No one is perfect [ Philippians 3 v13-14 ]

Sorry to those who read my blogs ,I dont always have time to check the spelling, and when I do and find mistakes I get annoyed. But it also reminds me that none of us are perfect,and mistakes have always something to teach us.Edward John  Phelps ,said,/ The man who makes no mistakes does not  usually make anything/. So now I am beginning to feel better, well until the next mistake,as a father and a husband I have made mistakes, I wish I could undo them, but that is not possible. One day not so long ago my oldest boy phoned me up and said he forgave me, I dont know what exactly for, but it was to do with the possible mistakes ,I had made in relation to my lack of parenting skills.When I consider how ill prepared I was for marriage, and to be a parent, I cringe,coming from a broken family, didnt help. I am trully sorry for those mistakes I made in relation to my children ,but here is the good news, all five of them have trusted the Lord Jesus to be their Saviour.  So take heart,our God can work through us,to our families good inspite of our mistakes,dont crucify yourself because of your mistakes,and dont let the devil do it ether.
 A prayer...../ Dear God You know how imperfect we are,our lives often appear contridictions, we blow it so often,yes Father we make mistakes, sometimes the same ones, again and again, forgive us,help us ever to strive to be perfect, in love ,and obedience, yet when we fail, help us not to live under a cloud of condemnation,for that is not Your will for any of us, in Jesus name Amen/

Memories. [Psalm 147 v3 ]

Most mornings I have porridge for my breakfast,I fill the bowl with milk then with oats and then put it into the micro wave,well when I went to get my porridge from the micra wave this, morning ,I discovered a bowl of warm milk,I had forgotten to put the oats into the milk. I didnt do it in purpose I just simply forgot,all of us forget things at times,sometimes it is serious, most times its not,on the other hand there are things we wish we could forget, yet cant, there are memories that are locked in our memory box.So many peoples lives are ruined because of memories of their past, things that happened to them,is it possible to get over such things?. I love those words in Psalm147 v3 ,He heals the brokenhearted. First of all we are pointed to God,He heals, who are we  looking to?,oh yes God will use people to help us, but they can only go so far ,our help comes from the Lord,our healing comes from the Lord. Can He heal our wounded broken spirits?,yes He can,for He says He heals, and what God says He will do ,we can rest assured He can, and not only can, but will.Our Saviour said to a heartbroken womam, /Said I unto thee, that,if thou wouldest believe thou shouldest see the glory of God [John 11v 40 ].The way out , is the way of faith,faith in God to heal ,our minds,form the past hurts, those past hurting memories, He will, not mybe ,or might,but He will, a word of certainty, and assurance,remember there is nothing to hard for the Lord.
A  prayer....../ Dear God heal my wounded broken spirit in Jesus name Amen /.

Divorce its fallout. [ Isaiah 61 v 1-3 ]

I attended my friends 50th wedding anniversary celebrations recently,fifty years of  marriage,how this is so contrary to life now, yet having said that ,let us not judge those whose marriage has ended in divorce. Instead let us pray for them, let us welcome them,and help them, yes marriage is for life,and for many, who enter into marriage,they dont want a divorce ,they dont want to hurt their children, for as we know children do suffer ,again let us pray for such children. And what about the grandparents who find themselves deprived of thier grandchildren,this can be painful,as a rule there are no winners in divorce. If you have been divorced dont let bitterness destroy you,it can, learn to forgive, for it is the only way forward,unforgiveness, bitterness are nobodies friends,and we need to part company with them. I believe marriage with all its potential pitfalls is Gods purpose for mankind, and any society who forgets this, will suffer. So today let us pray for those who are experiencing difficulties in their marriage,for those who have been divorced, and for all who are experiencing the painfall fall outs,from that experience.
A  prayer....../Dear God we bring to You the many in our society who are suffering so much pain because of divorce,the children, the grandparents,the couples who divorced,so much pain, so many lives messed up, have mercy,and in Thy mercy turn them to Thyself, the only one who can heal and effectively help, in Jesus name we ask this Amen/

Enduring the cross. [Hebrews 12v 2 ]

We also read in relation to our Saviour that He not only endured, but He endured the cross [Hebrews 12v2],now many things have been written about this. All His life He knew, the cross was not hidden from Him, his suffering was not hidden from Him,it is clearly shown in Gods word ,  cp....Isaiah 53/Psalm 22, these are the most obivious scripture. Yet the whole sacrificial system pointed to a suffering Saviour,they were never and end in themselves,the writer of the book of Hebrews deals with this cp. chapter 10,no they pointed to, that sacrifice of Christ on the cross, a sacrifice that would effectively deal with mans greatest need, the forgiveness of sins.Christ did this as Hebrews 10 v12,tells us, / but this man , after He had offered one sacrifice for sins, Hebrews 9v25 reminds us that Christ cannot be offered again and again, like the animal sacrifice, when Christ died,He cried it is finished.[19 v30], no more sacrifices.It is important that we grasp this,but let us consider this enduring, crucifixion was an awful way to die,it was brutal in the extreme,let us also remember that Christ had already endured physical abuse ,which included a flogging, which many did not survive,so on top of this he endured hours,  hanging nailed to the cross,bearing the heat of the sun. Christ endured all that, but there is more , for we read of a deeper level of suffering, a level which no human mind can fathom. It is Peter who tells us in 1 Peter 2 v24, of the nature of that suffering, /Who His own self  bare our sins in His own body on the tree/.It is  L Morris in his very profitable book /,The cross in the NT/ writes, it means He bore the penalty of our sins.His enduring the cross and all that it meant, was for the sole purpose of bearing the penalty for sin, my sin your sin.The result is, that all who trust Christ as their Saviour , escape the penalty of sin,which they deserve,and  are granted forgiveness,and eternal life.
A  prayer...../Dear God we thank You that You so loved this world,that You gave Your only begotten son Jesus to die on the cross,we praise You that He was prepared to endure all that this meant,help us in all we have to face,to follow in His footsteps,in His name we ask this Amen/


