I want to be loved. ( Matthew 22 v 34 - 40 )

Ernest Hemingway's son Gregory speaking about his relationship with his father said,' I wanted him to love me', which implies that he failed in this.Most of us want to be loved,especially by those nearest and dearest to them,and it is sad when they don't.Wives may not love their husbands,and vice versa,children may not love their parents,and parents their children. Sin has effected so many people that they treat others in an unloving way.it can be very extreme,like the young girl,blinded by a hate filled religious belief,watched fourteen people being beheaded,and was not as she said fazed by it.Yet it is shown in many other ways,a coldness towards others, a treating a person just as a servant, or just as a worker . We may have had friends who just used us,unlove is shown in a multitude of ways,in actions,words,attitudes,some as we have mentioned extreme some less extreme,but it all comes down to the same thing,love is missing. Yes we want to be loved but are we loving?the challenge to me as a Christian is two fold, to love God,and to love others,you cannot have one without the other. People who say they love God and don't love others are deceived,and those who say they love others and don't love God are likewise deceived.

Stop throwing stones ( Matthew 7 v 1 - 6 )

There was a time not so long ago, when having a child out of wedlock was frowned on, I remember many years ago in a Salvation fellowship,a young couple were disciplined for have a child before they were married.Such a thing was considered a sin,and I  believe premarital sex is wrong,but humanity being what it is ,it happens,unfortunately it appears now to be normal.As a Christian we are called to be Holy,that means we are called to refrain from anything that is morally wrong as revealed in Gods word.The account in  Johns  Gospel chapter 8, of a woman caught in the act of adultery who was arrested and brought by the moral judges to Jesus.They told Him what had happened, and the penalty for such a sin,stoning to death.,but of course Jesus turned it on them,saying let him who is without sin cast the first stone,convicted, they all left, leaving only Jesus and the guilty woman.Now of course Jesus knew that this woman had sinned, He told her so,but He said, neither do I condemn you go and sin no more.So there are two important lessons in this story, we have to stop throwing stones,in moral judgement at others, moral failures. Next we must never forget that there are, moral values, and when we break them we sin,and that's very serious                                                                                                                    Words that challenged me,spoken by a father                                                                                            to his pregnant unwed daughter ,'' We don't                                                                                             judge one another,we love one another.''

Only two places. ( Luke 23 v 32 - 43 )

A rough Yorkshire miner became a minister of the Gospel,now Yorkshire people are straight  talking ,as they say were I come from, they call a spade a spade. Well the minister was asked to take the funeral of a notorious  bad person, and of course everyone knew it.Well I have taken a number funerals in my day,and you usually try to say something  nice about the deceased for the sake of the loved ones.Well not this Yorkshire man,as he passed the coffin, he thumped it,,and said to those present,we know where he is gone,and then he said to them ,where are you going?.Well shocking isn't it?,but let us call a spade a spade,where are you going when you die?,remember there  is only two destinations,Heaven or Hell.Again let me ask the question , where are you going?,is it Heaven or is it Hell?.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             'Believe in the Lord Jesus and                                                                                                                     you will be saved'                                                                                                                                            (Acts 16 v 31 ).                                                                                                                                                                                                             

I don't like . ( 1 Corinthians 6 v 12 )

I often wondered what Augustine meant when he said ,'love God and do what you like'.and so recently a person told me something,that threw light on it. A coal miner from Yorkshire  who was  a hard drinker,and  a tough person, got saved,he trusted  Jesus as his Saviour,the result was he stopped drinking,and he was changed,stopped going with his  friends for drinking sessions . Then one day he met an old friend,who  asked him why he stopped seeing him,and stopped going  to the their drinking hunts.So he told him he had become a Christian,so the man, said to him,so now you can't do this, and you can't do that.No its not like that,replied his friend I can do whatever I like. Well said the man, why have you stopped drinking , and his friend said, because I do not like it anymore.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                          Therefore, if anyone is in Christ,                                                                                                               he is a new creation, the old  has                                                                                                               gone, the new has come.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      ( 2 Corinthians 5 v 17 )

