Acknowledging Him

 Acknowledging Him

In all your ways acknowledge Him,

And He will make your paths straight.

PROVERBS 3.6

Acknowledging God is a mindset. It is an attitude toward the Lord of complete trust. It is not some kind of constant verbal reassurance to Him that we are acknowledging Him. It doesn’t mean we’re going through our day saying, “Lord, I’m acknowledging you, I’m acknowledging you, I’m acknowledging you…” It doesn’t even necessarily require that we express it verbally at all. Nor does it necessarily even mean consciously, as if every moment we are aware we are acknowledging Him, thinking to ourselves, “I’m trusting, I’m trusting, I’m trusting…” It’s not praying a certain number of prayers to reassure Him or ourselves that we are acknowledging Him.

To acknowledge our Father is to trust Him completely. It means calmly resting in the sufficiency of Jesus Christ within us. It is an underlying perspective, not a religious mantra we chant in our minds.

The One who loves you more than any other lays out your course for you. He delights in revealing his purposes to you. Know that He is your life, and trust totally in Him that He will direct your path.

Ordained Days

 Ordained Days

Your eyes have seen my unformed substance;

And in Your book were all written

The days that were ordained for me,

When as yet there was not one of them.

PSALM 139.16

The details of your life don’t just happen by chance. Before you were born, your heavenly Father was already intimately acquainted with you. He planned the days of your life before you breathed your first breath. Nothing that happens in your life catches the One who loves you most off guard. He sees what is going on now, and He has already orchestrated those events to work together for good in your life.

To recognise the divinely ordered structure of your lifetime can enable you to avoid needless anxiety over the temporary trials and frustrations you encounter. As you face trying moments, reaffirm the truth to yourself that everything is under control. Even when things aren’t under your control, remember that they are all under His control.

To worry is to imagine a future without God in it. It is to act as if you are an orphan with nobody to care for you. Reject such lies. There is Somebody who cares for you, and He will see you through the tough times. In fact, He already has the solution worked out. You only need to walk through it by faith.

Horrible Choices

 Horrible Choices

Where can I go from Your Spirit?

Or where can I flee from Your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, You are there;

If I make my bed in Sheol, behold, You are there.

PSALM 139.7-8

Your God will never abandon you. David said, “If I make my bed in Sheol (Hebrew for “the grave,” but rendered in some translations as “hell”), behold, You are there.” Somebody may say, “But I’ve created my own living hell. I may as well be a dead man. How can I possibly move forward from here?”

The answer is this, God is there with you in the hell you created. Trust Him! He will lead you out and guide you. Don’t believe the lie that you have forfeited God’s best for your life because of wrong choices you’ve made. Trust your Father instead.

You may argue, “My decision was intentionally wrong. I decided to do it. How could God work in this?” Before you were ever born, God saw everything from start to finish. He saw every decision you were ever going to make. Based on His sovereign decrees, every decision you were to make in your lifetime was incorporated into the master plan.

Your Father is a redeemer of bad situations. Yield yourself and your circumstances to Him. His grace still offers miracles.

Sovereign Supervision

 Sovereign Supervision

The LORD has established His throne in the heavens,

And His sovereignty rules over all.

PSALM 103.19

The events of your life aren’t unfolding by random chance. A sovereign God rules over what happens in this small space-time box called Earth. The world is not hanging in the balance, with the outcome yet to be determined. Some people seem to believe that the throngs of heaven are on one side of the stadium and the demons of hell are on the other, each hoping their side wins. Within the context of this twisted theology, it becomes man’s decisions that determine who wins, and meanwhile, God is keeping His fingers crossed. With that perspective, it’s no wonder that so few find spiritual rest!

That line of thinking is nothing less than religious humanism. It is an insult to God’s sovereignty. It puts man in the driver’s seat and makes God nothing more than a nervous passenger who is doing all He can do to make sure everything turns out all right. God is portrayed as sometimes encouraging us, sometimes threatening us, but always hoping that we will respond in the right way.

All of heaven isn’t holding its breath waiting to see how things turn out in the end. Your God superintends this world and your life. Affirm His sovereignty and experience peace as the result.

Creatures Of Dust

 Creatures of Dust

He Himself knows our frame; He is mindful that we are but dust.

PSALM 103:14

The tender patience of your Father toward you can be one of the most comforting aspects of your grace walk. We all tend to be hard on ourselves at times. We find ourselves disappointed that we didn’t do better in a given situation. We may criticise ourselves or even feel disgust when we look at our shortcomings.

Your Father doesn’t have that kind of critical attitude toward you. Jesus lived in this world as a man, and He understands what it is to live in a human body. He sits beside the right hand of His Father right now and, as a man, mediates your humanity to the Father. The wonder of that reality is that God understands.

He isn’t angry toward you. He isn’t impatient. He isn’t frustrated because you won’t get your act together. Your Father is patient and kind, tenderly working in your life to bring you to maturity. He won’t give up on you but will lovingly nurture you toward becoming the person outwardly He has already made you to be on the inside. Just trust Him and show yourself plenty of grace. He does.

There Is No West Pole

 There Is No West Pole

As far as the east is from the west,

So far has He removed our transgressions from us.

PSALM 103.12

There is an unhealthy obsession with sin in modern Christendom. We preach about sin, discuss sin, think about sin, and study it. Such a focus is neither helpful nor necessary. God has dealt with our sin in such a way that the only response we really need is to believe that our sin is gone and walk in freedom from it.

Our sins have been separated from us as far as the east is from the west. That statement is very revealing. If a person travels north they will eventually find the North Pole and begin to travel south again. If they travel far enough south, they will once again meet north. North and south come together at the poles. However, one can travel east and never find oneself going west again, and vice versa. East and west never meet.

God has separated your sins from you in that way. The chance of your sins being attached to you again is as great as the likelihood of a traveller discovering the West Pole. It won’t happen because it can’t happen. Your sins are gone and nothing will ever change that.

Wise Choices

 Wise Choices

The LORD gives wisdom;

From His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

PROVERBS 2.6

Wisdom is more than knowledge. It is knowing what to do with knowledge. The Old Testament promised those who sought the Lord that He would give them wisdom. What an encouragement that must have been to them.

However, the grace walk is even better. You live under a New Covenant, in which your Father doesn’t offer to give you wisdom. Instead, He already has given it to you in Jesus Christ. The apostle Paul wrote, “By His doing you are in Christ Jesus, who became to us wisdom from God” (1 Corinthians 1.30).

You possess divine wisdom because you have Wisdom living in you! Don’t lean on your own understanding. When you face a decision, pray and ask Him to express wisdom in your thoughts.

Then confidently make your decision knowing that you didn’t do it alone. Don’t second-guess the decision you’ve made. Move forward in faith that, just as He expressed wisdom in you as you made the decision, He will guide you to execute the choice you have made. To live this way is to walk in faith.

Numbered Days

 Numbered Days

Teach us to number our days,

That we may present to You a heart of wisdom.

PSALM 90.12

Once a day is past, it can never be reclaimed. How you spend the time you have in this world is an important matter. Our days are a commodity that can be spent to bring honor to God and great blessing to the lives of others and us.

We mark the days on a calendar, looking forward to an event. But we are also marking off the days behind. We can never recapture them. How do you want to spend each day? If days were money to be spent, how carefully would you contemplate spending each one?

