TO LIVE IS CHRIST: a manual revealing the steps to freedom in Christ

By Alison Hill

To live is Christ has been written by someone who was willing to take the challenge to walk in obedience to Jesus Christ. After losing her husband twelve years ago, with two children to bring up, Alison chose to walk closely with God and to listen to His voice. As you read you will find out how she took hold of God and His teaching at some of the most difficult times in her life.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Alison Hill
• Release date: Feb 9, 2012
• ISBN: 9781466040588

Alison Hill

Alison Hill is a writer and poet specialising in the arts and heritage. She was awarded an Arts Council grant to support her third poetry collection, Sisters in Spitfires, which celebrates the lives and flights of the women pilots of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her previous publications are Slate Rising, Lyrical Beats and Fifty Ways to Fly (ed.), which featured a poem by Pauline Gower and was sold in support of the British Women Pilots’ Association. Alison is an RSA Fellow and a member of the Spitfire Society.

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To Live is Christ

A manual revealing the steps to Freedom in Christ

By

Alison Hill

Copyright 2007 Alison Hill

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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements

Foreword

Introduction

The Original Dreamer

The Original Dreamer (2)

Defeat the Mindset First

Believing the Voice of God

Our Relationship with God

The Bible First Discipleship Second?

Our Purpose is Greater than our Pain

Depression as a Foundation, or the Knowledge of God’s Love

God’s Love

The Lordship of Jesus Christ

Prepared Hearts

His Sheep

Being an Effective Christian

God’s Gifts

Do not Let the Enemy Rob You

Disappointment Versus Faith

Faith an Ongoing Work

Rest, not Just for the Sabbath!

Average Joe

Going Back to Egypt

Choices

Be Real

Father Heart of God

Born for a Purpose

Grace and Mercy

God Requires an Undivided Heart

About the Author

Acknowledgements

I would like to express my gratitude to my friend and mentor, Bridget Isaacs-Sodeye, who has been an inspiration and supported me in prayer throughout many years. I would also like to thank Bill Isaacs-Sodeye for his words of wisdom and encouragement. A big thank you to my daughter, Rebecca, for her help with editing and supporting me in so many ways.

The main acknowledgement I would like to make is to my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, without Him, I would not have been able to share any of the teachings in this book and I would not have learnt the truths of To Live is Christ to apply to my own life.

Foreword

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. John 3:16

This gift of Salvation carries the potential of giving us God-given dreams of our own, with the capacity to bring them to reality. However, we have a choice to use God’s examples (in the Bible) as role models to construct and fashion our own lives.

This book is a study of how the heroes of the Bible have helped the author to build a life of trusting and obeying the voice of the living God through bereavement, hurts and disappointments into a life of purpose and freedom in Christ. Step by step she shows how one can come to hear God, know Him and in honouring Him, be led on her journey through life. She illustrates how the Bible heroes and herself have worked to discover the purposes of God for their lives by seeking God’s counsel and following His plan. For me personally, it came as a shock to realise how often I have taken the Lord for granted in the area of decision making in my life. I preach and I teach that to consult with the Lord on every occasion is the best way to walk with God.

However, it was refreshing to find that in the chal lenges that confronted the author, she sought the counsel of God, and followed it, line upon line, precept upon precept. Not only in the illustrations from her personal life but from our experience of her, this has been her lifestyle. We met Alison about ten years ago, just a few years after the sad loss of her husband. We became close almost immediately through my wife who organised a fellowship with Christian ladies. After I retired from the Anglican parish ministry in which I was involved, we moved nine miles away. Our closeness did not diminish, as we became prayer partners and have remained so.

I believe that, a reader who picks up this book would be drawn powerfully by how the author applies her spiritual counsels from the Lord to address problem solving and the challenges of spiritual growth.

Reverend Dr. Bill Isaacs-Sodeye

Introduction

I am a person who has always felt that to really get to know someone you need to spend quality time with them, so when I became a Christian seventeen years ago, I brought this desire into my relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ.

After losing my husband twelve years ago, my relationship with the Lord intensified as I quickly realized that only Jesus could speak to me in the depth of my feelings at this time and that to turn to others for answers or wisdom for my life ahead as a mother with two children was not an option.

I had a call on my life in the prophetic ministry. Besides this gift, the only credential I had was an over- whelming desire to know what God would speak into my life and the lives of others, along with a passion to increase my ability to hear.

