Reminder, Promise and Warning

Every day without fail we are reminded - should we open our eyes and heart - of the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus. God gave us the sun as a symbol of His Son so that we should have a daily reminder of Him. The setting sun signifies the death of Jesus and the rising sun signifies His resurrection. At any given time somewhere on the earth the sun is setting while somewhere at the exact same moment it is also rising. Jesus lived and died once; He also rose only once, yet that sacrifice and resurrection is played out through the continual rising and setting of the sun all over the earth. We should remember that the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross is freely available to anyone who calls at any time. There is a scripture that says the sun shines on the righteous and on the unrighteous; God is no respector of persons - "whosoever will may call" "He is not willing that any should perish!" Who can resist the warmth of the sun? Who can fail to be moved by the beauty of a glorious sunset?

One day, we are told, every knee will bow and every tongue will confess Jesus as Lord.

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We are all touched and affected by the setting and rising of the sun. We mostly rest at the going down of the sun and the Christian rests in the death and sacrifice of the Son of God. Some nights seem long and never ending and yet we know that the sun will reappear at its appointed time. Jesus has said that the day and the hour of His return is unknown; but we know that He does have an appointed time which He will keep. Anyone who has watched the sun rise will have experienced the lightening and brightening of the sky and yet been totally unable to actually pinpoint the exact moment when that first glimmer of the sun will appear.

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We watch as the sun sets, - very often casting its rosy glow over the landscape. "Red sky at night shepherds delight" - our promise for a fair day tomorrow. For the believer who is washed in the Blood of Christ Jesus a glorious eternal day is His promise.

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What about the red sky in the morning? - this is our warning - for the sun's rising also symbolises the second coming of Jesus, and the red sunrise warns us that Jesus will return as Judge of the whole earth.

Let us be as the believer who is full of eager anticipation looking for the return of his Lord - in the same way as the weary shepherd; waiting and watching for the morning.

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Many people imagine the shepherds who were visited by the angel of the Lord at the birth of Jesus to have been lying around snoozing, but this is not the case; scripture tells us that they were watching their flocks. We are told that it is our duty as followers of Christ to continue with patience and endurance to the end. We must not fall into spiritual slumber for it is in continuance that we are saved.

The Body of Christ

As a healthy Body

we must be governed by the Head (God the Father)

led & fed by the Heart (Jesus our Shepherd)

and filled by the Holy Spirit

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A body can function without some of its members but it has no life at all without the head, heart and spirit.

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The life we live in the natural comes to an end when we die. To live eternally we need to be born again. This is when we become part of the Body of Christ and this union gives us eternal life. It also means that as a member of the Body we can no longer think and live for ourselves. We live for the Body, our lives are governed by the Head of the Body and we live through the Heart which brings us life and health through the blood. We are filled by the Spirit who activates us.

Jesus was illustrating the meaning of being part of the Body when He said "Take no thought for tomorrow - what ye shall put on - your Father in Heaven knoweth what things ye have need of." (Read Matthew 6 verses 25 - 35). As a part of the Body our only concern should be to obey the commands of the Head the guidance of the Heart and prompting of the Spirit.

Its a very different way of living - but then its a very different Body!

So Let Your Light Shine

Some of you will know that I have a part time job in Richardsons Estate Agent. Richardsons occupies a very small space on the Parade in Minehead. It is very pleasant working there because you are able to see a lot of activity on the street and I enjoy seeing people I know – sometimes they remember I might be watching them and sometimes they don’t!

If there is a possible down side it is that the shop is on the south side of the Parade which means it faces north and gets no sun – a good thing in the summer but a bit chilly in the winter. However, this time of year the sun is at the right height and angle to send its light from the first floor windows across the road right onto my desk! There is not a lot of heat in it but it is cheering.

The world is full of souls who are like cold dark empty vacuums. For one of these souls to receive Christ is like a room being filled with sunshine; and when that soul turns their face to the world with that Glory within – they light up those around.

Many Christians keep their curtains drawn and any glimmer of light spotted seeping out is swiftly covered up – just as it would have been in the Blitz.

Christians become like this over time. In the first few weeks and months as a Christian all the blinds are up and all curtains drawn and all friends and neighbours hear about this wonderful change that has happened. Then slowly as the new Christian becomes ridiculed and despised so the Light gets dimmed as the blinds come down and the curtains are closed. These Christians are not prepared to enter Spiritual warfare and as Jesus described it are hiding their light under a bushel.

As a Christian how do we respond to someone in need? In the beginning of our walk with the Lord we understand His teachings and we give without holding back; without fear or cynicism. Then people start to take advantage of our generosity and we get taken for a ride. We start to learn that we must be more careful.

