Saints In Disguise

06/09/2017

Delayed post

02/09/2017

Sunday school camp

27/03/2017

This weekend with the Sunday school at WORD OF LIFE

28/09/2016

Late post. Just After the Youth Service

22/09/2016

Late posts

10/05/2016

"SID"

03/05/2016

14/10/2015

Confirmation classes

26/07/2013

“Comfort my people”.
Isa 40:1 GNB

Somebody once said, “The only thing we learn from history is that people never learn anything from history”. Sometimes it seems that the saga of humanity is a long, winding story that starts and stops, twists and turns and never gets anywhere.

Whatever the truth may be about ordinary history the long, winding story of the Bible does teach us something. It shows us that God called the Israelites to be his special people, that he cared for them, loved them, judged them and saved them. In Christ he began a widened work of salvation that was to reach to the farthest bounds of the earth. God’s people were the focus of his attention and the object of his pleading, guiding and renewal. They were to be the torchbearers of his truth among the nations of the earth. God had bound them to himself and he was their God. Other nations each had their gods (some more than one) but this people were aligned with this unseen and invisible God throughout their long story. Sometimes they obeyed him. Sometimes they disobeyed him. Sometimes they were prosperous, sometimes poor. Then other countries attacked them and destroyed their cities. Still they were “My People”. Then they were forcibly taken away captives into exile – beaten, broken, and miserable. Cut off from their native land they wondered if God had finally abandoned them. He hadn’t. He was as real to them in Babylon as ever he had been in Israel.

God is faithful to us too, as Christian believers. However bad the world may be, however low the church’s spiritual life might sink, however much the world might disregard God, he is still our God and we are still his people.

PRAYER THOUGHT
Lord, thank you for being ever faithful, ever reliable.

25/07/2013

“Tell (the people of Jerusalem) they have suffered long enough and their sins are now forgiven”.
Isa 40:2 GNB

At certain times in history there comes a point where people think afresh about a situation. Especially when war has ravaged a country and left it in ruins. After World War II someone in France thought it would be good if France and Germany could pool their industrial resources instead of perpetually preparing for war. It was the birth of what became the European Union, one of the strongest blocs in the world today.

The exiles from Jerusalem who had trekked to Babylon had suffered for a long time. They had been told it was God’s punishment for their sinfulness and disloyalty to him. Now God speaks anew to the exiles. They have looked back and suffered for their sins. They have confessed them. They have been forgiven by God. Now it is time to begin again, to look forward, to leave their despair behind, to find a new purpose and to move forward.

Maybe it is time for something similar in your experience. A period of disillusionment, sorrow, regret and sadness does not have to go on forever, even if your own mistakes or folly have caused the problems in the first place. Look at yourself in the presence and light of Christ’s renewing love and hope for you. Bring your problem, your negative feelings, your hopelessness and your gloomy mindset to Jesus. Hand them over to him. Ask him how you can go forward into a new future. Plan that new future, repairing whatever fences have been broken by the mistakes and follies of the past. Determine not to repeat the same mistakes again. Go forward with Christ.

PRAYER THOUGHT
Lord, it’s time to start again. Help me to look forward anew.

23/07/2013

“Encourage the people of Jerusalem”.
Isa 40:2 GNB

People who move from one part of the world to another often retain the characteristics of their place of origin. Not all who live in London are of London. Some are from Scotland, or Jamaica, or Pakistan. And thousands are from South Africa and they eat biltong, support the Springbok rugby team, and have “braais”.

The people to whom Isaiah spoke were in Babylon, but they were “people of Jerusalem”. They observed the torah or Jewish law just as they had done in Judah. They spoke Hebrew to each other, celebrated the great festivals, and probably talked about “the good old days” when Hezekiah was king and their children behaved themselves! They were in Babylon, but they were not of Babylon. And in their hearts they yearned for Jerusalem, their true home.

Christian believers are like that to some degree. They live on earth where they earn a living, have families, accept civic duties and take part in the communities to which they belong. But they hold a dual citizenship. They are in some sense aliens living in a foreign land. Their true citizenship is in heaven. That is where they belong, where their king reigns supreme, and where they are free men and women. Here on earth they are sojourners, there they are full and true citizens. They live here, but they belong there.

So fulfil the role of citizen wherever you may reside. It is, no doubt, the place dearest to your heart and where you feel most at home. But know that you have another home as well, another city, a place that will not fade or crumble like this earthly one. Finally, heaven is your true home.

PRAYER THOUGHT
Lord, thank you that I am a citizen of heaven.

18/07/2013

In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction”.
Isa 38:17 NIV

When John Wesley was a small child, a fire broke out in the rectory at Epworth in Lincolnshire where his father was the rector. In the ensuing panic they almost forgot him, until someone asked, “Where’s Jackie?” Someone climbed up a ladder to rescue him from the upper storey bedroom. He never forgot it. He always described himself as “A brand plucked from the burning”.

King Hezekiah knew that his illness had been a close call. It looked like the end. It felt like it too. Isaiah, the man of God, told him to prepare for the worst. In his desperation he turned to God and prayed. God heard his prayer. And, being a man of faith, Hezekiah never forgot that God had preserved his life from destruction. He gave thanks and praise to the Lord.

Many people can look back and recall similar events. One remembers the accident that could have been fatal, but only resulted in a few scratches. Another shakes her head when thinking of the intruder who could have attacked her, but left satisfied with a few gadgets. Yet another is ever mindful of the illness that laid him low and is grateful that he came through when others had died. Yet another calls to mind the “lucky escape” when war left him unscathed. The very structure of God’s nature is life-preserving, providing food and health. Medical science has advanced, rendering previously lethal illnesses relatively harmless when treated by antibiotics. Be grateful to God that he has preserved you through all the perils of the way, and that in Jesus Christ he has given you salvation, hope, peace and joy.

PRAYER THOUGHT
Lord, thank you for preserving my life in so many ways.