The clock is ticking. ( 2 Peter 3 v 8 - 13

David Prior makes this statement,'In Jesus Christ the end has come,the countdown has begun'.Before He left to go heaven ,He said, 'I will come back'. With every tick of the clock we are drawing nearer and nearer to His return,in Habakkuk 2 v 3 we read,'Though it linger, wait for it,it will certainly come and will not delay'.As we look at the world we see a deterioration,things progressively getting worse,I am not a prophet of doom and gloom, but things are not getting any better in this world.The scientist who have brought much improvement to this world have also given us much that can destroy it. There will always be those people who want to rule the world even if that means destroying it,we live on a knife edge situation. We have not much control over many things,we cannot control nature,nor can we control,the fallen nature of mankind,and its bent for self destruction. Everything we see now is not permanent ,they are but a shadow.The things that are not seen are eternal 2 Corinthians 4 v 18, yes everything you see now is temporal.The clock is ticking,the question is this, will you be ready? have you trusted Christ as your Saviour?

Hope ( 1 Timothy 1 v 1 )

 Hope is a wonderful thing, it is one the triplets mentioned in 1Cor 13v13, Leon Morris wrote,'Men cannot live without hope. In the first centuries Christianity made a habit of taking people from the depressed classes, slaves,women,outcasts,and giving them a living hope'. In the society we live in there are so many people who have so much of this worlds goods,and that is their only hope. I like what Leon Morris says.and I believe we should aim our evangelism at the, hopeless of our society .We are not here to give people health,wealth and prosperity ,we are here to give people hope not only for time but for eternity  ,that hope comes through faith in Jesus Christ.Behind the facade of prosperity that people long after, there is sadness, loneliness, pain, lostness, hopelessness.Recently I spoke to someone who is part of a pastorally team in a university,and he mentioned how so many young people are in crisis,mentally ill, and suicidal. We live in a broken world,filled with broken people,who have no hope,and don't know where to turn to,whatever hopes they have had, has crumbled into dust. Many years ago as a young man with nothing really to look forward to,I trusted Jesus and found hope.

Hope. ( Romans 4 v 18 - 21)

I heard someone say recently,'how he had learned not to give up on hope', I am sure many people have lost hope,as I look back on my life,there will be things I hoped for,that have not come to past.On hindsight,it was for the best,at the time it didn't seem so, if one is a Christian we realise that God knows best.I pray for many people to be saved day after day,faithfully,and yet it appears that none have been saved, should I give up?,no,not a hope ,God says he will have mercy on whom He will have mercy (Romans 9 v 15).We must remember as Leon Morris puts it,' Paul is saying that God's freedom is absolute.It is important to be clear that before God we have no rights. That is why mercy is so important for sinners'.None of us deserve to be saved, do remember that,so I keep praying in the hope  that there will be those who will be saved by God's mercy. Abraham is a great example of a man who believed that God would give him and Sarah  a child ,a special child,It was a promise given by God, and Abraham and Sarah believed it,and their faith was tested,but God was faithful to His word,for He cannot lie,and so Abraham was 100yrs of age, and Sarah was 90,and they had a child.

                                                          ' Hope on child of God'

Wrong doings or should I say. ( 1 John 5 v 17)

 It is the Roman Catholic church that have two classifications of sin,'mortal and venial',they see them as having different consequences. Most people don't talk about sin,even many preachers don't, and yet the bible speaks about sin often.Because most people are not Christians,they don't use the word sin,to them sin basically wrong doings, and are seen and judged on a human level .There main concern is the wrongs committed on humans by their fellow humans. Judgement only follows when people sin on human terms ,years ago when the death penalty was being passed,the judge would say,' and may the Lord have mercy on your soul'.and the good news is, He will ,if we call upon Him,and accept Christ as our Saviour. It is David Prior who has some instructive things to say about sin. He writes,'all sin is the same before God  we may speak of people being more wicked,or more righteous than others,but with God there is no distinction since all have sinned and come short of  the glory of God ( Romans 3 v23).  All sin is heinous to God , and all sin will be judged eternally,by a holy God ,which will mean, eternity in hell.

                                              'The good news is ,Christ Jesus came into

                                               the world to save sinners.'

Change ( Numbers 6 v 24-26

We live in a changing world,we need to adopt to change, some find it harder than others ,a man called Reinhold Niebuhr wrote a prayer on facing up to things that cannot be changed ,it goes like this.

                                                    'O God give us serenity to accept the things

                                                    what cannot be changed, courage to change

                                                     what should be changed,and wisdom to

                                                     distinguish the one from the other'

That is a very wonderful prayer,brings a challenge to all us,it brings two aspects as how we face change,the first one deals with what cannot be changed. Just before I started writing this daily reading,I received an email, as regards a young child who was very ill,it did not appear that she was going to live, alas I was informed she had died .There are so many things we cannot change, and will not change,sometimes we find that hard to accept that.So the prayer requests serenity ,to have a peace when  the difficult things that don't change,our Saviour said ,'ask and it shall be given you.'.

                                                

                                                                    John 14 v 27.

                                            

                                           ' Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you'

Half for-given. (

A man called Pusey wrote,'God does not half-forgive,so man must not half  repent',I am very pleased that God does not half -forgive ,and very relieved.To teach in anyway that God only half forgives sins,would mean leaving us under a cloud of guilt, and fear that I am not saved,having no assurance of eternal life. The thought that we are only half forgiven,  would undermine Christs atoning death,and would go against the clear teaching of scripture. It is in Hebrews, chap's 8- 10 in which it deals with the ineffectiveness of the animal sacrifices,and the effectiveness of Christs sacrifice. 8 v12 reads God declaring,' For I will  forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more'.Raymond Brown writes,' God remembers His mercy and forgets our sins.It is the devil who tries to remind us of both former sins and our present weakness'.It is the apostle John who writes in  Chap 1v9 of his  first epistle that,'the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sins'. It was Horatio G. Spafford who wrote the hymn ,'When peace like a river', the third verse reads.

                                            'My sin,O the bliss of this glorious thought !

                                             My sin,not in part but the whole,

                                             Is nailed to His cross and I bear them no more;

                                             Praise the Lord,praise the Lord,O my soul'

Bad places,bad people.( 1 Timothy 1 v 15 - 16 )

I read of Christians in Iran who have been sentenced to 10yrs in prison ,it is awful,yet it is,why ?well our Saviour made it clear it would happen,it goes with the territory (John 15 v 18 -25).We don't mention our fellow brothers and sisters suffering lightly, today its them ,tomorrow it may be us.One dear couple have been sentenced to serve time in a prison in one of Iran's worse prisons known for it severity on the inmates. I wander if God will use them to be witness'es in that dark evil place,it was CT .Studd   who used to say,''Some want to live within the sound, of church bells ; I want  to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell''.Gladys Aylward was a British born evangelical who was a missionary in China,during her time there she went into a prison where a riot was taking place,she stopped the riot,and God used her to bring a change in that prison. It could be that God may take us to the worst of places, and the worst of people,to be witnesses ,to be light in those dark places .

                                            Then I heard the Lord saying,''Whom shall I send?

                                             And who will go for us?' And I said,'Here am I.

                                              Send me!'

                                                                       Isaiah 6 v 8