But I would argue against this path of caution. Jesus clearly knew who would betray Him and yet He continued to allow it to happen. He addressed Judas as friend right up to the moment of betrayal; He could have said, “I am not going to be seen as a mug” but this is how salvation is brought to those who take advantage. Everytime we turn the other cheek and take more punishment, everytime we have the dirt wiped off on us as we are trampled underfoot,- everytime someone says what fools – somewhere in time salvation comes to one of those who have despised us as they feel first guilt, then shame, then repentance.

How far back are your curtains drawn? Are they full length brocade, net or do you have none at all? Perhaps you have blinds that are sometimes pulled down all the way, sometimes halfway and sometimes, like when you are in Church they are pulled all the way to the top!

The important thing to remember is that the Light within us has been freely given and is not ours through any self virtue. The Light is our witness in word and deed. We have it because God caused His Truth to be revealed to our hearts. To keep it hidden is very wrong. There is so much darkness and despair in the world today, keeping our Light hidden is like keeping a life saving vaccine secret from those dying of the disease it could cure.

Read what Paul says on this subject in his second letter to the Corinthians chapter 4.

The Narrow Way

THE NARROW WAY

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Jesus climbed mountains.

If you have ever climbed a mountain you can be sure that He found the way hard and narrow. Why are mountain paths so narrow?

Two reasons come to mind 1, the terrain, and 2, the lack of crowds.

The higher we climb the narrower the path.

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This I believe is true for the spiritual narrow way. It's entry point is very narrow; we enter through the Gate of Salvation. We cannot enter through this gate carrying anything, in other words we cannot put our trust in our own works or in anything other than in Jesus and the work that He accomplished when He died for our sins. (One of Jesus' well remembered sayings is that it is harder for a rich man to enter the Kingdom of Heaven than it is for a camel to go through the eye of a needle. The eye of a needle was the name given to a gate to the city of Jerusalem, if a camel was to get through it had to go through unburdened and on its knees!!)

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At the start of our Christian walk we understand very little except the wonder of our salvation but, as we continue to walk - ever upward - we get a very different perspective of the life "down below".

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And the path continues to narrow.... this means - inevitably - to the loss of companions. They may fall or give up as they find the way too hard. Sometimes a fog descends and we can only be still and wait before going any further. Other times we find the path drops into a valley which can be very discouraging. When this happens we must remember that the way still leads upward although the reverse may seem to be the case.

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The greatest truth about the narrow way is that at the very end of our earthly walk our only companion is God. All other companions will have left our side; our only hope is in God. We cannot trust to another. It is far better if we learn to rely on Him and get to really know Him before we get to our death bed - if we trust Him in life - how much easier and sweeter will be our end!

Meditations on Rainbows

The rainbow is a reminder and a symbol of the Promise of God to His Creation; that He would never again destroy the earth... Read the story in Genesis - the first book in the Bible - chapters 6, 7 & 9.

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The Rainbow Fabric

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When time is finished every rainbow that ever filled the sky since the time of Noah will be seen. This will reveal the most wonderful woven covering of every possible colour and hue - so completely covering the earth that no part can be seen that is not covered by the spectrum of colour. Each rainbow ever formed is like a multicololoured thread that forms part of this coat of many colours. Only God from His eternal perspective - seeing the end from the beginning can see this covering. One day I believe we too will see this glory and begin to understand the greatness of the Grace of God that covers us with His Glory.

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If we could set up a camera for a time lapse photograph of rainbows we may after many hundreds of years have a picture of a sky shining with a fabric of colour. This, of course, is impossible to achieve as the rainbow does not appear with enough frequence to enable such a photo. If the weather conditions allowed, one day would show rainbows at different levels as the sun rose and sank in the sky but, even if such a day happened it would only allow the perspective of one person in one place. But God is in every place and can see all the angles and we can be sure that no area of the earth has not been covered at some time.

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We all know that the rainbow is caused by refracted light and needs the presence of water and sun to exist. God gave us the rainbow as a sign of His Mercy and the rainbow is caused by the bringing together of water and sun. We need both for life - too much of one without the other makes us call out for mercy and we do need reminding that we are dependant upon His Mercy.

When We Get to Heaven.....

It is very tempting during arguments and disagreements among Christians to think to yourself, well, when we all get to Heaven they will know how wrong they were and see how right I was! We may even add - "Then they'll be sorry!"

Have you ever taken a torch out into the sunshine and seen how its light all but vanishes? We are told to so let our light shine in the darkness of this world, but when we enter into Heaven and the glorious Light of Jesus our light will be as nothing - or as the scripture says - our righteousness will be as filthy rags.

Our arguments may have a lot of truth in them but no matter how much more right we are than our disputers we are still in darkness as regards complete truth. Jesus warns us against judging others lest we ourselves be judged and He says we are often so busy looking at others faults that we fail to see our own massive fault that hits every one else in the eye!

