Amazing. (Ephesians 2 v 8)

 There is one song I never get tired of hearing, its a song that touches many people,more than we realise, its 'Amazing Grace',written by John Newton,He wrote it out of his own experience ,he lived a very sinful life,and was bought to his senses by God,in the midst of a storm,when all seemed lost,it appeared a watery grave awaited him,and in desperation he cried unto God,and was delivered,not only from  dying but without Christ and going to a lost eternity. Just before he died,a friend saw that he was struggling to say something,He leaned over to catch it,this is what he said,''My memory is almost gone, but I remember two things'',he whispered,feebly. ''That I am great sinner''. He paused to summon up his last breath, before finishing the sentence, .... And Christ is a great Saviour!'' Every believer can identify with John's experience, because we are all sinners ,and we all have a great Saviour, and we have all experienced the amazing grace of God.

                                               'Amazing grace ! how sweet the sound

                                                That saved a wretch like me!

                                                 I once was lost,but now am found;

                                                 Was blind but now I see.'

                                                             John Newton

He will answer. ( Isaiah 30 v19 )

 In Psalm 65 v 2 we read ' O you who hear prayer',the NIV puts it this way,'You who answers prayer', no problem they compliment each other, CP 1 John 5 v 14-15.Scoggie writes ,'God heads and answers prayer,whether it be the silent supplication,or the vocal  vow'.Take confidence from these words, God does answer prayer,so pray believing,trust Him as regards that problem,that need ,that decision, whatever, Isaiah 65 v 24 ,reads,'Before they call I will answer, while they are still speaking I will hear', Matthew Henry writes,'God will anticipate their prayers with the blessings of His goodness' .He may also delay ,we cannot dictate to God,but rest assured He will answer,in His time.William Cowper wrote the following.

                               'What various hindrances we meet in coming to the mercy seat!

                                Yet who that knows the worth of prayer, but wishes to be often there.

                                 Prayer makes the darkened cloud withdraw; prayer climbs the ladder

                                 Jacob saw;

                                 Gives exercise to faith and love,brings every blessing from above;

                                 Restraining prayer,we cease to fight;prayer makes the Christians 

                                  armour bright;

                                  And Satan trembles when he sees,the weakest saint upon his knees;

Two Extremes. ( Matthew 1 v 21- 22)

When I think of God and humanity I see two extremes,in Psalm  8  David asks this question,'When I consider the heavens  the work of your fingers,the moon and the stars,which you have set in place, what is  mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them .William Macdonald writes the following,'Relatively speaking,the planet earth is a speck of dust in the universe. If this is so,what is a single man perched upon this planet? Yet God is interested in every individual!He has a personal, intimate concern for every human being'.It is amazing to think that,yet it is true,these two extremes exist,on one hand you have the being of God and in the other hand you have  man. In Isaiah 40 v 18 we read,' With whom, then will you compare God?',the fact is there is no being that you compare with God ,no one.God in His fulness is beyond our power to comprehend,humanity in their foolishness make idols and say this my God,poor blind wretched creatures that we are.God's ways are past finding out,His thoughts are beyond our thoughts.No wonder the Psalmist declares ,'What is human kind that you are mindful of Him?,but He is,that's the wonderful thing He is mindful of humanity, and that means you and me,it was Hagar who declared ,'You are the God who sees me'.(Gen 16 v 13).He has not forsake humanity, even though humanity has forsaken Him.(Romans 3 v 11-12).Our dear Lord Jesus who is truly God and truly Man came into this world to seek and save you and me,but there was at a great cost ,that involved Him dying on a cross that our sins might be forgiven,that's a great mystery . In that act on Calvary He was declaring,that He not only sees us,and cares for us,He loves us personally.

Forgive .( Matthew 5 v 43 -48/ 6 v14- 15)

