Imperfect. ( James 5 v 13 - 18 )

Elijah was a wonderful prophet, he was very courageous ,and yet sometimes his courage failed him, James in his epistle chap 5 v 17 - 18 writes of this great man ,and how he had wonderful answers to his prayer. He prayed earnestly that it would not rain, and it didn't for three and a half  years ,and then he prayed again and it rained. I remember reading about a man called George Muller was arriving in a ship in America, but a dense fog had ascended, holding up the ship, this was in the 19th century. George spoke to the captain who was Christian, he said he had an appointment that he must keep, the captain said there was nothing that could be done. George ask the captain to go and pray he would pray  also. They did that ,and the fog lifted, when we pray in the will of God  ( 1 John 5 v  14 ), wonderful things can happen. I stress those words ,the will of God. Prayer is not a novelty thing, we must ask with right motives ,every true prayer should have at its core,' Thy will be done', and if it is not God's will, the  prayer will not be answered Cp  James 4 v 3. Returning to Elijah, yes he was a great man, beware of making any person great or otherwise, your idol , yes he was a great but not a perfect man, ( James 5 v 17). These words remind us be be cautious us ,as seeing any godly person, as pure gold. Imperfect though Elijah was ,God heard his prayer and answered, so we imperfect individuals can be assured that God will hear and answer our prayers.

All knowing. ( 1 ) ( John 21 v 17 )

 If you are married, I wonder does your wife ever say , '' I know you'', she says this  in response  to you  saying,'' leave it to me I will do it'', the reason  is simple, her reply is,'' you will forget''. Lets face it after  38 yrs of marriage , she knows what I'm like, and of course I know what she is like. Well not fully, there is always a  hidden side of us, which no other person knows. When I say no other person, of course there is one person who does know us fully, God, we have  this wonderfully  illustrated in Psalm 139 v 1- 6. here is what it says,' You have searched me, and you know me. You know when I sit down and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my  going out and my  lying down; you are familiar  with all my ways. Before  a word is on my tongue you, Lord, know it  completely. You hem me in behind and before, and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is to wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain'. Here we have what is known as ,'The Divine Omniscience', meaning that He is all knowing, if it was otherwise He would not be God. Tozer in his book, 'The knowledge of the Holy', writes ,'To say that God  is omniscient is to say that He possesses perfect knowledge and therefore no need to learn. But  it is more ; it is to say that  God has never learned and cannot learn'. He further says, 'He never discovers anything ,He is never surprised, never amazed'. The being of God is beyond our understanding, and yet by His grace and mercy we can know Him , as our heavenly Father, when by faith we trust Jesus as our Saviour.

Hate ( Luke 14 v 25 - 35 )

 A famous evangelist daughter, was being interviewed, speaking about forgiven herself, her father, and then  she said sometime that astounded me, she said she forgive God. Although she was the daughter of a  world renowned evangelist, it is obvious she had a very distorted view of God. When one speaks like  that lady,  she is making herself God, for only God can forgive sin.no it was so wrong what she said ,and so sad. That lovely hymn by Reginald Heber ,   declares ,' Only  Thou art holy; there is none beside Thee, Perfect in power, in love. and purity'. The problem that lady has, goes back to her childhood, her father was away a lot preaching, and when he came home, he was always in demand, so she she could not get his attention and nearness ,she felt she needed. Consider what our dear Saviour spoke of what it means to follow Him  Luke 14 v 26 ,'' If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father, and mother and wife and children, and brothers and sisters, yes even his own life, he cannot be my disciple''. What Jesus is saying you must be prepared to love me more than your nearest and dearest yes more than anything else. My mind goes back to when I felt the call of God to serve him, in missionary work, I was married and  we had  three children, I loved them dearly. One evening I heard a missionary speaking of were he served God ,deep in the Amazon forest, he said it was called the green hell. That evening I was prepared  to go and serve God there ,if it was his will. My wife and I applied to the mission but were turned down, but we were willing, the challenge comes to all of us, in different  ways, do we love Jesus more?.