The road ahead was not easy. As I was walking one day, down a lane talking to Jesus, I received a picture of a man’s boot on one foot with a ladies shoe on the other. When I asked the Lord what this meant He told me it was a picture of my walk and that I was a woman in a man’s walk; in other words, it was going to be a tough walk.

This book reveals the requirements needed to become a true follower of Jesus Christ. To achieve this we need to die to self from the simplest act of choosing to let our own opinions die, replacing it with listening to the Holy Spirit, to having desires and ambitions laid down and sometimes sacrificed to achieve the call on our life.

To Live is Christ is about the beginning of this walk, and under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I have extracted the teachings that the Lord has shown me over the years with practical examples backed up by scripture. I hope all who read this book will be truly blessed by a God that wants to speak into the details of our lives that which would not only benefit us but those around us. It is a book which can be referred to throughout our walk and form a platform from which we are able to fulfil the call on our lives.

The Original Dreamer

Our God is the original dreamer. One who dreamed of a kingdom where He ruled and reigned. Where He brought paradise into the lives of man or should I say man into a paradise that He created. Before He created it, He dreamt it. Just think of a God who dreams, who dreams the type of dreams that neither you nor I could ever imagine. A God who conceived and gave birth to His dream. Think about a world inhabited with His creation, His beautiful creation. He must have walked, enjoyed and been so blessed by what He had created marvelling at its wonder, at the mountains and the breathtaking scenery. In all of this, He must have felt there was something missing. Or, is that how we can perceive God’s reasons for creating us. Because that is the way we think. What about thinking differently about a God who thought it was so beautiful that He wanted to share and enjoy it with those that He would call His children. There is nothing missing from His life as there so often is in ours. We fill our lives with materialism and activities because we don’t feel whole without them. God is complete. Therefore, because of His wonderful love and nature He didn’t want to keep it all for Himself. The most natural trait in a perfect human being is finding something good and being blessed by it that after enjoying its beauty we want to share it with others, not for greed or gain but simply to bless. Think about a God who was so excited by the prospect of talking to those He created, exchanging thoughts and feelings on simple everyday things. What pleasure it must have brought to our Father as He walked in the garden and marvelled at His children who He taught, watching them enjoying the pleasures of each other as well as His creation. There is nothing more wonderful than watching your children enjoy what you have created. We work at our home and leisure time to bring everyday pleasures to our family. Just think how much more God wanted the same for us. The difference was that we didn’t have to work for it; He simply gave it to us for free, with no worries for our future or any needs that He hadn’t already met and everyday pleasures in abundance.

These dreams that became a reality, if only for a short while, are still in the heart of God today. He who is seated on the throne said, ‘I am making everything new!’ (Revelation 21:5). God wants a people who want to walk with Him in simplicity, who will stand in awe of Him and His ways. With man in charge of his own destiny, what can we expect? The answer is different for every child of God. Those who acknowledge Him and those that don’t. Many would say that not everyone is a child of God but if they are not, where did they come from? Surely, we all come from Adam and Eve originally, and as that is so, then we are all children of God. I like to think of us in terms of the prodigal son. There are those that have returned to the Father as well as those that never left His side and unfortunately, there are those that never return. Our way back is through our Saviour Jesus Christ. The more we encourage believers to think like this, the more we will not feel so different and alienated from those who we call non-Christians. We can then show them the love and concern they need to come back to the Father. Until then, we have to become dreamers for the kingdom of God to come into our lives and the lives of those around us.

What does God have for us in this place of son-ship? Where are the plans and purposes of God for us? Are they linked with the dreams that we have locked up inside of us. Even if small and seemingly insignificant, these are the treasures that lie within. These are the treasures that if recognized and tapped into can lead to such great things once God has got hold of them. Just think of those things that you thought were daydreams or not possible for you can become a reality in God! The Lord spoke to me concerning this in my life. For many years, I received so many disappointments. I had prophecies spoken over my life, which after twelve years, have not yet happened. Much of it was based on a wrong understanding of God and the way He works. So much human error is in our thinking based on our experiences and the way we think and perceive situations. Until we know God, and I mean really know God, we cannot hope to begin to grasp the things of God and the way He works. So much damage is done in our relationship with God because of wrong thinking about God and His ways. So much expectation and so much disappointment. The Lord asked me to start dreaming again after a slow deterioration of dreams and expectations. I became a very practical Christian losing that sense of the miraculous and wondering what God was going to do next. A lot of it was for self-protection. The Lord showed me to let go of unbelief and fear of being hurt. He wanted me to release my dreams. He showed me that success is built on dreams; empires have been built on dreams. Who in heaven and earth has had pain that God has had, watching for generations in every corner of the earth, as His children constantly turn their backs on Him and suffer the consequences of their sin. And yet, He continues to believe and work through the lives those He came to save. The Lord spoke this to me,