God’s plan for you is to lead you forward so you don’t leave this world with a multitude of regrets. You have the potential to live the kind of life that will stand as an ongoing tribute to the goodness and grace of God.

We become wise in our approach to life as we realize we won’t be here forever. Don’t allow others to control your time. Decide for yourself how to be a wise steward of the days you have left in this world. Investing them well will leave a legacy that honours Him and blesses others.

God Is For You

 God Is for You

This I know, that God is for me.

PSALM 56.9

Have you ever found yourself in a place where it seems like life is against you? Sometimes it seems like nothing works in our favour. In those moments, we may be tempted to wonder where God is in all that’s going on.

The answer is simple. He is with you. Not only is He with you, but God is for you. This is a fact you need to settle in your mind once and for all time. Unless you have established firmly in your heart and mind that God is for you, you will be an easy target for attack every time things seem to go wrong.

When we can’t see the hand of God at work in our circumstances, then we have the opportunity to exercise our faith. There is no room for faith when there is no room for doubt. So the fact that the situation seems to suggest your Father isn’t involved makes it a perfect time for declaring in faith and faith alone, “This I know, that God is for me!”

God Isn’t Hungry

 God Isn’t Hungry

If I were hungry I would not tell you,

For the world is Mine, and all it contains.

PSALM 50.12

The world of religion puts such an emphasis on what we are to do for God. This mistaken emphasis isn’t benign, because it gives people the impression that there really is something we could do for God. That false understanding easily leads to the notion that He needs us to do His work.

God doesn’t need anything. With divine wit, He spoke through the psalmist, “If I were hungry I wouldn’t tell you.” God has everything that He needs. Our service is His way of allowing us to participate in what He is doing in this world. He certainly could do it without us.

Renounce the idea that God is expecting you to do something for Him. Replace that faulty view with the truth that He allows you to join Him in what He’s doing in this world. God doesn’t need you, but the beauty of grace is that He enjoys it when you partner together with Him in what He is doing in this world. Gain that perspective and you’ll find that service becomes a real joy.

The Desires Of Your Heart

 The Desires of Your Heart

Delight yourself in the LORD;

And He will give you the desires of your heart.

PSALM 37.4

Sometimes you may wonder if the things you want are desires that your Father wants to fulfil or if they are selfish desires. This verse gives assurance that if you delight in the Lord, He will give you the desires of your heart. Does that mean that God is like a cosmic Santa Claus, who will give us a Rolls-Royce and a mansion with a Jacuzzi simply because we want them?

The key to the meaning of this verse is to understand that God doesn’t simply give us what we desire. He is the one who places our desires within us as we delight ourselves in Him. In other words, He causes us to want what He wants us to want. And then He gives us those things.

Focus on Him, and then trust Him to put the desires in you that are right for you. Don’t overanalyse your motives. Just put your desires in His hands and know that He will deal with them in His way and timing.

Taste And See

 Taste and See

O taste and see that the LORD is good!

PSALM 34.8

Once you have encountered your Lord’s love up close and personal, you become addicted for life. It’s impossible to experience enough of Him. It’s as Jesus reveals Himself to us that we find ourselves hungering to know Him more intimately and to love Him more earnestly.

Speaking from his own experience, St. Augustine said, “You flashed, You shone; and You chased away my blindness. You became fragrant; and I inhaled and sighed for You. I tasted, and now hunger and thirst for You. You touched me; and I burned for Your embrace.”

Spiritual hunger is the result of encountering Christ in our lives. That hunger then becomes the bridge by which we gain a heightened experience of Him with us in our circumstances. An authentic knowledge of Him will cause you to move through life with your spiritual antenna up, looking for signals of His presence nearby.

Ask the Lord to reach into your life like He did with Augustine. Then patiently wait for Him to flash, to shine, and to chase away your own blindness to His presence. He will come to you and do just that.

All Things Sacred

 All Things Sacred

The earth is the LORD’s, and all it contains,

The world, and those who dwell in it.

PSALM 24.1

There is no area of your life that is segregated from your union to God. Because you are in Him, everything is spiritual. The Lord owns everything.

One of the greatest deceptions that has ever slipped into our minds is the idea that there is a difference between secular and sacred. There is no such dualism. Everything is sacred because of Christ’s pervasive presence and He lives in you. The word sacred comes from the Latin word sacer, which denotes something uncommon because of its intimate association with the Divine.

You are one with God through Jesus Christ. Everything in your life is intimately associated with Him through your union with Him, thus making it sacred.

One man told me, “I like to keep my business life and my spiritual life separate from each other.” What a sad thing. Do we leave Christ at home when we go to work? Does He go to our business appointments with us, but do we then politely instruct Him to sit quietly in the background? Our union with Christ defines the sum total of our lives.

Cloud Talk

 Cloud Talk

The heavens declare the glory of God.

PSALM 19.1 

Our Father can speak to us in so many ways that are outside the box of religion. Clouds aren’t religious. The blue sky isn’t religious. God doesn’t communicate only through church-talk, but also through cloud-talk. These are only two of His many dialects.

The means by which God declares His love and presence are without limit. Many ancient saints understood themselves to be living in a “God-bathed” world. If you want to deeply experience intimacy with Him, it helps immeasurably to view the world in the same way. Our loving God reveals Himself in many ways. Jesus is whispering to you right now, every day, in a thousand ways, and many of them aren’t religious. We need only to be watching and aware.

Continual awareness of Christ in our daily lives is inseparable from a hunger to know Him. Ask Him to make Himself known to you, and then go through your day with your eyes and ears open. As He leads you into a growing awareness of His voice speaking in various ways, you will discover that heaven and earth are His platform, a platform from which He constantly declares His love for you.

The Fear Of Judgment

 The Fear of Judgment

She said to Elijah, “What do I have to do with you, O man of God? You have come to me to bring my iniquity to remembrance and to put my son to death!”

1 KINGS 17.18

When Elijah showed up at the house of a widow whose son was terribly sick, she became afraid when she saw the prophet. She imagined he had come to her because of her sins and that her son would now die as punishment. That’s how the Old Covenant mentality always works.

Perhaps you have been in legalistic environments that have left you with a mental attitude that anticipates judgment by God. You can relax. That day doesn’t exist for you. You are in Christ, and there is no condemnation to you.

Elijah actually acted as a type of Jesus in this instance. The woman’s son didn’t die. Instead, he was healed through the prophet’s ministry. Throughout the Old Testament Scriptures there are glimpses of grace like this.

Jesus didn’t come to visit retribution upon you. He came to rescue you and restore you to humanity’s original innocence before the Father. He accomplished that so that you never need to fear Him.

Your True Self

 Your True Self

The angel of the LORD appeared to him and said to him, “The LORD is with you, O valiant warrior.” Then Gideon said to him, “O my lord, if the LORD is with us, why then has all this happened to us? And where are all His miracles which our fathers told us about, saying, ‘Did not the LORD bring us up from Egypt?’ But now the LORD has abandoned us and given us into the hand of Midian.”

JUDGES 6.12-13

Gideon was a small man in the smallest tribe of Israel. When God called him to lead the people in battle, his own sense of inadequacy flooded his thoughts and feelings. Note how the Angel of the Lord addressed him: “The Lord is with you, O valiant warrior.”

God sees things about you that you may not see or know about yourself. He saw Gideon’s true identity when the man himself didn’t see it at all. He knows the same about you. Believe what He says about you in Scripture. Embrace and act on the identity He has given you, regardless of whether you feel it or think it. What God says about you is true. You can base your actions on your true identity even when your emotions contradict the truth.

