as the Bush and Blair-administration, says the same thing: we have a sick society with a sick self-image. To ignore the value of the human spirit is to insult the integrity of our design.

This becomes such a complex thing; we are prepared to spend millions to save life and at the same time we spend millions to destroy life. We have failed in our basic education when we fail to appreciate or respect life. Should our mutual respect for one another be challenged, our highest moral value is at risk.

No man can live happily who regards himself alone, who turns everything to his own advantage. One must live for another if one wishes to live for oneself. True fiends are the whole world to one another. He that is a friend to himself is also a friend to mankind.  Seneca B.C.3 - A.D.65 Rome.   

We are designed for friendship. Any measure or definition of hostility, distance or loneliness is foreign to our makeup.

A man was carrying a very ill person over a long distance when someone asked him if the load he carried was not too heavy for him. ‘He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother’ came the prompt reply. This man’s attitude is the theme of the law of perfect liberty. The law of love liberates one into a different level of life. Its language is not ‘have to’ but ‘want to’. There is a distinct difference between willpower and willingness. This law governs the will of man, not through a sense of obligation but inspiration and passion, with a love that desires to please. Faith-inspiration is the purest energy of the soul. This level of inspiration is fuelled not by reasoning, but by revelation. God’s faith in you declares your value; realised value ignites passion. Routine living takes the edge off passion; routine dulls passion; taking yourself or others for granted does the same.

“A human being is like a work of art, the more it is admired the more beautiful it grows reflecting the gift of love like light back to the giver” Elizabeth Goudge.

In your every relationship begin to discover and declare the value of the other. We are designed for closeness, not distance. Sustained, intimate and total pleasure is not an illusion but meant for you.

One of our most basic human rights is to feel appreciated. We long for recognition. Nothing harms a relationship or self-image more than to feel neglected and taken for granted. Love and friendship blossom in an environment of appreciation. It is in the nature of love to admire without prejudice.

Yet, love can afford to be misunderstood, ignored, face conflict, injustice and war, and still conquer. Love is designed to conquer.

Every contradiction becomes an opportunity for the reinforcement and confirmation of the truth, rather than a distraction from it. Truth realized makes of faith a fortress!

To appreciate means to express and communicate value. But value must have a realised, realistic reference, a reference that goes beyond our best, or poorest performance. Christ in His Person and work of redemption is that blueprint reference.

My passion and mission in life is to help ordinary people realise the integrity of their authentic individual identity and value and escape the frustrating routine and ritual of a mere bonsai existence.

There are two things we need to know about ourselves: We are all the same; yet at the same time we are absolutely unique. Nothing is more rewarding than to discover the person in another person. Only discovering the person in you equals that. We are fashioned in the same mould, the expression of the same thought.

Our author’s signature and invisible image is nowhere better preserved or displayed than in our inner consciousness. Our origin traces the very imagination of God. No wonder the whole law is fulfilled in this, that we love our fellow human as we love ourselves!

Every invention begins with an original thought. We are God’s original thought. We are His initiative. The fruit of His creative inspiration, His intimate design and love-dream. The first word in the Bible, Bereshet, literally means, in the head. We are the expression of the greatest idea that ever was! Man began in God; God imagined you! He says, “I knew you before I formed you in your mother’s womb” Jeremiah 1:5. You might have been a surprise to your parents, but not to God!

Awake to His image within you! In the same way as seed conceives within the womb, so He reveals Himself within your being. The moment an idea ignites, it creates its own space and momentum.

Lying dormant in the heart of every human is a potential consciousness of the likeness and image of God. James 3:9. At the core of our being we all share likeness with God and with one another. To realize the image of God in everyone is to discover our common blueprint. On the surface, every human seems very different from the next. But when you get down to the nitty-gritty of our genetics, the most that any two people might differ from each other is a mere one hundredth of one percent. Only 0.01 percent of our genes is reflected in our external appearance, whatever our racial or historic background is.

We share so much common ground that we actually have 99,9% reason to be every one’s friend!  Yet, the fact that we are different gives us distinct value. Each of us can make an individual, authentic contribution to life that no one can repeat or compete with!  Life finds unique expression in you, beyond your fingerprint. You are indeed irreplaceable! “…When they measure themselves by themselves and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. 2Cor.10:12. Wrong measure, wrong result! No-one can measure temperature with a ruler!

These two realities, the fact that we have so much in common and yet are so individually unique, are the basis and reference to all true value. Wrapped up within its potential lies the genius of man, which gives each one of us an individual value.

