To believe or not to believe.( Philippians 2 v 5 - 11)

 I just listened to a program about Arianism ,which many believed,it is named after  Arius who advocated a belief that opposed the doctrine of the Trinity. This was a belief that Christ was less than God, lets face it many people find this doctrine strange,and even not rationale .There are many things that people reject  as regards belief,that does not make the thing rejected ,wrong. Now consider who the early followers were ,they were Jews,who in no way would have tolerated anything,or anyone who undermined their scriptures, meaning what we call the Old Testament. In the OT  we have some pointers to the deity of Christ, Genesis 1 v26, Isaiah 9 v 6-7, Psalm 45 v6 -7/ 110 v1 ( CP Mt,22 v 41 -45) .So we go into the NT which I believe shows clearly that Christ was truly God, and truly man. The early disciples who followed Jesus,must have  asked who was this Jesus,?yes the Messiah, but was that all, but when He stilled the storm (Mark 4 v 35 - 45),they were terrified and did ask each other,'Who is this? Even the wind and waves obey Him.'I wonder is that what you are saying?,again they were men of the word of God, they would have died for the truth.It is John the beloved disciple who emphasises the deity of Christ, John 20 v 31. The very first verse in his gospel tells us,'In the beginning was the word , and the word was with God, and the word was God', v14 reads,'The word became flesh and made His dwelling among us'.There are many other passages in the NT that clearly declare Jesus to be God the Son.The program I listened to did not really deal with the Christ of the bible, and I feel in doing this,they were   following in the footsteps of Arius.

Such love. ( 1 John 4 v 19 )

 Let us consider the wonderful historical event about our Saviours coming into this world,and  let us remember that He existed as God before He was born.  John 1 v1. In 2 Corinthians 8 v 9,'For  you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you through his poverty might become rich'. It is E.K.Simpson who writes,' Jesus takes on utter poverty that we might become unutterably rich. Here then is One who for our sakes gave up more than any other being  ever possessed, nay yielded Himself up body and soul to inexpressible pangs as our Hostage.'. The question is ,what motivated Him to do such a thing?,love,the hymn writer ,declared,'Love came down at Christmas',another wrote that it was not the nails that kept Him on the cross, no it was His love. E.K.Simpson declares,'Love is best gauged by  sacrifice'.If we want to see love in its totality,look at that person hanging on that cross,as E.K.Simpson puts it,''the offended died to set the offenders free'' But not only set us free,but as John the apostle wrote,'Behold what manner of love the Father has bestowed upon us that we should be called ,children of God'.( 1 John 3 v1 )

                                                    'Such love springs from eternity;

                                                     such love, streaming through history;

                                                     such love, fountain of life to me;

                                                      O Jesus,such love'

                                                              Words Graham Kendrick.

Hope ( 2 Peter 3 v 10 - 13 )

 Sometimes its hard to be an optimist .everything is rises in price,war in Ukraine,Putin the great,people being  murdered, in so many places in the world,the reluctance of the American government  to bring effective gun laws in. Yes I could on ,but I won't, the fact is we live in a broken world, we are a Humpty Dumpty world, fallen, broken .Is this world going to get better?, I'm afraid not, in  Matthew  24 v 4 we have what Jesus said,'Don't let anyone  mislead you, for many will come in my name, claiming ,'I am the Messiah'. They will deceive many . And you will hear of wars and threats of wars, but don't panic. read the rest of what our Lord had to say in that chapter, it is awesome,but Jesus tells us not to panic,he stresses the importance of not giving up v13, And here is the task that church has in the midst of all this,' The gospel of the kingdom will be preached in all the world as a witness to all the nations,and then comes the end' What people need to hear is the good news of the gospel, that Jesus saves, he is the only hope for mankind,So let us set our minds on things that are above, not on things on the earth,...........for when Christ who is our life appears, we also will appear with Him in Glory ( Colossians 3 v 2 )

                                                         'Christ is our only hope'

Wine and Vinegar.( Ecclesiastes 7 v 8 )