Healing In The Soul

 Healing in the Soul

When they had finished circumcising all the nation, they remained in their places in the camp until they were healed. Then the LORD said to Joshua, “Today I have rolled away the reproach of Egypt from you.”

JOSHUA 5.8-9

The whole time Israel wandered in the wilderness, her men had not kept the covenant sign of circumcision. Upon entering Canaan, they were circumcised in obedience to God. God had delivered them from their old life in Egypt. Their circumcision verified that, but they still needed to heal.

Your old life has been put to death. But don’t assume that everything connected with that lifestyle will instantly disappear. Although your spirit is now filled with the life of Jesus Christ, the soul must be gradually renewed, and that takes time. The soul is personality, consisting of your mind, will, and emotions. Part of the ongoing sanctification process that the Holy Spirit does in your life is to bring healing to your damaged emotions and to renew your mind to the truth of God’s Word. The grace walk is not a lifestyle of sinless perfection, but it is a place where God can gradually bring about the healing that we may need in our feelings and beliefs.

A New World

 A New World

You have not passed this way before.

JOSHUA 3.4

This may be one of the great understatements of the Bible. God’s people were about to enter a new world, one that was so unlike anything they had ever known that they couldn’t even imagine what it would be like. So it is with the person today who moves from the wilderness of religious legalism into the land of grace. To experience the reality of who we are in Christ is totally different from mere religious commitment. To compare living a religious lifestyle and experiencing a grace walk is to compare two different dimensions of living. They are more diametrically opposed than we can comprehend until we have crossed over from one to the other.

As you move further along in your own grace walk, remember that there is no place where legalistic religion and grace can intersect. Law and grace can never coexist together. You must move out of the wilderness of legalism into Canaan. To accept grace means to renounce legalism, a system of living in which you try to make spiritual progress or gain God’s blessings based on what you do. It is a major move but one that will transform your life.

Entering Canaan

 Entering Canaan

Moses My servant is dead; now therefore arise, cross this Jordan, you and all this people, to the land which I am giving to them, to the sons of Israel.

JOSHUA 1.2

Moses wasn’t able to lead Israel into Canaan. It took Joshua to do that. This isn’t an incidental matter. Moses is remembered primarily as the one who brought God’s Law to the people. The name “Joshua” is the Hebrew equivalent of the name “Jesus.”

When God told Joshua that Moses was dead and that he was to lead the people across the Jordan into Canaan, His instructions convey an important message for us today. We will never experience the abundant life our Father wants us to know by following religious rules. Moses, who represents the rules-keeping system, is dead to us and us to him. Our leader is Joshua (Jesus). He alone is our guide into the awesome life God has given us.

Moses is dead. Don’t try to build your lifestyle around religious rules. The grace walk is a journey with Jesus. He will lead you from a lifestyle of struggling to get to where you want to be to the place of entering in by faith in Him alone.

An Eternal Home

 An Eternal Home

The eternal God is a dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms.

DEUTERONOMY 33.27

You were created to live as an eternal being with your Father in heaven. This world is a temporary place to live. It’s a neighbourhood you won’t be in forever. Your home is in God. He is your lasting dwelling place.

A man once told me about living in a dangerous, run-down neighbourhood on the mission field. It was a harsh environment, even dangerous at times. “My home is like an oasis there,” he said. “When I go inside to my loving wife and family, I feel loved and at rest.”

That’s a picture of what it means to know God as your dwelling place. The world outside may be hostile, even threatening at times. But as you recognise that your life is in Him, you can find peace, love, and security.

You stand in a secure place with your God as your dwelling place. His everlasting arms will hold you, protect you, and hug you in every situation. Face each day with the confidence that your God holds you in His arms. Live boldly with the knowledge that you cannot be conquered by the world around you, because you belong to Him.

Holy Pleasure

 Holy Pleasure

You shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God, at the place where He chooses to establish His name, the tithe of your grain, your new wine, your oil, and the firstborn of your herd and your flock, so that you may learn to fear the LORD your God always…You may spend the money for whatever your heart desires: for oxen, or sheep, or wine, or strong drink, or whatever your heart desires; and there you shall eat in the presence of the LORD your God and rejoice, you and your household.

DEUTERONOMY 14.23,26

In this passage God instructed His people to enjoy life to the fullest so that they might learn to fear Him. What a wonderful way for Him to teach how much He loved them! It’s difficult to read this passage and not conclude that our God takes delight in our pleasure. He isn’t a cosmic killjoy, He is the source and origin of pleasure itself.

Never allow the idea to take root in your mind that your Father is opposed to playfulness and pleasure. Satan may have corrupted those domains, but those who know the Lord need to reclaim these as rightful privileges of the children of the King.

Honour your God today by celebrating with others. Laugh, love, and learn that deep reverence toward Him comes from realising that He delights to see us at play.

Fear not

 Fear Not

He said, “I heard the sound of You in the garden, and I was afraid.”

GENESIS 3.10

One of the immediate results of sin’s entering the world was that man became filled with fear. Fear is the painful emotion we experience when we anticipate that something dangerous is about to happen to us. It can debilitate us.

Jesus continuously told his disciples to ‘fear not.’ Throughout history, the plague of fear that began in the Garden of Eden has continually threatened the possibility of a fulfilled life for people. Only eternity will reveal the potential that was squelched by fear in people’s lives.

You don’t have to live with fear. You can rise above it for one reason: the One who has conquered fear is the One who lives in you and equips you for everything you will face in life. Almighty God is the origin of your life. He is the One who sustains, guides, and protects you.

Whatever may be threatening you in your life right now, ‘Fear not.’ He is with you. You will move through this lifetime with God on your side.

Self-Consciousness 2

 Self-Consciousness

He said, “Who told you that you were naked?”

GENESIS 3.11

When Adam and Eve ate from the forbidden tree in the Garden of Eden, one of the first things that happened was that they became entrapped in a faulty concept of both themselves and their God. Adam and Eve saw their nakedness and hid themselves.

When God came for His daily walk, He called out to Adam and asked, ‘Where are you?’ Adam responded by admitting that he had sinned and was afraid because he was naked. His self-consciousness drove him into hiding. He now felt unacceptable to his Creator.

God’s question to Adam is one that may serve you well to answer. ‘Who told you that you were naked?’ or to put it another way, ‘Who told you that you now aren’t acceptable to me?’ God had seen Adam naked from the moment He had created him. Adam’s sin didn’t change God’s mind toward him at all, but it changed Adam’s mind toward God.

Your sin doesn’t change how your Father feels toward you. When you feel unacceptable, run to Him and not away from Him. He has seen you at your very worst and still loves you. Refuse to be self-conscious and know that He came to deliver you from sin and into authentic friendship with Him. His love is bigger than your shame.

Self-Consciousness 1

 Self-Consciousness

The eyes of both of them were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.

GENESIS 3.7

Before Adam and Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, they were naked and not ashamed. They walked with God every day without inhibition. Their focus was on Him, and they found all meaning in the union they shared with Him.

When they ate from the forbidden tree, everything instantly changed. One of the most telling consequences of their disobedience is found in this verse, ‘They knew that they were naked and they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves loin coverings.’ Suddenly, people no longer felt comfortable or acceptable before God. Self-consciousness filled Adam and Eve’s minds.

