Who I am ( Matthew 6 v 9/14)

 Rory Mcllroy who recently won the Masters golf tournament said ,'Golf is what I do,it's not who I am',it is the apostle John who declared in utter amazement,' See how very much our Father loves us,for he calls us his children'(1 John 3 v1). One may be a golfer, a dad,a husband,a carpenter,and so on,and we may even be considered a nobody, but when we become a Christian the most wonderful thing in the whole wide world happens,we are Children of living God.

                                                              'Father, I call You Father,

                                                               For I am your child today,                   

                                                               Tomorrow and always,

                                                                You  are my Father.'

                                                            'Words by Danny Daniels.'

    

                                                                  

A chosen people ( Ephesians 2 v 1-13)

 Let us continue to look at 1Peter 2 v 9-10,we finished looking at the church as a holy nation,now let us consider,that not only are they a holy nation,they are ,'God's special possession'.what does that mean? it means we belong to Him,He has become our Father, and everyone is special,yes we are,how special? just look to Calvary  and see the middle cross,there hangs ,the Son of man,the Son of God,Jesus, dying as the prophets told,redeeming a people unto Himself,amazing beyond words.It continues,'That you may declare the praises of Him  who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light'.Yes we were in darkness ,not now we have been brought into the kingdom of light,by the mercy of God,surely He is worthy of  praise.It was Charles Wesley who spoke to a congregation telling them ,'not to sing as if they were half dead',our God deserve more than that.' Verse ten reminds us Gentiles of our former state and our present state,'We were not a people, but now you  are the  people of God,Once you had not received mercy, but now  you have received mercy'.these words were taken from  Hosea 2 v23They reminds us of our state as Gentiles we  were not children of God, we had not special relationship  that Old covenant Isreal had.Now that has changed through faith in Jesus.As John puts it,'See what great love the father has lavished upon us that we should be called children of God'  (1 John 3 v 1.) In our unsaved state we lived and died in our sins  and went to a lost eternity.But praise God all this has changed through our Lord Jesus, God opened a way and its simply this ,come to Christ and you will receive mercy, you will no longer shut out ,but by the mercy and Grace of God,your sins can be forgiven.

                                                  'Saving  mercy is only given                       

                                                            through Christ'

We are ( 1 Peter 2 v 9-10)1

 1 Peter 2 v9 - 10 reads ,'But you are a chosen people,a royal priesthood,a holy nation,God's special possession, that you may declare the praises of Him who called you out of darkness into His wonderful light. Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God;once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.' Peter tells us firstly that  we are a chosen people,we were not an after thought ,for we  read in Ephesians 1v 4 ,'For  He chose us in Him before the creation of the world'. Our dear Saviour said to his disciples ,'You did not choose me ,but I chose you' (John15 v16) It speaks of the divine initiative, after all God is sovereign.Then we are told that we are a ,'a royal priesthood'.a friend told me how a Roman Catholic priest started to study the scriptures,and he declared we are all priests.Every child of God is a priest who offers up sacrifices of praise (Hebrews 13 v15).Next we read ,'a holy people'one writer says this means, 'That we are a specifie group of people called out and set apart from all other nations',the unsaved know nothing about holiness, but for the Christian holiness is vital,we should all be striving to be holy.We should not follow the sinful practices of the world,we must take this very serious for we told without holiness no man will see the Lord. Hebrews 12 v 14.   

                                 'Robert Murry McCheyne prayed ,'Lord make me as 

                                  holy as a pardoned sinner can be made'

I couldn't commit such things ( Jeremiah 17 v 9)

 I was watching a program on TV,it wasn't a very nice program,in fact many people may not have wanted to watch it,the  2nd world war was in sight,as the allies advanced over Germany they came across murder camps. Two British soldiers had been given the task to film the allies advancing,and so they filmed what they witnessed when they went into one of these murder camps,the name of it was Belsen it was called a prison camp,not an extermination camp.But I can assure you it was more than a prison camp,there were many people stiil alive but there were mulitudes of dead bodies everywhere they numbered  many thousands.When you see things like that you are horrified and saddened beyond words.How could human beings committ  such things?,one of the men who filmed it ,asked the question, why did Germany do such things?.but he went on to say this,'Germany ,it could happen to any  nation given similar circunstances'.Yes it could,and indeed has, the history of the 20th ceturay bears that out.We all have a sinful fallen nature,and if it takes hold of us,we are capable of doing monstrous awful things. That is why Christ had to die,to save us from ourselves and all its consequences,that does not just mean those mass murderers,it means everybody,because we are all sinners,yes and that means you and me.

