Integrity [Nehemiah 5 v 14 ff]

One of  the men I admire in the Bible is Nehemiah, one of his godly characteristics was his integrity ,cp chapter 5 v14ff,the more we hear of the modern day bankers we see how this qaulity is missing. Recently I purchased a second hand car ,and with it I was given a 3 month warrenty.I soon discovered there was a fault with the ,the car dealer told me to get in touch with the warranty people,now the point is this ,because the fault was in the car when I bought it, the warrinty was invalid.The garage that was going to fix it where charging me over 600 pounds to put the fault right,they phoned the warranty people who gave the ok to go ahead,but where not informed by them that the fault was in the car when I bought it. So I was faced with a decision to let the warranty people pay the bill or, well I went back to the people I bought it, got no joy,in essence they are responsible  to put the problem right. So although I could have let the warranty pay, I decided I should pay it. Integrity is important for all of us especially if we are Christians, it is easy to give in to the spirit of the age,but we must trust in God and do the right thing.
A prayer..../ Help us to be people of integrity in Jesus name Amen/

Sensitive. [ Hebrews 3 v15 ]

I wonder how sensitive you are, I wonder what my wife would anwer if I asked her, I like to think that I have a reasonable degree of sensitivity.But here is a very important question, how sensitive am I to the Holy Spirits prompting ?, I feel it would be profitable to explore this theme ,in Galations 5 we have a number of things said about the Spirit,the fruit of the Spirit.living in the Spirit, walking in the Spirit [v 22./25]in  chapter 6 v 8 we read of sowing to the Spirit. Consider first the fruit of the Spirit, love,joy,peace ,longsuffering,gentleness,goodness,faith,meekness, temperance. If  we are lacking in these things,let us ask ourselves the question why?.Our Saviour taught that we should bear fruit[ John 15 ] the question again is, are we bearing fruit? have we become desensitized by the spirit of the world?,or by our unwillingness,to change, our unwillingness to respond to the Spirits prompting. Consider that list, look at it,pray over it and quietly wait, for the Spirits prompting, and them yield yourself to Him unreservedly.
 A  prayer....../Dear Father God, we confess  our fruitlessness, our inconsistencies,caused by our lack of sensitivity to the Spirits presence in our lives,help us to see that nothing will change if we are not willing to be willing, in Jesus name. Amen/
/  I will be on holiday and will return to my blog Sunday 1st of July, every blessing/

The right choices. [Matthew 18v 7-9 ]

Our Saviour taught that we must be severe with ourselves when it comes to sin cp Matthew 18 v 7-9, it is Oswald Chambers,who writes,/ What does this mean?it means absolutes,unflinching sternness /How severe are we with those sins that so easily beset us?,remember if I play with fire , I will get burned,if I play in the dirt I will get dirty. How far are we prepared to go?, to be holy.in putting to death those lusts that war in our members.How prepared are we to cast of every weight, and the sin which doth so easily beset us ? [Hebrews 12 v1 ]./ Consider these important words in Matthew 18 vv 8/9,  Better for Thee,we think we know what is best for us,we dont, He does .Although I have been applying these words in Matthew 18 to the Christian , I believe they are being spoken to the unconverted,to those who have not trusted Jesus,men love their sins,their lusts,the list is endless, but it boils down to this,are we prepared to deal severely with those things that will damn us to hell. Again Oswald Chambers  writes,/Jesus Christ talked rugged truth,He was never ambiguous, and He says it is better to be mained than damned./ How men /women will one day curse their sins,those things that they choose to hold unto that they loved,Esau will curse the wrong choice he made, [Genesis 25 v29-34 / Hebrews 12 v16]. Judas will lament for all eternty his love of money, that led him to betray our Saviour for 30 pieces of silver.There is nothing we value,be it a person place or thing that is worth going to hell for,Jesus made it clear when He said ,/What shall it profit a man, if  he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul .[ Mark 8 v36 ]
A  prayer.../ Dear God help us to see the seriousness of sin, and its consequences,grant us the grace to make the right choices in Jesus name Amen/

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/


[