As you walk in grace, set your focus on your Lord and not on yourself. To allow yourself to be self-conscious will affect you just as it did Adam and Eve. It will cause you to feel inadequate and provoke an inner sense that you need to do something to be presentable to Him.

You are presentable and completely accepted by your Father. Don’t let anything cause you to look away from Him so that you become bogged down in self-condemnation. He has seen you since He created you and loves you just as you are.

Personal Ability

 Personal Ability

The LORD said to him, “What is that in your hand?” And he said, “A staff.” Then He said, “Throw it on the ground.” So he threw it on the ground, and it became a serpent; and Moses fled from it. But the LORD said to Moses, “Stretch out your hand and grasp it by its tail”—so he stretched out his hand and caught it, and it became a staff in his hand.

EXODUS 4.2-4

When God sent Moses into the desert, he lost everything he had known. The only way he still provided for himself was as a shepherd. It was his last thin strand of self-sufficiency. His shepherd’s staff represented his ability to survive, even in the hardest of times.

So God did what He always does when He wants to work through a person’s life in a miraculous way. He had Moses throw his staff down. We cannot rely on our own ability if we are to fulfill our divine destiny in life.

When Moses threw the staff down, it became a snake. Dependence on our ability instead of God is always poisonous. However, once Moses saw that fact, God told him to pick the staff back up. It’s not the ability itself that is wrong. Our mistake comes when we don’t depend on God.

God will use your ability for His glory, but never forget that it is He, not the ability you possess, who equips you.

A Futile Attempt

 A Futile Attempt

When the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was a delight to the eyes, and that the tree was desirable to make one wise, she took from its fruit and ate; and she gave also to her husband with her, and he ate.

GENESIS 3.6

When Eve ate from the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, was she was trying to do something evil? If we think this, we miss a crucial point. Eve wasn’t trying to do something wrong. She was trying to do something good. The serpent had told her that to eat from the tree would cause her to ‘be like God.’

Eve’s deception came in forgetting that she was already like God. She had been created in His image. It was an unnecessary and futile attempt to do anything to improve herself.

Don’t fall for the lie that you need to do something to be more godly. Your union with Jesus Christ has created you in righteousness and holiness. Accept who you are, and don’t sin by trying to do something God has said not to do, even if you think it’s a good thing.

Sin’s Consequence

 Sin’s Consequence

The LORD God commanded the man, saying, “From any tree of the garden you may eat freely; but from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat from it you will surely die.”

GENESIS 2.16-17

The grace of God can be seen in the Garden of Eden when He warned Adam not to eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God cautioned Adam that he would die if he ate from that tree. Notice that God did not tell Adam that He would kill him if he ate from the tree. The prohibition was given in love, not as a threat.

Over the millennia many have misunderstood this text. They have seen it as a warning from God about what He would do if man sinned. Nothing could be further from the truth. God warned man about what sin would do to him if he submitted to it.

Your Father isn’t out to get you when you sin. He has given warnings in the Bible about sin and its consequences, but remember this, it is sin that punishes, not God. To the contrary, when Adam sinned and hid from his God, the Father came to him to rescue him. He does the same for you. Never think otherwise.

God’s First Moment with Mankind

 God’s First Moment with Mankind

God blessed them; and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth, and subdue it; and rule over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the sky and over every living thing that moves on the earth.”

GENESIS 1.28

The heart of your God is seen in the way He related to mankind immediately after He had created them, during the first moments of Adam and Eve’s existence. What was the very first thing He did in His relationship to His highest creation? ‘God blessed them.’

Your concept of your Creator will largely determine the way you relate to Him. If you see Him as a Great Judge who carefully watches your behavior to make sure you’re doing the right things, you have misunderstood your Father. God created you to bless you.

The first word He spoke to mankind was, ‘Be fruitful and multiply.’ His first word was to speak blessing into their lives. Dead religion presents a false caricature of God, presenting Him as one who is primarily concerned with our behaviour. The Bible shows Him as being very different. His concern is simply with you.

Your God wants to bless you today. He speaks words of loving encouragement to you. Go forth into your day with that assurance.

A New Day

 A New Day

God called the light day, and the darkness He called night. And there was evening and there was morning, one day.

GENESIS 1.5

If you were asked to name the parts of a day, what would you say? Most people would list morning, afternoon, and night. But that’s not the way the Bible identifies a day. When God created all things, the Scripture indicates that the evening came first in a new day.

Most people think new days begin when things start to get light. God doesn’t order a full day that way. The Jewish faith recognises that although the Sabbath is Saturday, it begins at sunset on Friday evening. That is the start of the new day, the Sabbath Day.

If things seem to be getting darker in your life, be encouraged that this may be the beginning of a new day in life. We all like to see the light begin to shine, but remember that your Father starts a new time when it begins to get dark.

Don’t become discouraged if you have prayed for Him to work in your circumstances and it seems things are getting darker. That may point to the answer to your prayer. Just keep trusting Him, and in His time, the light will shine again.

Created for Relationship

 Created for Relationship

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.

GENESIS 1.1

The first verse of the Bible implies an important truth that will affect your walk of grace as much as anything possibly could. 

The word God is plural in the original Hebrew text. In the very first verse of the Bible there is an immediate implied reference to the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Why is this triune aspect of God important? Because it sets forth from the beginning that our God is first and foremost relational. The love that exists between the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is the most important and foundational truth we can speak about God. John said, ‘God is love’ (1 John 4.8). 

It is only when we understand the loving interaction between the Father, Son, and Spirit that we will find our walk of grace headed in the right direction.

You have been created to live in relationship. The most important relationship you will experience is to be a child of God. 

Beyond that, your life is interconnected with others. Value the relationships you have in this world. Nurture them, knowing that they find their roots in God Himself.

Self-control week 4

 When they came to the other disciples, they saw a large crowd around them and the teachers of the law arguing with them. As soon as all the people saw Jesus, they were overwhelmed with wonder and ran to greet him.

“What are you arguing with them about?” he asked.

A man in the crowd answered, “Teacher, I brought you my son, who is possessed by a spirit that has robbed him of speech. Whenever it seizes him, it throws him to the ground. He foams at the mouth, gnashes his teeth and becomes rigid. I asked your disciples to drive out the spirit, but they could not.” . . .

He replied, “This kind can come out only by prayer.”

Mark 9.14-18 & 29

The disciples in this passage are trying to climb Mount Everest while practicing their spiritual disciplines on an anthill. Jesus tells them that some exercises can only be achieved by those who have conditioned themselves to trust in God for their help. Only those who will allow the lordship of God to rule in their lives will have access to the great power of God. 

We are not told whether the disciples were annoyed that their easy-come-easy-go spirituality wouldn’t hold up when they were face-to-face with Satan. But their failure should speak clearly to us. The greatest achievements of the saints are always the outgrowth of total commitment. 

What are the requirements that make for utter discipline? Paul rehearses the rigours of such discipleship with Timothy, ‘Endure hardship with us like a good soldier of Christ Jesus’ (2 Timothy 2.3) A soldier is one who has trained and prepared for battle. A soldier is familiar with weapons and ready to fight to the death. Does our spiritual walk make us look like boot camp recruits? Or do we find that our discipline has grown soft and ineffectual?

Those who want to achieve great things for God need to practice the great disciplines of spirituality. Jesus said that prayer and devotion to God are the real evidences of a robust inner faith. Self-control is the first step of spiritual discipline. We must practice and prepare ourselves for the coming battles. If we cannot control our appetites, we can hardly be expected to enter into spiritual combat that tries even the souls of those who pray and fast. 