The main reason we hold onto grievances is because they make us feel superior; someone did something to us that was undeserved, it was unjust and we deserve better treatment. By holding on to these painful memories we have an example to prove that we have been hard done by and maybe we should have something better. We feel justified in giving ourselves some indulgence. Each grievance is like a treasure that we keep in a box and we take them out every now and then and examine them; indulge in a little self pity - a tear or two maybe. If we have new life in Jesus this is an act of desecration to His work in us. It is like smearing mud over ourselves; reopening wounds, keeping hurt alive.

At the moment we are living in a dirty muddy pond. That pond is slimy and its contents fill our mind as well as cover our clothes. When Jesus comes into our lives we realise that there is a better place and we start to emerge from the pond. Very often we fall back in and we are always conscious of the "pondlife" around us. We are affected and very often infected by it. When, one day, we leave this pond are we really likely to want to be thinking and going over our time spent there? Does the butterfly yearn to return to the muddy cabbage patch? When we get out of our sick bed do we long to be ill again? As spring emerges after a long cold, damp winter do we look back and wish its speedy return?

The world we know now has as much in common with the next as a summer landscape has with a winter one and is as different as day is from night.

Follow Me (Matthew 4, 18-22) (Isaiah 58)

FOLLOW ME !!

Let us consider what lies behind this command. It is given in the present tense. Jesus knew when He gave it that very soon His disciples would be left without His physical presence. His desire, however, was not for them to imitate Him but to follow where He leads. After the Crucifixion there is a continuation of discipleship under the tuition of the Master.

The One Who says Follow is the Leader; those who follow must obey with complete faith.

Where does He take us? “Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men” This is the heart of God; to bring people to His Table. His chosen people despised His invitation so He sends His servants out into the world to bring in the outcasts. He says “I will make you” This is the Potter speaking to the clay. It is not for us to strive to become; our works are worthless and our righteousness as dirty rags. Sit still! He says – the more we wriggle and skirm the harder life will be as we fail to learn from the lessons and find our mistakes and hard knocks repeated – until eventually we lie down and say – enough! I can’t take anymore! When there is no more struggling the Will of God can have His Perfect Way and we can begin to follow. Joyful submission is better than weary submission – but only for our sake, - the Father God loves the weary repentant as much as He does the faithful son.

When Jesus told us to Follow Him He was not addressing us from the mouldering pages of history. Immitation may be a sincere form of flattery but it is not what the Lord is asking of His followers. He speaks as a Person Who continues and remains; the One whose Name is I Am; His footstep does not fade with the passing of time. He may walk ahead as our Leader but He also walks beside us as our Companion and our ever present Help. He is also our Rereward. Jesus does not seek clones of Himself as He was represented on earth - He is so much greater than that! He desires us to give ourselves to Him so that He can live and work through us – using the gifts of personality and character that He endowed us with – and adding to that His own characteristics.


Isaiah 58 tells us about the vain endeavours of the self righteous; “ Wherefore have we fasted” say they, “and Thou seest not? Have we afflicted our soul and Thou takest no knowledge” The Lord responds: “ Behold, in the day of your fast ye find pleasure, and exact all your labours. Behold, ye fast for strife and debate, and to smite with the fist of wickedness: ye shall not fast as ye do this day, to make your voice to be heard on High.” The Lord is addressing these people who suppose that the Lord takes pleasure in self punishment. This kind of self abasement is not the same as the death of self. It is actually raising the self – saying; look at me, - how I am suffering – it is attention seeking and the Lord will never take notice of this kind of behaviour.

“Is it such a fast that I have chosen?” The Lord asks, “a day for a man to afflict his soul? To bow down his head as a bulrush, and to spread sackcloth and ashes. Wilt thou call this a fast, and an acceptable day to the Lord?”

The fast that the Lord has chosen, He says, is to loose the bands of wickedness, to undo the heavy burdens, and to let the oppressed go free, and that we break every yoke. To give our bread to the hungry and bring the poor that are cast out into our own house. When we see the naked that we cover them and hide not ourselves from our own family.

Then, the Lord promises “our light shall break forth as the morning, and our health shall spring forth speedily: and our righteousness shall go before us; the Glory of the Lord shall be our rereward. We shall call and the Lord shall answer; we shall cry, and He will say Here I Am. If we take away the yoke (casting our burden on the Lord) stop pointing the finger, and speaking vanity and instead draw out our soul to the hungry and satisfy the afflicted soul; then, the Lord says, our light shall rise in obscurity and our darkness be as the noon day. The Lord will guide us continually, satisfy our soul in drought and make fat our bones. We shall be as a watered garden and like a spring of water, whose waters fail not.

OUR LORD SAYS FOLLOW ME

Our response is slow …We want to know …
The cost …
Our lives don’t come cheap, -It still makes the Lord weep
For the lost

So what do you want we cry … emulation
In exchange for Salvation?

