Don't miss it

7 January 2019

Don't miss it John 1:1 - 14
The first verse in the Gospel of John reads:
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God" John 1:1
Who was/is the Word. The Word was and is God. Scripture tells us that the Word - Jesus was there in the beginning. That means at creation, the Word was there; He was involved. He was with God and He was and is God.
It may seem complicated but really, it isn't. God the Father, God the Son and God The Holy Spirit. They are God yet in three persons and that is called, The Holy Trinity. You see right back to the Fall of man, sin had crept  into the life of man and God who is holy, could not look at this. There was the Law of God but these were a set of rules that no one could obey. It was impossible. People were dying in their sin. Therefore, God decided to do something about this. Verse 14 shows us what He did. 'The Word became flesh and dwelt among us" However, people did not recognise who He was. Verse 11 reads, "He came to His own and His own did not receive Him." 
The King of Glory came down to earth as a man and people refused to recognise He was who He said he was. He was healing the sick and spreading friendship and love, hope and blessing all over the place and it all fell on deaf ears, except for the very few who realised who He was and followed Him.

You know, it's very similar today. Verse 5 tells us, "And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." Who is the Light? It is Jesus. What is the darkness? Those people and areas who reject Jesus as God. Who fail to accept Him as Lord. Those who do not accept that He is the Word, that He is God and was with God in the very beginning.
He is in the world today, but the darkness refuses to recognise Him, even though He shines His Light into each one He comes near. Haven't you ever felt that something strange has been happening to you? That all of a sudden a great sense of happiness has come upon you and you don't know from where? Haven't you ever been in the company of someone who you look up to and feel strangely drawn to them? Do you realise that it was more or likely Jesus who was whispering to you?
The Light has been shining in the darkness of your life. Are you going to invite Him to be your friend?

Conquerors

6 January 2019

Conquerors
Down the ages, there have been a few people who could claim to be conquerors. William the Conqueror obviously springs to mind, together with the rulers of the Roman Empire.  Then there are the dictators, such as Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin etc etc. Each of these at some stage have ruled with a rod of iron and been responsible for the deaths of many people with outrageous and disastrous  consequences.
Conqueror brings to mind the expression of power, however God wishes to make us - His children, more than conquerors. Let's look in the book of Romans:

"Yet in all these things we are more than conquerors through Him who loved us. For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things present nor things to come, nor height, depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord." Romans 8:37 - 39.

This is the Apostle Paul speaking and declaring God's love for us and how we will never be separated from Him.
Goliath, who was a massive giant who had slayed many men, was a domineering and frightening spectacle as he stood before David, who at the time was a skinny young boy. Goliath had all the weapons, David had only a sling and five smooth stones. Yet that day, David, who was later to become King, slew the giant with one stone. Height or strength such as this was not going to stop David.
Death cannot separate us from God, as a Christian our insurance policy is paid up in Jesus and we'll go straight to be with Him.
In this day and age, there is so much evil around. Murders practically every day; terrorists killing innocent people in the name of their so-called religion. It's scary, but as Christians, we belong to the King of kings, Jesus and we are more than conquerors.
Think about your life. There may be some scary things going on in your life at this time. As a Christian we can give it all to Jesus with the knowledge that He will help us. As a non-believer, we need to become a believer pretty quick for the day is coming when Jesus will return to clear all the mess up that we humans have made and it will be too late by then.
Are you ready? If not:

Lord Jesus, please come into my life,

Forgive me my in,

Fill me with Your Holy Spirit,

And be my friend, Lord and Saviour

Do not fear

5 January 2019

Do not Fear
Let us take a walk through Psalm 23 today.
Verse 1 tells us that The Lord is our shepherd. This phrase reveals to us one of God's redemptive names - Jehovah Ra-ah. He is our shepherd and as we trust in Him, we will want for nothing. In other words, He will provide all that we need, and more. A shepherd looks after his sheep, he keeps them refreshed and fed and protects them. Verse 4 talks of a rod and a staff. The shepherd would use the rod to ward off any ferocious animals that would come near to the sheep. Also, he would use his staff, or crook to prod the stubborn sheep or hook then out of holes and such like. He was their protector. God is our protector too.