Gentleness week 4

 Every high priest is selected from among the people and is appointed to represent the people in matters related to God, to offer gifts and sacrifices for sins. He is able to deal gently with those who are ignorant and are going astray, since he himself is subject to weakness. This is why he has to offer sacrifices for his own sins, as well as for the sins of the people.

 

Hebrews 5.11-3

 

this passage is a reminder to all Christians that every person has been saved from a life of sin

and alienation from God. Even the priests of the Old Testament, those who were called by God, were subject to the same temptations and moral weaknesses as any other people. Such knowledge keeps those who minister to others gentle in all their dealings. They know how close they are to being the one ministered to

lead instead of the one ministering.

The difference between those who are members of God's family and those who are still bound to sin lies in their appropriation of the work of Jesus. He alone allows us to approach our world with gentleness. Gentle is what happens to fierce when Jesus touches it with grace.

I will never get over the effect of God's saving transformation on people's lives. People who were lost in sin, filled with anger and bitterness, give up their hatred and become approachable. That is, of course, why we minister to others. Those of us who minister are not people to whom gentleness comes naturally.

We are all people who have been remodelled by grace. We thankfully leave our old natures far behind as we embrace gentleness in our treatment of others.

When we consider that we are all sinners, saved by grace, our ministry to others becomes gentle. We understand where we came from-a world of hopeless despair without Christ. We also understand where we are going to a bright future with God forever. In the meantime, we gently bring hope to others, so that they will

find us approachable. Only then we will have opportunity to share the grace of God 

with them

 

Faithfulness week4

 “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, he will sit on his glorious throne. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate the people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats. He will put the sheep on his right and the goats on his left.

“Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ 

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’      Matthew 25:31-40                 

This passage seems in some ways at odds with grace. Here, eternity  is offered at first glance to those who have been faithful in serving others. We know from the rest of the New Testament that grace is the free gift of God, given with no strings attached. But this teaching of Jesus suggests that those who know they are heaven bound are so delighted that they cannot help but busy themselves with obedience 

There is a sweet naïveté among the followers of God in this passage. They seem surprised that their commendation should be so wholehearted and overwhelming, ‘Whenever did we see you hungry or thirsty, a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison and minister to you?’

 When we minister to any human need, we write the name of Jesus on the very forehead of the person we help. But the ministry we offer is registered in the bookkeeping of heaven as deeds we have done for Jesus alone.

When we meet anyone vile and diseased, we must not think, "poor soul, vile and dis-eased!" Instead we must pray, "So, dear Christ, it is you. I will attend to you, for I have received heaven from you already, and I refuse to let any of your children endure this human hell without my ministry."

We never cry over any human hurt here on earth without our tears being registered in heaven.

Goodness week4

 

n the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy , holy is the LORD Almighty; 

the whole earth is full of his glory.” 

At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke. 

“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” 

Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for. ”      Isaiah 6:1-7

Isaiah acknowledged his own moral shortcomings even as God was calling him to service. Isaiah focused on goodness before he accepted God's call. Goodness must be the bedrock character trait for all who take up the special mantle of service. We have had an overabundance of morally depraved servants in our time, and wherever these

"men and women of God" have

become corrupt, their work has been hampered or even nullified in the lives of those around them. Goodness is essential in performing our call to serve others.

Sadly, the word good has taken on bad connotations in our time. It smacks too much of goody-goody. It implies a kind of hypocrisy. To be a ‘goody-two-shoes’ or to be ‘so heavenly minded we are of no earthly good’ seems the ultimate slur, especially when it is laid at the feet of churchy people.

But genuinely good people have never been in great supply. Those who hunger to be of use to God have not set out to achieve some kind of moral reform and thus appear holy or godly.

The truly good have been called by God, just as Isaiah was, to live in the world. They don’t become good by grunting and sweating in their attempt to keep all the commandments. They love God. They want to please him. Soon, all God desires for them they desire for themselves.

Ironically, when they have become good, they see themselves as Paul perceived, the worst of sinners. Such people readily concede that whatever good is in their lives has been placed in them from the perfect sacrifice of Christ and was nothing they achieved on their own. Then they live in the daily demonstration of the very goodness they deny. They serve others. They have no choice about it. It’s what God expects of them, and his expectation is their delight.

Kindness week4

 David asked, “Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for Jonathan’s sake?” Now there was a servant of Saul’s household named Ziba. They summoned him to appear before David, and the king said to him, “Are you Ziba?” “At your service,” he replied. The king asked, “Is there no one still alive from the house of Saul to whom I can show God’s kindness?” Ziba answered the king, “There is still a son of Jonathan; he is lame in both feet.” “Where is he?” the king asked. Ziba answered, “He is at the house of Makir son of Ammiel in Lo Debar.” So King David had him brought from Lo Debar, from the house of Makir son of Ammiel.  When Mephibosheth son of Jonathan, the son of Saul, came to David, he bowed down to pay him honour. David said, “Mephibosheth!” “At your service,” he replied. “Don’t be afraid,” David said to him, “for I will surely show you kindness for the sake of your father Jonathan. I will restore to you all the land that belonged to your grandfather Saul, and you will always eat at my table.” Mephibosheth bowed down and said, “What is your servant, that you should notice a dead doglike me?” Then the king summoned Ziba, Saul’s steward, and said to him, “I have given your master’s grandson everything that belonged to Saul and his family. You and your sons and your servants are to farm the land for him and bring in the crops, so that your master’s grandson may be provided for. And Mephibosheth, grandson of your master, will always eat at my table.” (Now Ziba had fifteen sons and twenty servants.)  Then Ziba said to the king, “Your servant will do whatever my lord the king commands his servant to do.” So Mephibosheth ate at David’s[a] table like one of the king’s sons. Mephibosheth had a young son named Mika, and all the members of Ziba’s household were servants of Mephibosheth.  And Mephibosheth lived in Jerusalem, because he always ate at the king’s table; he was lame in both feet.   2 Samuel 9.1-13

In spite of the abuse David received from King Saul, when David became king of Israel, he asked, ‘Is there anyone still left of the house of Saul to whom I can show kindness for the Jonathan's sake?’ Yes, there is always somebody to whom we can show kindness. Here, it is Mephibosheth, the disabled son of Jonathan. Jonathan was David's best friend, and David had not forgotten the promise he had made to care for Jonathan's family. (1 Samuel 20.14-15)

David's desire that his own family would be the line of kings had left the house of Saul unwelcome in Israel. Jonathan's son was living in the land of Lo Debar. The name means ‘no pasture,’ indicating that Mephibosheth was living in extremity and need. 

But David welcomes Mephibosheth to the palace. The outcast meets grace. Now he who was handicapped and without human support lives and dines at the king's table. 

Kindness is the great virtue of the Christian life. Kindness is usually so automatic, so basic to our nature as Christians, that those who are kindest among us do not suspect themselves as kind. Watch those who regularly open doors for the elderly, they smile once the act is completed and hurry about their business never having seen the glory of their simple deed. Kindness is so Christ-like that it never stops to celebrate itself. 