 An awful lot of terrible things can happen in life,to awful to even contemplate,and yet it happens,and yet we are told to forgive.Every day people pray the Lord's prayer,possible not really thinking about what they are saying especially when they come to the words,'Forgive us our sins,for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.'  ( Luke 11 v 4).It is easy for all of us to say those words,but to put them into practice that's another matter,we have examples in the the Bible of people doing terrible things,an example of that is in  the life of Joseph. His brothers hated him to the point that they wanted to kill him,they were serious about it,he was the  favourite son of Jacob,it is very worth while to read the life of Joseph .( Genesis 37 -50)You may know the story. His brothers did him wrong didn't kill they sold him into slavery,that was bad enough but his troubles did not stop there a wicked woman accused him of trying to rape her,she was angry that he had rejected her advances,so he was wrongfully imprisoned,.At no point do we  hear Joseph crying out for vengeance.Instead  when it was in his  power to punish these people he forgave them.Of  course  the greatest example of  forgiveness is shown by Christ whom we  crucified.And yet in the midst of all that awfulness we hear our Saviour saying,'Father forgive them,for they do not know what they were doing'. (Luke 23 v34 ) One person has said the following,' Others may have in their hearts the unforgiving spirit; others may sin in ignorance; but we know better; we are Christ's men and women; and we must forgive as He forgave'.

None righteous . ( Jeremiah 23 v 6/ 33 v16 )

 In the epistle to the Romans chap 3, Paul writes as regards receiving the righteousness of Christ, let me just explain what that  means,in Isaiah 64v 6,we read ,'But we are all as unclean thing,and all our righteous deeds are as filthy rags'.There is nothing we can do to make ourselves righteous in God's sight,no matter what we do in our unsaved state,it will never make us righteous in God's sight, we will always be unclean like the leper of old. Why?, because all have sinned and come short of the glory of God, that includes the Jew and Gentile.v 22, in Gods sight there is no difference.So God does something wonderful when we trust Jesus as our Saviour He imparts Christ righteousness to us. The hymn writer sums it up like this,

                                                    'Jesus ,Thy  blood and righteousness

                                                     My beauty are,my glorious dress;

                                                     Midst flaming worlds,in these arrayed,

                                                     With joy shall I lift up my head.'

Failed ( 1 Corinthians 3 v 10 - 15 )

 I was preaching recently , I had prepared as much as I could,but when I went to preach there was a moment when I lost my way a bit.No one appeared to notice it and they said  how much they appreciated  what I had said,but somehow their nice words did not change how I felt, I had failed and I confess I was discouraged.Of course the biggest critic of ones preaching is oneself,as I have said,I did all I could in preparation and prayed to God to bless my ministry. So often we loose the plot we forget that the bread and fish that fed the thousands,had first to be broken.God can take our brokenness,what we may think is a failure God can bless it.I am sure it will be a surprise to us on that day when what we have done will be evaluated,what will be burnt up and what will remain.It will not be what I think,or what others think,but what God thinks, He will test the quality of what we have done, so I rebuke myself,and leave him to judge the worth of what I have done.. I'm conscious that people may think I am talking about salvation by works,I'm not,works have no part in our salvation  (Ephesians 2 v 8-9),it is the finished work on Christ that saves us.The works are a vital evidence that we are saved,and seemingly those works that we have mentioned,  that stands God's test will receive a reward. ( 1 Corinthians 3 v 14)

Suffering and the will of God.( 2Corinthians 4 v17-18 )2

Let us follow on  from last time and consider 1 Peter 4 v 19 which reads,'So then ,those suffer  according to God's will should commit themselves to their faithful creator and continue to do good'.Consider the first part of this verse,'Suffering according to God's will', one may say,that cant be right, yes it is,God's purpose for Christ was suffering,our Saviour knew that, The hymn writer wrote ,'Every joy or trial, falleth from above',we like the first part as to the joy,but not the last part,the trials,but this is what we are being told can be the will of God for us.If we end up in prison for Christ ,we must see beyond the persecutors,to our sovereign God,and accept that it is part of His will for us.What should we do when we suffer according to God's will,we should do what our Saviour did, He glorified His Father ( John 17 v 1-5), we are to glorify God in everything,yes even in suffering.There is something else we should do,commit ourselves to our faithful creator,and continue to do good.A great example of that is seen in life of Joseph, when he ended up as a slave in Egypt,we read,'The Lord was with Joseph',(Genesis 39 v2) ,and when he was thrown into prison prison,we read,'The Lord was with Joseph',(Gen 39 v21)and he continued to do good. If we in the will of God are suffering,unjustly,we must not think He has left us,no He is a faithful creator,He is with us,and bear in mind that the suffering we may be experiencing are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us ( Romans 8 v18 )

                                                       'Every joy or trial falleth from above

                                                       Traced upon our dial, by the Sun of love

                                                        We may trust Him fully,all for us to do,

                                                        They who trust Him wholly,find Him wholly true'.

                                                                    Words Frances B. Havergal.