The sheep would know the shepherds voice and would feel at peace with him or her. They would not be fearful when their shepherd was with them (Verse 4). Jesus does the same for us. He wants us to take care of ourselves and not to worry; He is our source of life, not the world. He gives us rest and restores our souls. The word 'soul' here in verse 3 is Mind, Will and Emotions. If we're not careful, our minds can run riots with our thoughts taking over and causing us mayhem. He wants to restore our minds. Our will, can make us stubborn and headstrong, thus unteachable leading us into all kinds of trouble. He wants to restore our will and help us to make our will, His will for our lives. Finally, our emotions can lead us into all kinds of problems, from anger to complete nervous breakdown because we cannot see a way through the pain, fear and worry. He wants to restore our emotions.

Whatever we go through in our lives, Goodness and Mercy (Verse 6) will be there. There may be changes to negotiate  but God never changes . He just loves us! Something good will come out of what you are going through at the moment. Possibly the thing you are struggling with at present cannot be taking away. It can though be changed or you can receive super strength to get to the other side.
Turn to your shepherd now. His name is Jesus or Jehovah Ra-ah. He will protect you, feed you, bind up the wounds of a broken heart, marriage or a life. Hs arms are open wide for you to run into

Difficult days can be good days

4 January 2019

Difficult days can be good days
1 Peter 4:12 says
"Beloved, do not think it strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you."
When the chips are down and nothing we touch appears to go right, it is difficult to think that God is anywhere around and if we feel He is, that He cares. We're tempted to think, 'If God loves us so much, why has this happened to me?"

Let's look at The Message version of this verse:
"When life gets difficult - don't jump to the conclusion that God isn't on the job."
I much prefer TheMessage version because it says it as it is. We are tempted to think that He doesn't love us; that He has left us when we need Him the most etc. etc.
God will never leaves us. Hebrews 13:5. He is committed to us and cares so much. However, at times we have to go through some things so that He can see if we can handle stressful times. If we can't what is the point in Him putting us in a place if we're going to fall at the first hurdle.
No, when we're going through difficult times, He is right beside us.

In Isaiah 41:10, we read:
"Fear not for I am with you. Be not dismayed for I am your God.
I will strengthen you, yes, I will help you, I will uphold you with My
righteous right hand."
You may be thinking that 'it is all right for me to say this, he doesn't know what I'm going through'. And yes, that is true, I don't know what you're going through anymore than you know what I've been through. We all have bad times that floor us. However, we have a choice. One is to wallow in the pain and let it completely disable us, or we can rise above it by calling out to God and asking Him to get us through this bad time.
Bad times can be turned into good times. The glass is either half full or half empty. It's just the way we look at things.
If you throw yourself on God's mercy, He will meet you where you are, take your hand and walk you through these difficult times. The water may be wide but you can cross over it, with His help.
And by the way, He loves you amazingly!

Jonah 3 & 4 - Childish behaviour

3 January 2019

Jonah 3 & 4 - Childish behaviour
Following on from Jonah's repentance and obedience in going to Nineveh as God directed, one would hope that there would be a happier outcome. However, this was not the case.
Jonah does go to Nineveh and prophesies in the city about their need of repentance. A fast is declared by the king that everyone has to take part. The whole place repents and God is pleased and forgives them.
However, Jonah was not pleased with this, in fact he became angry and in prayer complained to God basically saying, "I knew you'd do this Lord. I knew you'd forgive them. That's why I fled to Tarshish in the first place. Take my life, I've had enough, the people  should not have been forgiven" (Paraphrase).
Jonah had the audacity to be angry with God and question Him about forgiving the people. He was being bigoted and selfish in his attitude and began to sulk like a spoilt child because he couldn't have his own way.
He went out of the city, made himself a shelter and sat there waiting to see what would happen to the people. I am sure he considered that God would change His mind and bring severe punishment on the people. However, when nothing happened, he sulked even more. Because of the heat of the sun, God caused a large plant to grow up and offer Jonah some shelter. Jonah was very pleased with this and tended it lovingly. Then God caused a worm to eat the plant so it offered no shelter at all. This caused Jonah to wish death upon himself again. God spoke with Jonah and told him that he had shown more compassion on a plant than he had shown towards one hundred and twenty thousand people.