Porters, flight attendants and others often represent the sort of kindness which is paid for and professional. But all of us like those people best who, having not been paid for behaving like human beings, behave like human beings just for the joy of it. That sort of kindness is Christ-like. It changes the world. It melts the hearts of gladiators. It lifts the orphans towards the Fatherhood of God. It smiles in frowning assemblies. It says, ‘what can I do to help you?’ and actually hopes it will be given an assignment. Kindness wears the sandals of servants, it has since the first century. 

Patience week4

 Do not oppress an alien, you yourselves know how it feels to be aliens, because you were aliens in Egypt.     Exodus 23.9

We were all at one time strangers to God. We all once needed someone to save us. But now we are rescued and called by the Saviour to go and rescue others. To be effective in our callings, we must not forget what it felt like to be an alien, a stranger. It has long been noted that those who have most recently come to Christ are the most motivated to try to win others. Why? Probably because those newest in their salvation still remember what it was like to be lost.

Most of those who exclude others from their social circles have never lived as an outcast. Cherish the times you have been lonely, for such experiences have been your teachers. Their lessons were painful, but they have left you more human. When you had hurt enough, you knew you would never want one other person to have to endure what you had been through. 

Here in Exodus Moses counsels the Israelites to remember that for 400 years they have been exiles and foreigners in Egypt. Surely their four century period of bondage has softened their hearts toward the strangers in their midst. If they will remember how they lived before God rescued them in the exodus, surely they can feel compassion for all of those still living beyond the community of God. 

Small wonder E. A. Robinson wrote, 

He drew a circle that shut me out, 

A rebel, heretic, thing to flout, 

But love and I had the wit to win 

We drew a circle that shut him in. 

As Christians, it is our job to ‘shut in’ those around us. When we understand that hard times are our teachers, and we bear those times with patience, we can pass along that understanding to others. We can bring others into our world and close around them the arms of love and peace that we also have experienced. 

Peace week 4

 The Lord said to Moses, 'Tell Aaron and his sons, 'This is how you are to bless the Israelites. Say to them, 

'The Lord bless you and keep you, 

the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, 

the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.'     Numbers 6.22-26

What then is to be my service to others in the ministry of peace? Aaron and the priests blessed Israel with a benediction of peace. Benedictions of peace help each of us minister to others by seeking for them a life free of turmoil. It is godly to bless the turbulence out of our lives, flooding the world with the peace of Christ.

Jesus once drove the demons of peacelessness from the life of a man with an evil spirit. When the striving demons were dispersed, it is said that the man was once again in his right mind. (Mark 5.1-20) One can view this true story as a model of what we do for others when we help them discover the indwelling Christ. Their lives of turmoil are transformed into lives characterised by peace. Thus, evangelism becomes our ministry of peace to a troubled world. 

Evangelists do not merely keep people out of hell. They publish peace, and by so doing they remove the hell from the here and now. If hell were only out 'there' in the future, people would scarcely give it a thought. But hell is now. Hell is here. Hell is divorce, pain, cancer, family dysfunction and job loss. Hell is neurosis, addiction, co-dependency, loss. Above all this struggle Christ offers His benediction, and we offer Christ as the healing peace-bringer.

Blessings spread through the world in the world in the name of peace. What wonders would be wrought if we would say to those around us, 'The Lord bless you and keep you, the Lord make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you, the Lord turn His face toward you and give you peace.'

Joy week4

What good is it, my brother, if a man claims to have faith but has no deeds? Can such faith save him? Suppose a brother or sister is without clothes and daily food. If one of you says to him, "Go, I wish you well, keep warm and well fed," but does nothing about his physical needs, what good is it? In the same way, faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead.         James 2.14-17

Joy is the unsustainable expression of our faith. But joy is not something God gives us just so that we can experience a spiritual high. Joy is the consistent response of lives lived in the presence of God's salvation. We have been investigating the joy that results from seeing the creativity of God. But God also wants to use our own lives to create a better life for those around us. Joy is a direct result of our willing service to others.

When we see anyone in need of our ministry and fail to help that person, we lose the opportunity to experience joy. The fullest joy comes to us when we know that we have been the agents of God in creating a better life for those needy souls whom God has placed in our way.

We are God's crown of creation. But it is still natural for us to get hungry and thirsty, to grow tired and cold. To celebrate our humanity fully, we must not only seek to take care of our own needs, but to care in the same way for the needs of others. This is our ministry to the world, to care, and care genuinely.

God creates life, our lives and the lives of those needy souls to whom he calls us to minister. But the joy that belongs to us cannot develop until we learn to take those lives God has created and give them a better quality of life. Only after we will have taken the time to care will we have earned an honest joy. Caring and healing as Jesus Himself did is the shortest path to joy. Such service reminds us that we are partners with God in extending His kingdom by blessing His hurting world with our own commitment to Christ.

love week4

When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, 'Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?' 'Yes, Lord,' he said, 'you know that I love you.'     John 21.15 

 Every gift bespeaks requirement on the part of the giver. Every gift says to us, 'I have come to you because the one who gave me to you loves you very much.' 

Jesus appeared to the disciples after the resurrection several times, usually without announcement or warning. He must have left them extremely edgy, popping in and out of their lives as He did. yet each of His appearances to them revealed truths necessary to sustain their faith after His ascension. 

In this passage Jesus appears to the disciples at the Sea of Galilee (Tiberias) where He had first met some of them. Peter was one of those who long before had been called from the sea to follow Christ because, as Jesus assured him, Jesus would make him a fisher of men. But following the resurrection, Peter was right back where he had started, fishing for fish. 

So Jesus confronts him, 'Do you truly love Me?' 

'Yes Lord,' says the fisher-apostle, 'you know that I love You.' 

'Well, Peter, if you do love Me,' says Jesus in effect, 'act like you love Me, feed my sheep. In other words, serve Me and those who follow Me.' 

If giving is the number one evidence of love, then serving those who follow Christ is an evidence of love for God as well as for others. 

 The generous love of God always motivates us to serve Him. Since He has given all, who are we to think that we could ever please Him by living self-willed lives void of service? Alas, we cannot. Love like this, giving, never-quitting love, demands our all.

Balaam

 When the donkey saw the angel of the LORD, it lay down under Balaam, and he was angry and beat it with his staff. Then the LORD opened the donkey’s mouth, and it said to Balaam, “What have I done to you to make you beat me these three times? ”

Balaam answered the donkey, “You have made a fool of me! If only I had a sword in my hand, I would kill you right now. ”

The donkey said to Balaam, “Am I not your own donkey, which you have always ridden, to this day? Have I been in the habit of doing this to you?”

“No,” he said.

Then the LORD opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw the angel of the LORD standing in the road with his sword drawn. So he bowed low and fell facedown.

Numbers 22:27-31

The Bible has only two stories that feature animals who talk (to humans, that is), and if you had to guess, a snake and a donkey might not be the first you’d pick as most likely to start a conversation, which might be part of the fun here. What does a serpent want to discuss that your dog doesn’t? When is a squirrel most likely to interrupt? What are pressing matters for a donkey? These are intriguing questions. The thought of living in a world where animals, any animals, burst into speech at odd moments isn’t odd at all for children who still inhabit fairy tales and Sesame Street, and perhaps it shouldn’t be odd for adults either. In Scripture, animals are everywhere, and God has been known to give ravens, whales, and lions big roles at key junctures. In the book of Jonah, God even ordains a worm. Quite a few prophets wouldn’t have survived without the creatures God sends to feed, save, or swallow them (or not swallow them, in the case of Daniel and those lions). And we know about the friendly beasts that kept baby Jesus company in the stable in Bethlehem, and then, apparently, sang songs about it. 