This reality explains the cross: Why would God bother to go to such length to rescue mankind? Market value is established only by the price someone is prepared to pay. The virtue of such love cannot be credited to the mere sorry state of the human race or the pity of the Creator. God saw enough calculated value in every man to justify the price He paid for humanity’s redemption from sin, guilt and fear. He successfully redeemed His image and likeness in man. He rescued our original identity. ‘The kingdom of heaven is like a treasure hidden in a field, which a man discovered and covered up; then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.’ Mathew 13:44. Paul reveals in 1Corinthians 2:7,8, why this treasure was covered up. (See ’The Mystery Revealed’ www.mirrorreflection.net) If someone is prepared to sell all that he has in order to buy something, then what he buys becomes all that he has.

Through the sacrificial death of Jesus Christ, God vindicated man beyond anything that could ever disqualify or condemn him again. Adam’s transgression can no longer hold the human race hostage. Romans 5:7,8,12-21.

Many theologians are quick to believe in the global impact of Adam’s fall, but fail to credit the cross with a far greater significance, out of all proportion to Adam’s sin. Romans 4:25.

God believes in you, whether you believe in Him or not. The lost coin never lost its original identity or value. Being lost simply kept it out of circulation. “Suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one. Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search diligently until she finds it.” Luke 15:8-10. In His next breath, Jesus tells the parable of the lost son. One night God revealed to me the tear-stained face of my mother in a dream. She was on her knees, sweeping the house in search for her lost coin! ‘Bring me a coin, whose image and inscription does it bear? Luke 20:20-26. He might as well have said ‘ Bring me a man….’ The image and inscription of God is engraved in our inner being. “Return to Caesar what belongs to him, and return to God what is His.” Mankind is the property of God. Psalm 24:1. At no point does a thief become the official owner of stolen goods.

The more you remind yourself or someone else of shortcoming and failure, the less chance you give yourself or the other person to escape into the quality of life that is consistent with your true design.

Your life can be inspired by love or ruled by fear. However, fear is not a force in itself; it is merely the absence of realized, conscious love. Darkness is not a force; it is the absence of light.  But we can empower fear. We give experiences, circumstances, rumours or people power over us by the way we react to them.

Irritation, sarcasm, anger, and self-pity are snares that will only weaken you. Whatever happened in your life to cause anger, resentment, self-pity or regret, is now past tense and history; to continue to harbour these thoughts within you, keeps the poison in your system. Forgiveness releases the flow and healing virtue of the love of God.

Fear’s focus feeds on frustration, lack, lies, need, worry, anxiety, jealousy, anger, inferiority, suspicion, guilt, depression, ungratefulness, cynicism etc. Faith is fuelled by love. Love believes. Love values potential above performance or disappointment.

As long as you can find someone or something to blame, you remain trapped. In blaming someone or something the depressed finds an excuse to remain depressed. You are freed the moment you realize that no one can take your quality of life away from you, if no one can stop you from thinking thoughts that truth inspires. Our ignorance and unbelief empowers deception. “If you continue in My word, you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free; whom the Son sets free will be free indeed.” The truth is that our original sonship is redeemed. Jesus is not an example for us, but of us! John 8:31-36.

If you can grasp and believe the truth about yourself, about how complete you are in your spirit make-up, you will realize that everything you could ever need to make you happy is already within you. Life is not about what you do, it is about who you are. Your career, job-description or achievement can never give you a greater sense of worth and contentment than the simple awareness of who you are. Nothing you could wish to have or achieve can add more value to your life. To know who you really are is the essence of all virtue. The ugly duckling didn’t see a potential swan in the water reflection!

Everything God designed you for is within you and within your reach. What God knows about you, exceeds your highest ambition for yourself. What we already are, far exceeds anything we could ever wish to become! You are God’s love-dream! “That we may know even as we have always been known!” 1Cor.13:12.

Many years ago my father bought a Land Rover. On his first off-road trip he got the Landy horribly stuck in the mud. We struggled in vain to get the vehicle out. Mercifully a stranger stopped by to offer his help. Looking into the cabin, he immediately noticed that the 4x4 gear lever was not properly engaged! In a moment the vehicle was out. It was a huge embarrassment, but an even bigger lesson and relief: An off road-vehicle is designed to handle rough terrain, how much more a human being! Life is meant to be a most exciting adventure, and not an endurance marathon.

No one can upset, discredit or humiliate you without your permission. “Perfect love drives out fear… herein is love perfected: to know and believe the love that God has for us.” 1 John 4:16-19. God has placed a value on your life that is beyond dispute; your true value is a non-negotiable.