Do we live with nowhere to lay our heads –
As you did Lord in your life here on earth
must we give up our soft beds
live dull lives without mirth?
Must we climb mountains to pray
And fast for 40 days?

Your desire is for each life
To glorify God in a unique way
To simply trust and obey
Put away our worry and strife
To obey is better than sacrifice

Green Grass

GREEN GRASS

The Bible is a spiritually discerned Book; that is to say that the interpretation and the revealing of its mysteries are given by the Holy Spirit of God Himself. This is because the Bible was written by God Himself using His Holy Spirit to transfer the Word to His scribes, the prophets and disciples of old.

I say this as a preface to an example of what happened to me recently while reading a familiar story in the gospel of Mark. (Mark 6, 32 -44).

In the story we read twice of how Jesus and the people who were with Him were in a desert place. However, when they came to be sat down we read that they sat on green grass. Those two words “green grass” leapt out at me as I read. How curious, the Bible is so often lacking in detail yet here we are told that the grass is green! So, I deduced, it must be important. Almost straightaway, I remembered the psalm of the Good Shepherd and how it describes how He makes us to lie down in green pastures. I noticed as I compared the two scriptures, more similitudes; Jesus told His disciples to make the people to sit down. He, as the Good Shepherd makes us to lie down. This implies resting. He makes us rest. Make is an interesting verb in this context; we are not persuaded or asked or invited; we are made. God made us, He made us in His own image and as His sheep He makes us to lie down; Jesus promises that if we follow Him He will make us fishers of men. So God has the active part in our life and we have the resting part. “Come unto Me” Jesus says “all ye that are heavy laden and I will give you rest.”

Most people reading this chapter would say how could a desert place have green grass? We are told twice that the place was a desert. So there is no doubt. What was the miracle that took place here in this desert place? Thousands of people had flocked to hear the words of Jesus; the words of eternal life; their hearts were as deserts ,dry and thirsty. Jesus said, He that is thirsty let Him come unto Me and drink; He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

In this desert place the people sat on green grass and ate natural food which filled them with more to spare. Jesus turned the grass green and filled the stomachs of the people so that they should know that He is Lord of all; our Good Shepherd, leading us, making us to lie down and feeding us. We may only have a morsel but, if we surrender it to the Lord He will magnify and miraculously multiply it until it completely satisfies the need. If we find ourselves in a desert place let us come into the Presence of the Lord and sit at His feet to hear His Word – we will soon find ourselves in Green Pasture.

Exploring the hidden depths of Scripture

Not An Ordinary Book

The Holy Bible can be compared to the great seas and waters of the earth. They can both be said to bear you up and sustain you; they both hold untold riches and are unfathomable in their depths. They are both mysteriously sourced from on high and from the earth. The Books in the Bible can be compared to rivers which are all separate and unique yet they are all fed from the deep and from the heavens and flow in unity, coming together to form a whole. The showers that fall from the Heavens can be likened to the spoken Word of God that can bless the receiver.
When we go fishing in the Word of God we never know what we will bring to the surface - sometimes it requires a lot of patient waiting and meditating and then sometimes it’s something so great it will pull us off our feet and down to the very depths!

Jesus is the Word of God and it is by His Word that the heavens and earth were made. He spake and it was. The written Word when received into the heart will save, restore and heal - through the saving faith it brings in the Person of Jesus Christ Who is the Son of God. The Son of God is God incarnate (God in human form) because there was no other way, no other good enough to pay the price of sin - Jesus is the Way and the Door and it is only through Him that we can enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.
Every time we open the Holy Word of God, we open up a treasure trove - very often the things we read are challenging and uncomfortable but, if we read and study with the Holy Spirit as our Guide then we will be given understanding and strength to follow as a true disciple of Jesus Christ.
Who is the Holy Spirit?
The Holy Spirit is God and it is through Him that the disciples could maintain the relationship that they had started with Jesus. Through Jesus they learned about how God is our Father; before Jesus returned to be with His Father He promised to leave with His disciples His Holy Spirit who, once He comes to dwell within us, will never leave us nor forsake us. God’s Holy Spirit will cause us to do the things we would rather not do and prevent us from doing the things that we should not do but are very prone to do!

The Holy Spirit of God is the only One Who can give us understanding when we read His Word. In the second verse of the first chapter of the first book of the Bible, Genesis, we read that the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. Come back with me to this point of time; all was still, there was no life, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Awesome! Now God moves by His Spirit; as He comes down upon the waters of the deep He must see His reflection on the face of the waters. In later chapters we read that God made man in His own image and now, at this time, He wants us to come to the waters of His Word to see our own reflection and how very far we have fallen away from that original image of God.

After that revelation we need to find Jesus - and we can find Him in His Word.