If God can call a worm as well as a prophet, or talk to a whale as easily as a human being (more easily, probably, given our track record), what would it be like to let go of an anthropocentric view of the universe to listen to their take on things? The animals in Scripture, talking or not, could be our summons to another world, and listening to their side of a story is a spiritual discipline many of us could benefit from. What does the lion say about the night Daniel was dropped into its den? How does the worm tell its call story? How does the whale talk about how it once had to reroute its migration pattern and swim hundreds of miles out of its way to swallow and then spit out a creature that tasted terrible and moaned the whole way? St. Francis of Assisi would have been interested to hear. What’s more, he would have asked, and suggested we do the same. 

So would Balaam son of Beor. Balaam was a local seer, mystic, and medium-for-hire in Canaan when the Israelites were beginning their invasion of the land. The kings in the region were understandably concerned, and one of them, Balak son of Zippor, tried to enlist Balaam to put a curse on the invaders and their god. Balaam agreed to make contact with the Lord, and when he did, he was told to shut up and mind his own business. “The people are blessed,” the Lord said. “Don’t curse them, don’t pursue this further, and don’t you do or say a thing unless I tell you.” 

Balaam was used to being a middleman (between the earthly and spirit realms, that is), and perhaps he thought there might be a way to talk to all sides at once, in this particular triangle, and still get paid. He saddled up his donkey to ride to King Balak, not realizing that the Lord had set an angel with a flaming sword in the middle of the road to block his way. But the donkey saw what was coming. Three times she tried to turn around, and each time Balaam beat the creature, growing more and more angry. Finally, the donkey gave up. “Have you lost your mind?!” she demanded. “Do you think I’d put on the brakes if I didn’t have a good reason? Have I ever done anything like this, in all the years I’ve been carrying you?!” Balaam had to admit the donkey hadn’t. And at that moment, God opened Balaam’s eyes, and he saw what had been waiting for him, a murderous angel, sword in hand, who by then was hopping mad. 

Balaam got an earful as the angel reamed him out. The only reason he was alive, the angel shouted, was because his donkey had seen what Balaam hadn’t, and turned around. If it weren’t for that, the angel would have slain Balaam right there and sent the donkey home without a scratch. So what did he think of that?! 

Balaam apologised to all beings present and took the reprimand: Don’t you do or say a thing unless the Lord tells you. If he and the donkey ever spoke again, we don’t know. Perhaps they did. Or maybe Balaam just paid closer attention, now that he knew he lived in a world where animals, any animals, burst into speech at odd moments. Maybe he had a deeper sense of what it is to be a middleman listening for the spirit’s voice amid a universe of wondrous, mysterious languages. Most of which we have yet to learn.

Self control week3

 But he knows the way that I take; 

when he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.

Job 23:10

Holiness is the only soil in which a relationship with Christ can be rooted. But how do we strive for holiness? Do we simply decide to be holy and then try to be good enough to be welcomed into God's circle of friends?

Job says that God has ‘tested' us so that we can ‘come forth as gold.’ Trials do indeed refine us as if in a fire. One can imagine a clump of gold ore protesting in the foundry. The metallurgist would seem cruel as he heated the gold almost beyond endurance. But as the gold is smelted in the heat and the flame, it is purified into real, true metal without any flaws. 

Yet who is so mature that he or she welcomes the refining fire? Almost no one. The discipline of God hurts. Hebrews reminds us that God's discipline is on our behalf. ‘God disciplines us for our good, that we may share in his holiness. No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful, Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it' (Hebrews 12.10-11).

Almost every time we meet a great believer whose life has been schooled in holiness, that believer has passed through the furnaces of God. Those souls have wept, and their tears have purified their world views, their value systems and their hearts. Then, tried and cleansed, they have moved freely into a relationship with Christ that is more powerful than it was before their trials. They are at home in the presence and fellowship of God, for they are heirs with Christ, more like him than they could ever have dreamed possible.

Gentleness week3

 One day some parents brought their children to Jesus so he could touch and bless them. But the disciples scolded the parents for bothering him.

When Jesus saw what was happening, he was angry with his disciples. He said to them, “Let the children come to me. Don’t stop them! For the Kingdom of God belongs to those who are like these children. I tell you the truth, anyone who doesn’t receive the Kingdom of God like a child will never enter it.” Then he took the children in his arms and placed his hands on their heads and blessed them.

Mark 10:13-16

Children are great students of human nature. Their innocence endows them with an ability to openly approach people. They seem to assume trustworthiness, even from those who might do them harm. Still, they sense the rapport they ought to feel with a truly gentle person.

The disciples rebuked those who brought heir children to be blessed by Jesus. No doubt he disciples were trying to protect Jesus. After all, He was a very busy person. Perhaps they thought Jesus' agenda was too important for Him to spend time with children. Perhaps their own agendas were more hurried still.

But Jesus' agenda was interruptable. He came to minister to people, people with needs. His love and compassion meant that if His daily task had to be set aside because someone needed to sit and talk, then that conversation became the agenda for the day.

Perhaps the children sensed that. Perhaps they approached Jesus as they would a grandparent, someone with kind eyes and time to play games and make cookies. Kind eyes and an unhurried agenda make all of us more approachable, and they make children unafraid. Jesus was not a grandparent, but I like thinking He had kind eyes and was so unhurried that children were never afraid of Him.

So children came to Jesus, and He blessed them. And the Son of God, who bore the intense burden of redeeming the planet, took the time for those who needed His blessing.

‘Let the little children come to me,’ said Jesus, ‘for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.’

Heaven is a place where trust and gentleness are abundant. Live your life in such a way as to reflect heaven's virtues, and you will be quite at home when you arrive there.

Faithfulness week3

 “Then you will be arrested, persecuted, and killed. You will be hated all over the world because you are my followers. And many will turn away from me and betray and hate each other. And many false prophets will appear and will deceive many people. Sin will be rampant everywhere, and the love of many will grow cold. But the one who endures to the end will be saved.

Matthew 24:9-13

We Christians in the West have gotten used to cheap grace. To be a Christian is often to become a part of a prosperous gathering. How safe it is in our day and age to be a Christian.

Our attendance at church is never called under threat. But Jesus in this passage of Scripture seems to be saying that we are to be faithful even when our witness is not popular even when it is dangerous, we are to be openly Christian. Jesus was about to become a martyr himself, so he calls us to be faithful even when our faithfulness will be costly,

When we are to be ‘handed over to be persecuted and put to death. . .’

When we are ‘hated by all nations. . .’

When people ‘will turn away from the

faith and will betray and hate each other. . .’

When ‘many false prophets will appear and deceive many. . .’

In all of these circumstances, we are to be faithful in our relationship with Christ.

But notice the reward of our faithfulness, ‘He who stands firm to the end will be saved.’ This passage contains the typical New Testament word for ‘saved,’ yet it does not refer to the normal state of salvation. No, this is salvation with a capital S. It is that state of final being, face-to-face for eternity with Christ.

The word saved sometimes refers to our initial encounter with Christ but at other times indicates an ongoing state of grace in Jesus. But this use of the word saved refers to that unending union with Jesus in which we, who have longed to see him and know him with no cloud between us, stand at last in his presence forever.

This salvation indeed is the plum of our faithfulness be plucked from the tree of our obedience.