To forget what manner of man you are, whenever you encounter contradiction, is to deceive yourself. No one can do you greater harm. You are spirit. In essence your spirit is not subject to change. Yet your mind, your mood, your body and your circumstances can all change. You are infinite.

In the 1890’s, Pierre and Madame Curie discovered Radium. Radium spontaneously and continuously transmits radioactive energy. This valuable and rare element is a mere one millionth of a percent present in the ore that carries it. Yet the ore takes its value from the treasure it holds. This is exactly true about human life.

Even in the most corrupt and evil life, we must believe that the value of the human spirit remains intact in its full potential. The inscription on the coin distinguishes the piece of metal as legal tender. The discovery of spiritual wealth transforms a life.

Faith knows the truth about you; faith is to agree with God about you. Because faith knows the truth about someone, faith anticipates and encourages positive change, with patience. Faith ignites the energy for change and growth. Faith does not tolerate anything in your mind, mood, body or circumstances that are inconsistent with your original design. Even old habits are challenged. Negative, genetically transmitted traits lose their ground. Faith creates the environment for change.

The broody hen would stubbornly maintain an uninterrupted temperature around her eggs, regardless of challenging weather conditions or any contradiction to what her instinct (faith) knows. She continues to see the reward. She counts the chickens before they are hatched. It would be wrong to say that she cannot wait for them to hatch; of course she can; she knows!  She protects her nest with her life. Faith is not being unconscious; faith knows.

 “Guard your heart more than anything that needs to be guarded, for from it flow the issues of life.” Proverbs 4: 23.  Life’s every expression springs from the heart; appreciate the content of your heart above all value. Every positive virtue of life is your portion. “He has granted to us all things that pertain to life and godliness.” 2Pet.1:3. Your heart holds the secret to the genesis and origin of your life. Anticipate a life influenced by the values of your heart. The heart holds out the treasures of life to the hands of thought and words as an apple tree holds out its fruit to the hungry. The thoughts you think activate the energy fields that dictate the outcome of your day-to-day experience. Cultivate a thought pattern that pictures the ultimate life.

‘A man’s life will be of the character of his thoughts’ John G Lake. “It is the habitual thought that frames itself into our lives that affects us even more than our intimate social relations do. Our confidential friends have not so much to do in the shaping of our lives as the thoughts which we harbour.” Teale.

A value-conscious focus will continue to block out of your life and mind those distractions, which could possibly hinder you in your embrace of life’s excellence. Your thoughts are your sanctuary, your secret sacred space; they remain your most effective anti-virus protection.

Our thoughts are silent words that only God and we hear, but those words affect our inner man, our health, our joy and our total attitude. [Unknown]

Faith speaks the truth about you. Faith only communicates what love inspires. Instead of blame, bless, instead of complain, praise! Even the biggest failure feels encouraged and challenged rather than intimidated or condemned in the presence of faith. Jesus was known to be the friend of sinners. No one ever felt condemned or judged unworthy by him. He only judged hypocrisy and unbelief.

Faith forgives; forgiveness sees beyond pain or disappointment. Fuelled by love, forgiveness cancels the past, sees the future and changes the present. Forgiveness prefers what faith knows. To be unwilling or reluctant to forgive those who have sinned against you, will block the blessing of God in your life and distract, delay or destroy your destiny. Resentment and bitterness will neutralise you into an unfruitful life. Instead of bringing any relief, regret and blame only prolongs the pain.

Faith defeats disappointment. Some you win some you learn; with all your learning get understanding.

Faith maintains one exclusive opinion and spontaneously communicates gratitude, appreciation, affection and value.

Ultimately life is only experienced on one of two levels: fulfilment or frustration.  Fulfilment begins with appreciation. Occupy your mind with gratitude instead of criticism and regret. The fruit of gratitude is contentment and joy; this takes you beyond resentment, envy, competition or contradiction. Contentment based upon the awareness of who you really are places you beyond threat. Competition, temptation and disappointment will not distract or confuse you. Cultivate an attitude of gratitude. Today is your gift; every moment is to be celebrated, gratitude is the fuel of joy.

‘Gratitude unlocks the fullness of life; it can turn a meal into a feast, a house into a home, a stranger into a friend.’   Melody Beath.

“To the hungry everything bitter is sweet, but he who is satisfied loathes the honey.” Proverbs 27:7. Nothing makes you more vulnerable than to be driven by a sense of need or lack. Self-pity is a destructive snare; it does not matter how justified you feel that you are in feeling sorry for yourself!