God is merciful . ( Lamentations 3 v 22 - 23 )

One of the most common words I use when I pray is, 'mercy',it is so important when we approach God, to remember  we are approaching a God who is holy.When we come into His presence  we can only come  by His mercy,and because of Calvary,we can come to a Holy God.We cannot demand anything from God,we can plead ,that in His mercy we may receive  that which we ask.God may choose not to answer, because we have a wrong attitude,We read how God humbles us by His mercy, to teach us valuable lessons (  Deuteronomy 8 v  2 - 4 ). Who stands in need of Gods mercy?, everyone without exception, because we are all sinners, and all sinners are enemies of a holy God.No matter how kind we are on a human level, our relationship with God is flawed. The only way we can have a relationship with God  is by His awesome mercy, and this mercy comes to us through Jesus. Now of course God has not forsaken this world, He is a faithful creator ( 1 Peter 4 v 19 ),and our dear Saviour reminds us that God the Father causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and unrighteous. ( Matthew 5 v  45 ).That is the general mercy of  God to all mankind,of course the many do not acknowledge Gods mercy in anything,instead of His goodness turning them to Him,they deny His existence, and refuse His offer of salvation in His son Jesus,and so will eventually suffer the consequences of their wilful  sinful attitude towards a holy and merciful God.

The record's clear today. ( 1 John 1 v 7 )

The world is in debt ,it is a bit frightening when you hear the sums nations owe, and of course many people our in debt.I am sure if there was such a thing as a debtors prison, as there was in Victorian times, they would be full to overflowing,Charles Dickens father ended up in such a place. There is a wonderful Christian ministry called ,'Christians against poverty', CAP as it is known..Serious as it is to get into debt, the Bible tells us that the whole world is accumulating another kind debt,and its a debt we cannot pay, I am reminding you of the consequences of our sin,every time we sin,our sins our recorded in heaven, in Revelation 20 we read of two books,one was a record of all the sins we have ever committed ,judgement will be passed,and all whose sins are not forgiven, will be cast into the lake of fire , where they will spend eternity.One could call it the book of  death,There is another book called the book of life,all who have trusted Jesus and  received forgiveness of sins,they are no longer as it were in debt , saved from judgement and the wrath of God.                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Well, there was a time on earth,in the books of heaven,                                                                            That an old account was standing,for sins unforgiven,                                                                              My name was at the top, there were many things below,                                                                           But I went up to the keeper,and I settled it long ago,                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                    Long  ago, yes long ago, ( I settled it all)                                                                                                  I said the old account was settled long ago,                                                                                              And my record's clear today,He washed my sins away                                                                            And the old account was settled long ago.                                                                                                        ( Words by Johnny Cash )

Living by faith ( Philippians 4 v 19

Living by faith as I said brought its challenges, to get enough  enough to feed us on ,often I prayed those words we all know,yet may not know what it was like to have no food, in ones home,' give us this day our daily bread'. God met our needs ,there were times we received gifts from an anonymous donor, one man in our church used to give me two pound most weeks,small but very important. A friend in the church had a caravan which she allowed us to have a holiday,we wondered why there was swelling on the ceiling ,we soon found out,when it rained.A friend came and picked us up to bring us home, her name was Helen ,and she left us some shopping,another need met. The fees for college were reasonable, I was not living in ,but we had no money, but God provided,and when we finished ,we did not owe anything.I sought not to ask people for money, but we prayed ,and as our Saviour said,'ask and you shall receive.During one college recess I did voluntary work in the south of Ireland, doing personal evangelism, it was a step of faith,I had to leave my wife and children at home,when I came home my wife Eileen told me, how one day there was no food in the house  ,by faith she took a shopping bag out, trusting God to fill it ,as she went out the door, a friend came with a gift..