Have you troubles? ( Psalm 121 )

 One of Jobs friends said this,'' Yet man that is born  to trouble as surely as sparks fly upwards'', now that's a happy thought, the fact is we will all experience some sort of trouble during our lives. Job  experienced a great deal of trouble. there are  many people who experience a great deal of trouble, troubles  come in all shapes and sizes. Sometimes we bring the troubles on ourselves not meaning to, sometimes we take a chance and we fall into trouble. If you are in trouble at this time, here is a word for you, Psalm 50 v 15,' 'Call upon Me in the in the day  of trouble;  I will deliver you, and you shall glorify Me.' Make Him your first port of call, do what he says, call upon Him. He is God, one who delivered Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, from the blazing furnace, He delivered Daniel  from the lions den, he delivered Jonah from the belly of the great fish, and so we could go with more examples. He has not changed,  he can deliver you, out of your troubles, and when He does, give Him the glory.

                                                         Begone unbelief, my Saviour is near

                                                         And for my relief, will surely appear,

                                                         By prayer let me wrestle, and He will perform,

                                                         With Christ  in the vessel, I smile at the storm .  ( Words by J. Newton)

Not optional . ( Matthew 6 v 14 - 16 )

 Sometimes it is hard to forgive, I know a man and he had a difficult  relationship within his marriage, there were unresolved issues, that caused  difficulties, painful conflicts had often occurred. But they had managed to make up, but on one occasion, things were said, and the husband felt very hurt. Things seem to  carry on as normal, but the husband found it hard to forgive, he never said anything to his wife, but he was angry with her, and was finding it hard to forgive her. Eventually he spoke to God about it  telling Him how he felt, and that he found it hard to forgive her, and God said you must, it wasn't  optional.  He reminded him how much he had forgiven him, time after time , and he reminded him what it had cost to forgive him, and the husband  remembered the cross on which Jesus died for him, and he realised ,yes forgiving his wife was not optional.

Weakness ( Philippians 4 v 13 )

I wish I was stronger ,I feel so weak, I feel if  only, God would remove those hindrances ,those flaws in my character , and then I think of one the greatest Christians who ever lived,  the Apostle Paul. Consider his  achievements, and how God used him, and you say ,God use me, you cry, I want to be  used by God. Listen to what the Apostle Paul would say to you, ''are you weak enough'' ?, and  you stand back and cry out I want to be strong ,and the Apostle says I was once like you, but I had an affliction, everywhere I went  I carried it with me, it was like having a stake driven into me, it was so painful. So I prayed and I prayed, and I prayed, this was not just a word prayer, I was pleading with God to remove that awful affliction ,and you know what God said?,'' No''. but He didn't  stop there ,he went on to say, '' My Grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness, or as one translation puts it,'' My grace is enough for you''. Charles Haddon Spurgeon  preached this to his congregation ,''Dear brothers and sisters, go home and never ask the Lord to make you strong in yourselves, never  ask Him to make you anybody  or anything, but be content to be nothing and a nobody. Next ask that His power may have room in you, and that all those  who come near you may see  what God  can do by nothings and nobodies. Live with this desire , to glorify God''

It is important ( Luke 18 v 1 )

 Our family could not  meet together as we usually do, so we arranged to meet on zoom, and we would have a quiz, this we did. The wonders of  technology ,it was fun, I didn't cheat, and of course my wife  and I, didn't win, in fact we came last. It was nice to see the family, but before we signed of ,I reminded them that I pray for them each day. In James 5 v 16 we have these words,'  Pray for one another', very important that we  pray for one another, the apostle Paul encouraged the saints at Ephesus, to keep  on praying for all the Lords people 6 v 18, and in 1 Timothy 2 v 4, we have the charge to Timothy to pray  ' for all people'.  It was Alfred Lord Tennyson who wrote the following poem.

                                         More things are wrought by prayer,

                                         Than this world dreams of.

                                         Wherefore , let thy voice rise like a fountain for me night and day.

                                         For what are men better than  sheep or goats.

                                         That nourish a blind  life within the brain,

                                          If, knowing God, they lift not hands of prayer,

                                          Both for themselves and those who call them friend?.

                                          For so the whole round earth is everyway,

                                           Bound by gold chains  about the feet of God.