Dreams are a part of who you are. They are there because I put them there. Don’t suppress them. They are treasures buried within. Release them by asking, What is it that I would like to happen in my life? You will know if they are real because a passion will stir up in your heart and an excitement. You cannot make them up. Thoughts of Can I really do that? will swamp you. The answer is yes in and through me.

These are dreams that have the breath of God on them. At the right time, God will ignite them and as you act in faith and believe that you are going to do this, the voice of prophecy is heard again in the depths of you. We are talking from the smallest desire that I had of someone taking me to Paris and organizing the whole trip (which actually happened) to having a Christian ministry, career, family and so many other aspirations. I know that people will think these dreams seem self-centred. Well firstly, there is nothing wrong with having some dreams for yourself, remember God wants to bless you. Secondly, if we are to move into maturity we will know that Christian life and ministry is about other people and not about us. If not, you will not even move off the starting blocks before you fall. Start dreaming!

Abraham

Abraham, the father of faith. One of many dreamers. God birthed and God breathed dreams through His son Abraham. It started with a journey. A journey that Abraham began with his earthly father and ended with his heavenly father. Abraham’s father, Terah, started a journey that was in his heart to begin with but along the way, I believe, he lost his sense of vision as he settled for the comfort and the security of Haran. Abraham, how- ever, had a word from God to go to Canaan. By faith, he took his wife and everything he owned and began the journey to find the land that God had promised him. Are we in that place in our life, did we reach halfway and stop for fear of lack or did we simply stop believing? There is always someone else God can and will use to achieve His purpose, His dream. Do you want to live in the plains of Haran or Sodom, or do you want to go all the way into the promises of God over your life. Abraham’s dream was so big that God confirmed it with His presence and His word. God used creation to show Abraham his future through the stars, a prophetic picture of the number of descendants that he would have. God couldn’t possibly put into words what was ahead for Abraham. So He used the unfathomable; He used the unexplainable. Imagine how they must have been in awe at the universe in that time of simplicity about creation. Without modern day scientists explaining away the awesomeness of God, by giving a scientific analysis of the reasons the stars exist in the universe. God used Abraham’s wonder and awe at God and His creation to bypass his understanding into the realm of the impossible by Abraham’s standards. With God standing before him in all of His glory with no room for doubt. …Abraham believed God, and it was credited to him as righteousness (Romans 4:3)

My dreams were shattered for a while four years after becom ing a Christian. I lost my husband in a motorbike acci- dent. The day before this happened; I remembered saying to myself how happy I was in my home with my family. It came as a terrific shock the next day to receive the news of his death. I then began what seemed a very long and slow move through grief. This was a time when I questioned God more than I could imagine. I asked Him about His love for us and why He would allow such an awful thing to happen to my children as well as myself. I wondered if I could ever trust Him again. Part of our trust in God is wrapped up in Him protecting us from the pain of life. When the pain of life comes and stares you in the face saying, You thought this would never happen to you. You then question God and wonder what you have done to deserve this. My dreams disappeared for quite a while until a number of years later when God began to speak again into an aspect of my future. The Lord then proceeded to show me that I would marry again. A year later the Lord spoke to me showing me who I was going to marry and that it would come as my ministry developed. I then asked for confirmations considering it was such an important area of my life. I went to see someone who I knew heard from God. All I said was, Could you pray? God had been speaking to this lady before I arrived and so I didn’t have to say a word, she told me exactly who it was even though she didn’t know him, only of him. I had many other confirmations, one was in the form of a visual picture of birds flying on to the roof of my house and the Lord showing me that it was a prophetic pic ture of myself and my future husband in the home. Some of you might say, How did you know it was prophetic. Firstly, I would like to say that when the spirit starts to move over you and all around you, you find yourself looking at something that is an everyday occurrence, in a way that you cannot take your eyes off what is happening. Then having a sense of God literally turning your head and your eyes to look at it, then you know that what you are seeing is from God and it is a moment that you need to write down under the guidance of God for its explanation. God told me that I would briefly meet the man I was going to marry at the beginning of the following year. After it had happened