Jonah was selfish, acted like a child and his motives were all wrong. He felt that these people should not have received God's blessing and forgiveness. Tell me, are we like this when certain people are blessed, saved and raised up to significant positions within our church? Do we have a "What about him or her'" attitude towards certain people? A,"They need to hear this sermon they do, it's for them." Have we now become a judge? If God had wanted us to be a judge, he'd have given us a black gown and a curly white wig to wear. It's time that we looked at ourselves instead of other people. If God wants to bless others, it's nothing to do with us. We need to mow our own grass, not theirs.

At the end of the day, we will have to give an account for all we've done and said. It may be a good idea to check out God's Word concerning this in The Great White Throne Judgement recorded in Revelation 20:11 - 15.
We can either meet God as our friend or take our fate upon ourselves. Now that's food for thought.

Jonah 2 - Call out to God

2 January 2019

Jonah 2 - Call out to God
Jonah through his own disobedience and stubborn nature, ended up in the raging sea and was swallowed up by a large fish. Now whether this was a whale or a large shark we don't really know. Many have argued that this is a myth and tend to ignore this piece of scripture. That is rather foolish because, 'All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, throughly equipped for every good work.' 2 Timothy 3:16-17. If God said it, that's all I want to know and I believe it.

Jonah came to his senses once installed in his smelly surroundings and realised that sin, really does separate someone from God. He had the sense to cry out to God, acknowledging his foolishness and repented and God ordered the fish to vomit him up onto dry land. Not an ideal way to come back into the world but I doubt at the time, that Jonah was complaining about this.

When we try and turn from God, He sees this and watches to see how we will handle things. He'll never leave us, but will also not intervene unless we call and ask Him too. Sin is a major matter with God. He cannot look at this because He is Holy. Because of this, He became a man and came down to earth as Jesus. He is the Son of God but He is also fully God. Maybe hard to get your head around this at first but that is fact. Jesus is God and because of this, we can call out to Him and ask Him for His help. but we need to ask His forgiveness when we have done wrong. God can't look on sin but Jesus can but His hands are tied until we repent. When we do, He is there to help in our time of need.

We all have stuff in our lives that we hide from people. People have been trapped into pornography, fornication, homosexuality and whatever else and yet have been preaching the Gospel. Others may not know but Jesus does but He shows us Grace. However, if we continue to ignore the fact that we need to ask Him to forgive and free us from whatever is in our live, we stand the risk that He may expose us to someone to set us free. Scary stuff and one that we don't wish to happen, but it has happened to many prominent men and women of God.

Therefore if you are struggling with something, give it to Jesus and get help. You know it makes sense.

Jonah (1) The peril of running away from duty

1 January 2019

Jonah (1)
Let's look at the book of Jonah for the next few days.
Jonah was a prophet but, a very reluctant one. When he received the call to go to Nineveh to warn people of the peril of living life without the Lord God, he flatly refused. In fact, he rebelled and bought a ticket on a ship going to Tarshish, to escape the presence of the Lord.

Now this was pure disobedience. When we are committed to God, as I am sure Jonah was or he wouldn't have been named as a prophet, then God would be expecting him to obey and go and execute the word He had given Jonah. However, the strong-willed, rather selfish Jonah was having none of this, and went off the other way to escape the presence of God.
This is a total impossibility. We cannot escape God, He is everywhere, but at times, we may have  tried to ignore what He is telling us, especially when He's pinpointing some sin in our lives that we want to hang on to. Disobedience can be costly, as Jonah found out.

A massive tempest was overcoming them and threatened to smash the ship and deposit them to a certain death in the raging water. Whenever, we're in danger we all have someone we cry out to for help. The captain and the crew were no different. They called on their gods, however, to no avail. Eventually they thought of Jonah down below, sleeping and ran and questioned him. Finally, satisfied that the was the reason for this peril, they considered throwing him overboard. But firstly, they tried to row back to land.But it was useless. They were sinking. You know, we need God in our lives to help us through dangers. He's the only one who can offer reasonable help. When their effort failed, they actually tossed Jonah into the waves, and the sea ceased from its raging.

Important points for today:

Disobedience We cannot continue to live in disobedience without God intervening

We need God We cannot try to make it alone. Trying to solve things and do things alone is a no go

Watch your attitude God requires our love and obedience as much as we require His

Cry out to God Whenever you need Him, He is there. Call on Him today