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Hated for no reason. [John 15 v 18-25 ]

Following on in the theme of enduring,we further read this about our Saviour,in Hebrews 12 v 3 ,/ For consider Him who endured such hostility from sinners/A person I know was at a group of mainly older people and he was talking to a person about a Christian meeting he had attended,when all of a sudden a number of the people started shouting at him,to shut up, as they didnt want to hear about God. Below the surface of many individuals there is a hostility towards God,are we surprised at this? we should not be,in Romans8 v7 we read../For the carnal mind is enmity against God/ Likewise our Saviour told us, if the world hates you,you know that it hated Me before it hated you[John 15 v18 ].It is not that our Saviour did anything to deserve their hatred,as He pointed out ,they hated Him without a cause[John 15v25 ].I pray everyday for Christians who are suffering terrible things, why?, because they are wicked people, because they are doing awful things, no, because they follow unashamedly the Lord Jesus. I know some Christians act in an unwise manner and bring trouble upon themselves, but the vast majority dont, they are hated like their Saviour for no good reason.Our Saviour was never intimidated by those who opposed Him, nor did He walk in fear,no He just kept loving them, and today He calls all who are suffering for Him,to follow Him.
A  prayer.../Dear God help us to take up our cross and follow our Saviour. Amen /

Enduring. [Hebrews 12 v 2-3 ]

I suppose we all have times when we dwell on the past,older people do,I hope that as I become older I will dwell on the future glories that awaits me and every child of God.The old spirituals expressed that continually,likewise the writers of scripture,and our dear Saviour for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despised the shame, and is now sat down at the right hand of the throne of  God [Hebrews 12 v 2 ].We are exhorted to look to Him and to follow in His footsteps,consider/ He endured/,there is a saying that goes,/that which cant be cured must be endured/. People often in a light hearted way say, are you enduring your Christian life or our you enjoying it?, and so we are made to feel guilty. Well I am not trying to make you feel guilty,that is never the Christians task, it is the Holy Spirits job to convict us of what is wrong in our lives. We are not meant to carry around with us a fake smile,but we are called to endure many things by the grace of God,and to not let our trials,cause us to be bitter,resentful,or angry.In all our Saviour suffered He manifested a right spirit,He poured Himself out for ungrateful people,yet He did not give up on them, for after all, He came into this world to save sinners, and that meant enduring many things, that meant death on a cross ,but beyond the suffering He saw the glory,He saw a people who would be redeemed,and all this would bring Him grear joy[ Isaiah 53 v 11 ]
A prayer..../Dear God we thank for our Saviour who for the joy that was set before Him, endured so much, help us all to look beyond our trials to our future glory, in Jesus name Amen /

They went back.[John 6v 66ff]

A gospel song asks the question,/are you growing weary in the struggle of it all?/,I must confess I do get weary at times, the continual battle with temptation,I suppose that is why I love the Psalms .In the Psalms you have people who struggled with life ,of continual trials,of friend who betrayed them,of feeling cast down of wanting to get away from it all,it is all there in the Psalms.So how did they get through?, an important question,for if we dont know the answer to that, we will be overcome,mybe even give up. It seems to me ,that they always looked to God to help them,in their struggles they did not turn away from God,instead they turned to Him. In John 6 v66ff we read how some of our Lords disciples ,went back,and walked with Him no more, I sadly know so many who have done this,went back,I heard a man who had recently become a Christian, say he would never go back to his old life.The old life for him was one of destructiveness, of self and others .When these disciples turned away ,Jesus asked the 12, do you want to go away as well?, it was Peter who answered, Lord to whom shall we go?,You have the words of eternal life. In other words they realized that Jesus and only Jesus had the answer,not just to life, but to eternal life. As one gets older you realize how brief life is,and how important our relationship with Jesus is,go back,you must be mad,no it it is onward ever onward,to heaven and our eternal home.Esther Kerr Rusthoi wrote/It will be worth it all when we see Jesus, lifes trials will seem so small,when we se Christ. One glimpse of His dear face,all sorrow will erase, so bravely run the race , till we see Christ/
A prayer...../Dear Lord grant us grace to press on,let not our struggles blind us to the folly of  going back,help us to bravely run the race,till we see You Amen /