Poverty [2 Corinthians 8 v 9 ]

I remember years ago someone saying to me that I was poor,and I suppose I was , materially I had not much, yet by the grace of God I was rich in faith. There are many in this world who are poor, little or nothing to eat, or to wear, there are the have,s and the have not,s.As I looked at the nativity scene in my living room the words of scripture came into my mind,regarding the Lord Jesus,/ Though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, so that through His poverty He could make you rich,/ [ 2 Corinthians 8 v9 ]. My study Bible says,/ that there is no evidence that Christ was any poorer than most first-century Palistinians,/ yet the scriptures do indicate, that our Lord ,did rough it. The point is this,who He was and what He choose to become, He was God, He became a man as Philippians 2v7 , tells us, / in other words He gave up His divine privileges, now that is trully becoming poor. [Dear Lord Jesus we thank You for Your great humility in becoming poor for us,help us show the same spirit in our lives, Amen ]

Indifference [ Revelation 3 v 14 -22.]

In the book of Revelation we read of a church that was indifferent, oh yes they still met together, to sing hymns etc,but as Christ looked at this church, they made Him sick. This was a rich church, rich materially, and they knew it, this filled them with pride, and they boasted about it.Mybe they even felt it was a sign of Gods blessing, now of course it can be, but in this case it had become a blight on their relationship with their Lord, to such a point,that He was outside the church, knocking to get in. For churches as indeed for individual Christians ,material prosperity can bring dangers, the church of Laodicea was in great danger of self destructing. The story is told how during a time of persecution , that soldiers broke into a church and demanded of the leaders of the church, to hand over their riches, the leaders took them to a hall at the rear of the church, which was filled with the poor and the sick, they pointed to them ,and said these are ,our riches.[ Father in heaven we thank You for all Your blessings,as you have blessed us help us to bless others, may your blessings never take Your place in our hearts, we ask this in Jsus name, Amen ]

Struggling [Psalm 103 ]

It may surprise us to know that people are struggling, people we think have it all together, our heroes . In my time I have read many books on famous people , missionaries, preachers, I have also met many well known Christians. We can so easily put them on a pedestal, but the fact of the matter is they struggle at times, they dont always wake up with a song, as the Bible tells us, they are as human as we are [James 5v17 ]. I am not pointing this out so we can judge them, rather that we can see things in a realistic way, and keep our eyes on Jesus, Everyone of us without exception, struggle and everyone of us need the Lord to help us, which He will. If you are struggling today ask the Saviour to help you, he understands, and He will grant you the grace you need. [ Father in Heaven You know everything about us, nothing is hid from You, You see behind the outward show, the fears, the pain, the weakness, and so we ask in the name of Jesus for grace, for this day, Amen ]

Welcome. [ Revelation 3 v 20 ]

There is a song the Irish sing and it goes,/ If your Irish come into the parlour theres a welcome there for you/, there is also a church in Belfast called the Welcome Hall. It is nice to feel welcome when we go somewhere , there have places I have gone to and I have not felt welcomed. Being a Christian can mean that you are not always welcome, because you have witnessed to people, and they didnt like it, there were times when our Saviour was not welcome, and the fact of the matter He is still not welcome, in the vast majority of lives today. As a Christian I remember when Jesus was not welcome in my life, when He knocked on the door of my heart, and I refused to answer,yet thankfully He kept knocking, and now He is the welcome presence in my life. I wonder is He knocking on your hearts door?.[ Dear Lord Jesus thank You for Your patience ,we ask that you will help us to welcome You into our hearts, as Saviour, Amen ]

What would Jesus do ?.[ 1 Peter 2 v 21 ]

Many years ago a dear friend read a book which had an deep impact on his life, I cant remember the title of that book, but I do remember the thing that impacted on his life, and it was this, /What would Jesus do ?. / What would Jesus do ?, a simple thought, yet if one thinks about it, it is a profound thought, and a very challenging thing to put into practice.What would Jesus do about giving, forgiving,helping, and so on, can we put it into practice ,can we rise to the challenge?. Lets ask ourselves as we go through this day, what would Jesus do, in every situation we find ourselves in, let us pray,[Father we call ourselves Christians, but we are so conscious that we are but poor reflections of Christ, help us this day, to be more Christlike,in everything, Amen.]

Faith [Hebrews 11 v 6 ]

There is an old hymn with the words,/ only believe/, in it, it is telling us that faith is the key , only believe, seems so simple, and it is. To become a Christian we must believe in the Lord Jesus,when we do this then we enter into a life of faith,that means we face ever problem, by faith. The Christian life is a life of faith , that means you must live this day by faith, whatever you face you are called to face it by faith. It all sounds so simple as I have said, and in reality it is , yet it is one of the things we find hardest to do, as we read the Bible we see people struggling with the life of faith, compare, Numbers 13-14 , Mark 4 v36-41, we are no different,if we are honest. The great cry of the reformation was,/The just shall live by faith,[ Galations 3 v11 ], nothing has changed, and never will , while we live, so today let us live by faith. [Father we come to You by faith, we confess our weakness and failure to rise to to the challenge of living by faith, please grant us the grace we need, to face this day by faith, we ask this in Jesus name ,Amen ]

Leave it.[1 Peter 2 v 23/ 5 v 7 ]

While I believe in human responsibility,if I have to preach, I know I have to pray and study, if I want the good things in life then I have to work, and save, if I am ill I need to go to the doctors, thats human resonsibility. I also feel constrained to leave certain things by faith in Gods hands, to pray , and not to interfere, I cant change people, nor can you, life is also full of situations we cant change, the temptation may be to do something, remember what I said yesterday,learn to live in God, and so often that means leaving things in His hands. The scriptures tell us to,/ Give our burdens to the Lord and He will take care of us [Psalm 55v22 ], [ Dear loving Heavenly father ,we cast all our burdens upon You, our problems with people, our circumstances, our needs, give us the grace to leave all these things in Your hands, we ask this in Jesus name, Amen ]