Courage. [ Joshua 1 v9 ]

One of my favourite movies is the Wizard of Oz, I love Mr Tinman, Mr Strawman, and the lion, especially the lion.Now these three all wanted something ,Mr Tinman wanted a heart,Mr Strawman wanted a brain, and the lion the king of the beasts wanted courage. Let me tell you what we need for 2012 is courage, make no mistake about it,we need courage. Often ,to often,preachers ,tell us of a quick fix, of healing,of prosperity, but what we find is life , has its ups, but most certainly its downs. To give up may appear the only way, to turn back may seem the only way, but it is not the Christian way,we must have courage, thats the Christians way,courage to face whatever difficulties the Lord may permit us to go through. How can we get this courage?a good question, the answer is two fold, by fixing our eyes on the Lord,and by faith, hold fast to His word, of course there is a third thing, the grace of God.Take the word of the Lord to Joshua with you into the new year, and have courage,/Have not I commanded thee, be strong and of good courage,be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee whithersoever thou goest. [ 1 v 9 ].
A prayer...../Dear Lord for Your past help we thank You, but as we start a new year with all that it may hold grant us the grace of courage in Jesus name we ask this Amen ./
[No blog tomorrow back Tuesday]

Good out of our sin. [ Psalm 51 ]

Let us continue to consider what Augustine wrote,/that those who love God,everything works unto good,even sin/,the question is how, why, and what?. How ,well because God is sovereign ,that means He can do it,yet without compromising His holiness.Why?, because He loves His children even when they sin,I dont stop loving my children when they do wrong,the Bible continually teaches us of a God ,who loves, and loves, and loves,even when we sin, and sin, and sin.Next ,what?, yes what will we learn through the pain of sin,we will learn to hate our sin , as the hymn writer wrote,I hate the sin that drove You from my breast.There is nothing more painful for those who love God , than their relationship affected by sin.The most important thing for any true believer is that loving relationship that they have with God.When we sin and repent, we will be more understanding towards those who sin, we will not cast the first stone. Peter deneyed his Lord yes three times, but after that experience ,he never deneyed Him again,the pain it caused him,left its mark, sin will always leave its mark. The restored Saint, will be more able to tell others the way back to God,David pleaded with God to restore unto him the joy of salvation ,and then he declares,Then will I teach trancgressors Thy ways, and sinners shall be converted unto thee.[ Psalm 51 v 12-13 ]. We learn that our relationship is based on love and grace ,not on anything in us, and that we can always come to the throne of Grace, and receive mercy and grace to help in our time of need [ Hebrews 4 v16 ]. I read an article on a local policeman, and they describe the policeman as a proud Christian, there are a lot of us proud Christians about. God is seeking to remove the sin of pride from our lives, David, and Peter were surely more humble after they sinned.
A prayer...../Dear God forgive us our sins,and we pray that in Your great mercy you will even work for my good,that my I may be a better person through Your grace,in Jesus name. Amen

Temptation. [ 1 Corinthians 10 v13 ]

I wonder do you have a life verse? I do, it is Romans 8 v28 [AV ]which reads, /And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God,to them who are the called according to His purpose/. I am reminded of these words continually as many years ago I had them framed ,and hung on my living room wall, of whatever home I lived in.These words are a constant reminder to me that God is in control of His childrens lives, and that no matter what difficulty they experience, God will cause it to work for there good. Today I thought on something Augustine wrote,/ That for those who love God everything works unto good, even sin/. How can that be? ,sin, surely not, let us consider how this might be so.James 1 v 13-14 reads,Let no man say when he is tempted, I am tempted of God,for God cannot be tempted with evil, neither tempteth He any man. But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away of his own lust, and enticed./God does not play around with sin, no, mankind does,now it is not a sin to be tempted,it is what we do with the temptation that matters,we are all tempted everyday , now I know there is moment in every temptation,when I have choice, to run with it or to resist it. God has given all of us a conscience, if we are a Christian, we also have the Spirit of God, and the word of God. These three factors are more than sufficent to help us resist temptation, if we let lust or covetousness take over, then we will yield to the temptation,and sin . We will continue to look at what are the implications for us as believers in the light of what Augustine wrote.
A prayer...../Dear God we ask for grace to help us overcome temptation in Jesus name Amen /

The Christ way. [ 1 Peter 2 v23]

I have just seen, on the news a conflict, was it between ,Jews and Aribs,unionist and nationalist,north and south Korea,America and Russia?. No it took place in Bethlehem in a church building on the possible site of Christs birth, between Catholic,Orthodoxand Armenian clerics. They fought each other with broom sticks, this happened last year,it appears to becoming a regular event, my goodness what are they thinking of?. I must confess I felt very embarrassed as I viewed this on TV,I thought of the shame these events are bringing on Christianity. In 1 Corinthians 6, the Christians are challenged by Paul about certain actions they were taking, they were reminded of the folly of their actions, and then he rebukes them. /I speak to your shame/,is it not a shame what these clerics are doing? and then he asks,/ is there not a wise man,that can help them sort it out among themselves?. Next follows the challenge,/Why do ye not rather take wrong?why do ye not rather suffer yourselves to be defrauded?/ What we are being told may not sound fair, but is the Christ way, who when He was reviled, reviled not again, when He suffered, He threatened not, but committed Himself to Him that judgeth righteously. [1 Peter 2 v23 ]
A prayer......Dear God help us all to always act in ways that glorify Your name,we ask this for Jesus sake. Amen.