Nothing makes you more beautiful and confident than a sense of total fulfilment. The awareness of who we really are and the greatness that dwells in us is out of all proportion to the lie of lack and need; even if I feel previously or presently disadvantaged. We have access to a secret place of total contentment where neither abundance nor lack can affect us. Abundance can no longer add to life neither can lack distract or subtract from it! Philippians 4:11-13.

The most significant and profound virtue of mankind is not their intellectual capacity, nor their technological skill or achievements, neither their advanced modern expression and communication, but the capacity of the individual to comprehend and reflect the impression and image and likeness of God! Your greatest feature is not your attractive face or your sexy body, nor your fame or fancy car, but His glory, His opinion reflecting in you! This persuasion becomes an awareness within you, which makes your life irresistibly attractive! The most positive way in which the character and personality of God can be visibly and tangibly experienced is in our love one for the other!

We can afford ourselves the luxury to entertain the thoughts of God concerning us, exclusively. Acquaint yourself with goodness and mercy. The fruit of the spirit is goodness.

Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, integrity, humility and self-control are not fragile, fading emotions, produced by willpower. They are the fruit of what you know in your spirit to be true about you. Fruit is the effortless, spontaneous expression of the character of the tree. This knowledge ignites the law of perfect liberty. “Against such, there is no law.” Galatians 5:13-15,22,23. These character qualities are not rewards for the most diligent and disciplined among us, neither are they ‘pie in the sky, wishful thinking’ illusions. They reflect in fact the very nature of our design and blueprint, the mirror image of our origin.

To strive to obtain love, peace and joy etc. or to pray to God to give you these qualities is wasted religious energy. “My people perish through lack of knowledge...” Hosea 4:6. The perception exists that God needs to be talked into doing things for us.  To realise His presence and nature within you, is what sets you free to be who you are. The more aware we become of God in us, the more overwhelmed we are with a sense of total fulfilment and completeness. Needs disappear into insignificance. He is not a God who is afar off; Emmanuel means ‘God with us’.

Nothing you can seek to do or wish and pray for could qualify you more for life. Nothing can make your life more significant than to simply become aware of His nature and presence in you and His favour towards you. God takes pleasure in mankind. His reference exceeds anything that could possibly disqualify man. He has broken down every wall of hostility and every excuse we have to feel distant from Him.

The wilderness is the fruit of the curse, it was never meant to be man’s destiny. God did not sneak in and out on the horizon of human history. He did not leave a stone unturned in His act to rescue mankind. Seven hundred years before Jesus was revealed in the flesh, the prophet Isaiah proclaimed: “A voice cries in the wilderness, prepare the highway of the Lord; every valley shall be lifted up, every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, every crooked place shall be made straight, even the rough places shall be made smooth. And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. And all flesh shall see it together.’ Is.40:4,5, Luk3:4-6. God speaks a language that all flesh understands. In Christ God reveals the new and living way: The word made flesh makes the invisible God visible and in the same breath reflects the mirror image of man every man’s original design. Col.1:15-23. The Incarnation is God’s Highway! Now any excuse we could possibly have to continue in a life of spiritual drought, isolation, sin, unworthiness, guilt and inferiority is cancelled. We are no longer trapped in a wilderness; there is a highway of escape.

In John 14:2 Jesus prophesies how His death and resurrection would prepare a place for us so that we may be where He is, one with His Father, wrapped up in union with Him.

In His death and resurrection He prepared a place for us of intimate oneness with Himself and the Father.

“The light of the gospel is the glory of Christ, who is the likeness of God. And we all beholding the glory of the Lord as in a mirror, are being changed into His likeness. The God who said: Let light shine out of darkness, has shone into our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory (opinion) of God in the face of Christ.” In the face of a man God reveals His opinion of man. 2 Cor.3:18,4:1-7. “We have this treasure in clay pots.” God sees your body as a worthy vessel of His image and likeness.

The Incarnation reveals that when the word became flesh, God took back the territory Adam lost. God restored His manifest image and presence in a tabernacle of clay. There is nothing wrong with the clay pot! The human body is not plan-B, an inferior excuse that will have to do in the absence of something better. “In Christ there is all of God in a human body!” Kenneth Taylor. “It is in Him that we find our completion; He is the fountainhead from which all dominion and power proceed.” Knox. Col.2:9-10. “Of His fullness have we all received.” John 1:14,16. The vessel takes its value from the treasure it holds!

We are living Epistles, known and read by all men. By the open statement of the truth, we appeal to every man’s conscience” 2Cor.3:2 and 2Cor.4:2.

This truth and its fully realised consequence will conquer the world!

Love from the Father's heart

Francois and Lydia