Goodness week3

  “Run up and down every street in Jerusalem,” says the LORD.

“Look high and low; search throughout the city!

If you can find even one just and honest person,

I will not destroy the city.

But even when they are under oath,

saying, ‘As surely as the LORD lives,’

they are still telling lies!”

Jeremiah 5:1-2

Jeremiah's test of national morality is accomplished by his jogging through the capital and giving polygraph tests to all the people. The nation fails. Honesty is not found in the city.

Personal interests and ambitious career goals have wiped out all social compassion.

We who have served Christ during the closing years of the twentieth century have witnessed the demise of personal character in many of our political figures. Two of the last five American presidents have faced impeachment trials. The sludge artists of election engineering have forced candidates to resign before and during public elections. Other lawmakers have been forced by public scandal to resign before their terms of office were completed. It is not surprising that Jeremiah's jog through Jerusalem found no men or women of character. The question that matters most to us is, ‘What would the prophet discover if he were to jog through our own cities with a polygraph machine?’

During a recent political scandal, lawmakers rated perjury but not immorality as an impeachable offense. In the search for national morality, the character of many other lawmakers was called into question as well. Integrity seemed in short supply.

We can understand Jeremiah's quest for an honest person, for we, too, live in dishonest times. But Jeremiah stayed true to God and committed to doing right. We can look to Him for our own encouragement. We can be faithful to God's purposes for us even when others are doing evil.

Kindness week3

 As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it and said, “If you, even you, had only known on this day what would bring you peace—but now it is hidden from your eyes.

Luke 19.41-42

Jesus weeping! Jesus wept over the citadel, and the citadel never knew, Tears are the ensigns of kindness. We see some pitiable situation, and we cry. Those who receive our kindness rarely suspect our tears, but they rejoice at our kindness.

It has long haunted me that, years before I was saved, my incognito Lord wept over my condition until at last I came to him. Those in Jerusalem who never suspected the weeping Christ are little different from us. The truth is that God daily laments the fate of all who are lost. He cries over all who are self-serving, who never suspect that there are any larger reasons for which they were given life.

When we become aware of the needs of those around us, we become like Christ in our desire to help others. We who are possessed of such kindness become stalkers of grace. We move into the world serving a wonderful,  and sometimes desperate agenda. ‘What can I do to serve Christ? What can I do to make the world a better place? What can I do for all of those I see in need?’ We don't actually do for the sake of others, we do as unto Christ.

Little Lord Fauntleroy, in Frances Hodgson Burnett's famous novel, said, ‘The world should always be a little better because a man has lived.’ This is the motto of every true minister of Christ.

What's the result of such an attitude? Well, we become more like our Master. I've often pondered over those whom Jesus met casually in the way the blind, for instance, or the lame. In random acts of kindness Jesus gave to the needy for no other reason than that they were children of God. They went home healed.

Kindness, instantaneous and unstoppable heals our world.

Patience week3

 I waited patiently for the LORD to help me,

and he turned to me and heard my cry.

He lifted me out of the pit of despair,

out of the mud and the mire.

He set my feet on solid ground

and steadied me as I walked along.

He has given me a new song to sing,

a hymn of praise to our God.

Many will see what he has done and be amazed.

They will put their trust in the LORD.

Psalm 40:1-3

Out of the pit, out of the mire, the biography of all believers. It is this pit that creates in us yearning after freedom. We long for His joy and

ing above all for His liberty. But the pit will not let us be free.

In John Bunyan's The Pilgrim's Progress, Christian goes through the ‘Slough of Despond.’ This despond is the milieu that causes us to acknowledge our need. We cry out for rescue simply because we know in ourselves that we are helpless. We can do nothing but wait for rescue. We wait and God acts. We have patience and the Saviour comes. Floundering, entrapped, ensnared, dying, we wait, and our patience is rewarded by the coming of our rescuer. He lifts us from the pit, and we are in love with Him because He has saved us and endowed us with great liberty. We believe in and celebrate the word grace because we know we did not, nor could not, extricate ourselves from the pit. Only Christ, who knows the depths of sorrow and the darkness of night, can bring us freedom and salvation.

The poet in this psalm feels trapped in the mire. Circumstances, like quicksand, have grasped him and are dragging him down. His greatest strength lies in his desire to be free.

To fall into quicksand and live through it demands that the victim cease struggle. Lay back gently, fin with your hands and let your calm be your strength. The same law will lift us from the Slough of Despond. The more we flail to achieve our own freedom, the more certain we are to sink deeper. But if we wait. . .if we trust and wait. . . rescue is certain.

Turn to Christ for rescue. He knows what it's like in the quicksand. He has been there before and has overcome it. He can help you if you will trust in Him.

Peace week3

 Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:15

The glorious thing about peace is that it constitutes the soul of our relationship with Christ. We relate to Christ, we converse with Christ, we experience and grow in Christ only when his peace is the very atmosphere that shelters our ongoing relationship with him. The word rule in Colossians 3:15 means to "umpire" or "arbitrate" the struggles and disquietudes of our

lives.

One prominent twentieth-century philosopher rejected traditional Christianity because he concluded that its fierce doctrinal nature inspired quarrels over truth that divided the Christian world into angry, isolated denominations. He claimed that Christian doctrine had spawned bloodshed, ethnic cleansing, wars and crusades. One can argue that much of the history of the church has been that of quarreling Christians, championing viewpoints rather than celebrating their great commonalties in peace. But Paul suggests that each Christian needs to let the peace of Christ arbitrate in his or her own soul. When the peace of Christ rules the inner life Of the individual, it is freed to begin its purifying work in the church universal.

Disputes over doctrines have often brought about the fiercest of clashes within Christianity.

And why? If Christ rules from the throne of our hearts, surely we can trust each other to love all that he loves. Let us allow Christ the rule of our hearts so that unity within the church may bring others to know about him and be changed by that peace and love.

Joy week3

 “And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labour or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendour was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith?     Matthew 6:28-30

When Jesus wanted to teach His disciples the art of depending on his sufficiency, He invited them to consider the lilies of the field. Here the exquisite fashioning of God fell on the tiniest of plants. Jesus used God's creativity in miniature as evidence that God can be trusted to take care of all of our needs. The same God who overwhelms us with the majesty of the ocean can mystify us with a drop of clear, pure dew shaken from the petals of a rose.

To encounter either the wide grandeur or tiny gem-like creativity of God awakens anthems in our soul. Joy is our response to the creation of God. And it is Christ who awakes us to this wonder. It is the Jesus of the wildflowers who calls us to marvel at the lilies and then to contemplate what God's perfect creation means in terms of our ability to depend on Him.

We may be prone to forget that Jesus was a man of the outdoors. His entire ministry amounted to a three-year camp-out with his disciples. His miracles of calming the storm, walking on the water or feeding the five thousand are all outside miracles.

Because He had such rapport with the elements and all of nature, it is natural that Christ's sermon illustrations include rain, harvest and wildflowers. Today, many of our hymns focus on the relationship between Christ and the elements,

Fair are the meadows, fairer still the

woodlands

Robed in the blooming garb of spring,. . .

Fair is the sunshine,

Fairer still the moonlight

And all the twinkling starry host;

Jesus shines brighter, Jesus shines purer. . .

Here's to our ‘Fairest Lord Jesus.’ Here's to the Jesus of the wildflowers. Let us look to the lilies, and be reminded through Christ of God’s unfailing providence.