Faithfulness. [ Luke 16 v10 ]

We continue to consider Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit, and also great effectiveness in witnessing, which brought him into conflict,with those who disagreed with what he was teaching.Often there is a price to pay when we preach the gospel,as we will see in Stephens case, Stephen is arrested and brought before the religious authorities. So we have this godly man,what would he do water down his message, would he be like Peter, and deny his Lord?, no, he faithfully proclaimed Gods truth.Brennan Manning writes in his book,the Ragamuffin Gospel,/What makes authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies, biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness/.
The church in Smyrna were told, be thou faithful unto death [Revelation 2 v10 ],unfaithfulness stalks our land, but those of us who are followers of the Lord Jesus,are called to be faithful,in our relationshiips, in holiness,in witnessing,in all things.A prayer..... /Dear God help us to be faithful in all things, in Jesus name Amen /

We continue to look at Stephen,this powerful but humble man, up to this point one could say that


his ministry was successful, but then he is arrested. He is brought before the religious leaders charged with speaking blasphemous words,this was a very serious charge, we see it in Islamiic countries. Well as Stephen stands in front of the jewish council,his facile appearanced is changed, to look like the face of an angel. Unlike the Israelites of old who were affected by Moses appearance [ Exodus34 v29 - 30 ],these hardened Jewish leaders were unaffected by what they saw. They question him, and this man of God , faithfully proclaimed Gods truth ,he was not intimidated, but stood and spoke Gods truth . It is Brennan Manning who wrote,/ What make authentic disciples is not visions, ecstasies,biblical mastery of chapter and verse, or spectacular success in the ministry, but a capacity for faithfulness./Stephen was a faithful witness yes even unto death.

By His Spirit . [Zechariah 4 v6 ]

Let us continue to look at Stephen ,this man who was full of faith, and the Holy Ghost,a man who was a servant, this man had a powerful ministry. For we read he did great wonders and miracles [Acts 6 v8 ], I would love to pray for people and see them being healed,but it does not happen, but in Gods sovereign purposes it can happen,the only thing I would be concerned with, could I cope with it ?.People can come to faith in Christ through witnessing the miraculos, and indeed some did believe as a result of seeing the miraculous[John 11v45 ] yet inspite of all the miracles Jesus performed He was rejected ,and murdered, we should not deney the miraculous ,but realise that sometimes the miraculous can be misunderstood and even hated. The fact of the matter is when it comes to miraculous ,very few people see these things happen, Jesus did perform miracles,but often he did not want these things made known .It is the Holy Spirits choice to grant unto any of us miraculous power [ 1 Corinthians 12 v 11],Stephen was not only used in the miraculous, but also was granted great wisdom and power in contending for truth.I read this morning in the book of Zezhariah 4 v6,/ Not by might , nor by power, but by my Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts.
A prayer.../Dear God we leave our lives,our ministries in Your hands,and pray that Your Spirit may have full control,in Jesus name we ask this. Amen/

Boxing day [Acts 6/7 ]

The day after Christmas is known as Boxing day in this country and some other countries,so why is it called Boxing day,one of the reasons is connected to tradesmen collecting boxes with gifts in them from satisfied customers, it has nothing to do with the gentle art of boxing.But it is also known as Saint Stephens day, Stephen was the first Christian martyr, we read about him in the book of Acts 6-7. he was one of seven people who were chosen to be responsible for overseeing the practical help given to widows.Many see the seven as the first deacons,the term deacon is given to one who serves, as an office in the church its qualifications were very demanding [ cp 1 Timothy 3 v8 - 13 ].This office and that of elders gave a necessary structure to the leadership of the local church. Now what kind of man was Stephen?, Acts 6 v 5/8 tells us he was a man full of faith ,and of the Holy Ghost and of power. So here we have a mighty man of God, but a humble man, who was willing to be a servant, I believe the greatness of a Christian is shown in servanthood. In serving others we are following in the steps of our Saviour [ John 13 v 4 -17 ] and His defination of true greatness [Luke 22 v26 ]
A prayer.... Dear Saviour help us to be Your servants,to follow in Your footstep, Amen .