There is a war going on. ( Ephesians 6 v 10 - 17 )

Yes there is a war going on,well that's nothing new,but it is not a war using military might,it is not even against flesh and blood.It is a spiritual warfare between, well it is what the scripture has to say.I will use Moffatt translation,'For we have to struggle,not with flesh and blood but with the angelic Rulers,the angelic Authorities, the potentates of the dark present, the spirit- forces of evil in the heavenly sphere. '    There is in this world an invisible enemy, who rarely shows his face.Rutherford  writes,'The Father of lies(Satan) works his deadliest havoc by,'' shamming dead'' and writing his own obituary in  unctuous terms'.In other words he wants people to believe he doesn't exist.But as Christians we must take him very seriously, we are not to become paranoid,but we must not ignore the fact that he exists.He is a mighty foe,and we have to contend with him ,it is E.K.Simpson who writes the following,'The Christian soldier must not dream of entering on this spiritual warfare at his own charges or with his own equipment. Let him cry  with David, ''It is God that girdeth me with strength; He teaches my hands to war''.The apostle Paul writes ,'Be strong in the Lord, and in the strength of His might'. (Ephesians 6 v10)

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Come and see. ( John 9 v 25 )

 In John 1  we read how Philip went to his friend Nathanael  he told him about Jesus ,he said to him,'We have found the one Moses wrote about in the law,and about whom the prophets also wrote, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph'. Nathanael replied ,'Nazareth! can anything good come from there?' Come and see', said Philip. Nazareth  had a bad reputation,we all know of such places,we would not to live in such places. In spite of Nathanael's reluctance he went to see,and Jesus first words were.'Now here is a genuine son of Israel, a man of integrity'. He had never met Jesus,yet Jesus knew him,just like the woman at the well John 4,Jesus  told Him he knew Him before he ever met him 1 v48, What Jesus said convinced Nathanael. from that moment on, everything changed for Nathanael, like a blind man who had walked in the darkness ,now he could see,yes all things were changed.

                                                           'Come and see'

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'.