It is John Piper who wrote a book called ' A Sweet and Bitter Providence', it is a based upon the book of Ruth. There are two main women in this book, Naomi , and Ruth,and both experienced what the Puritan Richard Baxter calls,'wine and vinegar', in the same cup. Naomi lost her husband ,and sons,and Ruth lost her husband. The book starts by telling us how Elimelek ,Naomi's husband and their two sons, left Israel because of Famine,and they went to the land of Moab. There the two sons married Moabite women,one called Orpah and Ruth, during the next ten years the three men died. A bitter providence.That meant that the three women were left in dire straits,no social security in those days,so it was a difficult time, but then a light of hope shone into the situation. Naomi heard encouraging news,that God in his mercy had come to the aid of his people providing them with food, so here we have a sweet providence. So Naomi told her two daughters- in - laws that she was going to return home.Naomi was a very understanding woman,she told them it would be better if they stayed in their own land. Orpah did stay in the land of Moab, but dear Ruth refused to leave her mother -in -law.This would became a very sweet providence, for as you read the whole story you would discover, that God would bring blessing upon Naomi, Israel, and the world,which is and was a very sweet providence. ( 4 v  13 - 22)

War on truth. ( John 14 v 6 )

 Is truth important?, are we Christians  not just being narrow minded?are we not just being divisive?,it depends on your view point,it was Pilate who  said ,'what is truth?'. We look at the world, so many opinions, so many religions,confusion reigns,and like Pilate we may ask the question the same question as Pilate.There is a book  called,  'Who moved the stone', written by man called,Frank Morrison. When he set out to write the book he was not a Christian, but he was intrigued by the person of  Christ, and the last days of his life, let us bear in that Christ was an historical person,his life and death are historical facts.  Frank believed that, but he wanted to rid His life of the seemingly miraculous accounts associated with his life and death.But as he wrote his book the evidence convinced him of those very things ,he was sceptical of. Yes Christ had died on the cross but also on the third day, he rose from the dead.After He rose from the dead  he was seen by over 500 people,and we have personal accounts of  some of the people he met with .Frank Morrison became a Christian, convinced by evidence of his life, death and resurrection. They were historical facts,but they were more than that,they were about a person who was equal with God coming from heaven,for the sole purpose,of dying on cross. He was sinless, but on the cross He died that we can have our sins forgiven,it also meant He would bear the punishment for our sins,that is very important.So Jesus accomplished a perfect salvation, for all those who trust Him to be their Saviour, that is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth.

                                                Read Isaiah 52 v13-15/ 53v 1 -12.

Its the nature. ( 1 Timothy 1 v 12 - 17.)

 In a local residential place that is near were I live 10 elderly people have contacted covid , one of the reasons this has happened, they have stopped taking the danger serious. Very few of them wear a mask,and they have mixed freely with crowds of people, one hopes that all of them will survive.I want to broaden this out and see what spiritual lessons we can learn from this. It appears that we must always be on our guard against sin,and I would add to this Satan. Sin nor Satan has not gone away, when the head of the UN visited Ukraine,he said ,'this should not be happening in the 21st century'. Why should he say such a thing?, does he think that wars should  have ceased because it is the 21st century?. It does not work like that,the reason being  humanity is a fallen humanity ,and one of the characteristics of that fallen nature can be summed up in the words of Romans 3 v 15, 'Their feet are swift to shed blood.' in other words,'it is the nature of the beast',I use the term beast symbolically, unfortunately,nothing can change that,unless they receive a new nature.That happens when people repent and trust Jesus to be their Saviour. One of the greatest examples of this was the apostle Paul,before he became a Christian, he was a very violent person,that all changed when he came to know Christ.

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Wait and see. ( Romans 8 v28 )

A story is told of a farmer  who found out one day  that his only horse had run off, a friend said,'I heard you have lost your only horse, how awful',the farmer replied,'' we will see''. The next day his horse  came back, and it had with it another horse. One day the farmer was robbed,and the same neighbour said to him  ,'how awful', the farmer replied,''we will see''. Later on in the week he was walking in his field,and he stumbled over a mound of earth,he investigated what it was,to his surprise he found buried treasure.Later on his son had an accident, and broke his leg,when his neighbour heard about it,he went to the farmer,and said ,'how awful', the farmer replied,''we will see'.Not long after that the Lord who ruled that country, was raising an army ,to fight in a war with his enemies.When he came to the farmers home to enlist the farmers son to fight in his army, he was excluded from army service, because of his broken leg.We are often are guilty of making judgements on the immediate happenings, instead of saying ,'we will see',for the word of God says,that all things are working together for our good,in light of that ,we must trust our all knowing, all seeing God, who has a plan for all His children's lives,  yes let us patiently,' wait and see,' ,how God will eventually work things out.