Our only hope. ( Colossians 3 v 1 - 4 )

 I enjoy watching my country playing rugby,recently they beat the great  New Zealand team twice,which is no mean feat. It is one sport that all Ireland is represented ,North and South,can Ireland ever be united as a nation?,I don't know,in the North we have two divided communities ,a great deal of  animosity still exists, so many countries are divided, politicly, racially,then you have the needy and the greedy,the haves and the have nots. That's not counting the wars and the conflicts in marriage  and many other divisions,is there no hope?, will things never change?,no, in fact it will get worse,until one day,hopefully soon  Christ will return,and usher in a new heaven and a new earth, those who have not come to Christ will not be part of it.I say this with great sadness ,for they will be eternally lost existing in that place of eternal punishment,it is very painful to write this,but out of love I must.God desires that all will be saved and come to a knowledge of the truth in Jesus Christ.

                                                     'Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ

                                                      and you shall be saved.

                                                              Acts 16 v 31.

That other one ( 1 John 3 v 8 )

 In Ephesians 2 v 1-3,the apostle highlights  the Christians in Ephesus state before they came  to Christ, they used to live in sin ,refusing to obey God, they followed their  passionate desires and inclinations of their sinful nature. But that is not all ,for he mentions that they obeyed the devil, oh yes there is a devil,it is like sin he never gets a mention even by Christians. He is the commander of the powers of the unseen world,again I would like to quote E.K.Simpson,'We are all under spiritual influence of some sort',he is called the god of this world (2 Cor 4 v4)in essence there is only one God cp Isaiah 46 v9,those other so called god's are what people have made them.Satan has sought to be God,remember the last so called temptation that Jesus experienced was , if he would give Satan worship, he would be rewarded,our Saviour rejected that.Again E.K.Simpson writes,''The Lord of misrule has his myrmidons at work in every continent, imbued with his own passion  of lawlessness.And what other verdict can we pass on the fiendish atrocities perpetrated by Adolf Hitler  and his accomplices in the last war? Were they not hatched in hell in order that these instruments of darkness( to borrow Shakespeare's phrase) might glut their rabid bloodthirstiness  with infamous carnivals of slaughter and torture'.

Sin is costly ( Romans 6 v 23 ) (1 )

 Writing to the church at Ephesus the apostle reminds them of their former state (2 v 1 -3 ),what he wrote to this church applies to everyone who has  trusted Jesus as their Saviour. He does not write these things to humiliate them,but to remind them how much they are indebted to God for showing them mercy, love and grace.He commences by saying,'Once you were dead,because of your disobedience and your many sins'.It is a very sombre statement,and as we go on reading it does not get any better.Every human being is born dead,spiritually dead,it came about when Adam and Eve  sinned ,death passed upon them (Genesis 2 v 17) That means we were cut of from the living God, spiritually dead.Let us consider what follows,'You used to live in sin, just like the rest of the world,obeying the devil- the commander of the powers in the unseen world.'There are two things here mentioned, sin and Satan. Writing on sin E.K.Simpson describes sin in the following way,'' Sin is an organic  epidemical malady, a slow  devitalizing poison issuing in moral necrosis; not a stage of arrested or incomplete development , but a seed -plot of impending ruin'.It effects all humanity,as Simpson puts it ,'Their souls have no windows'. Blind spiritually they stumble on,until they stumble into hell itself. There is plenty of evidence as to the awful consequence of sin  in life and in eternity,and there is only one answer,it is God's answer, Jesus, who came to save sinners ,like you and me.