Trials. ( James 5 v 10 - 11)

 Peter writing on the trials that some Christians were going through 1Peter 1,that while they can rejoice in their salvation now,and which shall be revealed in last in all its fulness.Then he goes unto say,'though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials.Two things there which he says about the trials,their duration,'a little while,'no matter how long the trials which we are suffering in light of eternity,they are brief. Romans 8 v 18 tells us that'our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us,'One commentator writes,'that our currant suffering is insignficent compared to the future glory and joy the believer will experience in eternity'.Peter is not making light of the trials we are going through,by no means,but he is seeking to point us to the bigger picture.  The next thing we consider as to the believers suffering, it proves if our faith is genuine,there used to be a saying in the early days of evangelisim in China as regards those those who professed to be Christians that they were called rice Christians,their apparent  decision for being a Christian, was that they were fed. Our Lord  said that about those who had been fed in John 6 when Jesus performed a miracle (John 6 v 26) If your following Jesus for material prosperity then your faith is not genuine.The next thing he mentions as regards trials,our faith is refined,he uses the example of gold refined by fire. Edmund Clowney writes the following,God sends trials to strengthen our faith in Him.and to keep us trusting;they burn away our self confidence and drive us to our Saviour'.There is much more we could say as regards God's purpose for our suffering,just remember that He has a loving purpose in all that comes into our lives.

My times are in His hands. ( Revelation 1 v 18)

A lovely Christian lady in the church I attend recently celebrated her 90th birthday, she told me that when she was 50 she had to go into hospital ,as regards a heart problem,There came a point when they discharged her  from the hospital ,the consultant told her ,they had done all they could for her,at most she may live till she was 70.I dont think we should ignor what the consultants say and not accept the reality for often what they say happens. But ultimately our times in God's hands ,that's what's important, the apostle Paul went through a tremendous lot of suffering in 2 Corithians 11 he relates what he went through.He received 40 lashes minus one,beaten three times with rods,pelted with stones,three times ship wrecked,spent a a day and a night in the open sea. He mentioned dangers form rivers.bandits,his fellow Jews and so we could go on. But the time came when he would die a martyrs death at the hand of the Romans.God granted him a consicousness that death was coming ( 2 Timothy 4 v6-8) Let us always remember God is sovereign and as John Ryland wrote,

                                                           

                                                    'Plagues and deaths around me fly;

                                                     Till He bids,I cannot die;

                                                     Not a single shaft can hit,

                                                     Till the God of love sees fit'

                                                    

9(

Giving up. ( 8 v 18)

 Thomas Edison said ,'Our greatet weakness lies in giving up',he was a man who invented the telephone, and many other things.The Christian life is a challenge,and one of the biggest challenges is not to give up, our dear Lord said these very challenging words in Matthew 10 v 21-22,'Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death.You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved'. And in 1 Timothy 4 v1 ,we read,'The Spirit  says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons'.I know personally many people who have given up following Jesus.there are many reasons why people give up. But in the end they loose out on the eternal glories,I am not here to judge anyone',let him who thinketh he standeth take heed lest he fall'(1 Corinthians 10 v12) .What I am writing is a word for me and for those read who this.I get so annoyed with those who preach a so called prosperity gospel,what can they tell those who are suffering for Christ ,they often loose everything,not just material possessions,but loved ones.In the normal course of events so many bad and sad things can happen to believers,and of course we have the devil who will do all he can, to cause us desert Christ. We must always remember that our dear Saviour knew all that he was going to suffer ,yet He marched braverly on, into his awful ordeal,and focused on the glory that lay beyond.( Hebrews 12 v 2-3)