Fighting. ( Hebrews 12 v 1 - 2 )

 Every though I am not that tall,when I was  young I always seemed to be getting into scraps when I was young, of course as a youngster you had to hold your own.It was part of my back ground,  part of my culture,of course the word of God tells us that violence is part of our fallen human nature ( Romans 3 v15). I still have an aggressive streak in me,I am not good at debating with the cults, I get a bit frustrated annoyed with them.I suppose I will have to leave that task for others more capable than I to deal with them. I am inclined to go over things in my mind arguing with different people,and really it so unprofitable disturbs ones peace of mind ,so just recently I have been praying against this,I need to change, need to leave everything in God's hands.Now that's my confession , what about you?,none of us are perfect,do you recognize that you need to change,and like me begin to pray for change in your life.When you asked Christ to be your Saviour, He forgave you ,and you were enabled by the power of God to break away from so much that was controlling your life,but if we are honest and we need to be honest,to ourselves and to God that there is still much that needs to change in our lives,and we need to  pray for His power to deliver us,remember,' He is able ,through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we ask or think.'( Ephesians 3 v20 )

Thank you. (Luke 16 v 5 )

'Thank you', is a common expression it is often on my lips,when people open a door  for you,we do it with our hand when we are driving,someone lets us out at road junction.We say it by sending someone a thank you card for a kindness shown.On refection ,one wishes one had said more thank you's ,to the parents that brought us up. Sometimes our thank you's are just from our lips,not our hearts,I often thank God for his many mercies to me.Yet even though that's true the half has not been revealed to us ,of all God's goodness ,even during our life time.What dangers he has saved us from, the hidden hand of God is always at work for us, He has shut doors , holding us back,saving us from making the wrong decisions,and all that, would have entailed.It was Robert M.M'Cheyne, who wrote the following words.

                                             'When this passing world is done,

                                             When has sunk the radiant sun,

                                             When I stand with Christ on high,

                                             Looking o'er life's history,

                                            Then ,Lord, on earth to know,

                                             Not to then how much I know'

                                                     

                                                      'Thank you Lord'.

                                                                            

All things. ( Psalm 14 v1 )

 Just recently images have come back from  space from the James Webb space telescope,when those in NASA saw them they were astounded, and rightly so.   One has said, that this means we will be able to unlock key mysteries of the universe,it used to be said that no astronomer could be an atheist,how times have changed,instead of God being given the glory,science has become the authority,instead of thus saith the Lord,it is thus says science.They have taken over as mankind's hope,they have the answer,or so it seems,they speak of unlocking key mysteries,and yet they refuse to accept the greatest mystery of all,God.Consider the following words ,'The heavens declare the glory of God , the skies proclaim the work of His hands', ( Psalm 19 v1 )There is a saying that goes',there are none so blind who will not see'. seemingly that saying is taken from the bible,Jeremiah 5 v12 reads,'Hear now this,oh foolish people and without understanding which have eyes, and see not; and have ears and hear not'. These words describe, the many who do not see what the heavens are telling them, that God made the heavens and the earth.

                                                        'All things bright and beautiful,

                                                         All creatures great and small,

                                                         All things wise and wonderful,

                                                         The Lord God made them all.'

                                                             '  Words C.F.Alexander'.

Christ is enough. ( Hebrews 7 v 25 )

 If I have Christ as my Saviour ,do I need anything else?,the answer is no,and yet there are those who  say in one way or another there is more,Many of the problems in the early church was caused by people who said to the Christians that they needed more than  Christ,they were wrong. The church in Colosse were being told this, Bishop Stephen Neil writes,'The false teachers came in with the claim that they would complete and perfect the simple and elementary faith the Colossians had been introduced by Paul and his friends.This is what false teachers always do.What you have is quite all right, and a good foundation for faith. Now let us just finish it off for you, and you really will be Christians.In our tragically divided state today,exactly the same thing can happen .though being rather politer than the apostle Paul we shall talk of other communions rather than of false teachers. In many areas where Protestant missions have been at work, Roman Catholic missionaries have later come in, and set themselves to 'complete' the imperfect Christianity of the Protestant converts. Where older Churches have been at work Christians of the Pentecostal  groups have come in, and assured the converts that, unless they speak with tongues, they can no assurance that they have received the Holy Spirit. Anglicans have been known  to convey the blessings of episcopacy to those who thought  that the were getting on very nicely without them. All this is very sad, but it may help us to realize that we are not so very far from the  New Testament and its problems.'

                                                  'I have Christ what need I more'